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mca-attack21 · 4 years

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The Sacrifice

Hi guys, this was an interesting concept that I thought I would try out. I haven’t quite decided if I want to leave it as a stand-alone or add a second part. Anyways, grab your bow-ties and enjoy!

You had gone on so many incredible adventures with The Doctor. As a side-effect, you had often been placed in dangerous situations, but you were never truly scared because you always knew that the Doctor would come for you. You knew that at the end of the day, everything was going to be okay because that was who he was, the man who saved the universe. You loved him with all of your heart and you chose willingly to put your faith in him.

But this time was different. This time you were absolutely terrified.

The Doctor and you had traveled to a planet to waste some time as Amy and Rory were ‘honeymooning’ in Amsterduke. You would never pass up a chance for one on one time with the Doctor and were excited to see what the day would bring.

And everything was going great, at least until the two of you were captured. When you woke up, you were being held in some type of pod. You couldn’t move to even begin to try to get out. You saw that across the room the Doctor was strapped down to some sort of table, the aliens were hovering over his seemingly unconscious body.

“Why are you doing this?” you yelled gaining their attention.

“We have been waiting for centuries to find someone with time vortex energy to use as a stabilizer. He refused us, so we are going to take away his option to disagree with us by making him autonomous,” one of the creatures said bluntly.

“What does that mean?” you asked already afraid of the answer.

“We will end his independent brain function, and put his body in a permanent state of homeostasis. But don’t worry, he won’t feel it.”

“You’re going to kill him!” you yelled.

“We have no other choice. But don’t worry, as he stabilizes the ruptures in time, his existence will be rewritten, you will not remember him,” the creature tried to reason.

Your mind rushed as you realized what it had just said and with complete confidence you said, “Use me.”

“What?” the creature, who you later learned was the leader, asked.

“I am covered with vortex energy, and am entirely willing, let me take his place,” you pleaded.

“Stop, what you are doing,” he order those that were working on the Doctor. He then turned back towards you. “You would be erased from time like you never existed.”

“I know, please, just let me take his place.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because he is the most important man, the last of his kind, the savior of the universe. Killing him would devastate the world, but me? It wouldn’t even leave a mark.”

“Do you love him?” he asked.

“More than anything in this world,” you answered sincerely.

“Okay, we will test you, if you are compatible we will make the trade and let him go free, you have my word.”

With that, you were escorted to another room where a female came in and ran tests.

“You are very brave,” she said.

“Thank you,” you mumbled.

“Don’t worry, we can make it to where you will never feel it.”

“What if you don’t? What if I want to stay cognizant? To be able to remember everything?”

“You would be in agonizing pain, why would you want that?”

“Because then I wouldn’t lose him.”

“It would ultimately be up to you, though I wouldn’t recommend it.”

The tests came back and it was confirmed that you were compatible. The leader came back in and said that it was the most honorable thing to make a sacrifice for love. He asked if there was anything that you wanted to do before they put you in the capsule. You asked him for the chance to say goodbye to the Doctor and the ability to make a phone call to assure he’d be taken care of afterward. He agreed.

As you were led back to the room, you tried to prepare yourself. You knew that you could never tell him what you were about to do. He would try to talk you out of it, but the leader had been clear that it was you or the Doctor. If you tried to escape, he would kill you both and after what you witnessed earlier, you knew that he could. You took comfort in the fact that the Doctor wouldn’t remember any of this. You knew that if he did he would blame himself and it would absolutely tear him apart. But it was okay because he never would.

You put a brave face on and pushed the door open. The doctor was now sitting up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He still looked awful, but managed to shoot you a weak smile as you entered.

“I don’t know how you did it, but you saved me, they are letting us go,” the Doctor said.

“Well, I figured it was my turn. You’re always saving me,” you replied taking a seat beside him. ‘But not this time’ you thought.

“I just need about an hour to recover and then we can go back to the TARDIS and forget any of this ever existed.”

Those words hurt you and you hadn’t really realized that you’d started crying until the Doctor reached up to wipe your tears.

“Y/n? What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing, I’m just glad that you’re okay. I was scared for a minute there,” you answered.

‘Even if that means that I will never see you again’

“Come on Y/n, I’ll always be okay as long as I’ve got you,” he promised.

This sentence brought more tears, which caused him to pull you into his arms with a painful inhale. You had to remind yourself that this was the only way. It was either you or him. And he would be fine, he wouldn’t remember you, he’d still have the Ponds and River. He would still be the Doctor, alive to fight another day.

Without really thinking, you whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Y/n,” he whispered into your hair.

The two of you stayed like that until there was a knock on the door signaling that your time was up. You felt like it wasn’t enough time, but you knew deep down that no amount of time could have ever felt like it was enough.

“That’s my cue, I have to go check on something. Just stay here and rest up,” you faked a reassuring smile.

“Oh, okay,” the Doctor said with confusion in his voice. He could tell that something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

You gave him a tight squeeze and in a moment of weakness you kissed him. You hadn’t even really meant to do it, but something inside of you took over. The Doctor was slightly caught off guard, but happy nonetheless. Another knock was heard at the door and you pulled away, leaving the Doctor with a slight pout.

You walked towards the door, knowing better than to turn around and look at him again. He mistakenly took this for embarrassment over the kiss.

“Was I that bad?” he joked, longing for you to smile over your shoulder and laugh.

But as you refused to look at him, he realized that it was something else. You hesitated for a moment as you reached the door and said, “Goodbye Doctor, thanks for the adventures,” and without missing a beat exited the room.

“Wait? What do you mean goodbye? Y/n?” he asked trying to push himself to his feet ignoring the aching in his muscles and the fire in his lungs. He watched as the door shut behind you and tried to force it open. His hearts sank as he realized that his feeling that something was wrong was being confirmed. He forced himself over to his suit jacket to get his sonic, knowing deep down that he was running out of time. But it wasn’t there, someone must’ve taken it.

He was starting to panic, he was trapped in here while you were out there. He wasn’t there to protect you. He was also incredibly frustrated as he now knew that you were hiding something from him, him. That could only mean that you were about to do something incredibly stupid, something that you didn’t think he’d be able to fix, something you didn’t want him to see. A tear rolled down his cheek, that wasn’t your decision to make. He forced himself back over to the door, and tried to open it. The exertion eventually came to much and he sunk down with his back against the wall. He felt so helpless, this was all his fault. And for the first time in a very long time, the Doctor cried. But even as the tears fell, he started to forget why he was crying.

By the time the door opened, he was surprised to see who entered. For it was the woman who perplexed him endlessly. The one he was pretty sure that he was going to marry someday.

“Hello Sweetie,” River said with a smile, though he saw the sadness in her eyes, but, he knew better than to ask. Spoilers.

“River? What happened? Where am I? Where are the Ponds?”

“Amy and Rory are on a honeymoon adventure in Amsterduke. You decided to come here and waste some time, but bit off a little more than you could chew. Your captors almost killed you, but it’s okay, everything has been handled. Should we go find the TARDIS?” she asked pitching him his sonic.

“Of course,” he said, though he had this strange feeling that something was missing.

River grabbed his coat, which he gratefully accepted. Something was missing, where was his bow-tie? Oh well, he had plenty more in the TARDIS. Though he couldn’t help but feel a bit out of sorts. The two of them made their way back to the TARDIS and the Doctor made himself some tea to help his body rebalance itself. When he returned to the console room, he was surprised at River’s unusually quiet demeanor.

“So, aren’t you going to ask where we are this time? Pull out our diaries, do the whole nine yards?” the Doctor asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh, of course,” she said smile brightening her face. River knew how to put on an act for him. She was practically the only person alive who knew what had actually happened that day. But she could never tell him, time didn’t work like that. If there was any chance of getting you back, the Doctor would have to remember you for himself.

#doctor who #11th Doctor #eleventh doctor x reader #eleven #eleventh doctor #eleventh doctor imagine #eleventh doctor imagines #eleventh doctor x you #doctor who imagine #doctor who imagines #doctor who x reader #doctor who x you #dw #dw fandom #DW fanfic

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not-rome · 4 years

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And I know you’re scared because hearts get broken

Summary: Ethan thought coming out to his family meant they’d stop asking him if he was dating someone. He wanted a normal conversation with them, which meant no mention of if he was dating. The only problem was he never got that. Instead now he has to find a boyfriend before Christmas Eve, and Benny suggests that maybe they could pretend together. Or, the one where Benny and Ethan fake date in attempt to convince people Ethan has a boyfriend.

Pairings: Benny Weir/Ethan Morgan, Sarah Fox/Erica Jones

Warnings: Swearing (barely that)

Word Count: 5.7k words

Notes: Holiday exchange gift for bennyxweir + title is from Golden – Harry Styles.

Ethan thought coming out to his family meant they’d stop asking him if he was dating someone. He wanted a normal conversation with them, which meant no mention of if he was dating. When he had came out, Jane asked if this meant he had a boyfriend and she then looked disappointed when he said no.

Ethan decided to go visit his mother one day when he wasn’t working at the Starbucks near his university and it was Christmas Break, so he didn’t have any classes that day either. He had called her to see if she had work and she said no, so he drove the 45 minutes to see her.

“So, Ethan, how has school been?” His mother asked as she brought him some water and herself some tea.

They were rarely able to catch up. The last time they had was two months ago, which was when he had come out as gay. No one was phased, it wasn’t expected but it wasn’t surprising. Ethan had secretly wanted for them all to be surprised and speechless, but he knew what happened was what Sarah had told him would happen.

“It’s going good,” he started before taking a drink of water. His eyes flickered to the family photos above the fireplace. “It’s getting harder, but I know I can do it. I do have your determination, don’t I?”

“Of course, you do.” His mother smiled and chuckled at him.

“They want me to start figuring out what specific field to go into. I’m thinking about specializing in cardiology when I become a Nurse Practitioner. What do you think?” He asked as he looked over to his mother who was drinking tea from her cup.

Ethan could tell she didn’t hear him and was zoned out thinking. He would be lying if he said it didn’t scare him. Silence fell between them as he stared at her and she stared into the fireplace.

“Found any boys?” She asked as she looked over at him and held himself back from groaning. He threw his head back though and looked up at the ceiling in annoyance.

“What’s with you and wanting me to be with someone? Am I not allowed to be single?” He asked before he looked back over at her.

“It’d be good for you to find someone. Jane has a boyfriend and she’s happy. I just want you happy,” she said, and Ethan felt bad for getting irritated with her.

He wanted to make her happy, but he didn’t know how.

She had been so excited to go to university and meet new people. Ethan had tried to do that his first year, but now in his seventh year of university and he still only had Benny, Sarah, Rory, and, sometimes, Erica. There had been times where he had met other people, but either Benny didn’t like them, or they just ghosted him. He couldn’t just tell her he was still a loser, even in university.

“Yeah, I found someone,” he said, not thinking.

“Oh really!” She exclaimed, and her eyes went bright and filled with excitement. “Tell me about him.”

Shit.

“W-well we’re not official or anything. I’m not really supposed to say anything,” Ethan stumbled out and she gave him an understanding look. Maybe she knew he was lying. “It’s hard in the beginning, so I couldn’t even picture how hard it is for you, honey.”

So, she couldn’t tell he was lying, and he had no idea what to say. The only time he had had a boyfriend was his second year of university, before he had picked his major, and that was a disaster.

Ethan didn’t know anything, but he wasn’t going to ever date a business major again and he would listen when Benny had a problem with a guy. The only good thing was he learned how to kiss, but even that wasn’t great.

“Yeah, I just don’t want to push the boundaries. I may think it’s more than it actually is,” he lied, and he felt sweaty. He hated lying, had never been good at it. It was even worse to be lying to his mother. “How about you invite him to Christmas Eve?”

Ethan’s eyes widen and he started to shake his head violently. He didn’t know if he could breathe because he was malfunctioning. How was he supposed to say no to the suggestion? “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t want to– “

“Don’t be ridiculous, just invite him. It seems you don’t know where you two stand currently because you’re too scared to ask questions,” she said before taking a sip from her tea once again.

Ethan bit at his lip and nodded. Even if he didn’t have anyone this time, she was right about him being too scared. Relationships had always scared him because he didn’t know how to figure out boundaries or how to figure out people.

“O-okay.”

His phone vibrated and he quickly went to look at it. Benny had been calling him repeatedly and texting him profusely. For some reason, this was the first time he had been able to hear it go off.

“Mom, can we catch up more later? Benny needs me,” Ethan said as he looked over to her. She had a knowing smile on her face and nodded.

“Go check on him. If something really bad happened, then tell me and I’ll come as soon as I can,” she said, and he got up quickly.

