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wren-ravenheart · 3 years

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I'll Keep Your Memory

@witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo

Prompt: Childhood Memorabilia Relationships: Lambert/Jaskier Rating: T Content Warnings: Hints of child abuse, cursing, Summary: Modern Au Julian and Lambert have lived next door to each other as long as they can remember, and have been close friends for nearly as long. Lambert entrusts a box of his most prized possessions to his best friend, and spends more and more time with him and away from his own house. Before either can come to terms with what this means for them, tragedy strikes and both boys are left wondering if they'll ever see their friend again.

Cross-Posted to Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31149023

Most of this is under a cut as I went Completely off the Rails with this little prompt, and this is 6k words of chaos. <3

~~~~~~~

In a small town, on a quiet street, in the middle of nowhere Redania, there lived two families who seemed completely innocuous to anyone passing by. Each family lived in a squat little cookie-cutter house with dark brick walls, a comfy front porch, and a well-maintained lawn. Each family consisted of a husband, a wife, and their only son. And there is where the similarities end, for while in one house there is love and laughter, the other holds darker secrets that would never come to light.

Julian had lived next to Lambert’s house for as long as he could remember. Their dads worked together up until recently, and the two boys were never far from each other. He considered Lamb his very best friend in the whole wide world, with his bright hazel eyes, lop-sided grin, and floppy black hair. And now, finally, at the tender age of Ten, Lambert apparently also considered him his very best friend as well.

“Julek, you have to promise me to keep these safe at all costs, okay?” Lambert had a serious look on his face as he handed him a shoebox full of his most important things. Julien took the box with trembling hands as he nodded.

“Of course. But… but why are you giving me these? You never let your trading cards out of your sight..”

Lambert shuffled back and sat on Julian’s bed with a sigh. He kept his eye on the box as the other boy turned to nestle it into a corner of his closet carefully. “Well, you know how my dad doesn’t work with your dad anymore?”

“Mhmm.”

“Yeah, well he’s lookin around the house now for anything he can get his mitts on to sell. Some of those cards took me forever to find and I ain’t about to let him get anywhere near ‘em. So they’ll stay here with you…. Along with a few other bits.”

Julian popped his head up and looked over at Lambert in awe. “You mean…”

“Yeah. It’s in there. Don’t touch it.”

He shook his head so hard he wondered if he was gonna rattle something loose. “I promise. I’ll keep it all safe.”

Lambert cracked a small smile and patted the bed next to him in invitation. Julian hurried over and plopped down, pulling his legs up to cross in front of him. He nudged the other’s shoulder slightly in hopes of more of the story.

“Not much to tell, Jules. I just don’t… I don’t have a good feeling. He’s actin’ different and Momma is quieter lately. I haven’t heard ‘em fight, but then who knows why adults are the way they are.”

Julian nodded and leaned his head over on his best friend’s shoulder. Lambert ruffled his hair and stole a quick hug before shoving him over in the bed. Julian bounced off the mattress with a laugh.

“Enough sad crap! C’mon I wanna kick your ass in Mario kart.”

He was up and out the door before Julian could roll himself off the bed. “No fair! Cheater!” And raced after him with a shout.

They didn’t talk about the box again, and Lamb only asked to see it maybe four times over the next two years. Things got progressively worse at his house as his father failed to keep a steady job and took to drinking. He overheard his own parents whispering from time to time over the state of “that poor boy’s mother” when they thought he couldn’t hear them.

He kept a watchful eye over his best friend anytime the two were playing together, trying to see whatever his parents thought they saw. He only saw Lambert acting sillier and sillier as time crept on, and spending more and more time over with him. The night of his twelfth birthday, Lambert even spent the night. It was a turning point for him.

They woke the next morning in an octopus tangle of limbs, and he felt his little pre-teen heart stutter as he suddenly noticed the way Lambert’s hair brushed his forehead, and the way the lingering chub to his cheeks only enhanced his smile. Clearly, whatever his parents thought they were seeing was wrong. His best friend was fine! More than fine, really...

He took two entire painful weeks to come to terms with the sudden crush he had developed, and another month to think of a reasonable way to admit said crush to his very best friend without terrifying him away forever. He wrote five letters to Lambert in the hopes of figuring out what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. All five ended in crumbled heaps at the bottom of his trash can.

Finally, he could take it no longer and decided to just go pay him a visit and confess it all. Patience had never been his strong suit, and what self-respecting 7th Grader kept such important information to themselves anyways?

With a quick glance at Lambert’s special box for courage, Julian marched out his front door on his mission…

Only to be brought up short at the sight of four police cars, two fire trucks, and an ambulance blocking his street and covering the lawn of his best friend’s house in various uniformed people. The bouncing red and blue lights caused him to squint as he tried to make out what was going on. Before he could even take a step forwards to investigate, his father’s hand came down on his shoulder, holding him fast. He glanced up to see his father with a grim look on his face and his mother a step behind, tears already shining in her eyes. Julian swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat as he gazed back towards Lambert’s house. His eyes burned as he tried not to cry. This wasn’t supposed to happen…and how was he ever going to confess now? Was this what his parents had been whispering about for months?

“Dad, what’s… what’s going on? Is Lambert okay?”

“I don’t know, son. I don’t know.” His voice was quiet and not at all reassuring, even as he tugged Julian into a loose hug.

His father was able to coax him back indoors with the promise of ice cream and Star Wars, but the flashing of the lights stayed with him. They would play over and over again whenever he closed his eyes. And they would haunt him again when he finally made it back outside in the late afternoon of the next day and all that greeted him was an empty street and police tape barricading off the house of his favorite person. And he knew he’d never get those lights out of his nightmares when the scene outside didn’t change, and his best friend never came back.

~13 years later~

Kaedwen was terribly muggy and sticky in late summer. The humidity made the air outside feel like it was nearly chewable, and Jaskier had to stop from time to time to wipe the sweat from his forehead as he hunted for the row his new flat was on.

Jaskier, formerly known as Julian, was enrolled in the Musical Theory graduate program at the University of Daevon, freshly turned 25, and was absolutely turned around in what he hoped was his neighborhood. He pulled a suitcase behind him and had a duffel bag hanging from his other shoulder, and looked to all the world at large to be a completely lost tourist. Four people had passed him and given him the stink eye as they went.

He took another glance at the paper his lodging information was on again and sighed heavily. This was not shaping up to be his day, or even his week.

“Lost, little puppy?”

Jaskier turned his head so fast he thought he heard something in his neck pop, bringing himself at eye level with a very tall and broad man with hair that looked like a snowdrift. He couldn’t help it, he gawked and wasn’t even subtle about it.

The man grinned at him, apparently well aware of the effect he had on strangers, and strode forward to take the paper from Jaskier’s hand without even asking. Jaskier spluttered a bit, straightening to bring himself to his full 6 foot height as the man frowned and hummed at the paper. He puffed his chest, brought up his hand, and prepared to begin a proper lecture on the rudeness of this strange man.

“Now see here - “

“You missed your flat. It’s six houses back on the left. The numbers can be a little weird around here, but if you double back you shouldn’t miss it.” The stranger pointed as he spoke, singling out the building in question as he handed back the paper. Jaskier took it with a squeaked out ‘Thank you’, completely deflating in equal parts confusion, gratitude, and little bit of attraction to this very headstrong person.

The stranger simply grinned and nodded to him. “Welcome to Daevon. You’ll love the food.” And with that odd non-sequitur, he strode away, leaving a mildly dazed Jaskier behind.

As he lifted the paper again to double check the address, he noticed the man had also managed to tuck the small menu of a local restaurant as he’d handed it over. The Wolf Den: Kaedweni Cuisine with a Redanian Twist . Huh. What were the odds of that? He missed the food around Novigrad… maybe this was something he should try out. He tucked the menu safely away in his duffel pocket and made his way into his new home.

Lambert carefully shifted the skillet he was using onto the burner and wiped his hands off as his brother strode into the kitchen with a grin on his face that meant he was up to something. He eyed him warily as Geralt dumped his latest grocery haul onto an empty prep table.

“What’re you smiling at?”

“It’s a lovely day.”

“Bullshit. My sweat is sweating. You look up to something…”

Geralt shrugged and began sorting through his haul. “Saw a cute guy today. University chap. Totally lost looking like a sad puppy. Slipped him a menu.”

Lambert let out a loud bark of laughter. “Ohhoh! You’re hopin he comes sniffin around here and you get to ooze your charm at him.”

Another shrug from his brother. “Maybe it’s just nice having more customers..”

“Mhmm. Customers. Right. Maybe I’ll sneak out to him first.” He turned to wiggle his eyebrows at Geralt and make a mildly crude gesture with his left hand. His brother just rolled his eyes and proceeded to ignore him. With a shrug of his own, Lambert went back to work.

He’d been adopted by this family shortly before he turned 13 and they had literally saved his life. He wasn’t sure of where he would be if he hadn’t been taken in by his Foster father. Vesemir had already had Eskel and Geralt, both six and five years older than him respectively, and this restaurant near the University district. He’d been taught to cook, had an excellent head for the numbers side of the business, and had been able to incorporate some of his favorite dishes from his early childhood into the menu. Any other memories of his time in Redania he swiftly shoved down as far as he could. Was it healthy? Maybe not. But the less he thought of it, the less it hurt. And eating away his feelings was honestly his favorite thing.

A phone ringing about fifteen minutes later kicked him right out of his spiralling thoughts as he watched Eskel reach out and snag the receiver.

“Wolf Den, what can I get ya?”

Eskel mumbled, explained, and scratched out a delivery order before pushing it towards Lambert.

He picked it up and looked it over. Jaskier P. Weird name. With a shrug he tacked the order up next to his current and threw a thumbs up at Eskel. Lunch rush time.

Jaskier sat cross legged on his couch, gesturing at his friend Essi with a fork and talking around a mouth full of food. Three take out boxes sat open on his coffee table, all from The Wolf Den.

“I’m tellin’ you, Ess. Not only is this the best food within delivery distance of this place, but they’re staffed entirely by greek gods pretending to be men. One of them is clearly a mountain god, built like an entire apartment building with what must be the softest head of brown hair I have ever seen. One clearly lords over the snowy plains, white hair but he can’t be that much older than me and also looks like he could break me in two and I’d thank him.” Essie snorted and he waved the fork menacingly. “You mock, but I’m serious. And I also met what I think must be the owner, because he’s clearly an older gentleman, but yet again! Built like a tank and aging gracefully. I have yet to meet their other cook, but I will if it’s the last thing that I do! I want to marry this place.”

“That’s illegal in all territories, Jask. We aren’t that progressive yet.” The tremor in her voice as she tried not to laugh gave her away.

“Again with the mocking!”

“Well, I could hardly call myself your best friend if I didn’t put you in your place on occasion. Now am I going to help you unpack or are you going to blow all your time and grad money on more food?”

Jaskier huffed and shoved one more bite into his mouth before getting up and stomping off into his bedroom. Essi followed shortly trying to suppress her giggles. The kitchen was still a disaster of boxes, hence the take out, and the bedroom as well. All he had managed to get properly set out was his living room and working spaces, clearly the most important.

Three squat boxes sat at the end of the bed and the closet doors were propped open. Essi sat herself down on the corner of the bed and cracked open the box closest to her. She pulled out an impressive length of soft rope and raised an eyebrow at Jaskier.

He darted over and snatched the box away from her with a glare. “It says Private on the box, Ess! Open the other one!” He grumbled as he stomped away to shove the box wholesale into the closet to be promptly forgotten about. Essi just grinned at him in a way that made him sure she had done that on purpose.

“You’re a menace.”

With a raucous laugh, she settled back into the other box.

Two hours, and a bottle of wine, later and all that was left was a few items tucked away in the bottom of the last box. There were clothes hanging in his closet, proper bedsheets on his bed, and several photo frames on his walls. Essi pulled a very battered, barely holding together with duct tape, shoebox out and squinted at it.

“What in the name of 90s nostalgia is this monstrosity?”

Jaskier turned to see what she had and his face went through several rapid emotions before settling on the best poker face he could muster. He stepped forward and took the box gingerly from her, trying his best to ensure his voice came out steady.

“An old friend gave it to me for safe-keeping.” The words came out steady and he gave himself a mental high-five as he walked into the closet and set it carefully on a high shelf. As gently as he could, he shifted it back until it hit the wall and was safely tucked out of sight. Despite the ease with which he said it, Essi caught the emotion there. She stood up and crossed over to wrap her arms around his middle. He tried not to get choked up as he patted her arm in quiet thanks.

“It’s Lambert’s, isn’t it?”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“Jask, you were drunk off your gourd, sobbing into my lap… how could I forget?” She punctuated her last sentence with a soft headbutt between his shoulder blades. “You haven’t spoken of him since, but you were close.”

“Closest I have ever been to anyone besides you and my parents.” He reached back and scratched at her head until she let go and he was free to wander back over and flop on the bed. She followed and sat down beside him.

“I didn’t mean to drag down the mood.” Essi hummed while flipping his wisps of hair out of his face. “How about we go over to this little food joint you love so much for lunch tomorrow, in person, so you can shamelessly flirt in a more open fashion than by simply filling your bin with endless takeout boxes.“

That got a smile and a wink out of him. “You won’t regret this. The workers are nearly as delicious as the food.”

True to her word, Essi followed along behind Jaskier as they walked into the rather unassuming building that housed the “World Famous”, Jaskier’s words, Wolf Den. It was warm and cozy inside and much to her surprise and happiness was indeed entirely staffed with the most lovely specimens of the male variety.

A tall, handsome man with curling blonde hair and an interesting scar through his eyebrow was perched near the front and greeted them. He was scribbling away in a binder and motioned out towards the tables. “It’s open seating, so find a comfy spot and we will be by shortly for your drink orders.”

They found a corner table and settled in. There were a few other people scattered around, but it really seemed like a mellow afternoon. Essi settled in with her menu while Jaskier propped his chin in his hand and took in the surroundings. The greeter was talking briefly to a very tall and pale-haired woman with tattoos, piercings and a hip apron singling her out as likely their waitress. Sure enough, she sauntered over and smiled down at them. “Hey, welcome to the Wolf Den. What can I get you to start or drink?”

Jaskier grinned and rattled off his order and piped up on Essi’s behalf as well while she made googly eyes at the waitress and forgot how to use the common tongue. With a knowing smile, and a wink to Essi, the waitress sashayed away towards the kitchen.

“We’re coming here every day.”

Jaskier burst out laughing and put a hand to his belly as he chortled. Essi just glared at him, which only made the laughing worse, and by the time the waitress was back with their drinks he had dissolved into a teary-eyed hiccuping mess.

“You okay there, pal?” She asked sincerely and held out a handful of napkins to him. He took them gratefully and nodded.

“Yes.. yes.. I’m fine. Ahem. Just fine, thank you.” He managed to get out while smacking his chest to clear the last of his giggles and hiccups. With a final throat clear, he picked up the menu and tried his best to successfully order their lunch.

“What in the devil’s name was that noise?” Lambert tried to peer around Ciri as she loitered in front of the kitchen door holding an order ticket.

“Guy at table eight has a funny friend apparently. She nearly killed him with some kind of joke. I think it had to do with my ass.” She grinned as she said this, cocking her weight onto one hip and shaking the ticket back in her uncle’s face.

Lambert grabbed the ticket and bared his teeth, trying again to get around her. “If someone is harassing you, that ain’t funny! Let me at ‘em. I’ll show ‘em manners. Fuck their food. “

Ciri grabbed him by the shoulders and stood her ground. “Hey! Stop it! I was having a bit of a laugh myself. They were perfectly fine, I just thought the girl was gonna swallow her own tongue when I took their drink order. No harassment. Besides, she was kinda cute.” She ended with a pat to Lambert’s cheek and a smug smile. “Now make them lunch, or I’ll do it for you and you know how that will end.”

Lambert winced as he went back over to his stove. “With the freakin’ police department shuttin’ us down for health code violations and poisoning the customers, that’s how… Fine. Fine! But you just wait until you aren’t watchin’ me. I’ll show them not to ogle my niece.”

“Of course you will, you big softie.” She winked and swanned back out the door to the front of the house.

With a series of curses and grumbles, he sets to work. He was proud of his food. Maybe he’ll just serve it himself. See how that goes. Have a little word with the fairly odd couple out there. Yeah. He could do that just fine.

One moment, Jaskier is engaged in a spirited debate over the authenticity of a recent submission to the department by one Valdo Marx, the next he is all but forgetting to breathe as the last of the great Wolf Den Men saunters his way out of the kitchen and directly towards their table with their order. He’s tall, but whereas Geralt is Ethereal and Eskel is an entire Mountain, this man is more like the physical embodiment of a warm hug. He has dark black hair slicked back from his head, showing off what must be an early onset widows peak, and looks both muscular and comfy from every angle. His eyes are a warm amber, but a mildly menacing look across his face is pulling at a long scar across the left side of his face giving him just that hint of danger Jaskier is always such a sucker for.

He realizes he hasn’t closed his mouth yet. Something about this man is sucking away his entire ability to breathe correctly.

The man stops in front of their table and carefully sets out their plates. “Here ya go. I assume you’re in from the university, a nice couple like you. I hope my niece saw to you when you got here. She’s 19, the sweetheart, and the pride of this place. Family run. I’m sure you understand.” He gestured back towards the front door, where the waitress from earlier was talking with another pair of customers. There was something in his voice that was both fond, and mildly intimidating. Like he was aware of Essi’s eyes lingering earlier. There was something else in the accent that kicked Jaskier’s heart rate up and made him stare even harder.

He made a mildly choked noise as he finally closed his mouth and attempted speech again. It wasn’t very well done.

The man narrowed his eyes at him and the intensity of that gaze, more hazel now that he stares longer, once again stops all the words he might have been trying to say.

Geralt picked that fun and awkward moment to stroll into the building, look over, and promptly yell “Hey, Jaskier!”

The tense atmosphere screeched to a halt.

“What the hell, Geralt? This is Take Out Boy?”

Jaskier spluttered. “T-Take out boy?? What?”

Geralt just grinned and nodded. “You call at least once a week. We draw straws on who gets to deliver to you. You’re just so cute when you open the door and get flustered. Lamby here is salty he hadn’t met you yet. But he’s too good a cook to stick on delivery duty. I’m glad you came in for once.”

Jaskier tried to keep up with the font of words coming out of Geralt, but his brain had latched on to “Lamby” and refused to let it go. He spluttered some more, hoping a word or two had come out in there that might get one of these fine gentlemen to help explain what was going on.

“Aw come on, now. Don’t call me that in front of our best regular.”

“Why are you out here anyways, Lambert, I thought Ciri was working today.”

Jaskier’s brain fizzled out entirely. “Lamby… Lambert?” He muttered, mostly to himself, but also to the room at large.

“Well, yeah, she is. But she mentioned something about this table makin’ eyes at her and so I came over here to deliver their food and look menacing, I couldn’t help it. You know how I get.”

Geralt raised an eyebrow at that and looked more closely at the tables occupants. Jaskier looked like he was having three existential crises at the same time and his female friend was as red as red could be. “Ah. My apologies. Didn’t mean to be making a scene out here. Lamb, let’s talk in the back, okay?” His voice held it’s own hint of steel that didn’t bode well for someone.

But as Lambert nodded and turned to move, Jaskier finally got his brain functionality back enough to whip out his hand and grab hold of the closes part of Lambert he could… his apron. The other man halted suddenly and frowned down at the hand on his clothes.

“Lambert?”

He looked over at Jaskier and noticed how his eyes looked like the ocean, wide and blown out, and his entire face looked like he was a mix of happy and terrified and borderline about to pass out.

“Yeah?”

“From Redania?

He went still, and dropped all emotions from his face.

“Who wants to know?”

“Julian Pankratz.”

Now it was Lambert’s turn to suck in a breath and then promptly forget how to breathe again. He opened his mouth and all that came out was a bit of a choked off noise before he was ripping away from Jaskier’s hold and sprinting back into the kitchen. Jaskier was left with his hand still out and the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes.

Geralt looked back and forth between Jaskier and the still swinging kitchen door a couple of times before landing back on the other man and putting his hands on his hips. “What the hell was that?”

Jaskier tried to clear his throat and speak, but all that came out was a wounded groan. Essi reached over and covered his hands with her own.

“Jaskier is from Redania as well. Mentions on brief occasions his oldest and best friend from his childhood. His first crush. A man he still carries around a beat up old box of mementos for. A man named Lambert.” She spoke softly, not taking her eyes off her friend as she did.

Geralt sat down heavily in an empty chair. “So you… you knew him. Before?”

Jaskier nodded.

“Lambert won’t tell us what happened before he was adopted. The only things we know were that he was from Redania, he loved his mother’s cooking, and that he wanted to incorporate it into our menu. Other than that. He’s silent on anything else. I imagine that’s why he ran…”

Jaskier looked wounded. He had always wanted to know what had happened to his friend that night. But more than that, he just wanted to have his friend back at all. And to see him here, in a random restaurant in Kaedwen… well he was still trying to wrap his mind around it all.

Geralt nodded and stood up again. “I’ll go check on him. Can you… Can you stay? His shift ends in an hour anyways.”

With one more solemn nod from Jaskier, the other man stood and left. Essi ruffled his hair in affection before tucking into her own food. He just stared at his in a mix of shock and awe.

It was barely 40 minutes later, and only about half of his food eaten, that Lambert re-emerged from the kitchen and headed straight for their table. He stopped in front of it and shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. Jaskier watched him and tried to give him a tentative smile.

“Can we talk? Somewhere else?” He blurted.

Jaskier looked surprised but nodded and looked over towards Essi. She just waved her hand in dismissal.

“I can make my own way home. Thanks for lunch. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And with that she stood, nodded at Lambert and left the building. Jaskier stood up and pointed towards the door.

“My flat is a block over. We can talk there. I… there’s something I want to give you. And it’s private. I don’t have a roommate.”

Normally that would be grounds for a solidly flirtatious remark, but Lambert was still struggling with his own brain at the moment and simply nodded and followed after his old friend as they left and made the short walk.

Once the door to the flat was shut behind him, Lambert seemed to deflate a bit, the tension loosening some. “I wasn’t expecting to ever see you again.”

“Neither was I…” Jaskier agreed and walked towards his bedroom. Lambert followed and took a cautious seat on the edge of the bed. Looking around he saw photos of Jaskier with friends, with his parents, and with different instruments. Little snapshots of his life growing into what Lambert had to admit was a gorgeous and talented man.

The handsome man in question was rifling around in his closet, trying to pull something off a high self all while shaking his hair out of his eyes and mumbling to himself. He was about to ask if he needed help when the other made a little noise of triumph and bounded out and onto the bed with a very old box in hand. A box that was more duct tape than cardboard at this point.

“I never did more than patch it up when it threatened to fall apart. I never took out any of the contents, I didn't look or peek, and everything should still be in there just as you left it.” His voice had an excitedly breathless quality to it as he held out the box to him.

Lambert took it with shaking hands, little fragments of memory niggling at his mind as he lifted the lid with shaking hands. Inside, the bulk of his most cherished trading cards, his own copy of mario kart, and a letter and ring from his mother, cared for so diligently by another and protected like he had been unable to. He couldn’t form words. The emotions welled back up that he’d managed to push down so very hard since that awful night. The night she was killed. The night his whole world ended and then rearranged itself.

But here he was. Sitting on the edge of a bed that belonged to the first person he truly trusted besides his mother. He looked up to meet Jaskier’s eyes and was surprised to find his own vision blurring with unshed tears.

Jaskier made a hurt sort of tsking noise and launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around Lambert and hugging him. He let himself cry then, for the first time in over a decade, and fall apart feeling bafflingly safe in the arms of someone he hadn’t seen in even longer than that.

Jaskier shifted them to let Lambert lay down on the bed after his sniffled had died down, and went to go get them water and snacks. He returned to see Lamb propped up against his headboard, the box in his lap and the lid firmly on it. He went and sat beside him, holding out a glass of water to him.

“I can’t believe you kept this.”

“Well my very best friend in the whole world entrusted it to me. I wasn’t about to break that promise. Especially not after…” Jaskier’s smile faded as he trailed off. Lambert took the water before he dropped it and sipped while he thought about what to say. What could he say? If he was honest, Jaskier had been the first inkling he had that he wasn’t going to be living in a little brick house with a picket fence and a wife. Those first early childhood crushes lingered in the memory. At this point he was better off sipping his water and waiting for the other to find his footing for him.

“I wrote you letters. For a time. I didn’t put them in that box, and I didn’t keep them for long, but I… I did it anyways. All the way until college.”

“I worked very hard not to think of my life before… I never did anything like that, Julek. I’m not worth you having kept this for me. I worked so hard to forget my time before.”

Jaskier took a risk and reached out, taking Lambert by the hand and squeezing it. “You were my best friend. In my more morose hours, I may cry at length about the tragedy that was never knowing what happened to you. I had been going to go over that night and tell you I had a crush on you, but you were gone. But you’re here and whole, and I have a chance to get to know my best friend all over again.”

Lambert squeezed back then snapped his head up. “What? You had a what?”

“Oh, ah… Welllll. Of course that’s what you would latch on to. Turns out little Julian was not very into girls. My very first crush was on my very male best friend.” He winked as he said this, trying to bury his nerves behind bravado. He hoped it was working.

Lambert stared at him and then started giggling, giggling!, like a child. “No fuckin’ way.”

Jaskier puffed himself up and glared in a very ineffective manner. “Yes, fuckin’ way.”

“I had a crush on you , nimrod. I just… didn’t want to say anything. You knew my… well my situation.”

Jaskier hummed and scooted up closer. “I did. Though it seems like your situation has changed mightily. I’d… well, I would like to get to know you again. We’ve both changed. Be nice to become friends again in this new life.” He smiled as he talked, and Lambert just shifted his hands to lace their fingers together and smile back.” Hell, keep holding my hand and looking at me that way and I’ll lose control over my mouth entirely and go so far as to ask you on an actual date.”

Lambert’s smile went lopsided as he tried to avoid breaking out into laughter again. He shifted closer. “Yeah, well your mouth is welcome to run off and do that. I’m off on Thursdays. Which is, oh! Would you look at that… is tomorrow.”

Jaskier laughed and leaned in before stopping himself. “Still sassy. Can I hug you again?”

Lambert took his free hand and set it on Jaskier’s neck to pull him in. “You can have more than a hug, Buttercup.”

Jaskier barely had time to huff a laugh at that before Lambert’s lips were on his and his whole world was finally righting itself. They sat there, clinging to each other, working hard to be as close to the other as possible. When Jaskier finally pulled away to suck in a deep breath, Lambert carded his fingers through his hair.

“So, how about that date, then?”

The laughter sparked by this quickly dissolved into a series of very light moans as Lambert kissed him again and rolled them both over.

They had 13 years to make up for, but more important than the past for them, was the promise the future held.

~End~

#jaskier #lambert #witcher rarepair fanfiction #my writing #jaskier/lambert #Lambskier #Bombard #childhood friends to lovers

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boop-le-snoot · 3 years

Text

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 15

first time reader - click here

TW/SUMMARY: Is bad humour a trigger? Cards against humanity. Loki in the wild. Chaotic Tony, chaotic Reader. Team bonding, a gag chapter lmao

My beta is babey 🥺 @miscmarvelwritings

If someone had bothered to ask me what kind of relationship I had with Tony, it would've made my brain glitch. In the weeks we spent fucking, sciencing and hanging out with the Avengers, it never once crossed my mind. We had fun and it was easy. Unlike both of our lives, it didn't require much mental energy for us to get what we wanted from each other. For me, it was easier to ignore my skin aching for Tony when he was already spending so much time on me. I wasn't sure if it would ever be enough, really, so taking exactly as much as he was giving was my best bet.

We built things in his workshop with Pete by our side and it wasn't awkward. The spiderling said he was happy as long as we were happy and didn't mind it too much when Tony got handsy. The man had at least some morals and stuck to kisses, ass-slaps and lewd comments which made Peter snort and fake-retch sure, yet the boy never displayed any real discomfort. It was endearing. He really became the little brother I never thought I would have.

The sex was fantastic, to say the least. We fucked on just about every flat surface on the residential floors. Steve caught us once, although I am almost hundred percent sure Tony staged it all on purpose. The good Captain didn't even blush, instead just silently closed the door behind him as I stared in his face, gripping Tony's head with my thighs.

The weather grew dreary yet both of my parents still stayed out of New York. Mother went back to Canada and dad continued his never-ending party on the West Coast, conquering California and living his best life. My house was dark and cold, and I started hanging around the tower more often than ever. If I wasn't with Tony, I was busy catching up Wanda and Bucky on pop culture, teaching Thor how to bake cakes and doing other meaningless, domestic stuff. The Avengers tower bustled with life at all hours and there always was someone...

I never felt lonely. It was such an unusual experience. Comfort and reassurance was always one room away. Be it Thor with his gratuitous amount of physical affection or his brother's incredibly witty, dark humor, I never had to stay one-on-one with my thoughts for too long.

Personally witnessing Bruce's coming out of his shell was the highlight of my life, no lie. I was so used to the quiet, mousy Banner that my brain refused to acknowledge his amazing sense of humour at first; I wasn't sure if he was joking or ... Or what? Truth to be told, Brucie-bear was as snarky as Tony,Loki and Stephen. The sorcerer had started visiting more often too, under the guise of tutoring Wanda, but all of us saw the way he lingered in the communal areas after their study time came to an end.

If loneliness was a sickness then the tower's inhabitants and frequent visitors were beginning their recovery journey.

"Have you guys heard about Cards Against Humanity?" I asked one evening once the movie credits began rolling. Wanda was squished into my side with her legs in her brother's lap; Clint laying atop both siblings like the trash bag that he was. And I meant it fondly.

On the other side of me, I had Bucky and Loki, who had begun to discuss their respective collections of sharp and pointy things once they deemed the movie lacked action. Legally Blonde and action, did they really think..? Nevermind.

"Yes, and if you're offering, the answer is yes," Clint mumbled, reaching for his second pack of Cheetos.

We gathered in a circle as I brought the shoebox that had the original deck plus a couple of expansions. This was beginning to look interesting. "So, I have the special Avengers edition right there..."

"Say no more," Clint even abandoned his snacks. "But I'mma put on the episode of Lucifer I missed. Multitasking," He winked, wrestling the remote from Pietro. We waited patiently as they finished the obligatory round of horsing before settling down for the game.

I explained the rules of the game, choosing to disregard Loki's scoffing and Wanda's doubt about the quality of the humor in the game. We played a few rounds with me explaining some of the deeper pop culture references. At a point where all of us were engrossed, laughing and poking fun at each other, more of the Avengers parked themselves on the couch.