They exchanged goodbyes and he called Benny to find out he had been locked out of their apartment. Benny had gone to work again and forgotten the key, which was fairly typical. The only times he never forgot his key is when he had class, because he believed naps in between classes was essential. Ethan told him to stop being ridiculous because Benny was computer programming major.

“I wish you were a warlock too so you could just be here with a snap of your fingers,” Benny said through the speakers of Ethan’s car.

“You can’t even do that. We wouldn’t be in this mess if you could,” Ethan said as he drove and there was a huff on the line.

“Yeah, but you’d probably be better at it than I am.”

The compliment made Ethan blush, and he wasn’t sure why. It hadn’t been anything special, but he had recently been struggling with old feelings he used to have for the other boy back in high school. He blamed it being close to the holidays and feeling like he didn’t have anyone special to be there. There was nothing more to it than just that.

“At least I’m not one then. You wouldn’t want me to show you up,” Ethan joked, trying to make it seem like he didn’t notice the compliment (if it was that).

There was a laugh on the other side of the line and then Benny went into a ramble of all the final class assignments he had done. Benny knows it’s what Ethan needs right now, even though Ethan didn’t tell him anything of what was discussed with his mother.

When he gets home, Benny is sitting in the hallway in front of their door and smiling really big. Ethan has to try to not let that flare up his old emotions either.

.............................

It’s about a week later when Ethan brings up that he lied to his mother to Benny. It was takeout night, so they both had their containers of Chinese and Benny was getting the couch ready to watch Star Trek.

“Instead of watching TV, I really need to talk to you,” Ethan said, and Benny looked over at him with an expression of concern and fear.

“Are you kicking me out?”

“Why the hell would I kick you out? You pay half the rent,” Ethan started with scrunched eyebrows before he shook his head. “I got myself in a situation and Sarah has been too busy for me to talk it her about it,” Ethan said, only to receive a fake look of hurt from Benny.

“I’m your supposed best friend and I’m not your first pick!” Benny exclaimed dramatically as he clutched his chest and Ethan rolled his eyes.

“You’re the first to hear about it though.”

Benny turned back to normal, even added a cute smile to the mix. “Okay good.”

“So, remember how I came out to my family?”

“Yeah. I’m still proud of you.”

“So, as I was catching up with my mom, she asked me if I was with someone. I told her yes.”

Benny halted his movements and looked over at Ethan with an expression he couldn’t fully read. His green eyes held confusion, but there was something else. Ethan just couldn’t tell what.

“You’re with someone?”

“No!” Ethan exclaimed and Benny’s expression dropped the thing Ethan couldn’t figure out. “I told my mom because I thought she’d stop asking.”

“You know that sounds stupid, right? Even I know that’s not how it works,” Benny said with a snort.

“I panicked, okay?” Ethan started before he took a bite of his chicken. “The main problem is she told me to ask him to come to Christmas Eve.”

“Why is that the main problem? Just say your imaginary boyfriend said no,” Benny said, and Ethan sighed.

“I had thought that would work, but when I told her that he said no; she told me to actually ask and not lie about it,” the brown eyed boy said with annoyance.

Benny started to laugh so hard he had to put his takeout down on the coffee table. Ethan pushed at him slightly, but he also knew it was kind of funny. His mother couldn’t tell he was lying about having a boyfriend but knew he was lying about him saying no.

“It’s not that funny, B!” Ethan exclaimed and Benny calmed down to look at Ethan. There was something in his look that made the brown eyed boy feel fuzzy all over. “I need to find a boyfriend in the next week.”

“Good luck with that. I think all the good ones are taken for the holidays,” Benny said with a snort and Ethan could tell he was trying his hardest to not laugh again.

“Maybe I could call Jacob again? He had been texting me a couple months ago wanting to meet up, but I told him no,” Ethan thought as he dug into his pocket to fetch out his phone.

“Don’t do that to yourself. We both know how creepy he can be, and he’d think you two would be getting married if he met your parents,” Benny said with a scrunched-up face and Ethan had somehow forgotten how much his best friend hated the business major.

“You’re right, but what do I do?”

Benny looked like wanted to say something so badly, but he didn’t. He shrugged before taking another bite of his food and Ethan groaned at his response. He needed help, not shrugs.

“Maybe you should ask someone close to you,” Benny suggested after the silence between them had been filled with the sounds of eating.

“I could ask Rory?” Ethan asked, mainly to himself. “Only problem is that he wouldn’t eat the food my mom made.”

“I could’ve told you Rory was a bad idea before you even mentioned him,” Benny stated before he stopped and just looked at Ethan.

Benny had changed a lot since high school. He didn’t speak until his thoughts were together, which annoyed everyone but Ethan. He brown eyed boy knew it took time for him to say the right thing. Benny looked away with scrunched eyebrows and a scared look in his eye that he was trying to hide from Ethan.

“I have an idea, but you may hate it.”

“It can’t be worse than Jacob or Rory,” Ethan joked only for Benny to bite his lip and dry laugh in response.

“What if I’m your fake boyfriend?”

Ethan felt himself stop breathing. His heart was racing and for some reason he couldn’t help but want it to not be fake. He hated the thought because he wasn’t supposed to think or feel that anymore, because that was his best friend.

“What?”

Benny’s eyes widened and he nearly dropped his food. Ethan hadn’t thought the calm tone in his voice would’ve been possible or even happen.

“It was just a suggestion, no need to take it. I know it’s probably a weird idea because we’re best friends. I’m sorry,” Benny rambled, and Ethan placed a finger against the other’s lips to shut him up.

“Hey, don’t apologize, but you’re Jewish, B,” Ethan said as he took his finger off the other’s lips.

The curly haired brunette let out a sigh of relief and put on his classic smirk. The smirk that always made Ethan feel weak in the knees, even if he didn’t want that.

“I can still celebrate it with you and your family. They’re practically my family already, so it won’t be awkward,” Benny rationalized, and Ethan chuckled.

“You do have a point, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“E, it’s my idea.”

If he was being honest, Ethan knew it would be a good idea. The two have known each other for years, and it would fit the friends-to-lovers trope everyone loved so much. His parents probably wouldn’t be surprised, and Jane definitely wouldn’t be.

“For it to work, we’d have to even tell Sarah, Erica, and Rory we’re dating because I know Sarah and Erica are coming to Christmas Eve,” Ethan said, and he finally placed his food down on the coffee table. “It’ll all turn into a shit show, because who will believe we’ll still live together when we break up? Those three were forced to ban Jacob from their lives, even though he wasn’t really in it to begin with.”

Benny placed a hand on Ethan’s tense shoulder, causing it to relax immediately. Ethan hated this effect he had on him, because it was so obvious, but Benny hadn’t noticed in nearly 10 years. Part of Ethan wanted to tell Benny he loved the idea, adored it because it meant they’d be together like sophomore Ethan would’ve loved.

“That’s fine. We’ll figure it out as it goes. We can always just say that we realized it didn’t work out because we’ve been friends for so long it was weird. It happens all the time with best friends,” Benny said, and Ethan looked unsure, but he nodded anyways.

“So, will we start with telling Sarah, Erica, and Rory when they come over for our holiday party?” Ethan asked and Benny nodded. “We have three days until that, so we better figure out how to seem like a real couple.”

Benny nodded at him slowly before cracking a small smile. He reached out and took Ethan’s hand, intertwining the fingers, and Ethan’s breath hitched. They had held hands before, but it had been in times of danger, and this felt different. He didn’t know how to describe it, but it just felt different.

“We’ll figure it out. Start off slow and work up to what we’ll do next week at the Christmas Eve,” Benny reassured him, and Ethan just nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

This was going to be hard if Benny just holding his hand made him speechless. How was he going to survive?

.............................

“They’re going to expect more than just hand holding, you know?” Benny asked as he referred to their friends that would be coming over in a couple hours. He was right and Ethan knew that, because he had kissed Jacob in front of them multiple times as they were dating.

Benny was more open with affection when he was with someone. It drove Ethan insane when they were younger, because he didn’t want to see Benny holding someone as he whispered soft words to them and kissed them gently. It had been really bad when Benny had his first love, Catherine, because all he did was talk about her. They were together all the time and Benny never listened to Ethan when he said he didn’t trust her.

“What do you say we do?” Ethan asked as he looked over to Benny, who was in the kitchen.

“They’re going to expect us to kiss, at least once,” Benny said, and Ethan was scared to kiss Benny if he was being honest. “Are you comfortable enough to do that?”

No, Ethan wanted to say. No, because then that’ll make this feel real and I can’t handle the future of us ‘breaking up’ if I fall in love again.

“I guess, should we test it out now?” Ethan asked and Benny hummed a yes as he walked over to the boy on the couch.

Benny was so close to him as he sat down, towering over him and the soft smile made Ethan’s heart accelerate. Benny slowly placed a hand on Ethan’s cheek, his thumb softly caressing he skin. “Is this okay?” Benny’s voice was low and soft, which made Ethan just nod in fear not being able to speak.

Benny leaned down and Ethan felt his eyes fluttering close and soon their lips were touching. Ethan expected it to be a peck, something simple, but Benny held him closer to him longer than the other thought would happen. Ethan’s hand gripped at Benny’s shirt as he started to move his lips and Benny followed suit.

He was warm all over, fuzzy and light. All he could feel was Benny, which was all that was going through Ethan’s brain as well. Ethan’s hands roamed up to the other’s hair and gripped at the hairs on the nape of the neck.

He needed Benny closer. He wanted them to feel like they had merged and have that connection he always dreamed of them having. Ethan was so in love with Benny and he didn’t want to be, because this would only break his heart in the end.

Ethan pulled away to breathe and Benny smiled at him. Something about the smile was different than his typical smiles, but Ethan didn’t say anything about it. He wanted to surge back up and kiss him again, but Benny dropped the hand cupping Ethan’s face.

Ethan’s hands came down to his sides and he expected this all to feel weird, but it didn’t. They were still Benny and Ethan, even with that near make-out.

“I think we’ve got this, don’t you?” Benny asked, and Ethan’s heart sank.

He had somehow forgotten that this wasn’t real; that they weren’t in love.

Ethan nodded shyly as he mumbled a soft ‘yeah.’ Soon enough Benny was back in the kitchen making food for their friends that would be there in an hour and a half.

He slowly stood up and felt heartbreak drench him. There was no reason to be hurt over this, over something that never actually happened, because Ethan knew they weren’t going to end up together. They weren’t going to fall in love and live happily ever after. He knew this was a bad idea, but he couldn’t say anything to Benny without revealing something on accident.

“Hey,” Ethan said as he turned to look at Benny, who was already staring at him. The attention made his cheeks burn slightly. “Maybe we should try to kiss again, but not as much? We don’t want to make a show for them, seems a bit rude.”

Benny set down whatever he had been holding and started to walk over to him. Ethan was scared at the silent nature of the other, because he would be trying to reassure him. So, the brown eyed boy believed he had crossed a line until he realized he hadn’t.

Benny wrapped an arm around his waist and held him close. Held him like he used to hold Catherine. Ethan could tell that Benny knew he had stopped breathing. It was the way he smirked down at him and Ethan couldn’t function.

“I’ll hold you like this when we pass,” Benny started as he squeezed back slightly. “Then I’ll place my hand on your cheek and lean in after a second.”

He placed a soft kiss on Ethan’s lips. Ethan kissed back slightly, but Benny pulled away after a few seconds. His smirk remained on his face while Ethan was bright red. He could just blame it on not being all that experienced in kissing, which was true, but that wasn’t the truth.

“I’ll kiss you softly and pull away,” Benny said, and the smirk turned into a smile. “No worries, it’ll be a lot faster when it actually happens.”

Ethan nodded, and Benny let go of his waist. He went back to the kitchen as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and Ethan was angered by it.

He was angry Benny wasn’t affected by him like he was affected by Benny.

“He’s not affected, because he’s not in love with you,” Ethan thought bitterly.

Ethan left the room, unable to look at Benny right now without feeling so angry he could explode. He knew he loved Benny, and he hated it. He would always hate this feeling of unrequited love, but he knew it was the constant in their lives.

.............................

Ethan was the one who always opened the door when guests came over. Benny was always doing something he claimed to be more important than answering the door. It was just the one thing he always did, but Benny was next to him and an arm wrapped around his shoulders. It felt unnatural and he wondered if it looked unnatural too. There was no way they looked like a happy couple currently. Then again, it’s hard to look like a couple when you’re not.

“We have to make them believe from the get-go, baby,” Benny said, and Ethan was starting to regret this more and more.

He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep this a secret from Sarah.

Benny was the one to open the door, which was probably the first time since they moved into this apartment seven years ago. Sarah and Erica stood there, holding hands, and Sarah was holding most of the presents while Erica held one.