Stephen, Tony and Bruce evidently had been sciencing, all three men having had their safety goggles perched forgotten atop their heads. Sam, Natasha and Steve - probably sparring. All three of them brought the smell of soap and laundry detergent to the room. All of the newcomers observed us with mild interest, periodically glance at the TV.

It was Wanda's turn to be the card Czar. I had to take a moment to finish my last giggling fit.

"Okay, the white card goes..." She paused dramatically. "I never truly understood blank until I encountered blank." With that, she poked the timer app on her phone. The sixty second countdown began.

I did a quick inventory check. Then I snorted. I had to quickly stuff two knuckles in my mouth, biting down, to attempt to silence the hysterical fit of laughter I was on the brink of. Loki was definitely going to stab me but the opportunity was too good to pass. No fear, we die like men.

"Ooh, she's got something," Clint teased, having noticed my shaking shoulders.

The timer beeped. Naturally, Loki went first. He wore a mildly disgusted smirk. "I never truly understood parting the red sea until I encountered third base," The trickster caved and began chuckling.

Somewhere behind me, Sam and Tony began cackling while Stephen and Steve groaned loudly in mild distaste.

"Press F to pay respects," Pietro clapped Loki on the shoulder with a sympathetic chuff. "I raise you - I never truly understood licking things to claim as your own until I encountered the clitoris," The young avenger struggled through laughter, followed by everyone else this time.

"That's a keeper, ladies," Sam's rich baritone quipped.

I laughed along, inwardly preparing for the inevitable. "Yikes," I whispered, side-eyeing Loki. "I never truly understood daddy issues..." I trailed off, hearing Bucky and Steve beginning to tease Tony. "... Until I encountered Loki, the trickster God."

The room drowned in a sea of laughter, Tony and Clint busting a gut so hard they fell over. Said trickster God was less than amused, however, glaring in my direction with the force of a pissed off bee swarm.

"Ow, that's cold, Princess, that's just cold," Clint squeezed out.

"Loki," I abandoned my stack of cards, crawling over Pietro and Bucky on all fours, settling prettily on my knees in front of Loki. Making my very best puppy eyes. "I love you, with all my cold black heart. And you're technically the patron saint of fun and shit, so that means you must approve of this very clever joke," I pouted, batting my eyelashes.

"Baby girl, I think you're laying it on too thick," Tony gasped, slumping on the couch, holding his sides. Everyone kept laughing, now at my feeble attempt at placating the upset Loki.

Who, by the way, looked a bit spooked. Subtly but surely, the raven-haired Asgardian leaned away from me.

"Don't be mad, I'm too cute to be mad at," I finally snorted, pat-pat-patting him on the shoulder. "It's okay, you can join my club. We have hot old dudes and cookies."

That broke it. First, the corner of his mouth twitched. Then, Loki looked away. I saw the storm before it crashed; with a weird noise of his own and his cheeks puffed out, Loki joined in on the shit-fest, howling full volume and doubling over. I followed suit, until all of us were writhing around on the floor. We'd stop and then someone would make another remark and it would go into another round again.

"Menace," Loki scoffed at me, smiling. "And for the record, the hottest old dude, as you put it, would be me." That said, he went back to calmly waiting for his next turn. "I'm about a thousand years old."

"Thor's older," Bruce noted thoughtfully.

Loki scoffed. "That man cannot chew with his mouth shut. If that's considered attractive, I'm leaving this forsaken planet."

That struck a thought within me. One that was brewing a long time, to be honest. "Thor is the god of himbos," I said with the same tone as "Eureka!".

"Shit, you're right," Sam exclaimed, following with another, weaker fit of laughter meanwhile Bruce had to be the one explaining the term to the poor, poor, clueless members of the Avengers.

I need to find a way to award them some kind of points for learning the gen-z lingo. "Patrick" stars maybe, since they lived under a fucking rock?

"Princess, never a boring day with you around. You don't half-ass this shit," Tony's warmth reached me as he shuffled around on the couch, sitting directly behind me. I leaned my back against his legs.

"I'm not a clown," I shot back. Tony stiffened. Dramatically flailing my hand I announced: "I am the whole god-damn circus!"

As the game progressed, we found out that Clint was That Guy - meaning, the dude every CAH group had, the one who grossly overused the "Bees?!" card and made Star Wars references whenever humanly possible. The only even slightly funny joke was about a lightsaber up the ass, in the end all of us finding out that Bucky knew a little too much about modern sex toys - "Hey, I saw one on Amazon, I'll send you the link, Birdman" - to Steve's open-mouthed horror.

What Loki lacked in references he made up in wit. The play on "During sex, I like to think about genetically engineered supersoldiers" had Bucky scrambling to switch places with Wanda whilst Loki himself was attempting to shoot bedroom eyes at Steve. It was a mess.

Bucky's own play had Steve abandon all pretense at being in any way appropriate as he struggled for air. "The Avengers new rules prohibit using Mjölnir as a dildo." Me and Tony became somewhat of a messy guffawing octopus of limbs for a moment after the super-soldier said it.

"Don't. Tell. Thor!" Strange gritted out, hiding his laughter behind a palm, uncharacteristically having lost his stuffy attitude. By god's will the man was attractive when he smiled.

As time ticked, each one of the starting players had attracted a newcomer. There weren't enough cards for everyone to play (Tony had, of course, ordered additional ones but they wouldn't arrive until the next day) so people kind of whispered and pointed at what they thought would fit.

Natasha conspired with Wanda, Sam went to his bird-bro, Bruce was forcefully dragged by Bucky to his side. Surprisingly, Steve teamed up with Loki which made Pietro stick his nose up in the air and promptly declare he needed no backup.

I already had Tony on my side. The genius wasn't of much help, however, he simply annoyed me out of my skull by randomly giggling and making immature jokes. It should've alarmed me that Stephen was eager to join me and Tony - usually he just butted heads with anyone who had any opinion whatsoever.

I was left bewildered upon discovering the wizard liked drama as much as the Kardashian clan and was quite competitive at causing the most shit.

My clown crown felt threatened.

"This one," Tony poked at a card in my hand.

"If you think that's funny, your intellect is obviously overestimated." Stephen dismissively waved a hand. "This one," It was unmistakable whom the trembling finger belonged to. It pointed at a card on the other side.

"Wizards are just hilarious," Tony seeped sarcasm.

"Try me, Beyonce," Stephen murmured darkly.

That was just background noise to me. I had all my undivided attention on the TV, my last two functioning brain cells focused on the scene unfolding right in front of me. The Lucifer episode, the devil and his insatiable thirst for honey. The timer buzzed but I was still drawn towards Tom Ellis dipping two of his fingers first in the honeypot, then in his mouth, all the while looking like a damn snack himself. Illegal. I've never simped so hard for a fictional character.

A golden glow snatched a card out of my grasp, levitating it.

"Girl, what the hell?" Wanda saw my face and attempted to revert me back to earth. "Someone turn off the TV, there's not enough water in the tower to quench her thirst."

"Hey, did you two just - don't ignore me!" Tony whined, managing to tug on my hair and attempt to reach for the card now held in Stephen's grasp, simultaneously.

"I don't blame her," Clint mused. "That right there is one very fine dude."

I shook my head, clearing any untoward thoughts. Focus. "First of all, Bird, you're a dude. That there," I pointed up at the TV. "Is a man. A Man." I emphasised, getting a jealous poke in the back from Tony. "Second of all..." I turned towards Stephen. "The quaffle, the snitch and the AUDACITY OF THIS BITCH!" The last of my sentence was pitched. The sorcerer had raised his arm, clutching the card, and I struggled to reach it.

"What... What did you just say?" Stephen was laughing, not at all phased by me climbing him like a tree to take hold of what's mine. Tony was actively helping - or, trying to. One-handed. The other hand attempted to snatch the rest of the cards from my grasp.

"And that's an F on teamwork," Bucky's sarcasm was complemented by Steve's famous Captain America Is Disappointed In You look.

"Uhh... Guys? What's going on?" Peter's timid voice leaked confusion.

"Hello, friends," Thor boomed, drowning out the boy's questioning noises.

"We're playing a game. Cards Against Humanity."

Wordlessly, Peter towed Thor along with him to find a spot amongst us. And even if Thor didn't get any of the references, he still was good fun. His laugh was infectious. The way he cheered for every winner was incredibly wholesome. Golden space puppy. The urge to immediately pet Thor and give him endless pop-tarts was strong in me.

Loki was one dramatic, vengeful bitch. "Women get turned on by the Devil himself"? I was ready to throw hands with the trickster. Everybody's laughter drowned out any cursing I might or might have not directed towards Loki who looked far too satisfied with himself. I was going to substitute the sugar for his tea with salt one day, mark my words.

I wouldn't admit it over my dead body, but the way he got back at me for the daddy issues joke was kinda funny. Okay, very funny. It was fucking hilarious. I admire a clever man.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby

#party favours #bun writes #tony stark x reader #tony stark x y/n #tony stark x you #bruce banner x you #bruce banner x reader #bruce banner x y/n #stephen strange x y/n #stephen strange x you #stephen strange x reader #avengers team x reader fluff

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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verklempt - completely and utterly overcome with emotion For Tristan?

Every year, they did Valentine's boxes. Every kid brought a shoebox that they decorated with glitter and foil papers and heart stickers, with their name. They put the box on their desk and everyone gave out tiny paper valentines, little folded cards with characters from shows or movies that said things like You're My Superhero or Bee Mine.

Every year, Tristan fell into the act of decorating his box with a single-minded focus that unsettled his parents, who watched him with the air of somewhat delighted, but baffled explorers watching a lion sprout wings.

This year, he did felt.

He took sheets of felted paper and carefully cut them into spirals and swirls and waves. He asked his mom for every shade of blue and green and his box was an ocean of colors, decorated with tiny little fish that swam towards the opening in the top where the little cards would go.

He carried it to school, proud of his hard work, and before the end of the morning Gregory Micklesburg dumped juice on it and ruined the whole thing and most of the cards already slipped inside.

Fake cloying apple-smell was heavy in the air as Greg laughed, and Greg's friends laughed, and Tristan stared with a wordless mix of fury and grief at what they had ruined.

Everyone went down to lunch but Tristan, who stayed at his desk humming and rocking and sniffling. He took out the cards, mostly soaked but readable, and tried to remember who all had given him one. Then he threw the box away, stomped on it in the little crash can, humming louder and louder and stomping harder until he missed his aim once, kicked it over, and spilled all the trash out on the floor.

In a sudden mindless angry motion, he picked the trash can up and threw it across the room, where it bounced off a pencil sharpener he imagined was stupid Greg's stupid face.

"Oh, honey."

Tristan froze and turned to look, suddenly cold, to see the secretary, Mrs. Billings, looking at him with one hand over her heart in her favorite pink sweater.

He needed to tell her.

He had to tell her what happened.

He opened his mouth and nothing came out.

Mrs. Billings stared at him and said, "You wait right here, Tristan Paul," and closed him in the room with a slam of the door.

Tristan groaned and dropped to the ground, scrambling to pick up the trash that had been thrown around when he threw the trashcan.

It didn't matter.

When Mrs. Billings came back, it was to take him to the office and call his mom to come get him.

His mom showed up with thundercloud eyes and loaded him into her old subaru and drove him home asking again and again what happened, but All Tristan could think was it's ruined, it's ruined, it's ruined and he couldn't say anything at all.

#tristan higgs #chris the strawberry blond romantic #bullying tw #nonverbal

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fishflakesims · 4 years

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for joel: 01, 50 👀, 49, 40, 21

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?

alright let's break this shit down:

JOEL - it was the first name that popped up when i randomized the name so i could save my progress on him. initially i thought joel was just kind of a funny name for him i decided to keep it but since then i've grown really fond of it and can't imagine a different first name for him. backstory-wise, though, he picked a name that was similar to his deadname because his grandfather named him so he's sentimental about it. what's his deadname, you may be wondering? that's between me, joel, and whatever god he believes in.

JESSUP - i wanted something that flowed well plus i love me some good alliteration and since i wanted close friends to call him J.J. basically i just looked up "boy" names until i found something i liked. also it was his grandfather's name; the two of them were really close before he died so he wanted to include his grandfather's name in his. plus his dead(middle)name was one of his grandmother's and it just made sense to him.

GREENWOOD - i don't even know if this is actually a last name I'm just so fucking awful with surnames and i needed something that sounded pretty and vaguely witchy.

21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear?

ok so I'd like to start this off by saying literally everything scares this man. but being a general fraidy cat + anxiety + years of being bullied will make you jumpy. more specifically tho he's terrified of anything happening to his loved ones.

his reaction depends on what exactly the Bad Thing is. typically when he's stressed he acts grouchy and chain smokes or on rare occasion drinks. if the person did something completely stupid and got hurt or into trouble, he gets pissy like he's relieved still that they're okay but the moment he spots them? instant running to tackle them full-force with a hug while simultaneously yelling and bitching them out for being so reckless and dumb. and then he might go off somewhere to knit and grumble under his breath for a really long time while he works on his anger issues. but if it's really, really bad tho he'd probably shut down emotionally and get drunk or at the very least smoke like a chimney at an industrial plant. he'd probably lock himself up in his room at some point and turn music up really loud so he can vent to his goldfish, cleo, in privacy. also the music would help drown out his crying if he actually ended up crying, which he never does so when he does he ends up sobbing so hard it shakes his whole body violently and his wailing practically sounds like screaming and he ends up getting sick and throwing up really hard (and also loudly. what a noisy bitch.)

so basically not well? HFGDGDGFD

40. Does your OC have any guilty pleasures they enjoy? Hobbies, past times, music, etc that they wouldn’t want known by others?

Joel's a bit of a snob, specifically with his choice in reading material. he loves to read classic literature and things like shakespearean plays and old ass poetry. his favorite genres are romance and horror, and if he had it his way he'd have you believe the most modern author he's into is stephen k*ng but actually I'm here to expose him for loving trash romance novels!! he likes those books with shirtless men on the front that are basically just poorly written, super self-indulgent smut, but his favorite is stuff like nicholas sp*rks novels. joel also enjoys a "good" romcom and "chick" flicks, but no one can ever know. and super cheesy love songs from the 60s & 70s? he's got dozens of compilation cassettes & cds. he keeps his stash of all this stuff in a shoebox underneath his bed like he's a teenager trying to hide skin mags from his parents 😭 he's ridiculous i love him

49. What is something that your character has nightmares about? Are these frequent? Do they heavily affect your character’s mood?

joel has a fair amount of nightmares but he can't remember 99% of them. normally he just wakes up screaming, in a cold sweat and nearly hyperventilating from anxiety. the little snippets he remembers aren't very clear and they're more like blurry images that he can't discern and a feeling of dread & suffocation. afterwards he stays up for the rest of the night and will go for a swim if possible or go outside to look at the water. sometimes he'll lose track of time when he's doing this and he'll just be sitting there for hours before realizing how long it's been and then going back in the house. he's usually grumpier after having one but he's also more quiet and subdued, not nearly as flamboyant and loud as he normally is. if you ask him about it tho he'll say he's fine and if you push it he'll get snippy with you.

50. If your character confessed love to their crush, partner, etc, what would they say?

oh fuck telling people how you feel when you can just pine after them for secretly for years with only your best friend knowing you're in love with him because he knows how you act about every other guy except this one. no but for real he would just wait for the other person to say it first and if it never happened he'd just keep making heart eyes at them till he dies because he's awful at communicating any feeling outside of angry and horny. if it was confessed to him tho he'd shriek excitedly and throw himself around the other person in like a full body hug. (basically he glomps people. that's truly the only word to describe it.)

#💌#winter's sims #my sims #ts4 #long post #winterinsulani #drug tw #alcohol tw #alright one down!#but I'm open 2 more #joel greenwood

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bcketts · 4 years

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INTRODUCING...ALLIE BECKETT. ( @gallagherintro )

OK, I’M VERY EXCITED AND NERVOUS BC...what a weird time to bring in a new character ! i hope it works out, who knows ??? i guess i’ll be plotting with you all for a bit while allie is confined to the 5th floor with no phone lmao, but i have lots of plot ideas and muse so i can talk your ear off forever. so at least there’s that.

if you’d like to plot on tumblr LIKE THIS POST and if u want to plot on discord, hmu at #kati7600 for a good time ( or just comment or something and i’ll hit u up )

click here for her stats page & here for her pinterest !

⌠ VIRGINIA GARDNER, 21, CISFEMALE, SHE+HER ⌡ welcome to gallagher academy, ALLISON “ALLIE” BECKETT! originally hailing from POINTSETT, ARKANSAS they were exposed to too much during the protest, and the academy is now in charge of their safe care. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of ( warm chamomile tea on a winter morning, a collection of polaroids stacked in shoeboxes under your bed, bare feet running through an open field, laughter until your sides hurt. ) when it’s the ( virgo ) ’s birthday on 8/28/98, on the bad nights they request their HAWAIIAN PIZZA from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re safe in witness protection. ⌿ kati, 23, est, she/her ⍀

hi i’m sorry her bio is long and in 2nd person but at least u have lots of time to read it while she’s on lockdown ??

you come into this world silent. from the moment you are born, jeremy, your twin brother, does all the screaming for you. both blonde-haired with blue eyes, things will come easy to you – but even easier for him, because red-faced and screaming, he knows how to make his mark. katherine and richard beckett are thrilled to welcome two perfectly happy and healthy babies. and as your brother screams beside you, develops colic and obstinance, you are deemed the favorite – he is deemed the problem. people underestimate how important those early years are.

it’s your first day of kindergarten and you bury yourself in your mother’s skirt, scared. jeremy runs in the room with confidence, introducing himself to the other kids and settling in the corner near the firetrucks. but you cry so much that your mother takes you home and when you finally come back a week later, all the children stare at you, like you’re going to explode at any moment. but children are resilient and within time, you make friends and you excitedly tell your mother about each new day in the car.

you go to church with your family on sunday mornings and your parents dress you up like a doll. you love the pink ribbons though, the way your parents dress you up and introduce them to all your friends. your brother is a lost cause and gets to play his gameboy on the pews but you are your parents pride and joy and you are paraded around – people love a little blonde girl and you smile widely at everyone you meet. it’s all a show though, you know that as you listen to your parents from the top of the stairs at night, yelling. they’re not happy. you clutch the railing, listening in, and you fight back the tears that threaten to stream down your face.

on your tenth birthday, your parents throw the two of you an elaborate party and you have a bouncy castle and everyone brings swimsuits for the pool. your parents can’t stop smiling. it isn’t until late that night after all the streamers have been taken out with the trash that you hear them yelling again. you listen in from the corner of the kitchen. you hear a glass shatter and you race upstairs to your brother. “i think they’re going to divorce,” you tell him. he laughs. “they’ll never do that, no matter what. we’re catholic, allie.” he flashes you a wry smile and you find yourself wondering what to believe.

your best days are spent at pointsett park. your parents often take you there after church, on sundays, and you and jeremy run around through the forests pretending to be wood nymphs with sticks in your hair. as you get older, the magic starts to fade and you feel less like a fairy princess and more like a moody teenager, but you and jeremy fill a shoebox full of things from your childhood and bury it, deep in the park, by the ugly tree. “if i were a tree, i’d be this one,” he jokes, as if all the girls at pointsett middle haven’t just sent him candy grams. “shut up,” you say, shoving him, “or put you in the ground instead of this shoebox.” he grins wryly at that. “clever.” you always were the clever one.

it’s the first day of high school and you feel like an outsider, everyone’s getting their first kisses and jumping in cars and you have to be home in time for curfew. you have friends from church, but with every glass your mother breaks, you wonder how much you really fit in with them at all. in an attempt to try something new, you go to cheerleading tryouts, but of course, you don’t make the team. at least you won’t have to beg your dad to let you wear the uniform. you trudge home and expect to be greeted by yells - you’ve come home late - but your parents are in the kitchen, berating your brother. he smells like marijuana. he gives you a lazy wink from the kitchen as you sneak upstairs.

a boy asks you on a date, a real one, your first real date ! you’re only a sophomore and wade matthews is a senior and you’re really nervous when he picks you up in his car. he tries to kiss you throughout the whole movie but you’re nervous and really, you want to watch the movie. when he pulls the car in an overhang near the mountains and kisses you, it’s rough and unwanted and he goes in with tongue. it’s hardly the enchanting first kiss you imagined and you pull back. is that what kissing’s like? really? he goes in again, saying he’s really turned on, asking if you want to have sex. you say no, but he tries to kiss you again. you push him back so hard his head hits the dashboard. “take me home,” you say. and he does. he obviously doesn’t call.

you have a few girls over for a sleepover and you’re sitting around in your pjs watching grease and passing around thermoses filled with rosé. you pass it on to the girl beside you without taking a sip. you start to raise the volume on the tv as you hear your parents fighting downstairs ( you think your mom might be sleeping with her doctor, which is all kinds of weird. ) when the thermos comes back to you, you take a swig.

you’re sitting in the basement with jeremy, head in your hands. “that’s it, i’m never drinking again.” he laughs. “allie, it’s your first hangover. you’re gonna be okay. and you’re probably going to drink again. it’s okay.” you shake your head, “this is exactly why it’s wrong, i’m so stupid.” your brother sits on the bed beside you, wraps his arm around you. “you’re allowed to be a stupid teenager, you know? fuck up a bit? mom and dad are…they’re crazy. i love ‘em, but they’re so obsessed with consequences, with image. if you don’t quit overthinking shit, you’re gonna wind up just like them.”

“COMING SOON: POINTSETT MALL” the poster is covered in icons, like a dunkin’ donuts and a macy’s. lots of people in the town talk about how excited they are, but they don’t talk about the fact that they’re tearing up pointsett park to build it, the park that holds all your best memories, all the ways you and jeremy would disappear into the woods growing up, skipping rocks in the pond and catching glimpses of magic creatures in the trees ( creatures that mostly turned out to be squirrels, ) where you buried your time capsule. you and jeremy sneak into the park late at night to dig it up, ducking under the caution tape. while you stand there digging, you get the idea: “we have to save the park!” you say, and it starts out as bake sales, town meetings, the twins who think they’re going to save a couple trees from corporate capitalism. but you make a video of the two of you, the history of playing in the park, and you talk about your dreams and memories. that’s what goes viral, and that’s what garners attention. suddenly, hundreds of people are showing up at your town hall – not because they love the park, but because they used to love their own special place, the one that’s now a walmart, a target, a gas station.

they build the strip mall. of course they do, because in the end it comes down to money. but the social media campaign that spirals, everyone sharing their own special places and what became of them, has made an impact. your project – Save Pointsett Park – is enough to get both you and your brother the interest of several prestigious schools. you have nearly the same SAT scores, even though you took two prep classes and studied for weeks and he nearly forgot about the test entirely, walked in with his shoes untied and a blunt in his shirtpocket. in the end, you both choose georgetown together, because despite your differences, you always do everything together.

you opt for a degree in global health because it combines your interests – biology and helping people, and you have dreams of working in healthcare and bringing it to parts of the world that don’t have it. you might have something of a complex, maybe something to prove. you’ve always had a diminished interest in boys, opting to put your studies first, until you meet him – richard hudson, the sort of boy you daydream about even though you stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago. he’s the second boy to kiss you and it feels so much different than wade matthew’s sweaty car at the drive in. he’s gentle and sweet, and he makes you feel uncharacteristically special – you wish you’d had the patience to wait for a first kiss like that. jeremy only teases you a little bit when you toss your purity ring – and he never even owned one.

you’re comfortable with him in a way you’ve never been with anyone else, and his attention has you falling hard and fast. you’re obnoxiously perfect at times, all over each other and always laughing, but like most fairy tales, things end. you notice the way he looks at her, the way he talks about her, and the way his eyes linger. you’re reminded of your parents, stuck in some unhappy farce when they’d really rather be anywhere else, with anyone else. you don’t want to be like them – you don’t want to trap him like that. so, you step back where you’re supposed to, even though it hurts, and your saving grace is jeremy, who holds you through the night through your first heartbreak. you experience all your sadness together.

until you don’t. here is the first sadness you’ve ever had to process without jeremy by your side, and it happens so fast. one second, he’s alive, and the next he’s blown into nonexistence, leaving a gaping ache in your chest that doesn’t seem to sooth itself. until now, your life has always been cushy, perfect, and smooth sailing. now, you toss and turn with nightmares, a ghost of yourself, trying to understand why you’re the one who gets to survive and why you matter at all. you’ve never existed in this world without him, and you thought you’d never have to.

you don’t sleep well now. you wander the halls at night, you act a little more recklessly. after all, jeremy broke rules all the time. maybe it’s your turn.

HEADCANONS.

sweet and pampered, maybe, but she’s still from arkansas. allie is extremely capable with a firearm and has pretty keen survival skills. she’s never actually shot anything, but she’s gone to the shooting range with her dad enough times, and she has been on frequent fishing trips. her family used to go camping quite a bit.

really a terrible driver. she’s really easily distracted and cannot focus, she’s a bit of a disaster behind the wheel, but it’s almost comical – as long as you’re not in the passenger seat.

is bisexual, although she’s never had the chance to explore that. growing up in a strictly catholic household and then spending most of her college years dating a boy, she’s never really thought about. finding girls pretty and thinking about them like that is what everyone does, right?

bakes when she’s stressed or upset. she’s got treats for everyone right now.

currently plagued by night terrors and is having a lot of trouble sleeping, so find her staying up until all hours or wandering campus with some dark circles under her eyes. she’s trying to cope, but it isn’t coming easily right now. it’s pretty disorienting, and anyone who knows her will notice the difference in disposition.

has traveled a lot for mission and/or service trips. uganda is where she usually goes, she’s been spending summers volunteering at the same women’s clinic for the past three years.

pineapple pizza advocate and WILL fight you on that

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

someone at gallagher she has a crush on. Basically, someone at gallagher who has really caught her eye and she’s stuck daydreaming about. The purpose of this is because she��ll be super nosy about them, trying to learn more about them, and that’s probably going to make this character nervous.

a dare/challenge??? This is so cheesy of me, but I’d love a plot where a Gallagher student has a dare or something to hook up with one of the WP kids and they make Allie into their sort of conquest. Things probably won’t go as planned for them.

brother’s ex/best friend. I might submit this to the main, but I’d love a WP character who was allie’s best friend & was dating her brother. All this grief and sadness and not knowing who to comfort who, but also getting over the loss together.

crushing??? I feel like all the WP kids are pretty paired off, but...it might be fun to have a WP character that’s had a crush on Allie all those years she’s been obsessing over her ex...you know, for pining & angst

any brother connections?? Idk, I’d love WP kids to also be connected to her brother, who was also in the club, so we can probably stem something spicy off of that too. Maybe they were his best friend, or more interestingly, maybe they fucking hated him.

someone from the past. someone at gallagher who knows her prior whether from school, volunteering, etc.she travels a lot and her parents have too, so there’s some flexibility, but maybe someone she knows or used to be close to and they grew apart, but they have the chance to rekindle things now. she probably really wants to.

a close friend. they have been at gallagher for a hot minute now, and I’d love for her to have bonded with a few of the people there. from my understanding, shit’s going to hit the fan, so a few close relationships would be spicy. people at gallagher who were actually really there for her about her brother, probably could relate to losing a loved one, and probably opened up to her. people at gallagher to worry about her safety now.

hook up? she’s really going through it, and although hookups aren’t typical, ithink it wouldn’t be weird for her to look for a warm body or seek comfort in the first person to smile at her at gallagher...not to mention she’s rooming with her ex and his crush, so a distraction is super welcome. i would also imagine that it’s against the rules for a gallagher student to hook up with a WP kid, so. the drama !

^ on that same vein, maybe a repeated hookup.

a girl to help her realize her sexuality.

someone totally lying to her. a gallagher student practicing their skills and getting to know allie using a totally fake backstory and identity, blatantly lying to her about things. and she’s naively playing into it? and maybe your character is realizing they’re actually fond of her and like hanging out with her, but they’ve lied about legit everything lol.

someone she’s suspicious of. there’s something off about this person, and allie is determined to find out what it is about them that just doesn’t fit.

someone to help her solve her problems by denial. someone who wants to break allie out of her shell and believes that the best way to get over it is to have a good time ! someone to be a bit of a bad influence on her, basically, get her partying, introduce her to some unhealthy coping mechanisms.

someone who recognizes how sad she is? aka someone who’s been in that same position and can really tell she’s faking it every time she says she’s “fine.” this person probably has a sort of fondness for her and keeps reaching out when she pushes away because they know what it’s like.

#gallagher:intro #intro

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futurenjghost · 4 years

Text

Mixing Metaphors Because, Well, I’m Making a Point

Thinking today about authenticity, how the mind chooses to believe or unbelieve experiences and actions. How our reactions are pinned together with neurons and twine. I have a tattoo on my back that the artist mentioned was an investigation into how trans bodies are patchworks. In a way, we’re just made of stuff. In part, we pick and choose, develop and evolve a style that reflects on the outside how we may feel on the inside. I’m starting to think brains are that way too, held together with a little bit more superglue and old tongue depressors than one might think. We find what fits us, what keeps us alive, and run with it. If Macgyver created a Frankenstein's monster of his own, I think I would be her. Kept together with just enough ingenuity and scientific impossibility to survive the moment, and escape just by the skin of my teeth.

Curious I just googled it and the phrase “escaped by the skin of my teeth” came from the bible. Job 19:20. Someone hold that up at their next sporting event. Or, I guess, just up to your computer’s camera if the world keeps ending and sports are cancelled indefinitely. Anyway, as a non-religious culturally jewish trans girl I guess I’m made of even a few more unfamiliar things than I thought...

Whatever the fuck the bird is that Sir David Attenborough talks about, in that amazing planetary voice of his, building its nest from trash and treasures alike to impress a mate, I think she made me. I think she looked around, found something, and said this will do. That nest is made out of pure shit. Just things that were around at the time she needed them. And yes, I know it’s the male birds that build the nests for whatever species this is but I’m trying to be inclusive. So, kindly fuck off.

I survived each moment with what I had at hand, building a life out of the shit storm that was my circumstance. Sometimes I picked up scissors and ran into a wall. Others, I sewed those newly created holes together with dental floss and a rusty nail. Whatever it was, when you take a moment to look back you wonder how the fuck you stayed together in the first place. Like untangling a necklace made from a wide array of materials, all with varying textures and consistencies, healing from trauma can be like a hoarder’s minefield. You never know when you’re going to pull out a moldy shoebox only to find the whole thing crumbling around you.