Sarah was smiling until she saw the arm wrapped around Ethan, as well as his expression. He could tell she wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what. So, her smile falter for a second before she fixed it, but this time it looked forced.

“Come on in,” Benny said right when Sarah looked like she was ready to say something.

Ethan was scared to look over at Erica, because if anyone was to figure out it was fake; it would be her. Maybe him being in love with Benny would confuse her, because one of them wouldn’t be acting.

“So,” Sarah drawled out as she and Erica walked into the small apartment. “Anything you two would like to share?”

“Yeah, seems you’re a lot closer than you were last time we saw you,” Erica said, and Ethan looked over at her to see her lower her sunglasses to look him in the eye.

“I’m glad you’ve noticed!” Benny exclaimed with an excited grin, but Ethan could see through him. Benny was scared too that this wasn’t going to work, but he somehow still kept the confidence. “Would you like to tell them, baby?”

Ethan blushed harder than before at the pet name, because this time it was said in front of others.

“B-Benny and I are d-dating,” Ethan stumbles out and he look at his hands to avoid the stares the girls would have.

“Okay, cool,” Sarah said, and he looked up to see her smiling at him. “I’m happy for you two.”

“Same,” Erica chimed as she sat on their couch and Sarah soon joined her.

Ethan went to follow the two, sit in their smaller chairs so they could keep the couch, but Benny pulled Ethan to where he was looking at him. Just like he had said earlier, he kissed him for three seconds before letting him sit down. Benny sat at the chair sitting across from Ethan and gave him a wink.

“So, what made you two realize you liked each other?” Sarah asked, and Ethan knew what to say; he and Benny had gone over it several times.

“It’s one of those things where you always know,” Ethan said with a chuckle. “He was singing as he cooked dinner, and I just finally said something.

“I had known before he said anything,” Benny started with a dreamy sigh. “Every Takeout Tuesday made me fall more and more with his shitty Star Trek commentary.”

Benny stopped, and Ethan stared at him as if to urge him to go on. Benny’s unsure expression made Sarah look between the two confused. Benny opened his mouth before closing them without saying anything.

“Baby, are you okay?” Ethan asked, and the pet name felt foreign on his tongue. Benny’s cheeks turned pink and he nodded.

“Yeah, I’m just a little caught up in how many times I knew.”

What was Benny doing? That wasn’t part of the script. Ethan knew his eyes were wide and confused, but no one commented on it. Benny looked like he was about to cry, but it was obvious no one knew what to do.

“What do you mean?”

Erica looked intrigued between the two of them and Ethan believed she knew they weren’t together. It was such an unlikely thing to happen that it made sense it wasn’t real. Sarah probably only believed it because she wanted Ethan to finally be with the boy he had always loved.

“There’s been many times I knew. So many times, and I’m just now realizing it.”

The other three remained silent, giving Benny all of their attention. He looked nervous, which was unlike him. The green-eyed boy typically looked cocky and sure of himself, but now he looked nervous and scared. He bit at his lip and rubbed his eyes before he spoke again.

“Times from high school when you’d talk about some guy you believed was your soulmate.”

That was you, Ethan thought, you were my soulmate.

“When you dated Jacob, I was so fucking jealous. I wanted to be him and kiss you like that. I wanted to be the one you adored, but you only looked at him.”

“Where is this coming from, Benny?” Ethan asked, and the other looked like he had finally realized what he had been saying. Realized they weren’t alone, because Erica and Sarah were watching him carefully.

“Sorry, I’m going to take a step outside,” Benny quickly said before scrambling to leave the apartment.

“I’m sorry you guys experienced that. It was really personal,” Ethan said, and Erica snorted.

“I’m just glad he’s finally realizing. It’s been painful watching him be confused and jealous for so long,” Erica said, and Ethan looked at her confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you seriously never noticed?” Erica asked and Ethan shook his head. “He’s been trying to get your attention since his breakup with Catherine.”

“No he hasn’t,” he snapped. “He told me he had only realized last month, after I confessed to him how I feel.”

He knew Benny wasn’t in love with him, because he just couldn’t be. Ethan was used to being friends and loving him from a distance. He was used to the unrequited love trope known as his life, but he had repressed those feelings for so long. He had repressed those feelings until he felt sick at night with want. He didn’t want to hear about a different story.

He didn’t want there to be a whole lifetime of where he could’ve been with Benny. If there was, he wouldn’t know what to do.

“Benny started liking you since your sophomore year of high school,” Erica said with a matter of fact tone. “You came to school in an outfit Sarah and Jane had picked out for you, and he wouldn’t stop staring.”

“I probably looked different. I would’ve stared too.”

“Rory once had a crush on you,” Sarah said, and Ethan tilted his head with scrunched eyebrows.

“What? When?”

“It was your junior year, and we were all getting fro-yo while you were studying for the ACT,” Sarah started, and Ethan pouted at hearing he hadn’t been invited to get fro-yo even if it had been years ago. “You had just recently come out to us, and Rory made a comment about asking you out. Benny freaked out by telling Rory to back-off.”

“Why would he tell Rory to back off?”

“At the time, we thought he was just being overprotective, because you had just recently come out. After a couple years though, it wasn’t just because you had recently come out,” Sarah said, and Erica chuckled. He knew she was laughing about the fact Ethan had been so oblivious.

“Then why didn’t he do anything sooner?” He asked, and Erica sighed.

“I remember he was going to, he had a whole plan, but then you brought Jacob home and announced you two were dating,” the blonde said, and Ethan felt so stupid.

“Shit.”

“Yeah, you should go talk to him yourself, dumbass,” Erica said, but there was a soft smile on her face, which meant she didn’t mean it in a fully aggressive way.

He stood up and excused himself, but the girls paid no attention to him as they went into a conversation of their own.

The walk to the elevator felt too long and nerve-wracking for him this time around. Ethan pressed the level 1 option, but it was reluctant. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say once he saw Benny. Would Benny even be down there? Would he have taken a drive?

Benny was sitting in the lobby of their apartment building, staring at his phone. Ethan slowly went over and sat next to him. Benny jumped at him sitting down, and Ethan knew it was because he hadn’t said anything when he did so.

“Hey,” Benny said nervously, and Ethan grabbed the other’s hand tightly.

“Hey,” Ethan responded, but for once he didn’t sound nervous. He had no idea of what was about to happen, but he knew they’d always be Benny and Ethan.

“I’m sorry about what happened up there, I know it wasn’t according to plan,” Benny started. “I guess I haven’t been honest with you or myself in a long time.”

Ethan just continued to smile at him as he turned his body to be facing him more. Benny’s breath hitched so audibly it surprised the brown-eyed boy. He was focused on the green-eyed boy, and he could tell it made Benny even more nervous.

“You know that boy I believed was my soulmate?” Ethan asked, and Benny reluctantly nodded. “He was you. The only way to express my crush to more than just Sarah was to make up a name you’d never expect.”

Benny stared at him, and Ethan could tell he was trying to figure out what to say. Ethan would give him the time he needed like he always did, because Ethan knew he needed it. Benny’s eyes flickered from Ethan’s face to their intertwined fingers and he looked vulnerable.

“Catherine wasn’t my first love,” Benny whispered as if he was scared to talk any louder, and Ethan waited for him to continue. “You were, or I suppose are. I suggested to be your fake boyfriend so I could finally feel what it would be like.”

Ethan’s free hand was placed to Benny’s cheek. His thumb stroked the skin like Benny had done to him and he felt confidence in it. Felt confidence at the way the other started to blush and looked back down at their hands.

“Did you enjoy what it felt like?”

“Yes,” Benny started before taking a deep breath. “But it hurt. It still hurts to know you don’t want me to be with you, even when I’ve begged for this moment for years.”

“How do you know I don’t want to be with you? How are you so sure?” Ethan was leaning closer, but Benny hadn’t caught the hint yet.

“You didn’t seem to like the idea of me being the boyfriend.”

“Because I was scared the feelings I repressed would come back. I scared, because I believed you didn’t want me either.”

“Oh.”

Ethan was so close to Benny, he assumed the other could feel his breath on his lips, even though he was shorter than him. For once, he felt so in control of the situation, and he noticed Benny’s eyes fluttering close. So, he pulled him down and kissed him in the empty apartment complex lobby.

It was softer than the other kisses they shared, because this time they were finally on the same page. Ethan kissed with a fierceness to show the love he harbored for the other. The love that could be harbored by 100 people, but it was all in Ethan for Benny. He pulled away and looked up at the other with a smile.

“That was better than the other ones,” Benny commented immediately before turning bright red.

“You’re right, it definitely was,” Ethan said as he started to take his hand away from the other’s face, but Benny grabbed it and kept it there.

“Don’t let go,” Benny whispered. “If you don’t let go, then it’s not a dream.”

“I’ll never let go of you, because after nine years; I’m still hopelessly in love with you,” Ethan told him as his thumb stroked the skin once more. “What if we drop the fake part of the fake boyfriends title?”

“Are you sure I’m not dreaming?” Benny asked, and Ethan giggled slightly at the question. “Let’s drop it, please.”

“Okay, so you’re my boyfriend.”

Benny broke out in a wide smile before leaning down to kiss Ethan again and again and again. It felt so natural between them, like they had been living in the story line Ethan envied. When they got back to their apartment, Rory was there and talking to the girls, who looked over at the new couple with grins.

#ethan morgan #bethan #bethan fic #ethan morgan fic #benny weir #my babysitters a vampire #mbav #mbav fic #my writing

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singledarkshade · 3 years

Text

Magical Mix Up

Chapter Eight (Chapter Seven can be found here) Gideon sat on the Waverider, the others had given up trying to fix the ship and were talking quietly. Closing her eyes, Gideon felt the connection to her ship and smiled happily.

“Now, my dear one,” she said through their link, “Where is our wayward Captain?”

Slightly bemused at the negative reply, she mused for a moment, “Show me when they brought him onboard.”

Again a negative reply came from the Waverider.

Completely confused, Gideon thought before asking, “Show me the man that was held within the cells before the crash.”

This time the information appeared, and Gideon stared at the man. True there was a very close resemblance but as someone who knew Rip Hunter better than anyone then it was without doubt that this was a different man. That explained why the Waverider hadn’t alerted her about Rip’s return because the Legends had picked up the wrong man.

And he was currently lost in the past.

Wonderful.

Sara frowned as Jax told her that he’d tried everything he knew to fix the engines and from all indicators the ship should be working again. Turning to where Gideon sat staring into space, Sara decided enough was enough.

“Alright, Gideon,” Sara marched over to her, making the other woman turn, “It’s time for you to stop acting out and help us fix the ship. This is completely childish.”

Gideon stood and moved to face Sara, without a word she clicked her fingers, and the ship sprang to life.

“Sara,” Jax called from behind her, “Everything is back up and at full capacity.” Turning to where Gideon was standing, Sara demanded, “How?”

“As you can see, Miss Lance,” Gideon replied, “I control the ship. Our next issue is locating the man you took hostage.”

“I already explained that we were holding Rip to protect him,” Sara sighed annoyed, “You know what happened the last time, I wasn’t giving anyone a chance to snatch him and make him our enemy again.”

Gideon folded her arms, “Firstly, there is no one after us at the moment. Secondly, in order to do anything like that they would need a scan of Captain Hunter’s mind which they are unlikely to have. Thirdly, there are a number of ways you could have spoken with him to help return memories however I will concede this wouldn’t have worked.”

Suspicious Sara asked, “Why is that?”

Bringing up the recording of Rip while in the cell, Gideon remained silent.

“What?” Sara demanded confused.

Gideon frowned, “That is not Rip Hunter.”

Jax and Zari joined Sara at this pronouncement and stared at her then the screen.

“We know what Rip looks like,” Sara stated sounding annoyed.

Gideon nodded, “I will admit this man resembles him but that is not Rip Hunter.”

Jax squinted at the screen, “He has no beard, and his hair is lighter but it’s Rip.”

“Then where is the scar above his right eyebrow that he received as a child?” Gideon asked, before continuing, “Why does he suddenly have a group of freckles below his ear that have never been there before?”

They stared in silence at her none of them able to dispute what Gideon was telling them because all of them were well aware that Gideon knew Rip much better that they did.

“Now, there is a man stranded out of time,” Gideon stated angrily, “Lost and alone with no reason to trust any of us who we need to find.”

Sara grimaced, “John went out to search for him.”

“And has he found anything?” Gideon demanded.

The others looked at one another guiltily before Jax said, “We haven’t heard from him since he left.”