Anyway, coming back to authenticity, understanding that these things that make you up are as real as anything is hard. It’s a process where you stare at yourself in disbelief, recognizing that no, it doesn’t make any fucking sense. But yet, here you are, in perfect form, a complete and utter pile of shit. Still just as real as the next pile of confusing shit. Still just as deserving of love.

It hurts. Every time you touch a nerve. Every time you uncover the wrong thing. Every damn time you step in something you didn’t want to know was there. And it won’t stop hurting. But I hope that you can find it in you, just like I’m trying to, the humor in the fact that you have to activate a Wallace and Gromit contraption to light the fire under your ass that lets you survive this moment. Yes this one right here. That one. No no this one.

It hurts. The meat you’re using to hold it together is well past its expiration date, and you should probably change the oil. But, it’s still holding you together after all of these years. And as you start scraping off the rust, and replacing those old shattered tubes with whatever they use to power things these days, be gentle with yourself, and thank the shit that hurts, because, well, its still keeping you alive.

#neurodivergencies #traumahealing #writer #transwriter #transfemme #chronicillness #authentic

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lamentsof-bee · 4 years

Text

taking scissors to pure canon - take two

i wrote this fic for @perseachase bc we couldn't believe that royai didn't end up together and we are 100% FMAB trash. always.

i’m not saying i wrote it better (but wendy might >.< (KIDDING hiroshi onogi plz don’t kill me!))

this story wrote itself and really wasn't for anyone but us but i figured if we were feeling this way, maybe someone else was too. endless pining and never-quite-fluff is always a must.

idk, shameless self indulgence as always. but y'all can read it if you want (only if you don't judge my constant change of tense tho!!! it's a MOOD ok???)

(also on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23498194)

Summary: There are plenty of ways their story could have ended. But there was only one ending that was right.

Riza Hawkeye swore to her Colonel that she would follow him into hell. He never realized that one day, he would truly need her to do so.

They had heartbreak a-plenty under their belt. And scars to prove their worth. After Ishval... after the Homonculus... after everything, didn't they deserve a softer ending?

[A story that fills in the gaps and voices the thoughts of the truest OTP to ever walk the streets of Amestris]

The first time Riza Hawkeye met Roy Mustang she had come into the kitchen through the backdoor. The estate still seemed grand back then, it was clean and her father had been esteemed and passionate enough to make a good living for his family.

Roy stood at the stove watching a pot boil.

Riza entered through the door letting the house cat she had chased in the garden escape her arms.

‘I think it’s hot.’ She said nodding at the pot in front of him.

‘Hm?’ A beat had passed. ‘Oh, yeah. Professor Hawkeye is having me look at all sources of heat so –’

‘So you’re staring at a pot of boiling water and hoping it will impart some wisdom on you?’

She had deadpanned it.

‘The secrets of alchemy are many.’ He was too distracted by his task to notice her jab, or at least that’s what she thought.

She shrugged and passed him. She didn’t know then that this person would plague her mind for the following nine years.

Their meetings from then on had been sporadic and they rarely exchanged more than a couple words. Still, Roy had become shadow she was used to in her house. She stopped being surprised to find him huddled in her father’s office reading quietly.

When her mother had passed, though, things had changed.

Professor Hawkeye became more withdrawn. The doors to his study would almost always be closed. He took all his meals at his desk and rarely made conversation with Roy, let alone Riza.

Roy had provided comfort during that time.

She liked to bug him about his slow academic progress but sometimes, when her father got too caught up in his own mind, she would sit with Roy in the kitchen and he would tell her about what he was learning.

The complicated matrices of alchemy were a welcomed distraction to the mansion that stood in shambles and the gravestone it guarded.

She had found his eyes welcoming back then. His entire being open and excitable. He’d make a snide remark, even flirt a little, and she would be reminded of what it was like to look at a real human being. Not the shell of one her father had become.

More than once she caught herself wanting to tell Roy about the secret her father had made out of her. How he spent long hours poring over her back immortalizing his work onto her skin. She wondered what Roy’s eyes would look like if he ever found out.

She shook her the idea out of her head.

Riza remembers the day he gave her his name card. A soldier working his way through the ranks. The day he said he would find a place for her if she ever felt lost. The funeral had marred the day with sadness and yet Riza remembered her heart lifting as she took what he offered her. It was nice that he had offered to organize the funeral too. God knows there was nothing left in the Hawkeye bank account but debt and disarray. It had been even nicer of him to quietly watch over her, never knowing that this had been her father’s final wish.

He hadn’t become a state alchemist at the time. And yet, when she looked at him all she saw wide eyed hunger for knowledge and change.

Roy Mustang wanted to change the world.

It had been an accident, that he let his plans slip. He shouldn’t have told her, he knew it. Wide eyes optimism seemed silly. But he got caught up in the moment and the feeling of his mentor’s bones calling out to him from the grave begging for relief had forced him to open his mouth.

She had let her secret slip then too.

The secret that her father had entrusted her with a coded Transmutation Array branded on her back. She wanted the world to be better, she realized. She wanted the world to be safer. So that no child had to grow up without a mother, and so that every kid would have someone to reach out to if their ever distant father grew more tiresome.

He had made up his mind, he was going to be a good solider. He used the knowledge she had imparted to him and began to learn.

Countless days he spent hovering over her naked back copying the symbols into his notebook, muttering to himself. His touch had always been soft and his eyes always full of wonder as he looked at the markings. Never once did he let his confusing get the better of him. And he always made sure to thank Riza for her sacrifice, for baring herself to him and trusting him.

He must have known somehow that he was all she had left. A last comfort in a comfortless world.

She made him swear to take her secrets to his grave. She didn’t understand why her father had burned his entire research before he passed but she would not be one to disobey him, even in death. If he wanted the research private, then it would remain that way. For eternity.

Now Roy tried to carry the burden with her and went to make a difference.

It took him three years to pass the State Alchemist certification exam and with it he earned the title Major. Change was long overdue.

So she went to war with him.

It turns out years of good humoured can shooting in the backyard and kicking it with the local street urchins were enough foundation for a good soldier to be built upon.

And a good solider she was. No one could ever tell Riza Hawkeye that she wasn’t committed.

She took the parts of herself that her father had shunned, the wide-eyed lost look that longed for love, and buried them deep within her. In its stead she took her rifle firmly and never missed a shot. Riza was strong now. They didn’t call her The Hawk’s Eye for nothing.

‘Life’s a whole lot easier if you’ve got someone watching your six.’ Maes Hughes had said to Roy.

He had been right. Major Hughes was often right, though Roy would never admit it. And Riza always had his back.

The things they did in Ishval…

The crimes they committed there…

It was unspeakable.

Riza will never forget the smell of burning skin and the Major’s eyes as he forced himself to watch.

No one was surprised when the troops (the ones that survived that is) came back with PTSD and fever dreams.

Riza found herself washing her hands, trying to scrape off the blood she had spilled, so often that her hands had permanent calluses and the skin was always red and dry.

The person Ishval had turned her into… that wasn’t what she joined the military for. This wasn’t what she wanted…

Looking in the mirror all she saw was a woman with sunken in cheeks, bags under her eyes and a short haircut that should have been efficient but now only reminded her if her time at war. She had only been a cadet, god damn it. Graduating from the academy with what?! A diploma and body count in the hundreds?

So young to have seen such chaos.

The alchemic secrets branded into her back felt heavier than ever.

But Riza Hawkeye was strong now.

So she grew her hair out. Never again would she look in the mirror and look like the person she had been. She ate better, forced herself to rest more. Eventually her cheeks filled out and her skin gained colour. The tiredness though, that never really passed. Not truly. The days she was plagued by nightmares, most nights really, she recounted Roy’s goals. His plan for protecting the people and the country.

Had it been foolish of her to believe him?

Could she still trust in him after watching him burn an entire country off the map? He had been following orders… and so had she…

Her thoughts were still clouded when she called on him. He picked up on the second ring, his voice rough.

‘Hello?’

‘Major Mustang…’ She hesitated, not sure how to continue or what to say. Why had she called him again?

‘Hawkeye. It’s midnight.’ He knew. He always knew.

A pause. Neither of them continue.

Perhaps they are both thinking about the last time they spoke.

They had been standing in front of the graves of children. Children that they had slaughtered. She had asked him what had happened, what had changed? How could he have convinced her to follow him into the military with a speech of grandeur and change when all she had gotten was death and decay?

He takes a breath and takes one for the team.

‘I could use some company, Hawkeye. What do you say?’

Her yes is shaky at best. It’s the first of many times he masks his desire to help her as his own weakness. It’s the first of many times that she chooses to ignore it and agree.

When he shows up to her apartment he’s dressed casually. Any other woman would have fanned herself at the white shirt, black slacked gentleman leaning against the doorframe. Major Mustang was handsome and found the company of women a-plenty. But today he looked tired.

He always looks tired. Riza thought to herself. We all do.

He makes no comment regarding her apartment. She had been left a dowry by her mother, it wasn’t much, not enough to cover the rent of even a shoebox apartment. This one had been left to her by a distant aunt that had wanted to spite her own kids. Riza hadn’t known her well, nor had she really cared. But she took the apartment nonetheless.

He stands stiffly in the middle of her living room, his eyes cast towards the dark window.

‘Can’t sleep, Major?’ Riza has her back facing him, keeping her hands busy by making tea.

‘I’m sure you know the feeling.’

Her hands pause but her silence is evidence enough.

‘Would you like some tea?’

She brings over the kettle on a tray with two teacups. Pouring, she focuses on the task at hand.

He searches her face.

‘Tell me what’s on your mind.’

Her movements halt as she re-examines her intentions. She pushes the teacup towards him and strengthens her resolve.

‘You made me a promise.’

He is silent, unmoving.

‘When we stood in the ruins of Ishval, you made me a promise.’ She goes on. ‘No more flame alchemists can exist. No one should be given access to such power again.’

Her words are firm. His tea is untouched.

The implication of her statement is clear. I will never see this power abused the way it has been ever again.

‘Think about what you’re asking.’ His words are quiet but they stand as firm as hers.

‘I know what I’m asking.’

‘I don’t think you do.’

Her voice rises. ‘To destroy evidence of alchemic research is - ’

‘No! Think of what it would do to you!’

Roy clenches his fists in his lap, he looks at her incredulously. ‘You’re asking me to disfigure you. To hurt you simply to make information inaccessible. It’s…’ He hesitates. ‘It’s not good enough.’

The betrayal is clear on Riza’s face.

‘You swore to me that you would do this. You promised that all evidence of flame alchemic research would be destroyed.’ Her look turns accusing. ‘Is this the second promise you will break to me?’

Something inside Roy wavers. He felt his heart stop and the full consequence and destruction he had caused in Riza’s life becomes clear to him. She followed him into the military. She followed him into war. No amount of good intention could revive the parts of their humanity they had lost fighting for Amestris.

His voice is small. ‘Don’t make me do this.’

But she can’t give in.

‘Please don’t make me hurt you too.’

‘You promised.’

Their eyes bore into each other. Neither seem to be breathing.

Not until –

Not until she breaks.

‘Please.’ Her voice barely a whisper. Tears welling but her eyes hold his. ‘Set me free.’

He comes undone. He owes her this. He owes her – everything, everything he could ever give.

And so she stands in front of him, shirt on the floor, arms wrapped around her torso as if she could hide her vulnerability.

The markings on her back look the same as they had when he had first studied them. The back they laid on was stronger though, the muscles more tight, the skin seemed thinner as if time had eroded its previous youthful glow.

Her face is angled over her shoulder but she doesn’t look at him.

‘Hawkeye…’

‘Do it.’ She insists.

He drew a haphazard transmutation circle on the back of his hand with a marker she dug up in her kitchen. The entire time she had been quiet, quietly getting the marker, quietly arranging herself in front of the heater unbuttoning her blouse. Before he could stop himself his fingertips brushed against the tattoos. The markings he had studied for hours, he hadn’t realized how much they weighed on her. They had given him freedom, power even, but for Riza it seems they had always been a burden.

Set me free. She had begged him.

‘I’m sorry.’ It’s barely a whisper. His fingers are fanned over her shoulder blade. He wills the heat to spread through his joints all the way to the tips of his fingers and out. He feels the heat of his alchemy connect with her skin and attempts, as gently and with as much control as he can muster, to penetrate only the surface of her back. To scar her markings but leave her as uninjured as possible.

She tenses with pain, her fingers claw into her sides as she suppressed a whimper. The heat moves downwards singeing anything it passed He manages to burn through the top left part of the Array before he needs to turn his back on her. The smell of burnt flesh, the sizzling of her skin under his hand - it reminds him too much of the battlefield. What is he doing?! His stomach turns and it takes all of his willpower to not vomit on her carpet. If he could cut his hand off then and there, he would.

Her breath is frantic, her face tear stained.

‘Go on.’ She chokes out.

He turns and hesitates, he can see her strength draining as the pain takes over. There are few things worse than second degree burns.

‘Riza…’

‘Do it!’

Free me!

He needs to close his eyes this time but manages to put his hand on the right side of the small of her back. He starts the process over. He’s praying to any and all gods that he’s not inflicting irreparable damage. They both don’t last too much longer before the pain is unbearable and his flashbacks get too strong. By the time he’s finished there are tears running down his face and gall riding up his throat.

With shaking hands he moves towards her, meaning to provide some kind of comforting touch but hesitates. She must only see him as destruction now. Even more than before.

Still, his instincts kick in as her knees buckle, he grabs her by the arms. She’s out like a light, her breathing is labored and heavy. He attempts to move his arms around her stomach, trying to find the most comfortable position for her and a way for the burns to remain untouched.

He thinks that she would hate to be seen in such an exposed state so he grabs the shirt she had dropped and gently places it over her chest.

They should have prepared better for this, he thinks to himself. They hadn’t prepared water, ointment or any means to alleviate pain. Although the last, he guessed, had been on purpose. Riza Hawkeye would always endure. She probably felt like she deserved to feel this pain. That this was the least she had to suffer to atone for what she had done in Ishval.

His attempts to move her to the bedroom where she could lay out her pain were complicated. He feels drained by what he just experienced and Riza’s body is hard to hold on to without agitating the burns further. He ends up gently holding her at the top of the shoulders and under the knees. An adjusted bridal position so to say. Not that he would ever tell her that, she might pull out her Glock just for mentioning marriage.

He manages to open the bedroom door with his elbow and almost trips as a black Shiba jumps to its feet having curled up in front of it.

‘Woah boy.’ Mustang adjusts his arms, attempting to move as little as possible. This friend was one Roy had never met before.

Black Hayate, Riza’s most recent companion of comfort, whines as he sees his owner unresponsive and follows Roy as he steps towards the bed.

He lays her on her side as softly as possible and moves her so that she is laying in the recovery position. This would alleviate any risk of further aggravating her injuries. Black Hayate jumped on the bed and padded over to his master. His expression one of confusion and hurt.

‘She can’t hear you right now.’ Mustang said quietly. ‘She needs to rest.’

Black Hayate runs his nose along Riza’s back, carefully taking in the changes. His whining continues as the smell of blood and singed skin fills the room.

Roy goes to open a window. The wind blows into the room in soft streams. It’s a cold wind though, one that would bite if it were only slightly stronger. Unconsciously, he slides down the wall and sits under the window, his eyes never leaving Riza.

Her breathing was shallow but the tears on her face had dried. The tracks they left behind were a stark contrast against the white of her skin. Riza never cries.

‘I’m sorry.’ He whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He rubs the tears out of his eyes, unwilling to lose his composure in front of Hawkeye whether she was conscious or not.

Desiring to undo the hurt he inflicted on her, he goes searching for ointment in the bathroom. He finds something similar enough to burn cream and forces himself to look at every single pattern he burned into her skin. The skin is charred and red, raw and open. Just like Riza, this was his atonement. His atonement for the sins he committed against her.

He follows the new marks on her skin and carefully applies the cream, pausing every time her body so much as twitched.

‘Are you free now?’ There was no use asking her, she couldn’t answer, but he had to anyway. Had this changed anything?

He thinks back to their times at the Hawkeye estate. He had spent countless years sharing the space with her. And then when he went to Ishval, she had been there too. His formative years had the red string of Riza Hawkeye running through them.

He knew that Riza had always felt tied down by the duty of her father. Had always succumbed to the Professor’s greatest needs, ignoring her own. The world of flame alchemy was carried on her shoulders alone. Not even Roy, who was a Flame Alchemist, could alleviate that.

He didn’t know if she found peace in her wounds. He hoped she did. It was the least that she deserved.

God, he wanted so badly to set her free. He hated that it had to come at the cost of her wellbeing.

A tiny voice inside him moaned I need you to be well. I need you to be safe. But as he always did, he kept his thoughts to himself, pushed them down until they were only a faint whisper.

Sitting at her back allowed him time to mull over exactly how he had been talked into mutilating the one person he insisted he would protect.

He had sworn such an oath to himself long before Professor Hawkeye had even brought it up. He could always use the professor as an excuse but he knew deep inside that he decided he was going to look out for Miz Hawkeye the second she made fun of him for standing in front of that boiling pot of water.

The memories came flooding back as if they had only just happened. Terse smiles exchanged in the hallway, a blanked laid over his shoulders as he fell asleep on his text book again, coffee strong enough for both of them to withstand the withering looks of the professor. Silent laughs at the kitchen counter, plenty of meals shared and stories told.

A fist clenched around his heart.

The memories became tarnished with darkness. The look on her face after she killed her first civilians, her head on his shoulder when exhaustion got the better of her, the way she’d snatch up the leftover sausages from his rations – the only semblance of joy she found in her time abroad. (She never knew he always saved them for her.)

They kept coming, the memories. And the pillow he was leaning against felt softer and softer. His mind clouded and the last thing he thought of before giving into the tendrils of darkness was blonde hair, quit wit and the smell of sausages.

They never spoke of that night again.

She served him coffee in the morning. French press, no milk. Just the way he liked it.

Their conversation was as minimal as her movements. She wore a t-shirt that went down to her knees and barely moved an inch.

Mustang spared a thought to the owner of the shirt, thinking it must be a man’s.

Then they say their good-byes and she closes the door as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Major Mustang was promoted for his heroic deeds in Ishval, he went by Lieutenant Colonel Mustang from then on and he had a new dream.

He had wanted to strengthen the government only to protect the people he loved. Clearly, that was no longer an option. As Professor Hawkeye had said, military lapdogs account for little change in the world – that cycle needed to be stopped. So Mustang reevaluated his desire and adapted it.

If he couldn’t protect his people by joining the military, he would protect them by leading it.

Who was going to oppose the Fuhrer?

No one.

Well, no one but him.

Ordered to Central City, Mustang accumulated a motley crew of wacky but loyal subordinates. He even called upon Hawkeye. Although she had once confessed she wished to retire, her thoughts were too filled with carnage and tragedy to find anything resembling rest.

He appointed her his personal aide and bodyguard.

He looked at her from behind his new desk as he proposed his plan.

‘Do you accept my offer?’

To stand behind you and fight, finally actually fight, for the right thing? To strike you down should you ever so much as waver?

She barely spared it a thought.

‘Of course I do, sir.’

She vowed. ‘I’ll follow you into hell if you ask me to.’

You already have. He thought.

Time brought about another promotion and plenty of trouble. People might say they had countless adventures since joining forces but the truth was both Lieutenant Major Mustang and 2nd Lieutenant Hawkeye walked a painful path.

Together they saw the aftermath of a Human Transmutation attempt and two orphans too lost to find their way. The little Rockbell girl, a name familiar to Mustang, had asked why anyone would join such an institution. Why the only people she had left to love should.

Hawkeye’s answer had been simple.

Because there are many ways you protect those you love and that was one of them.

Though she would never admit what love she was protecting, even when that love walked into the room and told her their time was up.

Within a year, the duo had been promoted and Maes Hughes had been murdered.

It was quite a picture, the Colonel with his hair pushed back, dressed in mourning.

1st Lieutenant Hawkeye stood at the grave and watched as her Colonel grieved.

It was the first time she had seen such emotion burst forth from him. He rarely talked about his past but when he did it was always with quick wit or in a cold matter-of-fact way. Maes Huges though… Colonel Mustang spoke plenty of Maes Hughes.

And how annoying his constant chatter was.

And how frustrating his cowardice was.

And how much he believed in the good of the world.

And how pure his heart was.

How much he loved his family.

‘Alchemists as a whole - we really are horrible creatures, aren’t we?’

His voice cracks. She has no answer.

‘I think I understand what drove those boys when they tried to bring back their mother.’

She couldn’t stop herself, not when he was hurting like this.

‘Are you alright, Colonel?’ A dumb question really.

He positions his hat, pulls it down over his eyes.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ His voice is low, it’s barely a croak. ‘Except, it’s a terrible day for rain.’

Confused she answers: ‘What do you mean? It’s not raining.’

Only then does she notice the tear tracks on his face and his lips pressed tightly together. There’s a hurt in her heart that she can’t quite place and a quiet sadness in her inability to alleviate his suffering.

‘Yes, it is.’

All she can say is: ‘So it is.’

Her Barry the Chopper encounter leaves Hawkeye more shaken up than she would like to admit.

It had been funny for a second, her heart may even have skipped a beat, as the Colonel’s face turned icy when the armour had called her ‘toots’ and he muttered ‘Stand aside, Lieutenant. There’s going to be a fire tonight.’

She never needed his protection anyway, he reckoned. But he’d offer it just for showmanship’s sake.

Just in case.

His comfort though… he always knew when she needed that.

She had excused herself early from their re-con session, he saw her eyes were downcast.

He called that night and she pretended to be surprised. He wafted on about Madam Christmas’ hostess bar, whiskey and wine.

She was content to listen to him. It distracted her from the feeling of impending doom, a feeling that was eerily familiar (Ishval, perhaps?). More souls connected to suits of armour meant more transmutation, more experiments, more evil.

‘These ladies won’t leave me alone, Hawkeye.’

He smiles ruefully, his complaint giving her a chance to jab at him.

‘I’m sure once they hear you speak, they will feel plenty deterred, Colonel.’ Her bland answer is an indication that she feels slightly better.

‘…Hawekeye…’ He whines.

He pushes away the thought of cracking another joke, instead his tone turns serious.

‘I will always be right in front of you.’

He hears her breath hitch, just for a moment.

‘If you ever feel lost, just follow my voice. I won’t lead you astray. I will always be right here.’

Time passes too quickly. The Colonel fakes Ross’ death, his team have their first encounter with Gluttony and Barry the Chopper decides to have a mind of his own. It is at that point that they met Lust and for the first time both of our soldiers needed to admit to themselves, quietly, that they could not live without the other.

‘Now, where was I?’ Lust croons. ‘I was about to send the Lieutenant to join her superior.’

The words hit Hawkeye like a ton of bricks. Her heart stops. Her head feels heavy.

‘It can’t be… You didn’t!’

One monstrous smile later and through a curse Hawkeye releases three full rounds into the demon’s chest. It doesn’t make a difference though. The woman regenerates in a flurry of red static and a hopelessness takes the place of the anger Hawkeye was feeling.

Tears run down her cheeks as the full meaning of Lust’s words finally sink in.

Strength leaves her body, Hawkeye sinks to the floor, inconsolable.

The day Mustang had thought would never come arrived. His Lieutenant was on her knees sobbing. No prompts from Alphonse could halt her. She felt the same dread that Mustang had felt mere minutes ago cauterizing Havoc’s wound, carving a Transmutation Circle into his hand.

Only now, for him, it was infinitely worse.

He, under no circumstances, could watch the people he loved die before him.

Especially not his Lieutenant.

‘You told me I couldn’t kill you but I’d like to try and prove you wrong.’ He spat at the Homunculus.

He lit the flint of the lighter to scorch the creature alive, payback for every second of pain she inflicted on his Lieutenant. It wasn’t enough. There was not enough pain in the world for this beast to endure as punishment for making Hawkeye cry.

The fire in his stomach still roared but the battle was over quickly.

‘I love how cold and focused your eyes are.’ The eery sound of her voice carried as Lust disintegrated before him. ‘I look forward…to the day when those eyes will be wide with agony.

It’s coming….

It’s coming…’

The welcoming eyes Hawkeye had once seen in her family’s kitchen were gone and replaced with cold, hard fury and torment.

Had time finally broken him?

It seems as time passed their burden only became heavier.

When Mustang woke up in the hospital, his was the only bed occupied. The one next to it was empty. The only other figure in the room was Lieutenant Hawkeye who had her arms curled around her head, leaning on his mattress from an uncomfortable looking chair.

He took a moment to steady himself.

This is fine. He told himself. This is okay. She is okay.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain in his side. Lifting the blanket, he saw his lower torso was wrapped in bandages, as was his right hand.

More scars to add to the collection.

‘Sir.’ He must have woken her by shifting the covers. ‘You’re awake.’

‘So are you.’

She straightened. ‘They took you in for emergency treatment. Your wound… they said they’ve never seen anything like it. It was like you had been pierced by sharpened rods…’

‘What about Havoc?’

‘He is still in surgery.’

She doesn’t seem confident. ‘There’s no word yet.’

Mustang grinds his teeth in frustration but keeps his qualms to himself. He spares her a glance which only makes him feel worse. Her eyes are sunken in, she’s wearing the same clothes as she had during the mission, the faint smell of burnt skin hangs around her.

He can only think of one way to help her. She hates vulnerability, she hates seeming weak and he knows she needs to regroup after the ordeal they just lived through. Wash off any embarrassment she may be feeling.

‘Go home, Lieutenant.’

She doesn’t move.

‘Lieutenant – ’

‘I told you I would follow you into hell.’

He expects the look she gives him to be hard and accusing but all he sees is helplessness .

‘I meant it.’ She vows.

‘I just didn’t think there would ever be a place where I couldn’t follow.’ Her hands are clenched in her lap. She avoids his gaze. ‘When Lust said she had killed you…I thought I lost my mind.’

Tears blur her vision.

‘I can’t do this without you.’ It’s just about a whisper.

He encloses her hand with his gently and looks at her face even though she is still avoiding his.

‘You’ll never have to.’ He promises. ‘Whatever we do, whatever we achieve or don’t achieve, we will do it together.’

He bows his head slightly to get a better look at her.

‘I told you, I will always be right in front of you.’

She can’t stop the tears from falling.

‘Lieutenant Hawkeye of Central City, I order you to always stand directly behind me. I order you to always stay by my side and never leave my line of sight.’

She gives a terse nod and tightens her hand around his ever so slightly.

‘Yes, sir.’

Not many Homunculi remained. Gluttony, Wrath and Pride were the ones left standing. Though the latter two were still unknown.

They managed to foil an attempt by Gluttony. Everything seemed under control. Until.. until Colonel Mustang let’s a rumour slip that Fuhrer Bradley may be a homunculus and suddenly everything became much clearer.

Ushered into a room full of high ranking military officials, none batted an eye when Bradley turned looking like the most sinister man ever to walk the earth.

Turns out it doesn’t take more than a quick joke to find your allies and force your enemies to go looking for you.

Fuhrer Bradley showed up at the Colonel’s office the very next day. He explained that the Homunculi had been scheming since Amestris had been put on the map and they weren’t about to let one nosy Colonel destroy their lifelong goal now.

‘How would your son react if he knew his father was secretly a Homunculus fueled by the death of others?’

‘It may serve you better to guard your own weaknesses, Colonel Mustang. Else you might find yourself an army of one. It is difficult to fight a war when you have no subordinates to support you. Even if you are an alchemist.’

Bradley’s look hadn’t been dark or dangerous, his expression had always been one of pleasant imposition, nevertheless the threat had been very clear.

‘Your Lieutenant, she seems bright and talented. She was a good choice to send to the front lines.’

Mustang said nothing, he eyes only narrowed on the Fuhrer.

‘I have decided to make her my own personal assistant. I could use someone like her in my office.’

No!

‘Hawkeye has nothing to do with this.’

‘She doesn’t need to. She is your closest confidant and most loyal follower.’

There was no denying that.

Their eyes meet.

‘Consider this a warning. A hostage situation is always precarious. It would be a shame if Lieutenant Hawkeye were caught in a cross-fire.’

That was the day Mustang decided he was going to kill Fuhrer Bradley, Wrath – whatever his name was/

For threatening his Lieutenant, Bradley was going to pay.

Hawkeye was surprised when she opened her door to find Edward Elric standing there. He had come to return the pistol from his encounter with Scar. Given his experience with alchemic canon launchers, it seemed a little amusing that he held a small gun with such trepidation but Hawkeye made no comment.

She served him tea and waited.

He didn’t say anything at first, only watched her take apart her weapon and clean in skillfully.

Then he asked about Ishval.

What could she say?

Crimes were committed, ledgers painted red and no one walked away unharmed. Even those that did manage to survive.

There is something to be said about being the person that holds power the way a sniper does. That no shot ever misses its target. Ordinary battalion soldiers, they got to inflict their pain and walk away without watching the suffering they leave behind. But no sniper could turn away from their magnifying glass fast enough to avoid watching their victim fall.

It doesn’t matter. Is what she told him. Whether Colonel Mustang or she survived this ordeal didn’t matter. Whether they get imprisoned for the massacre they took part in didn’t matter. What mattered was the future of Amestris and the democracy it needed to thrive.

Colonel Mustang wanted to be the Fuhrer to change this world for the better. But he was very aware that as soon he did make those changes, they may affect him as well. Signing an order to bring peace to the Ishvalan conflict was what needed to be done. And after all, they had taken part in the war. They deserved to pay for the damage they had caused.

She thinks for a moment how young the boy is sitting in front of her and how he has had to fight a war as well. There was nothing she could do to alleviate the weight he carried, finding his place in the world and saving his brother was not something she could assist him with. So instead she listened. He told her about his fears and how he felt useless.

A great sorrow overcame her as she watched this boy, really nothing but a boy, face death over and over again and never shy away.

There’s something of the Colonel in him. She thinks quietly, screwing her gun back together.

‘You’re just dwelling on this stuff because you made it back alive. You need to focus on living.’

He looked solemn.

‘That’s how you protect her.’

That’s how you protect them all.

Roy Mustang had an itch. Not a physical itch, an emotional one… a metaphysical one. Like something bad was about to happen but he couldn’t quite tell what it was.

The cart of flowers he bought were pretty. Expensive but pretty. It didn’t scratch his itch. There, at the back of his neck his hair stood upright because he felt something.