The prison he was in had a dirt floor, and concave walls that went up to the hole in the ceiling and nothing else. John sighed in annoyance. He should have known this would happen, it was just the way the day had gone with the spell not working, the crash and Rip running from them.

Although he couldn’t blame Rip.

It must have been terrifying have a group of people claim to be your friend while keeping you hostage. John knew he had to get out of here and contact the others, because how much would ‘Rory the Nurse’ know about Ancient Rome?

His headache had thankfully begun to dissipate, which meant he should hopefully be able to perform a spell or two.

As soon as he found his way out of this place.

*********************************************

“And you’re sure you can get us in?” Rip asked as he and Rory marched through the streets.

Both were still in uniform, but Rory had taken back his own because he needed to feel comfortable to do this.

“Easily. I am Centurion Galeus Britannicus,” Rory stated before adding, “Although to family and friends, Rufus.”

Rip stared at him, “You’re serious.”

Nodding, Rory replied, “Travelling with the Doctor carries some risk.”

“Risks I get, but a whole new identity?” Rip asked, “With the knowledge you also have, means there is a much longer story.”

“There is,” Rory admitted, “But I’ll tell you after we’ve rescued your friend. For now, they’ll assume we’re twins which is a lucky omen, so all you need to do it stay quiet and glare. Quiet especially because not only is your Latin atrocious, your accent is even worse.”

Rip nodded, even though he wanted to ask more, instead noted, “Considering this is the night shift, how many guards do you think will have fallen asleep?”

“None, unfortunately,” Rory told him, before explaining, “There were severe penalties for guards that fell asleep on duty, usually stoning by the rest of their cohort, so whilst there will be fewer guards at night, they will be awake and vigilant. Which is why I’m hoping my title and our reason for visiting will give us some breathing space. Just make sure you do your part.”

Rip nodded again taking a deep breath as they reached the building. Rory had gone over the ways one single guard could defend the place, which was not making him feel any better, but they needed to rescue John. The other option was going to the Waverider and seeing if the team had managed to fix the ship enough for them to use the couriers. However, that could take too long, and the ship may need a lot more repairs taking up more time.

As insane as Rory’s plan was, it was currently their best one.

Rory walked to the guard standing to attention at the front of the building.

“Centurion Galeus Britannicus,” Rory stated, steel in his voice, “The prisoner brought in earlier violated the home and bedchamber of our sister. I have been sent by the Senator to speak with the prisoner before he is put on trial.”

The guard looked at two men, obviously confused by the fact they were identical before jumping when Rory barked.

“Do I need to repeat myself?” Rory continued to glare at him, feeling Rip standing completely still at his side keeping an ice-cold stare on the guard.

“No, sir,” the guard replied, he moved to open the gates before speaking quickly to the guard just inside. Wincing at whatever the other guard said before nervously turning back to Rory, “Do you have an official order, sir?”

Rory pulled out the psychic paper the Doctor had given him and held it out so the guard could read it. He had been told the information would show if he was confident.

The guard nodded and turned back to the other one, who opened the gate and led them inside.

Rory watched as the second guard took a rope ladder from where it was stored and tossed it down the hole containing the prisoner they were here to see. Moving to one side slightly he watched Constantine climb out, the grating was slid back on and the man was grabbed by the guards. As soon as Constantine was turned to face him, Rory punched him sending him into the wall.

“We’ll take it from here,” Rory told the guards, who both nodded and left them alone.

John rubbed his jaw as he tried to refocus after being punched. Unsteadily he stood to see Rip standing there, dressed in a soldier’s uniform, and staring coldly at him. It looked as though the spell had worked, there must have just been a slight delay.

“Did you have to punch me, Rip?” he demanded, staggering to his feet.

“Yes,” the other man stated coldly, “And as I’ve said many times before now, my name is not Rip.”

“But mine is,” a familiar voice came from behind him.

John slowly turned to where an almost identical man stood, dressed in the same outfit. He looked between them a few times before demanding, “What the bloody hell?”

“No time to explain,” the man, who was called Rory said, “We have one chance to get out of here, so shut up and do what I tell you.”

Glancing at Rip questioningly, John was stunned when his friend nodded, “Rory is in charge.”

“He’s a nurse,” John noted.

Rip shrugged, “With a few special skills.”

Drawing his sword, Rory turned to Rip, “Do it.”

With a slight smirk on his lips, Rip pulled out a small silver disc with a button in the centre and pushed it.

A few seconds later there was a pop then crash and Rory grabbed John’s shoulder pushing him forward.

“Run.”

Rip ran with Rory towards the two guards who had been dazed slightly by the gates being blown off the walls. John was pushed past them, but they managed to regain their senses as Rip and Rory started out. With their swords drawn, Rip defended himself stunned to see Rory just to one side fighting with ease as though the sword was an extension of his arm. There were very few he’d ever met who could fight with such fluidity.

As they managed to get past the two guards, Rip and Rory began to run after John. The other guards from the prison were chasing them.

“We’re not going to make it to the Waverider,” John called.

Rory grabbed John’s shoulder to making him turn the corner, “That’s not where we’re heading.”

Rip smiled to see the TARDIS sitting in front of them, Amy standing at the door waiting for them. The moment they reached the door, she moved out the way allowing the three of them to run in before she slammed the door shut. The Doctor threw the lever to move them out of the city.

John took several deep breaths of relief when they entered whatever the hell the blue box was. His head was full of questions and as he stood to find the massive room that could not have been inside the little box, more were added.

Turning he saw Rip standing with his arms folded and a grim frown on his face, while the doppelganger, Rory was kissing the redhead who had been at the door.

“What the bloody hell?” John demanded again.

“You,” the redhead suddenly turned and marched towards John, “Abducted my husband…”

“Amy,” Rory caught her arm and pulled her back, “It’s okay.”

The redhead turned to her husband and frowned, “It’s not, Rory. They could have got you killed. Again.”

Rory gently pushed her hair back from her face, “I’m fine. And we’re together again. He thought he was helping his friend.”

Amy turned to John and glared at him for a moment before telling him, “You’re on thin ice.”

From the glare he was receiving John was suddenly very sure if she wanted to kill him, the other three would be holding her coat.

“Okay,” the final occupant of the room, tall with floppy brown hairs and a tweed jacket walked over to them, “Mr Constantine, welcome to the TARDIS. Rory is being very understanding about being taken by you and your friends, on the other hand I’m not as forgiving.”

“Hold on,” John held up his hands, “The spell I did to locate Rip found Rory. We had no reason to believe he wasn’t Rip.”

“How about the fact he kept giving you a different name?” Amy snapped.

John turned to Rip who sighed.

“I explained the Phil situation to them.” Rip said, “But even then, why was he put in a cell?”

Wincing John replied, “Sara thought it was for the best. To keep you safe.”

Rip and Rory shared a quick look of annoyance, before Rip continued, “Which leads me to my next question, what did they do to Gideon?”

Grimacing even more John held up his hands, “It wasn’t my fault.”

Rip’s expression become even more granite like than before, “What wasn’t your fault?”

Glancing around the room, John realised there was no help here and sighed, “I was using a protection spell on an idol from Thermiscrya and it somehow interacted with Gideon. Now she’s…”

“She’s what?” Rip demanded when John trailed off.

John sighed,” She’s human.”

Rip stared at him, turning to the other three to make sure he’d heard right, “What do you mean, she’s human?”

“Seriously, Rip there’s not many more ways I can say it,” John rolled his eyes.

“Gideon’s human?” Rip breathed in astonishment.

John nodded, “And she’s on the Waverider now.”

Rip caught the railing beside him and let out a slow breath, “Okay, I need to have a word with Sara anyway. Let’s head to the Waverider.”

“Doctor?” Rory said suddenly moving to the third man, “What’s wrong?”

“It looks as though your friends may have attracted the trouble we caused in the city,” the other man, the Doctor, replied.

Rip and John shared an annoyed look.

“Of course they have,” Rip sighed, “It appears I have another rescue mission on my hands.”

“That would be we,” Rory noted, “We have another rescue mission.”

Amy nodded her agreement before asking, “So, what’s the plan this time?”

#fic #crossover #legends of tomorrow #rip hunter #gideon #sara lance #jefferson 'jax' jackson #john constantine #doctor who #rory williams #amy pond

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raywritesthings · 4 years

Text

Happy Accident 1/3

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Felicity Smoak, Curtis Holt, John Constantine, Rene Ramirez, Rory Regan, E-2 Laurel Lance Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Felicity’s punch has consequences no one intended, driving Oliver to take drastic measures with their own unexpected result. *Can be read on AO3, link in bio*

Oliver watched, tensed to make some kind of move, to intervene. He couldn’t let this twisted version of Laurel kill Felicity, yet hurting her could possibly be one of the hardest things he’d have to do. His verbal appeal to her not working, however, he was left with little choice.

Curtis intervened before he had to act, using some kind of device to neutralize the Black Siren’s metahuman-enhanced Cry.

She turned around to look at Curtis with shock and impotent rage, Oliver’s teammate coldly stating, “You really need to shut your damn mouth.”

They could bring her in without violence, Oliver realized with relief. They could secure her to keep her from hurting others, and maybe, just maybe, he could try to reach her and find out why she was so determined to hurt herself.

But then Felicity moved.

“Hey, pumpkin,” she said, just barely catching Siren’s attention before her fist connected with the other woman’s head. Oliver’s heart stuttered in his chest for one crucial moment as he watched Laurel Lance fall to the ground once more. It almost felt like he was stuck in slow motion or even frozen — just like the damn prison — until she hit the concrete floor with a hard smack that jolted him out of his horrified reverie.

“Hey. Kept my wrist straight,” Felicity remarked to him with pride as she straightened up. She eyed him funnily as he failed to provide a response, but as much as he was glad Felicity finally seemed to be picking up defensive maneuvers, but he could not delight in them being used against a woman with Laurel’s face.

And then Curtis, who had gone to handcuff Siren while she remained on the ground, said something that chilled Oliver to the bone: “Uh, guys? She’s not moving. Like at all.”

Oliver rushed forward, crouching on the other side of her as he and Curtis turned her over.

“Oliver, careful, it could be a trick,” Felicity cautioned.

But as he looked upon her pale, unmoving face and the red blood that ran down her temple to her chin with just a small amount continuing to ooze from the wound, he knew it wasn’t. His voice, when he found it, sounded strangled to his ears. “She’s dead.”

“What?” He didn’t know if it was a whisper or a shout; Felicity’s voice sounded far away while his head pounded and his eyes blurred and stung. On impulse, he reached for Laurel’s cooling body, pulling her into his arms.

“Oh God,” Curtis muttered under his breath. “Oh God, oh God.” It was clear the younger man was panicking, maybe going into shock, but Oliver could do nothing for that when he felt like throwing up himself.

Instead, he closed her mouth to rid it of the permanently slack-jawed expression Felicity had unknowingly etched onto her face and slowly stood. His head was bowed, but he still could make out Felicity’s wide and horrified eyes.

“Oliver, I- I didn’t mean to — she was going to kill me.”

“We're going back to the base,” he directed, and something in his tone seemed to work at getting both her and Curtis moving to follow him.

Laying her out of one of the tables was agony, because she looked too much like she had in the hospital. She looked dead, because she’d always been dead. He’d known that; he’d fought to escape a whole other reality because he’d known it was true no matter how much he hoped and wished and dreamed it wasn’t.

As he cleaned the blood from the one side of her face, he could hear the others talking quietly a good distance away.

“I shouldn’t have let her escape. One of the guards could have died, and now this.”

“You didn’t know it would happen.” Rory paced the floor, nervous energy rolling off him. They were all nervous and tense, maybe even more so than when the truth about his past as the Hood had come to light. Maybe it was because Oliver was no longer the only one in the room with blood on his hands. “Prometheus was there. We almost caught him.”

“It wasn’t your tech that did this,” Rene was offering Curtis in comfort.

All Oliver was really hearing was excuses. Reasons this wasn’t their fault, reasons it wasn’t so bad that a woman was dead, again, because of mistakes made by him and his team, again.

“My wrist is really gonna hurt while typing tomorrow,” Felicity muttered. “I guess I deserve that.”

Something broke in Oliver at that word as he stared down at Laurel’s long lashes fanned over her cheeks and her blackened lips. “You deserved better.”

“What was that?” Felicity called, the rest of the base falling silent and still.

“I said she deserved better,” Oliver said, speaking at normal volume as he finally turned to face his team. “Laurel deserved better.”

The recruits looked at each other, clearly unsure what to say. Felicity stepped forward. “Yes, our Laurel deserved better, Oliver. And I’m sorry that this other Earth version of her died, but she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill any of us.”