He followed his instinct to a phonebooth and tried his best not to think about Hughes while he picked up the receiver.

He did what he always did when he called his Lieutenant, he cracked a joke and hoped it would cover up his sense of dread.

‘Hello there, Madam. It’s your friendly neighbourhood florist.’

He hears her let out a breath she was holding and even though he couldn’t see her, he knew her face was pinched. She had expected something worse.

The itch went away. A serious note enters his voice.

‘…do me a favour and take some off my hands?’

The tiniest of sighs escapes her lips. It’s enough for him to know. The moment of humour passes immediately. It is replaced with worry.

‘What’s wrong?’

No answer.

‘Did something happen?’

Her reply is a small ‘No, sir.’ And she knows he doesn’t believe her. ‘It’s nothing.’

A beat.

‘Are you sure?’ Tell me.

Her voice is monotonous. ‘Yes, sir. Everything’s fine.’

There is no use prodding her. He knows his Lieutenant well enough to avoid aggravating her further.

He pretends to buy her weak excuse of not owning a flower vase to turn down the flowers and hangs up when she bids him good-night.

Walking off his buzz, he keeps two bunches of flowers and gives the rest away. One he brings to Major General Armstrong, the second he leaves in front of Hawkeye’s door. Not even his buzz would stop him from remembering to check on her the next day.

The office seemed bigger and emptier without Hawkeye. Her presence had unknowingly filled up the space and now it felt wrong. The colleagues he had left, the ones that Wrath hadn’t banished to faraway places, all seemed downcast. As if they knew the end was near. As if they were losing their fight.

His office demeanor hadn’t changed. Perhaps it should have but he refused to replace his Lieutenant because he would not accept that it was a permanent change. Instead, he grovelled with his superiors and charmed them into giving him more time. And boy, did he use every second of it.

Working through meals had become staple.

But again, he told himself, it was not permanent.

His breathing felt a little easier when he spotted her in the cafeteria. Even sitting across from her, to see that she was alive, for now it would be enough.

He makes note of a healing cut on her cheek and sees the red marks on her wrists. If she sees him notice, she does not react.

She had always known how to wax on about things. Her undercover operations were infamous in their, his, office. She could talk her way out of anything. It was nice to hear her talk.

He listened, appearing distracted with his fountain pen, but paid close attention. He stops mid-bite when she tapped her mug against the table twice.

Listen. Up. It said.

All those days holed up on stake outs with nothing to do to pass the time helped them adapt their own form of Morse Code. It had been several years now since they had actively used it but every now and again it came in handy. His eyes met hers, he tapped his fountain pen twice.

I’m. Ready.

She recounted a bizarre story of former cadets that she grew up with, ones that were stationed out North and who knows where else. A girl name Sugar was included and other details that made for a funny tale.

In a locked bathroom stall, later, he decodes her message, he wishes he his hunch had been wrong. But he had felt it coming.

SELIM BRADLEY IS HOMONCULUS

Mustang held the burning note over the toilet and watched as his only lead turned to ash. The marks on Hawkeye’s skin made more sense now. She had run into the original Homunculus.

There were no words that could accurately describe the dread that Mustang felt when he saw his Lieutenant in a headlock. The man holding her wielded a duelling sword, his shoulder pressed against the wound in her shoulder.

‘I will not be your puppet. Do it yourself!’ He spat his words that the crazed lackey professor.

He had said the wrong thing.

The words the professor said barely reached him, Mustang had his eyes on Hawkeye the entire time. The split second they darted away, all he saw was blood and all he heard was the sound of a clean cut. Metal on skin. They had slit her throat.

He went wild.

‘Lieutenant! Lieutenant! Lieutenant!’ Pure agony filled his voice. He struggled against his hold.

‘What do say you, Mustang?’

He spat his words at the psycho, fighting the guards with every molecule in his body. ‘I’LL KILL YOU!’

‘Perform the transmutation and become the fifth sacrifice.’ That was what they ordered him to do.

The professor kept talking but none of it registered. His eyes were only on Hawkeye who was lying on the ground, hair spilled around her, her hand on her neck trying to stop the steady pool of blood growing around her.

‘I’m not gonna die.’

She’s still alive! His heart sings.

‘What you don’t know is…’ her breath is staggered ‘is that I’m under strict orders… not to die.’

The blood continued to leak from her wound, he saw her consciousness fade and the light in her eyes dim.

Your woman. That is what the professor had said when he taunted Mustang. His woman.

He ran the scenario in his head. How much sacrifice was too much to make the world a better place? Was one philosopher’s stone, that has already been created by people no longer in this world, so repulsive in its nature that it had to be shunned – even if it could save the one person that mattered? The one person he loved?

Only once before had he considered using human transmutation and back then it had been a pipe dream, a fantasy to bring back someone he missed dearly and knew he could live without but did not want to. This time … he was serious. He would not …. No, he could not live without his Lieutenant.

The only thing stopping him is her quiet beg. ‘Colonel, please.’ She shivers. ‘You don’t have to do this. Don’t sacrifice everything for my sake.’

The world be damned, none of the change he wanted mattered if he couldn’t experience it with her.

Her eyes are focused now, staring at him, right into his soul. Begging him to follow her order just this once. Until her look turns upwards. A signal.

‘Alright.’

A beat. Hawkeye fell weaker and the professor smiles wickedly.

‘Alright, Lieutenant.’ He holds her gaze and says with full confidence ‘I won’t perform the transmutation.’

Mei and others who Mustang can’t bring himself to care about hijack the professors plan and help him take down the pawns.

He runs towards the Lieutenant with all his might barely pausing to snap his fingers igniting the man that steps in his way.

He begs her to open her eyes turning her face towards him. He feels the weakness in her body, how her limbs have almost gone limp. He doesn’t even notice the solider coming at him with a sword. His eyes stay on Hawkeye the entire time. If they die, they die together.

‘Don’t you dare die! Stay with me Lieutenant!’ Please. He begs silently.

The little girl runs over intent on helping. She has Mustang lay down the Lieutenant as she draws an alkahestry circle in blood and slams kunai into the junctures. Mei lays her hands on the ground and a moment later the entire circle glows with blue electricity. Mustang can see the wound on Hawkeye’s neck clotting as the muscles get bound back together. The glow fades and for a moment nothing happens.

Then Hawkeye stirs.

He grabs her by the arms and pulls her into his chest. His breathing is as shallow as hers and he can’t stop himself from closing his eyes and laying his head on hers, just for a moment. He thanks the gods, the almighty and whoever else may be worthy for sending Mei to Central City. For saving his Lieutenant, he would be indebted to her for the rest of his life.

Mei watches the pair with fascination. They didn’t seem to realize that the battle was still waging around them. All they could see was each other, all they could feel was the other.

‘Colonel…I’m… so sorry..’

‘No, don’t speak. Just rest now.’

‘You understood my signal…I’m not sure how…but I’m glad.’

In spite of their situation, he smiles. ‘We’ve been together long enough.’

The thought warms his heart. He feels such a sense of relief, he can’t help but made a joke.

‘And besides, I know that glare. It means ‘use human transmutation and I’ll shoot you.’

He brings her to her feet and gives out thanks just as Fuhrer Bradley shows up.

A single glance in Hawkeye’s direction has Mustang tightening his grip on her shoulder.

Nothing the Fuhrer says has any impact because Mustang has found his purpose again. He has people behind him that stop him from being reckless now, people that keep him heading down the right path.

Wrath’s compliments are wrapped with venom. Mustang thinks this has got to end soon, he feels Hawkeye’s knees giving out. He’s bearing most of her weight now.

Gently, he passes her to a companion with the intention of facing Pride himself. The horrible creature that radiated darkness stood silently in front of the group by the person that was allegedly its father.

Before he could make a move though Wrath jumps at him. His alchemy misses its target and he is pushed to the ground with Wrath’s knee on his chest and his swords impaling his hands.

The sight of the swords running through his palms is almost as horrifying as Hawkeye’s scream.

What happened next compared to nothing they had ever seen before. Not Ishval, not fighting homunculi, nothing. The group watched as Pride murdered their own subordinate and used him and its shadows to create an alchemic human transmutation circle. With his hands pinned down, Roy Mustang was forced to become the fifth sacrifice

Wrath walked from the circle as if he was walking in a park and only briefly stopped to wonder ‘What will be taken from you, Roy Mustang?’

Roy woke up in an endless white room in front of a being that was made of static while simultaneously also made of nothing at all. It emitted powerful energy and though it had no eyes, Roy had the distinct feeling of being watched.

‘So you have discovered the Portal.’

The voice that spoke was eery. As if thousands of voices were combined to speak through one vessel that didn’t move at all. It cocked its head as if it were looking at a new toy.

‘And you have discovered the Truth.’

The Truth?

‘You intend to leave here alive.’

It was uncanny, the being that was sitting cross legged in front of him. Creepy even. Roy felt like his heart was being read right out of his chest.

‘You think you have a world to build. You think you are worthy of inflicting change.’

The creature unsettled something deep within him. It seemed unhinged and otherworldly.

‘What is your payment?’

Payment?

‘To open the Gate, payment must be received. Thus is the law of Equivalent Exchange.’

Roy said nothing. This was jarring. It all made sense now. The laws of equivalent exchange came from the alchemic transference in the almighty realm. The thing that was sitting in front of him… was God. For having trespassed into its territory, an alchemist must pay to repent for the greatest sin ever committed that would bring him to such heights. Human transmutation. A great deal of knowledge flooded through Roy as he felt the being look at him, waiting.

‘So being pulled through the Gate grants alchemists the ability to perform alchemy without the usual means of transmutation in exchange for a toll.’

The being smiles, revealing a set of largely comic teeth.

‘Edward paid with his limbs.’

The smile grows.

‘Alphonse paid with his body.’

‘What will you pay?’ The voices echoed through the whiteness.

Silence.

‘Will you sacrifice your vision?’

‘My vision?’

Roy thought about his goal, the world he wanted to create, foster and protect. His vision of a better future.

Impatience rang through the room, though how Roy wasn’t sure.

‘Time is up.’ The voice said. ‘Will you keep your vision even if you lose your sight?’

The rest of the battle is black. The person the Homunculi called Father is unknown to him, he only remembers the voice of the monster that inflicted so much damage. Calm, cool and collected. Disgusting.

Sig Curtis helps him step from the moving stone. He can’t see the sunlight but he feels the heat on his face.

‘Colonel!’

Relief floods his chest.

He bends down towards Hawkeye’s voice, a hand moves unconsciously in front of his eyes as if he would be able to see the movement. He feels her hand hover near his.

He can’t place her face so he keeps his eyes averted.

‘Colonel, are you injured? What’s wrong?’

Her voice is closer, she must be kneeling in front of him.

For one single second he allows grief to overcome him for what he has lost.

‘My sight is gone.’

She gasps, her mouth agog.

He pushes down any and all emotions. ‘Lieutenant, how are your injuries?’

He needs to make sure she is okay.

He hears her hold back a sob, he knows exactly what her face would look like.

‘Don’t think about me! Just worry about yourself for once!’ Her hand moves towards his eyes. ‘Your eyes…’ She sounds distraught, his eyes have grayed and they no longer shake with emotion.

‘Lieutenant.’ His voice is gruff, for a moment his hand hovers by hers. ‘Can you still fight?!’

This time her breath is not hesitant. Her resolve is clear.

‘Yes sir.’

The battle is a blur to everyone. Thinking back, he remembers Hawkeye at his back, her hands on his arm pointing him in the right direction.

He recalls thinking he’d like to have her stand this close by his side forever.

Everyone lost something that day. But many also received.

Edward lost his alchemy but as is always the case with equivalent exchange, he got something back that could only be considered comparable.

In the end, he found out he was not defined by his alchemic skill or even by the battle he won Amestris but by the love he had for his brother. Some love was so strong, it could endure even an almighty’s touch.

Alphonse Elrich returned to the living plane and reunited with his body. It would be a long time before he resembled anything close to ‘okay’ but he would get there in the end. He had his big brother and the family he found along the way. The first thing on his list was eating Winry’s apple pie and taking a good long nap.

That left our heroes, our star crossed lovers of the military. Elizabeth and her Mustang.

They both recovered, she more quickly than he, but performing human transmutation will do that to ya. Still, she never left his bedside.

When night had fallen after the battle, while Amestris still stood in shambles, Hawkeye had begged the doctors to let her stay by her Colonel’s side.

Her hospital bed was placed next to his. When he awoke after countless checks his gaze stayed towards the wall. They didn’t speak for a long time and only Hawkeye could see the moon shine through the window. It was quiet until…

‘I wish I could see your face, Lieutenant.’

He knows her better than anyone, so he knows she has tears in her eyes. Not from his comment, mostly from the ordeal they survived. Maybe a little from his comment.

‘I’ll help you get your sight back, Colonel. If it’s the last thing I do.’

‘Don’t bother.’

‘Sir!’

He hears her climb out of bed and feels her move towards him.

‘Stop.’ His word is quiet but it is final.

He reaches out in the direction he thinks she is standing and tries to find her hand.

‘I don’t need sight if I have vision. And I know what my vision is, was. I want to protect my people. You are the person I wanted to protect. If losing my eye sight means you get to live, then I will give it up a hundred times.’

A knot forms in her throat. He tugs gently until she’s sat on the edge of his bed.

‘Colonel…’

‘I may not be able to see anymore but we still have a lot of work to do, you understand? I’m going to need you right by my side throughout all of it.’

She shakes her head, her voice wavering. ‘I’ll never leave you.’

He smiles in her general direction. His hand runs up her arm until it finds her cheek.

‘Good. Because I can’t live with out you and I don’t plan to either.’

She leans into his touch.

This is fine. She thinks. Forever like this, is fine.

#bee writes #beewrites #fmab #fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchimist brotherhood #fic #for wendy #always for wendy

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greenfinches · 6 years

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i love your mac headcanons! do you have any others?

yes!! this bitch is always thinking abt mac!!!