“You put her in a position to,” he reminded her, not nearly so willing as Rory to make excuses. He was tired of protecting Felicity’s innocence when she wouldn’t even defend his actions to the others. “With our Laurel, I can at least lay the ultimate blame for what happened on Darhk. But this? We did this. We have to fix it.”

Felicity recovered herself and asked, “How?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’m gonna find out.” Constantine had gotten back from his trip to Hell months ago. Oliver had the chance to ask his advice this time, something he hadn’t had when they’d lost their Laurel.

Maybe he’d just say it was hopeless. But maybe he wouldn’t. All Oliver knew was, he couldn’t just accept that this had happened. He wanted more for Laurel, even if she wasn’t his.

Oliver got out his phone and stepped away to make the call with one final warning. “Do not touch her while I’m gone.” Then he marched from the room that was silent enough to be this Laurel’s tomb.

---

Felicity was still struggling to process what had happened in the last 48 hours. She had thought her dead friend was back, gotten suspicious that she wasn’t, proved that suspicion was right and then… killed her not-friend?

It sounded horrible like that. She hadn’t meant to kill anyone. She never did! And it had basically been self-defense. The others all agreed.

But Oliver didn’t.

He had been off-center for a while. If Felicity had to put a date on it, she’d say since April. Since Laurel’s death, the real Laurel’s death. And he had only grown more so in the last month or so, since they had all teamed up to fight the Dominators. Maybe it had been from facing Sara for the first time since her sister died. Maybe he was just struggling in his own way to process that they were living in a timeline just slightly to the left of what they’d been living months ago.

But neither of those reasons explained his fanatical need to help this new version of Laurel, to reach her. Was it his Helena Complex rearing its ugly head, or was it simply because she looked like Laurel? If the latter, that did not bode well in Felicity’s eyes at all.

She looked across at the dead woman, recalling her mocking words and the smirk on those now-smudged black lips. How could she hold such a sway on Oliver when they were, for all intents and purposes, strangers? Why did it always have to be Laurel?

“Look, I’m sure this, uh, whoever he’s calling is gonna set him straight,” Curtis offered timidly. “He’s just in shock. I mean, I’m in shock. Honestly? I’d prefer she be alive because I am not gonna be able to sleep tonight knowing I helped—”

“You didn’t help anything. The concrete killed her,” Felicity decided crisply. Black Siren could have tripped in her heeled boots and cracked her head open, and it would have ended the same. It’s not like if this went to court that Felicity would be charged with the first degree. The real Laurel would’ve told her that, probably defended her if it came to that.

“Well, you did help her down to the concrete,” Rene said, not looking all that apologetic when Felicity glared at him.

Oliver re-entered the room then, so they all shut up, and Felicity was dismayed to see the spark of hope in his eyes. “Oliver?”

“There’s other Lazarus Pits.”

Her heart dropped somewhere deep into her stomach. “What?”

“Constantine. He says Ra’s didn’t have the only one. We can bring her back.”

Felicity knew the others were lost — probably wondering what the heck a Lazarus Pit was — but she didn’t care. She marched towards Oliver instead. “No, we can’t. The Pits are dangerous and using them irresponsibly like this — Malcolm warned you about Thea, and you didn’t even want Laurel to use it on Sara!”

“And both Sara and Thea are fine now. We’ll restore Laurel’s soul and get the Lotus.”

“Not even the Lotus is going to cure her wanting to kill me,” she stressed. “I mean, what is the plan after you bring Prometheus’ metahuman lapdog back from the dead, Oliver? Just let her run around screaming people to death?” There probably wouldn’t be much difference between the soulless version and Black Siren in that regard.

Oliver wasn’t even facing her, too busy repacking his quiver. “We will transfer her to a secure ARGUS facility. From there, I can talk to her, try to reach the part of her that has to be like the Laurel we knew.”

“While ordinarily I would love to celebrate this newly optimistic version of you, I think you’re just repeating history here, because this sounds a lot like Helena Bertinelli.”

“This is not about Helena!” He finally snapped, finally facing her, except he was clearly angry, which Felicity hadn’t wanted. “It hasn’t been about Helena in years, and if you didn’t bring her up every time we had an argument, I might have forgotten she was ever part of my life. This is about Laurel, about giving her another chance, believing in her when—” To her surprise, the anger that had been building in him seemed to deflate, and his shoulders slumped as he looked at the ground. “When I didn’t before.”

Felicity closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course it was about Laurel. It was always about Laurel. She wouldn’t be surprised if Helena has really just been about Laurel all along.

“When this inevitably goes sideways, I am going to be there to remind you that I told you so.”

“I know you will be,” Oliver said wearily.

“And I’m gonna be there, too,” Curtis piped up unexpectedly. “I have to see this through.”

Oliver gave Curtis nod. “John sent me the location of one of the Pits. We’re meeting him there in two days, so make any arrangements you need. Rene, Rory, keep up your patrols. Thea’s on her way back and should be able to help with any questions or emergencies.”

“Fine by me, Hoss.”

Rory gave a short nod. Felicity has really been hoping for someone to ask Oliver to stay instead.

But here they were again, going on another ill-advised trip to the Lazarus Pits.

---

Oliver was too preoccupied with carrying one end of the makeshift casket they had place Earth-2’s Laurel Lance in to shake John’s hand where they met at the bottom of the mountain in Siberia, but he did say, “Thanks for agreeing to this.”

“What can I say? The pretty girls in your life left an impression on me.”

He heard Felicity’s scoff behind him. He didn’t think Curtis had even registered the remark, too busy muttering under his breath about trying not to focus on the fact he was carrying the other end of a casket.

“Truth is, this helps me as well,” Constantine admitted as they started the trek upwards. “There’s been rumors that bad actors are looking for these Pits since Nanda Parbat’s destruction. Gives me the opportunity to layer at least this one with some protection and concealment magic.”

Oliver nodded. If this meant he and John were still even by the end of this, he wouldn’t complain.

By the time he called for them to veer off the common path, both Felicity and Curtis had put in their fair share of complaints about the climb. Oliver had done his best to ignore both or to keep from pointing out that neither of them had really worn the right shoes for it, though at least Felicity’s boots didn’t have her customary heel.

“Through here,” John instructed, directing them towards a crevice Oliver might have otherwise passed up. It was going to be too tight for the casket.

“Lower it — gently, Curtis!” He scolded, as the other man quickly set his end down with a sigh of relief.

“Sorry.”

Oliver set his own end down and opened the lid. Under the shroud, the body was cold and stiff in his arms. His mind went back to his father, and he fought down the usual wave of nausea.

Inside, a Pit much like the one he had seen in Nanda Parbat bubbled with the mystical waters. Oliver waited as the others all filed in.

“So, what happens now?” Curtis asked?

“Well, last time there was a priest lady who did a chant,” Felicity explained. “Do we need the chant? Does it not work without it?” Oliver couldn’t help noting she seemed hopeful that was the case.

“Nah, that’s just all for show,” Constantine said. “You can lower her in, Oliver.”

He did so slowly, pulling the shroud off as she slid down under the bubbling water. Moments after her head disappeared beneath the surface, the waters stilled.

“Curtis, Felicity, stand back,” Oliver instructed, though Felicity was already doing so.

“Why?”

“If this works, she’s gonna be a little disoriented.”

“Well, you catch her, and I’ve got something to put her to sleep to make the soul retrieval a little easier,” John told him to his left. Oliver nodded, swallowing once as the waters began to roil once again. Here went nothing…

Laurel’s body, rejuvenated and alive, sprung from the water straight over his head. Curtis let out a shriek if terror, and Felicity darted back through the crevice towards the entrance of the cave. Before Laurel’s soulless body could make another move, Oliver seized her from behind, lifting her feet off the floor and getting the whole front of his jacket and pants wet as she struggled to free herself from his hold.

John thrust something under her nose and spoke some sort of incantation. Instantly, she went limp. “There. Not so hard?”

“Nope,” he agreed. Oliver looked down at her. Were she not still wearing the Black Siren suit, he wouldn’t be able to tell a single difference between her and his Laurel. If they had only known about this Pit last year, before they had been forced to announce her death and her identity to the public… he would have to settle for making this right.

Oliver laid her down, this time on the ground far enough from the Pit for John to begin drawing his circle and placing those items only he knew the purpose of. By the time he had finished, Felicity crept back in with a muttered, “It’s freezing out there.”

“Now then, I need at least a volunteer to go with me to the other realm,” Constantine said. “I assume Oliver’s game, but is there anyone who might have known her better?”

“Too bad we couldn’t ask Prometheus,” Felicity snarked.

Oliver just looked her in the eye. “You coming?”

She shook her head. “I can’t even fight.”

He bit back the remark that they wouldn’t be here right now if not for her foray into the field, and instead said, “John and I would take care of it. You would just help to pull her out.” Given it had taken two of them to pull Sara’s soul out of the darkness it had been trapped in, he couldn’t imagine it would be any easier to extricate Black Siren’s soul. “You trust me?”

“Oliver… I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, one hand raised as she shook her head in denial.

“Okay,” he replied, his voice tight. “Curtis?”

“I think I should stay and stand guard,” Curtis suggested. “In case those other guys that want the Pit show up.”

“Fine,” he bit out. “Let’s go, John.”

“Very well,” his friend said, then raised his hands, his eyes rolling back a little as he spoke in that strange tongue again. Oliver stood over this Laurel and waited for the familiar sensation of being sucked away in a blinding flash of light.

Darkness met him. Oliver blinked, but it didn’t go away. “John?”

“I’m here,” his friend said very close, yet Oliver could not see him. “Damn, I was worried about this.”

“What is this?” He raises his hand up and moved it to touch his face, and still he couldn’t see it.

“You said this was a Laurel from another Earth. I think her soul must have fallen out of our vibrational frequency. I don’t think we can reach her.”

“What, there’s just nothing here?” That couldn’t be it. There had to be something, some way to do more. If it was vibrations, maybe they just needed Cisco.

“I’m sorry,” John started to say, but Oliver shushed him as he heard another voice far off in the distance.

“Ollie?”

“Did you hear that?” He asked bear a whisper.

“Hear what?”

They both listened. The silence seemed to stretch on an age before it was broken, so much so he had started to wonder if he’d made it up.

“Ollie?” The voice asked again, and there was no mistaking it this time. Oliver’s heart leapt.

“She’s still here,” he said, and started walking towards it, almost wading through the strange darkness. “Laurel?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m coming to you. Just keep talking.”

“Oliver! Don’t go too far.”

But he couldn’t heed John’s warning, not when he was so close. He reached and reached out, no even able to see his hands through the unending darkness, not until he suddenly stepped through what could have only been a barrier of some kind separating the inky black space from here, in the light.

It was a cosy studio apartment that met his eyes. A desk stood against one wall piled high with work while a punching bag hung in the opposite corner. Candles sat in the fireplace, and Laurel herself stood in the center of the room as if she had just risen from the couch.

“How did you…?” She seemed just as stunned to see him as he was to see this.

He had expected a fight, some kind of representation of the pipeline or Prometheus or Zoom. What did it mean that this was her soul? Was he right that beneath all the snark and the cruelty, there was someone like the Laurel he had loved and lost?

“You’re going to need to come with me,” he said, holding his hand out, and to his disbelief she took it without argument.

“But what are you doing here?” Almost without argument, then. Trust Laurel.

“To make things right. I’m sorry for what happened with Felicity.”

Her mouth fell open, though she said nothing. Oliver wondered if she had forgotten what had happened here in this place, if death was that kind.

He had begun walking backward the way he’d come, and she went with him. Rather than return to the total darkness, however, it was almost like the light from the room he had found her in followed them, lighting their way just a few inches ahead at a time.

“Oliver, where the bloody hell are you?” John’s voice called from up ahead, apparently still stuck in the dark. “I have to take us back now!”

“Then do it, John! I found her!” He shouted back. “We can go home!”

“Was that Constantine?” Laurel asked, and the satisfied grin on his face slipped.

“How do you know who Constantine is?”

Laurel — and it struck him then just how much like Laurel she truly looked and sounded — opened her mouth, but there was a blinding flash of white light, and Oliver found himself blinking the spots from his vision and standing in the cave again.

On the ground, Laurel blinked and slowly sat up, looking down at herself in clear disorientation.

“Well, not sure how we managed it, but another successful restoration,” John said.

“Congratulations,” Felicity remarked dryly. “We should definitely cuff her now.”

Oliver placed a hand on Curtis’ shoulder to block him when he came up with the meta cuffs. “I’m not sure we did exactly what we meant to.”

Laurel coughed a couple times and asked, “How did we get here, and who put me in these clothes?”

“We did something better,” he said quietly, a smile blooming on his face as she turned her gaze towards him.

“Fishnets, Ollie. Really?”

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #oliver queen #laurel lance #arrow #green arrow #black canary #my writing

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deadmansgun · 3 years

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Positivity Meme || Always Accepting

@matteredloyalty sent: 💞💕💘

Send 💞 and my muse will say something nice about your muse

Things back at camp were too much right now, with everyone choosing sides and sticking with them with them, it was safe to say that things were falling apart fast. And to make things more chaotic, some of the gang had left during the night before. John didn’t blame them. If only they could all just turn their backs and leave, but with Dutch’s madness continuing to grow and climb, John knew that the very moment they would try, they would likely be shot dead by either Dutch himself or Micah.

The following night, everyone was fast asleep, but John, like many of the days after he came back from Sisika, was having trouble sleeping, a repeat of the many since his return. After tossing and turning, he just couldn’t bring himself to drift off to sleep. His eyes would close, but no matter how he laid, he found sleep impossible. Maybe it was everything that was going on finally taking a bigger mental toll on Marston, and he was already stressed enough with everyone else pointing fingers at him and accusing him of being a traitor, there was a sense of uneasiness that would linger around camp now. A place that he could once call home, now nothing but a nightmare full of distrust and delusions of a false promise for sanctuary.

Getting out of his tent, John changed out of his pajama’s and into his usual clothes, putting on his grey duster over his outfit since it was a little bit of a chilly night. After grabbing his Stalker Hat, John placed it on his head and took a look around. Everyone was sleeping, everyone except Arthur whom John saw sitting around the main campfire, he looked to be in deep thought, a feeling that was mutual with Marston as well.

Silently, John joined him around the campfire a greeting nod before taking a seat on the log next to the other. Whenever they were silent, it was always a comfortable silence as opposed to how their relationship previously had been. It was a shame that it had taken all of this mess to repair their strained relationship. But as bad as things were right now, John was still grateful that they were able to finally make amends at all. Except now, Arthur was on borrowed time because of his sickness.

He still remembered the day he told everyone about his TB. The thought of losing his older brother after reconnecting with him wounded him deeply, but John had to be strong, he couldn’t give into the sadness so easily. Before he speaks, John glances over at Itsuki who was sleeping peacefully in her tent that was next to Arthur’s. A sigh before he looks back at Arthur. Taking out a pack of premium cigarette’s, John offers the other one before lighting his with a match and proceeding to light Arthurs before shaking out the flame and tossing the blackened match on the ground.

[{ ☠ }] - “Havin’ trouble sleepin’ too huh?” He asks whilst taking a drag of his smoke.

Whenever that fateful day would come, John knew because of Arthur’s nature, that he’d be true to who he was, a man of few words when it came to displaying affection or concern of another. With that thought in mind, John decided he would say what he wanted to right now so he’d be able to do as promised to his brother. To run and don’t look back. without any regrets.

[{ ☠ }] - “T’think, after everythin’ we did for em, all those jobs we did. Don’t seem like they mean much now..”

Taking his smoke out of his mouth and pinching it between his two index fingers, he takes a deep breath, he gathered his words and plopping the smoke back in his mouth for another drag. He didn’t want to waste any time, tonight was the only peace that the brothers had seen through the past few days, so he wanted to use this chance to his advantage.

[{ ☠ }] - “Arthur.. you..” A pause, why was this so hard? He shook it off and pushed himself to bring out his thoughts.

[{ ☠ }] - “You’ve always had my back, even when we was on bad terms, ya still always came though for me.” A pause as he lets his thoughts ponder before continuing.

[{ ☠ }] - “Sadie told me, That it was you who stood up against Dutch when he decided t’leave me t’hang. Outta everyone else, you were the first t’go against him..”

Finishing his smoke, he chucks it to the ground and crushes it under his boot. One final deep breath and he prepares to express his thoughts to the other.

[{ ☠ }] - “Back in the earlier days, when we was still youngin’s. I pulled all those pranks on you because I wanted t’be like you. I always looked up t’you Arthur. An yer gonna say it’s a mistake, but. It ain’t a mistake t’me.”

Taking a few extra seconds to think back to his childhood, he continues.

[{ ☠ }] - “I never knew my folks much, never had a siblin’ cause my ma passed at birth... but after comin’ here, I finally got t’see how it felt t’have a brother..”

A few silent nods followed after. Taking one last look around camp, he confirmed everyone was still sleeping soundly. John wasn’t the best in showing his appreciation, especially for everything Arthur had done for him, how would one possibly thank someone for all the things he’d been doing for him? Since they were the only two awake, John wanted to take a moment to truly show how much he meant to him. A bit hesitantly at first, John slowly moved forward and gave Arthur a heartfelt brotherly hug, probably the only one he’d give, but since Arthur’s time was running out, now was the only chance he’d get to show his true appreciation for the man that saved him many times. His dear older brother who had been lookin out for him all this time. It would be hard to see him go, but fate couldn’t change what would eventually happen..

[{ ☠ }] - “Thank you Arthur, for everythin’ you’ve done for me, for my family. You’re the best brother a fool like me could ever ask for.. I’m gonna miss ya.” A follow up couple pats on Arthur’s back before he pulls away and fixes his hat straightening it.

John was slightly embarrassed for being so sentimental, but this was the only time he could do it so openly. He quickly cast his head downwards a bit to hide his face, this wasn’t like himself and John knew it. But he had to say it, this would probably be the only time he could as Arthur’s sickness would get worse everyday. So aside from being a bit embarrassed, he was glad he had the chance to spill it all out.

[{ ☠ }] - “You really are a good man Arthur, even if you can’t admit it yet...”

With that, John turned his back and walked off heading back to his tent. Now that he had said what he wanted, he had no regrets, he would be able to stay strong for Itsuki when Arthur’s time would come. And John would definitely have to be strong for when that time would come. He looks back over his shoulder at Arthur one last time before disappearing into his tent to again attempt sleep.

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

Send 💘 and the mun will say something nice about your muse

“Well well well, at last I get the privilege of meeting you. Arthur Morgan. I’ve heard lots about you. John’s said a lot about you too. And I agree with everything he says.”

“I’ve always been a big fan of Red Dead Redemption, so when I saw the trailer for the second game, man I was stoked. It was great to see John again, but I gotta say, you filled in the role of main protag perfectly. And everything you went through, every situation you were in, you kept your cool even in the most intense situations.”

“You were this cold hardened Outlaw who didn’t have many morals, only to become this man that’s wise, caring and always putting others before yourself. The moment you began your path to redemption, you had me cheering and hollering for ya the whole time. It was a whole new experience for me.”

“It takes a hell of a lot of courage to accept yourself for who you were after, and watching your journey, seeing you push yourself to help everyone despite your limits was probably one of the most amazing and incredibly inspiring things that stood out to me.”

“I want to personally thank you for taking care of John and the others, what you accomplished was no easy feat. Especially with your condition, you did you’re absolute best, and I commend you for such a great accomplishment. You probably get this a lot, but you truly are a good man, a gentle soul in disguise, and it shows for all you’ve done. It takes SO MUCH to accept your mistakes and try to correct them, you’re story was a truly motivating one, and it’s one I will always keep near and dear to my heart.”

The mun would pull out his hard copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 with a sharpie marker and holds them out to the Cowboy.

“Mister Morgan, I’d be honored if I could get your autograph on my copy of RDR2 :) “

“Pretty please with a cocaine gum on top?? :33″

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

Send 💕 and the mun will say something nice about you, the mun

Heya Rory, I hope you’re doing well. My friend, you were the very first Arthur to follow me and show interest in interacting with My Johnny boy, it may have seemed small, but I was so happy when ya followed back and even more excited when when we started our threads together. Even though we’ve only done a couple replies thus far, I already love our threads very much!

I’ve actually seen you around tumblr a few times before I created John. I checked out some of your threads, and you’re writing was the very first thing that blew me away first glance.

You describe each situation, expression and movement amazingly in great detail. John was my second muse who spoke in a western manner, but when you make Arthur speak, I hear his voice in full because you nailed his manner of speaking perfectly. That was def a bit of a challenge for me at first, but it was the way I saw you deliver that helped me get a better idea on western mannerisms. So I have you to thank for helping me get a much better idea on how to bring it out.

And another thing I HAVE to mention is your incredible passion for Arthur. I know it’s been hard to bring Arthur out lately and I do get it, muse comes and goes sometimes, I been there buddy. But I want you to know, that seeing your Arthur in action always inspires me to bring out more and more in John. All the passion and love you have for good ol’ Arthur really shine’s brighter than a star. You are truly a very excellent and inspiring writer.

It’s not often I meet many fellow Canadian rpers, but despite us only talking a few times for the moment, I’ve very much enjoyed them and look forward to many more chats and future rp’s with you.

Have a good evening eh? :p

#matteredloyalty #Lᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ Rᴇᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ: Asᴋ Aɴsᴡᴇʀᴇᴅ #v: Aʀᴇ Wᴇ Fᴀᴍɪʟʏ? Oʀ ᴀ Bᴜɴᴄʜᴀ ɢᴜɴsʟɪɴɢɪɴ' ᴍᴜʀᴅᴇʀᴏᴜs ғᴏᴏʟs? (RDR2)#Wʜᴏ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴇʟʟ ɪs ᴛʜɪs sᴛʀᴀɢɢʟᴇʀ? (OOC)#I put a LOT of nice brotherly feels in the first one #sooo it's preeeetty long lol #But I hope you like it!#But seriously tho #You are a truly amazing person my friend #incredibly friendly #A VERY passionate writer #And an ALL AROUND great and wonderful person #I very much look forward to future interactions and ooc chats #I hope you have an amazing day #and try not to overwork yourself too much homie #don't wanna overwhelm yourself with too much uni stuff #Take care Rory #Stay amazing my fellow Canadian homie :D #oh and ps #The hug icon I used #was the ONLY normalist one that wasn't so shippy lol #I hope ya dont mind~#long post

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rulesofthebeneath · 4 years

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masters of our fates chapter 7

hey friends. it’s been a hot second and im sorry :/. But here we are! An update for you. I hope you like it <3.

tagging: @lilmissperfectlyimperfect @lookslikezombiesatbest

TW: graphic description of pain

Chapter 7

“Grace?” Skye asked in her small voice, leaning against the doorway of the tech booth where Grace had taken up residency just a few hours before the first show was supposed to start.

“Hm?” Grace asked absently, not looking up from tinkering with the lighting board. There wasn’t much to do besides set the sequence for the top of the show, but she was going over and over the cues in her notebook until she had them memorized. It was a bit tough with the headache pulsing through her head, but the darkness of the booth helped.

“I think Ajay finally lost it,” Skye replied without hesitation. “He’s been yelling at everyone all day.”

“Isn’t that normal for him?” Grace asked. She’d barely had a chance to see him alone because of the demands of Hell Week, but he had brought over some biscuit the previous night and curled up on her couch, apparently having been kicked out of his kitchen for stress-baking too much. Whenever she’d seen him at the theatre, though, he’d looked high-strung and thoroughly stressed.

“Yeah, but now he’s gone silent completely. He just has his head buried in his hands, won’t talk to anyone. We were hoping you might be able to get through to him?”

Grace blinked, surprised. “Um, yeah, I guess I can try.”

Picking up her bag and slinging it around her shoulders, Grace followed Skye down the stairs. Going across the house as the quickest route to backstage, and sure enough, right by the sound cue desk, Ajay was sitting with his face hidden in his hands. The sound guy, some guy in a beanie with curly brown hair, seemed pissed but wasn’t saying anything.

Rory appeared with another chair, and as Grace sat across from Ajay they corralled the concerned techs and actors out of the area to give them some space. Grace thought she heard the sound guy grumbling about not being able to set his programs, but she couldn’t care less.

“Ajay?” she asked lightly, not daring to touch him. “Hey, what’s up?”

Ajay didn’t say anything, but she thought she heard him whimper from behind his hands. Screwing up her courage, she grabbed his arms, gently pulling his hands away from his face.

He looked horrible, like he hadn’t slept in days. The bags under his eyes, which had been worse than usual for the past week, had gotten much darker. He looked like he was on the verge of either tears or screaming, she couldn’t decide which.

Grace let out a breath, knowing Ajay was in bad shape but also knowing that she couldn’t really say anything to make him feel better. Instead, she laced her fingers in his and coaxed him to get up.

“Your sound guy looked pissed,” she explained. “I’ve already done my setup, so how about we sit in the house until it opens? Skye’s got control of everything, and you can still give your speech later.”

Begrudgingly, Ajay agreed and stood up with some effort. Grace smiled at him tentatively, and although he didn’t smile back, his face relaxed just the slightest bit.