- mac finds poppins on his tenth birthday as a scrawny shaky little runt. he brings him home on a whim and him and charlie wrap him in a hoodie and stay up all night feeding him scraps

- they’ve been having trouble w bullies at elementary school and within a few hours they’ve managed to convince themselves that poppins is gonna grow up to be this huge half-wild wolf dog who’ll fight assholes and obey nobody except them, and it’ll be totally badass and maybe someone will make a movie about it or something

- except suddenly it’s 1am, and charlie’s asleep at the foot of the bed, and mac’s never stayed up this late before in his life. the novelty’s wearing off. he wants to sleep but he’s scared bc poppins is so quiet and so small, and in mac’s experience quiet and small things don’t last very long. so he just dozes with one hand on poppin’s chest feeling it rise and fall hoping he’ll wake up if it stops

- and then he does wake up and poppins is like. chewing happily on a pillowcase wagging his weird ratty tail or whatever and mac boasts to charlie that he knew he was gonna survive, he knew it

- i’m p sure mac’s reciting the beginning of the agnus dei during the prayer vs voodoo scene in mac and charlie: white trash, which is usually sung by choristers during mass. realistically mac’s probably familiar w the agnus dei because he’s been to mass a tonne of times, but can u imagine tiny 9yr old mac mcdonald being gently taken aside and told that he has a nice voice, would he like to be a choirboy - and getting so excited bc nobody’s ever paid attention to him like this before

- he likes the singing and the hot meals. he likes feeling special. he really likes the fact that he gets a scholarship to st joes. he keeps it v v quiet bc he’s terrified of anyone finding out - but it doesn’t matter anyway, bc he gets older and word gets around that he’s started dealing and he gets told not to bother coming back to rehearsals anymore

- mac’s favourite subjects at school were mostly the creative ones. drama and art lessons were his favourites, even tho his grades weren’t the best - he had trouble staying still and he’d get distracted a lot, and more often than not he’d end up doing his own thing rather than following the lesson plan

- example: mac and charlie once spent an entire year’s worth of art classes co-authoring a comic strip (mac wrote the dialogue, charlie drew the illustrations). it was god knows how many pages long and the storyline was incredibly convoluted, but it was a detective-murder mystery-scifi-action kind of thing. there were lots of plot twists and cats involved. several decades later mac still has most of it stored in a shoebox under his bed

- as he grew into his teens he made a conscious effort to move away from creative stuff - we kno he was bullied p bad in high school and tbh i imagine he carefully cut away any parts of himself that could even vaguely be read as “gay” or effeminate out of self-preservation and internalised homophobia

- tbh i think mac had a lot of emotional sensitivity as a kid and he was just never shown what to do with it, or how to deal w that in a healthy way. so he probably started acting out more and more as he got older because it was the only reliable way to get the attention he needed. and even now as an adult i think he Feels way more emotions than he understands, if that makes sense?

- eg. mac feels something complicated and confusing that he doesn’t know how to name and automatically classes it as anger, because that’s what safest, that’s what he knows

- it’s like being shown a picture of the periodic table and being told to fill the whole thing in, but you only know three elements. the other ones exist, and you know they exist, and you’d actually really like to know what they’re called and what they mean but..........you don’t. it’s just you and your three little labels vs an entire world of unknowns

- i wanna end this on a happy note, so: their first halloween together as a group, they all decide to stay up late and have a horror movie marathon in dennis’ room. mac and dee are the only ones who end up watching it bc charlie and dennis both hide their faces in mac’s shoulders. one on each side. mac bitches about this arrangement but doesn’t actually bother to move and instead he eats roughly six cans of pringles over a two hour period while critiquing terrible 80s special effects w dee

#f: iasip #today was Long but i was thinking abt this ask the whole time and it gave me smth to look forward to thank u my love!!#god my dark past @ catholic school rly jumped out in this im so sorry #anonymous #ask tag

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terselylove · 5 years

Text

Maybe You’ll Never Be The Same After An Abusive Relationship And Maybe That’s Okay

Hiding my favorite benzodiazepines – Xanax and Klonopin – in lipstick tubes and vitamin bottles, the false calm they’d bestow upon me and then the fog. How hard it was to stay away from single-edge razor blades and sharper things. The constant hunger. The trash always in need to be taken out, full to the brim with empty glass bottles of one thing or another. Our dog sensing the hurricane brewing in the pit of my stomach, licking my hands, my legs, my face, knowing the imminent deluge was a dangerous thing; more anxious than me, maybe. Never sleeping before 3 in the morning and always waking up before 8. My makeup scattered across thebathroom counter, my hair on the walls in the shower, my eyebrows in need of plucking, how I no longer cared to make everything perfect for him. The ends of neon colored straws dipped in white in my cosmetics bag, in the silverware drawer, at the bottom of my purse. Condoms we didn’t use hidden in his glove compartment. The way my body folded in on itself when he touched me. Cursing the building we lived in when the shower wasn’t burning enough. Wanting to throw myself into the pyre. Wondering where I had gone. Mourning who I was.

These are the things I remember most from the final year of our relationship.

They say your body knows things before you do. It’s the way that we explain away the fact that our bodies understand love before our brains do – love at first sight if you believe in that kind of thing. It’s also the way we perceive danger, a reptilian inheritance, the way our bodies warn us against would be predators.

I remember the first time my body tried to tell me something.

During our relationship, he only ever touched me as a prelude to sex, or during, never after, and never just to be affectionate. I can’t think of a time he ever grabbed my hand, kissed me for no reason, held me by the waist, caressed my arm, or ran his fingers through my hair. I was always starved for touch, always starved for love, for anything, really.

I think it was a Saturday afternoon, we had plans with friends later that day, but we were already drinking some tequila concoction my father had taught me how to make. In retrospect, I was drinking far more than anyone ever should, back then, and using alcohol as a coping mechanism to ignore my misery and keep playing my role in the life I’d subjected myself to – dutiful, loyal, faithful, pretty, devoted, forgiving, girlfriend.

The kind that woke up earlier on weekends to have his breakfast ready by the time he got out of bed. The kind that washed the stains out of his shirts without him having to ask. The kind who sat uncomfortably on the couch in a tight top and skinny jeans because he hated seeing her in sweats; hair always blown out and makeup done. The kind who tried to perfect a recipe for some dish or another until it was to his liking. The kind who wrote his business proposals, made his appointments, and refilled his prescriptions. The one who bit her tongue in half and swallowed it to avoid being cut into ribbons by his anger. The one who was never allowed to be herself. The one who took his shit and still got on her knees when he said when.

There I was, sundress and bare feet padding around the kitchen, pretending this was love, refilling his drink and pouring more liquor into mine. I walked over to hand it to him, and when he reached out with two fingers to trace along my cleavage, I flinched and jerked back, not in surprise, but in the kind of way your body reacts to something it is terrified of. In that fleeting second, my body rejected everything that was him. I realized what I had been in denial about for so long. One small graze of his fingertips did more than any years of cheating, emotional and mental abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, and putting me down ever did. I didn’t know who the man I’d given so much of myself to over the last few years was. I never had. All I knew, in that moment, all I wanted so badly to ignore, was that whoever he was, there wasn’t a single bone in his body that was good. Not only was I trying to push back the fear I felt, but I was swallowing my disgust.

When he asked what was wrong, I told him I was just jumpy from late nights and a lack of sleep and kissed him on the cheek. I had known in my very core for a long time what my mind was just then allowing itself to accept as fact. I was still trying to dismiss the truth. I was still hoping it was I who had reality skewed. I wanted to be wrong because I didn’t know if being right said more about me or more about him. I wanted to be wrong because even the revelation I had that not only was this a bad man but that I didn’t love him anymore, wasn’t going to be enough to make me leave.

I stayed for a year after seeing him for who he was and recognizing what he was doing to me. Opening your eyes isn’t enough, neither is reaching your threshold of pain. I’ve been asked why I put up with so much, why I allowed so much to happen, but abusive relationships are as hard to leave as any other. Harder, even. You always think, That would never be me. I’m out the minute this or that is done or said to me. You couldn’t possibly know what it’s like until you’re there. It’s different for everybody: it can be for financial reasons, the fear that they may do worse if you leave, because you share kids, or a million other possibilities of reasons. But the two common underlying things in any case are that you have been brainwashed into believing that you don’t deserve any better and that this is as good as it gets, and that you keep hoping the person you fell for and that they made you believe they were, in the beginning, is still inside there somewhere. I knew I hated him, I knew he got off to my pain, and I knew whatever I had blinded myself into believing was love wasn’t love, but I also knew I wasn’t going to leave. It wouldn’t be that simple for me.

I crushed up a Xanax and lined it up next a line of coke at 3 in the afternoon, cut the end of a straw, and told myself I could do this.

And so began a cycle of bad habits and a spiraling into one of the darkest eras of my life.

We headed out for a pub crawl with some friends a bit later that day. That entire evening, my whole aim was to just numb myself. I kept trying to shove my thoughts into a shoebox in the back of a closet deep in my mind. Truthfully, Ignorance is bliss had been my motto already for quite some time, but it wasn’t going to work for much longer. I remember going into the bathroom stall with his friend’s girlfriend, feeling thankful when she produced a bag of the white substance from her purse, and thinking, Maybe I won’t feel anything when he fucks me later.

He did – fuck me. I felt nothing but my mind retreating, my body folding in on itself, me somewhere outside my own flesh. I had never felt cold like that before and I never once felt warm again after. For the first time in our relationship, I appreciated the fact that he never looked at me or held me after. I felt anger, rage, disgust, hate – as much toward myself as him.

I didn’t sleep at all those late hours and that early morning. I suddenly understood the cause of my unexplainable stomach issues, why I would break out in hives often for no reason, why no medications were helping my anxiety, why I couldn’t fall asleep, why I couldn’t stay asleep, why I was constantly exhausted. For a long time, my body and I had been living in a state of hypervigilance.

On any given day, I was nervous about what mood I would find him in. Which one of his personalities was taking a sip of the coffee I had prepared for him that morning?

It was a labor to even have a conversation with him sometimes because I had to be careful in molding it and skirting around subjects that were sensitive or that we disagreed on. He was adept at making me feel intellectually inferior to him, whether I didn’t share his belief or point of view on something, or just to make himself feel bigger. He would sometimes quiz me on certain topics, eager to find something to educate me, lecture, or correct me on. Then there were times when he became angry when I expressed an opinion that differed from his. I remember him leaving me at a restaurant once and making me walk in the rain because as a feminist, according to him, I didn’t need him to pick me up from the front of the building, in fact, he said that I didn’t need a ride at all. Once, discussing politics after the bar, he threw his drink down in the kitchen and left the apartment. I, the blind fool that I was, ran after him to the parking garage, and he refused to come back home until, in his words, I would “agree to shut the fuck up.”

It wasn’t just that, I couldn’t express my feelings, either. He would go into rages, cut me apart with his anger, or punish me in some way if I ever expressed how I felt, especially when it regarded him or our relationship. He would make me believe that my feelings weren’t valid. He would make me feel like I felt how I felt because I was mentally imbalanced. He would insist that I was either thriving on the drama, or that I was insane. Somehow, when I was the one who had a right to be angry or a right to be hurt, he would come out the end of it being the offended one, and I would be the one doing the apologizing.

If he did or said something to hurt me, then I was too sensitive. If he lied to me about something and I uncovered that lie, I was the problem for not trusting him in the first place or for sabotaging his attempt at protecting me from the truth. If he cheated on me, I was to blame – I had put on weight, I had been making him feel suffocated, I had been acting “too depressed”, I pushed him to it in some way, or I had put it out into the universe by not wholeheartedly trusting him.

When his tactics were less effective and I stood more of my ground, or when I challenged him more, he would threaten me with breaking up or suggest that we should take a break. It always worked because he had this way of making me feel like I should be thanking him for being with me. He made me believe I was lucky for having him. I believed every single label he ever put on me: crazy, dumbass, fat, weak, insecure, needy, too emotional, too sensitive, irrational, psycho, idiot, bitch, ungrateful, not good enough. He said as much as he thought he was the only person in the world that could ever put up with me. I was so broken down mentally that I actually felt grateful to him for loving me. Not that I love you were words he used often. No, I only ever heard that when he wanted something, when he had been caught cheating again, or when he wanted to reel me back in.

When I made him mad, stood up for myself, wrote something about my past or something that painted him in a bad light, saw people he didn’t want me to see, spent some time away from him and enjoyed it, he would give me the silent treatment. He’d suggest I go stay at my parents’ and I wouldn’t hear from him for days. When I tried desperately to get into contact with him, he would accuse me of being unhinged and suffocating and obsessed with him.

It was one of his favorite things to do, to make me feel like I was crazy. He took things I had trusted him with and used them as ammo. He would use my struggles with mental health to back up his theories about why I was acting the way I was, or thinking the way I was, or feeling the way I was, or to make me believe I was inherently irrational. I think he actually enjoyed making me feel insane and making me doubt reality. I was afraid of being alone sometimes. Things would move around the apartment from their original place, or something I swore I put somewhere would end up being somewhere else, and I constantly would get phone calls from blocked numbers. Looking back, I am positive it was him doing both things.

He would accuse me of doing or saying things I never did, so vehemently that I doubted my own sanity. On mornings after a night of drinking, he’d accuse me of having blacked out or embarrassing him in some way, when I was sure I hadn’t done either. He made the people in our world believe that I was the problem, while he painted himself as a sweet, charming, devoted guy who could tolerate this crazy girl with emotional issues. It was a lie I believed, too.

I was lucky, I thought. Who would want someone sad and unstable and not beautiful? This was the narrative he insidiously fed me.

He constantly commented on my fluctuation in weight, pushing me to lose pounds, and even went as far as making me feel guilty when I ate certain things and telling me what I should and shouldn’t eat. I dropped weight to the point where it didn’t look good on me, so I decided to put a bit more back on, I was still at my fittest, but he wasn’t happy with it, he told me I had looked better months prior and I could drop it again.

See, he liked me better smaller – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

He wanted to have 100% of me. He wanted all of me without giving me any of him, and while making me feel like he didn’t need any of me. The truth is, he couldn’t function without that control and power he had over me, my heart, my time, my body, my mind.

I didn’t recognize his behavior and actions as abuse, not only because it’s common for the victim not to until they’ve gotten away from that situation, but because I had previously been in a relationship where the abuse was more physical, so in my mind, what he was doing to me wasn’t abuse. I didn’t even register that anything was being done to me.

An old friend and ex-lover I had been confiding in about certain aspects of my relationship bluntly asked me at one point if he had ever hit me. I said that he hadn’t, not really, no. All he had done was slam me against the wall and then punched said wall. Did that even count? I had been through worse – it was how I excused a lot of what I put up with. It was why I was blind to the fact that he was being mentally, verbally, and emotionally abusive. It was how I overlooked the times he did become physically violent. He had thrown things, he had slammed doors hard enough to rattle the walls, he had broken things, he had punched walls, he had manhandled me, he had pushed me, he had put his hands on me hard enough to leave faint marks behind, and I had seen his eyes go completely black, witnessing him physically and internally restraining himself from acting out towards me. That was violent behavior. He may have never hit me across the face, kicked me, punched me, or pulled my hair – he may have had enough control to never strike me – but the damage he did to my psyche left me as black and blue as if he had done any of those things.

Coming out of an abusive relationship you realize the biggest thing you were robbed of was not your dignity, your time, or your heart, but yourself – who you were and all the things that made you so uniquely and extraordinarily you. You lose yourself like following footprints in the sand, looking up, then down again, to find everything wiped by the tide like nothing was ever there. You may come close to some resemblance of your former self, but you never again revert to the person you were before. No amount of time, healing, or therapy, leads you back to who you were. You are irrevocably changed.

I have insecurities I never had before about who I am as a person, the way I see things, and my appearance. I was left with a rollercoaster of a battle with body image issues. I used to be this exuberant and confident girl who believed in her power and beauty, and who went after what and who she wanted. I doubt myself now, and become paralyzed by the fear that I am not good enough. I don’t see the best in people anymore, and that used to be one of my favorite things about myself. Now, I doubt the good that I do see, I become skeptical of it, I am mistrusting, I wait for the other shoe to drop. I am all too comfortable becoming physically intimate with someone, but sabotage any possibilities of emotionally connecting with anyone. I am jaded.

These are all things that I’m working on, and I know I’ll overcome them all one day, but there will always be a part of me that is tender that won’t let me forget; I’ll always have an inner voice inside me telling me to be careful. The thing that makes me saddest of all is knowing I don’t have it in me anymore to be as giving and generous as I once was. I can’t love again and give my all.

Maybe that’s okay. Maybe my all should always be given to myself and only myself. Maybe only then I can reconnect with even a few of the broken little pieces of who I used to be.

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