Once they’d gotten to the house, Grace dug a bag of goldfish out of her bag and handed it over. Ajay took the plastic bag and examined it, studying it as if it were something bizarre or strange, rather than a simple collection of cheesy crackers.

“They’re goldfish, ‘Jay,” Grace said, trying out the nickname and liking the way it rolled off her tongue. He looked over, cracked the tiniest smile that was more of a grimace, and opened the bag.

“Thanks,” he replied, carefully placing a single goldfish on the tip of his tongue and chewing it up almost contemplatively. Grace simply watched him, fascinated by how he could make something as simple as having a snack into something deep and thought-provoking without even trying.

After munching a few goldfish under Grace’s careful scrutiny, Ajay seemed to regain some sort of consciousness and raised an eyebrow in Grace’s direction.

“You’re staring at me,” he said.

Grace shrugged. “Yeah, well. You can’t blame me. Anyways, is that all you’ve had to eat today?”

Ajay looked down at the bag guiltily, and Grace narrowed her eyes.

“Alright, that’s it, I’m bringing you to my house for a really late dinner. I’m gonna get some actual food in you if it kills me, okay?”

Ajay rolled his eyes. “You won’t just let me have my process?”

“No. You look awful,” Grace replied, “and I can’t be seen with someone who looks like he’s about to yeet himself off a cliff.”

“Ah, so this is all selfish.” Ajay paused. “Wait, did you really just unironically use the word yeet?”

“I did,” Grace said, “and I am completely unapologetic.”

“Fine. Fine, I’ll come eat dinner with you. As long as you promise to let me stop for coffee, too.”

Grace nodded, then moved to get up. Ajay set his hand on top of hers, causing her to sit back down.

“Hey. Thanks.”

“You’re… welcome?”

Ajay nodded. “I needed some goldfish and some space to think. Thanks.”

Then, incredibly, he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Grace’s cheek. Grace blushed fiercely and fixed her eyes at the ground even as he stood up and called everyone around for the pre-show speech.

***

On the way to Grace’s house, Ajay insisted on stopping at the nearest Starbucks for coffee.

“You can’t tell anyone I’m doing this,” he whispered to Grace as they walked in.

“What, getting coffee?”

“At Starbucks,” he said, putting great emphasis on the word as if it was a sin. “I don’t want to shatter my hipster image.”

“Image? So you’re not actually a hipster? What’s the real truth, Ajay Bhandari? Who is the man behind the mask?” Grace held out a hand towards Ajay, pretending she was a reporter holding a microphone.

Ajay leaned in close to her hand and whispered, “I really really like iced coffee.”

Grace cracked up, then found a table to wait at while Ajay ordered. Once he sat down, she adopted a teasing smirk and rested her chin on her hand.

“So,” she said, “a secret love for iced coffee. Seems like you’re revealing all your secrets today.”

“Just the latest piece of the puzzle,” Ajay said. “Now. Shall we?”

“We shall,” Grace agreed. “I’m gonna make you eat vegetables.”

“Gross,” Ajay wrinkled his nose. He offered his hand to Grace as they stood up, but didn’t let go of it the entire walk back to his car.

The drive back to Grace’s house was mostly quiet, Ajay softly singing along to various songs on the radio. Grace’s headache had reappeared with a vengeance, and she stayed focused on the taillights of the cars ahead of them. Too soon, the lights started stabbing into her eyes and she covered them with her hands, trying to block out the light.

“You okay?” Ajay asked, having looked over at the slight movement.

“Just a headache,” Grace said, but her weak voice wasn’t very convincing. Ajay made a concerned noise but kept driving, though he looked over at her frequently.

Five minutes passed, and the pain in Grace’s head only grew.

It grew past the point where she could just say it was a migraine, and past the point she even thought she could tolerate. She had hoped the pain would be enough to knock her out, but it kept growing and she was awfully, horribly awake through the entire ordeal. With what little thought power she had left, she could only rationalize this to be the agony that she'd always feared as a cancer patient. The awful, horrible battle that everyone faced at some point. She'd nearly died before, drowning in her own lungs and struggling for her life, but this was worse. So much worse.

Barely conscious, tears rolling down her face and inhuman sounds ripping their way out of her throat, she barely heard Ajay start cursing and turn around, barely felt him reach into her jacket pocket to grab her phone, could hardly even hear him talking to her parents in a panicked voice.

All she knew was, right then, she wanted nothing more than to die. Because then, at least, the pain might go away.

#moof #masters of our fates #ajay x mc #ajay bhandari x mc #ajay bhandari #high school story fanfiction #high school story class act #hssca #choices fic #choices fanfic #tw: pain #sorry guys

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roryeu · 4 years

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task one: questionnaire.

001. how did your muse find out about being a demigod, and how did they react?

as a child, rory knew there was something different about him. he never made friends easily, other children were afraid of him. he was never invited to play with people on the playground and, at his mother’s insistence, when he tried joining without asking, they just brushed him of and left to do something else. even his teachers found him off putting, though they were better in not showing their prejudice against a child.

his mother promised she would explain everything to him when he was older, that it was okay that he was different and that differences were what made for variety, otherwise life would be boring. her words had made him feel better, she had made him feel better, just with her presence. to rory, there was nothing that couldn’t be solved by spending time with his mom. and like all children, he liked making or giving her stuff that showed his appreciation. macaroni glued to a picture frame? check. drawn pictures in crayon of the two of them hung up on the fridge? check.

but also like all children, he liked sparkly objects and when he saw something red and glittery in the ground, he brought it to his mom because he thought it was beautiful like her. he thought she would like it. being told to put it back where he found it and quickly had almost broken his heart because he thought she didn’t like it. but later that night, she said it was another thing she would explain to him when he was older.

she never got the chance to explain.

finding out his true parentage wasn’t something happened until years down the line. a fury, though he hadn’t known the name of it, attacked him while he walked home from school as a teenager. when he found shelter at a camp in the hills of scotland and finally had everything explained to him, things clicked.

the reaction wasn’t pretty. he spent the majority of his first night at camp, miraculously without a scratch, asking the older kids if they had alcohol, any kid of alcohol, or cigarettes, or weed. a hermes kid two years older had supplied him with tequila and he spent the majority of his night in his cabin (alone, as he always was) getting drunk for the first time.

002. how does your muse’s mortal family feel about them being a demigod?

there isn’t a single soul still alive that rory considers part of his family. the twin sister he’d never known had died when they were born (rory blames that on himself as well, after learning that he was the reason, he’d taken all the nutrients and she couldn’t survive). his mother died of a disease that had come on rapidly and taken her life just as fast despite having been on the mend. the foster families were close enough, maybe, but not enough that he feels close.

the rhodes were the closest thing he would get to a family and he has never viewed them as parents. even as a kid, he referred to them by their first names, the entire time he’d been in their care. they were easily the best of the bunch when it came to the foster families he’d been placed into throughout his youth, he lasted three years with the rhodes. there had even been talks of adopting him when he had started to make progress in therapy and he began opening up little by little. that same week he’d been attacked by the fury and had run.

sending them a letter explaining that it wasn’t their fault was one of the hardest things he’d had to do. he didn’t explain even a fraction of the full story, rationalizing to himself that they were safer if they didn’t know the truth about him. they haven’t seen him in eight years but they keep in contact with letters. he always leaves out the details about where he is, about what he is, despite them asking almost every time. he just promises that he’s safe. they always tell him that they love him but he never says it back.

he might not see them as his parents, but they see him as their son.

003. when did they get claimed by their godly parent?

for most demigods, they get claimed by their parent after their true nature comes to light and their godly parent can no longer deny it. even so, it has to be when the child was no older than thirteen. at thirteen, rory was getting attacked by a fury and led to camp by a ghost, the first and one of the few times he’d been able to summon a spirit.

the second he’d found people inside the camp, the director looking him over for scratches, which he was surprisingly without for having a fury on his ass the entire way across the country, was the second a glowing skull and crossbones appeared over his head. rory kinnon, son of hades.

004. did they attend a camp?

camp, like everything else in his life, was a mixed bag for rory. at camp, he had his first kiss, his first drink, his first heartbreak. the bad outshone the good, like always. he was alone in his cabin there, as there weren’t too many children of hades to begin with (rory doubted he strayed as often as other gods and goddess did). he never made any effort to be included, as he had been burned and shunned too many times in his childhood to make that mistake again but sometimes he got included anyway. and despite the protests, the begrugding attitude as he went along with it, he was always thankful to at least feel like he belonged. after all, wasn’t everyone at the camp an outsider at one point in their life.

when he was fourteen, he’d found himself in a relationship with a son of athena, parker. the relationship lasted less than a year but rory still regards him as one of the only people that he’s ever actually cared about and who cared about him.

from that point on, it just solidified the idea that him being around other people was bad luck. he hated himself for interacting with someone who had less than a year before they died. he thought it would be okay and maybe he could change it.

005. was your muse ever sent on any quests?

parker going on a quest was the closest rory had ever come to going on one himself. when he was packing that night, rory had been in the athena cabin, trying to convince him to change his mind. they’d only allowed three demigods to go on the quest, anymore would draw too much attention, and rory had been told that he wasn’t going. the entire night, he was plagued with visions of how parker would die and he thought, maybe if he went with them instead of some vapid daughter of aphrodite, he would die in parker’s place. he was of more use to the world than rory was. people would be upset to lose parker. no one would feel that way about rory.

despite being told to stay at camp, he’d tried shadow traveling for the first time when he started to feel antsy waiting for parker to get back. he wasn’t allowed to go on the quest but what the camp directors didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

shadow traveling wasn’t one of the few things he was naturally gifted at. through sheer dumb luck, he’d managed to get himself to the right place but it had exhausted him so much he hadn’t been able to save parker when the moment came. at most, he had parker’s head in his lap as he died and threatened the other demigods on the quest with death if they told anyone he had been there.

006. what’s their relationship with their godly parent?

hades is not dad of the year as far as rory is concerned. everything that has ever gone wrong in rory’s life could be attributed to him in one way or another. the death of his first, and only, boyfriend had plagued him thanks to his gift of sensing death.

he wouldn’t have ever met parker if his father hadn’t sent a fury to chase him, scaring him enough that he summoned a ghost without even realizing it to lead him to camp, where he would be safe.

he wouldn’t have needed to be chased to camp if his mother hadn’t died as a direct result of misfortune falling her after rory gave her one of the gems he found in the ground as part of his ferrokinesis. she would have told him and taken him to camp herself.

he wouldn’t have been born if hades didn’t take an interest in his mother to begin with.

rory refuses to hold his tongue when speaking ill about his father. he regularly curses him out, talks shit, and speaks as if he was speaking directly to him, though the words have never once been spoken with kindness. he doesn’t fear retribution.

what’s the worst that happens? hades sends someone an infernal army to kill him. if there was even a chance of it happening, rory would step foot outside of the safety of eonia and tell him to do it already.

007. your muse’s favorite part about being a demigod?

there are very, very few things rory considers a perk of being a demigod and the only one he actually enjoys is the means of making money. though taking gems from the ground brings misfortune to others lives, rory cares very little for other people and happily takes all of the gems he brings to the surface. self taught, he cuts them and makes jewelry out of them, selling them on etsy. there’s mail going out from him on any given day, which is more money going into his pocket.

along with that, rory has moments where he enjoys being a son of hades. people have always been put off by him and as a child, it was upsetting. he hadn’t been doing anything wrong as a kid, he just wanted to make friends. as an adult, making friends is the absolute last thing he wants. and while some people aren’t necessarily affected by the air of ... off that comes with being a child of hades, there tends to be a disconnect from him and the rest of the student body.

008. your muse’s least favorite part about being a demigod?

rory can count the amount of people on one hand that he’s close with. (it’s zero.) his relationships are superficial at best and nonexistent at worst. being able to sense death is a curse in and of itself. after being there while two people died, the grief is endless and he knew it was coming. he would rather have it be a surprise, as horrible as it is, when people die. to be able to spend time with them and enjoy it while it lasts, not be counting down the months, weeks, days, minutes, until someone meets their end.

he would give anything to be able to just be without seeing someone’s death ahead of them.

009. what’s your muse’s weapon and battle proficiency?

his weapon of choice is stygian iron knife. he had summoned the iron from the ground once after hours of concentrating and had promptly taken it to a hephaestus camper who would be able to craft something out of it far better than he ever could. there wasn’t enough there to make a sword so he settled for a knife. a weapon was a weapon and this one was deadly to anyone who pissed him off.

along with that, he is pretty handy with a bow and arrow, though not even close to the children of apollo’s skills. he’s used stygian iron to make arrowheads and treats them with the most care possible. stygian iron goes through the river styx to be made and being able to bring any at all to the surface is a gift he was unwilling to overlook.

#euquestionnaire

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whump-it · 4 years

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This Made Me Cry Happy Tears

Below is a reply that @my-whumpy-little-heart sent in response to an au chapter that I wrote for a collab with @whump-tr0pes. They’ve given me persmission to repost it on here and I just really wanted to as a huge thank you for sharing these thoughts with me.

I didn’t even know what to do with the energy that I had after reading it so I ended up doing a 2km run!

my-whumpy-little-heart wrote: -

So this piece has had me in my Callum and Rory feels All. Day. Long. I kept the tab of this open after I read it for whenever I’d get around to reblogging it, and I kept having to stop myself from coming back to read it over and over again lest it lose its luster.

But yeah I just love them. So so so much. Their domestic relationship together slays me every time I think about it, and seeing them care for each other through stressful situations like these is just. It’s fantastic to see them respecting and valuing each other so much. Have I gone off about these two’s relationship on my blog yet?? Listen sorry if this is something I’ve already done but I checked my account and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of me having shouted about Callum and Rory and it’s the No Filter time of night sooooo

You’ve written a whole darn essay about this already, and I sent an ask not so long ago literally just centered around them, but I. I can’t get enough of Callum and Rory. Through recovery their relationship with each other grows and blossoms beautifully into that dynamic we have the pleasure of reading in this future setting. And. What a dynamic that is.

This probably jumps into what you said in that essay, not sure it’s been a while since I went back and found that, but the strength of their love portrayed without being classified as inherently romantic is just. It means so so much to me. Like, yes, I have characters I love in really strong friendships, the ones I classify as my BROTPs so to speak. But Rory and Callum transcend that in a way I haven’t seen represented in media before. You can’t really call their relationship platonic, but you can’t classify it as romantic either. It blurs those lines put in place by society and I can’t express how much I adore that.

I’ve felt those blurred lines in my own life and the attraction I experience. Because when I get a squish on someone (“squish” being a platonic crush, for those who don’t know. term mostly used amongst aromantic folk such as myself) it’s not always just an urge to be friends. Sometimes it’s a burning need to be something other than friends, but not in the romantic sense. I genuinely hadn’t been able to put my finger on what that meant to me until I read about Callum and Rory. I look at them, and I can see myself and my desires reflected in their actions. And that’s genuinely not something I’m able to say very often, and never to this degree.

Is this at all what you intended in writing them? I genuinely have no idea, and my bad if I’m totally taking them the wrong way by associating this, but I’ve let my interpretation run a little and turn into this feeling. So yeah. The long and short of it is I would die for them and the relationship you’ve cultivated between them. Thank you for providing this and absolutely obliterating the angst brain with happy, fluffy thoughts.

So there’s me being sappy on main yet again, it’s far too late to even try to reread this so fingers crossed that it makes proper sense.

whump-it replied: -

Sorry this took me so long to get to answering. I wanted to have the time to really give it the attention that it needed.

First off, please let me say how much it makes my absolute day, week, month, to know that this piece stuck with you so much that you had it open in another tab. Knowing that you re-read it means so much; that my characters meant that much to you is such a warm feeling for me.

Callum and Rory have a very valuable relationship. Initially it’s easy to see only Rory as the caretaker, particularly in the earlier pieces and when he’s not long got Callum back. But they need care from each other and this becomes evident more and more. Rory was not himself without Callum. He’d met the most important person in the entire world and let him go and it changed him. He was missing something so integral that he couldn’t have nailed it down if you’d asked him. It was just a gaping emptiness. Callum, when he was with Master Hayden, never could bring himself to think of Rory. It was too much like life and it hurt to think of what could have been. And what he thought he’d never get.

They both follow rules. Rules mean a lot to them. To Callum, they saved his life every day for three years. For Rory, he thought that by following them, he was doing his job to the best of his ability. It’s hard for them to get to grips with a more free form way of life and that’s part of why they are actually caretakers for each other. Also they’re both desperate to be the one to be to blame. It takes years before they can wish for good things for themselves before wishing it for the other. They support each other rather just Rory being the sole caretaker. And that’s why their dynamic works the way that it does.

The love that they have for each other is so deep that you can’t see the bottom. It’s foundations are strong. Because when I say they’re soulmates they really really are. They’re integral to one another but not dependent upon each other. The presence of the one another in each other’s lives is what makes them so free as individuals. It’s how they can dispense with the rules that bound them up in knots when they were apart. It’s how they can love and live and laugh without fear.

This part meant such a lot to me ”But Rory and Callum transcend that in a way I haven’t seen represented in media before. You can’t really call their relationship platonic, but you can’t classify it as romantic either. It blurs those lines put in place by society and I can’t express how much I adore that.“ Neither platonic nor romantic fits for them. They simply are Rory and Callum. Callum and Rory. It’s there for all to see and it would never have occurred to them to consider what their position is within society. They just are.

This too…"I’ve felt those blurred lines in my own life and the attraction I experience. Because when I get a squish on someone (“squish” being a platonic crush, for those who don’t know. term mostly used amongst aromantic folk such as myself) it’s not always just an urge to be friends. Sometimes it’s a burning need to be something other than friends, but not in the romantic sense. I genuinely hadn’t been able to put my finger on what that meant to me until I read about Callum and Rory. I look at them, and I can see myself and my desires reflected in their actions. And that’s genuinely not something I’m able to say very often, and never to this degree.” Yup! I’ve quoted the entire piece. Because it made me so happy. It’s exactly what I was aiming for and to know that you think I hit the nail on the head makes me genuinely happy enough to cry. I’ve not known what to do with the energy that this has given me today. I’ve been pacing around the house thinking about this all day. It’s amazing.

They could never have just been friends, but that burning that you talk about? That need for something that transcends friendship but isn’t romantic is their relationship all over. They have such genuine love and affection for each other. They use touch because, quite simply, it feels right in the moment that it happens in, and it continues to do so.

I am beyond happy to fill the angst brain with happy and fluffy thoughts. It gives me such joy to have been able to do that for you. Your reblog has done the same for me.

And lastly, I adore me a good tag essay. I always read the tags! I adore this evolved version and please know that my dm’s are always open if you ever want to ask anything.

I don’t even have the right words to express how I felt when I read two specific things in your tags. Firstly that you called my OC’s icons. I am just overwhelmed by the love that I’m feeling and by the love that my Callum and Rory are getting. And secondly, I will always be amazed to know that there’s people out there talking about my characters. I’m here in my part of the world, maybe I’m in bed asleep, maybe I’m watching tv. But people are talking about my characters! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and so so happy.

You have made this writer very happy. I have a request. Can I please put this on my main? Because your reblog meant so much to me.

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godlyborn · 4 years

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end of an era. | keaton & rory.

date: june 12, 2020 characters: keaton arkwright & rory mikaelsohn summary: keaton and rory talk about their relationship.

Keaton walked Sheep over to the Zeus cabin. It had been odd these last few weeks with the two of them moved out of their apartment, and back where they were a few years ago. Something was still off, and Keaton knew it. She had been off, different then before everything. If he was being honest, he was also off. The last few conversations with his therapist, has been making him realizing things about himself, about him and Rory, that he couldn't keep his mind off. He was too afraid to voice them though. Voice them into reality, or voice them and hurt Rory. "Go get Mama," Keaton said, letting Sheep of his leash to find Rory. Keaton followed Sheep, and after the dog greeted Rory, Keaton wasn't too far behind. "Hey."

Rory had left the front door open, anticipating Keaton’s arrival. Sprawled out on the couch, she was trying her best to get out of her own head for a minute, not wanting everything that’s been on her mind lately to weigh her down. The jingling of a leash pulled her attention away, and a bright smile appeared on her face when she caught sight of Sheep running towards her. Dropping down to the floor, she let the dog jump on top of her and fussed over him. “Hi Sheepy!” Her bed felt colder and it was weird to adjust to not having her dog or her boyfriend to curl up with her at night. Piper was starting to warm up to cuddling at night, but it wasn’t the same. “I missed you so much, baby boy!” Herring footsteps, she looked up, her grin now directed towards Keaton, though she couldn’t get off the floor because of the dog sprawled on top of her. “Hey, babe.”

Keaton smiled when he saw her, taking a seat next to her on the floor. "How was your day?" Keaton asked, letting Sheep roll over so that he was laying in the middle of the two of them, belly up. "Where's Piper?"

When he sat down next to her, Rory leaned over to give him a quick kiss. With Sheep now off of her, the smile dimmed slightly, and she could feel her brain kick start once again, especially at his question. “It was alright,” she started, busying herself with looking around the room for the cat in question. “Pipes is around here somewhere, she ran off after a toy before so she could be anywhere honestly.” She made a few whistling noises, and while Piper didn’t make herself known, there was a thump from somewhere farther in the cabin. “Bailey isn’t here so that must be her.”

Not too long after the thump, Piper came running in, tripping slightly over her big for her paws. Piper rolled up next to Sheep and Keaton scratched behind her ears. “So, uh, the apartment is all clean, and the landlord just said to give him the keys within the week.”

Rory shook her head, laughing slightly as Piper tripped. That cat went from dopey idiot to sweet love bug in five seconds flat, and she never failed to find it endearing. The smile fully fell off of her face as Keaton spoke again, and she pressed her lips together as she nodded. “Alright, yeah. I’ll drop mine off before my shift on Tuesday.” She felt awkward, about the situation they found themselves and everything else that was running through her head. Rory knew that she needed to talk about it, and soon, but she was unwilling to just yet. Instead, she gave him a small smile as she looked up at him. “Do you want me to bring yours too? Or did you already drop it off?”

“If you want, I was going to ask you the same thing,” Keaton replied with a small chuckle. Keaton took off the key from his key ring, a moment of silence flooding over them. “So uh, how’s Bailey? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Rory only felt more awkward as the silence seemed to drag on. She busied herself with pulling her hair-ties out of her braids, making quick work of taking both of them out of her hair. "Oh, she's good, running around all the time as usual. We're both still getting used to living together again." She shrugged. "How's everything over with your sisters?"

"They're good, we've been working in the forges a lot. I think I've come to know at least 4 classic rock albums by heart by now," Keaton replied. "Blue's been in and out with her geefs, and Morgan, is y'know, Morgan," he replied. "Though like you with Bailey, we're getting used to being in the same cabin together again, at least Blue and I, I've never lived in the cabin with Morgan before."

Rory laughed slightly, she remembered the other Heph kids mentioning Morgan's obsession with blasting classic rock while in the forges. "Yeah, that makes sense." She paused, but realized that was pretty much her reply to everything Keaton had said and instead moved to fuss over Sheep again. "And hows my Sheepy boy settling in?”

"You know, Morgan loves Sheep, when he's not with me, he's usually with her," Keaton replied.

Rory nodded her head, Blue liked Sheep too, so she knew that her boy was in good hands between the three of them. "Good, I knew she would love him. It's hard not to with this cute face." She took another minute or three to pet Sheep and center her thoughts. Taking in a breath, Macey's voice sounded in her brain. This is your life, Ror. Take charge. Her eyes slide shut as she let out a shaky breath. She knew what she needed to do and while she wasn't quite sure she was 100% ready to pull the trigger, Rory knew she couldn't keep pretending. "I think we need to talk."

Keaton's mind was on so many other things, Rory's voice brought him back. "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "What's up?"

Rory let out another breath, not being able to help the flare of annoyance that flared in the pits of her stomach. The last thing she wanted was to do all the work in this conversation, therapy already made her feel emotionally drained almost constantly and this didn't help whatsoever. This is necessary she reminded herself, but still couldn't bring herself to look Keaton in the eyes. "We need to talk about us, Keat."

Silence fell between the two of them when Rory mentioned talking about them. Their relationship had been on his mind fo a while now, even he's talked to his therapist about it, and even his therapist thought what was going on between the two of them was unhealthy. Keaton let out a slight sigh, almost relieved that he wasn't the one to bring it up, too scared to. "Uh, yeah."

Now turning her entire body to face Keaton, she found the words disappearing from her brain. The two of them have been awkward lately, which yeah made sense since they moved out of the apartment, but it seemed to be more than just that. Rory's brain had been going in circles since the minute that apartment door shut behind her the night of their fight and her therapist had finally been able to help her start to understand everything that had been making her feel so on edge this whole time. "I love you, Keaton. You know that I do.." Her voice trailed off, her throat feeling as if it had closed up on her suddenly.

Keaton let out the breath that he had subconsciously been holding when she started her sentence, but trailed off. They had been at two different points in time, but it seemed to come together when she opened up the gates to what seemed like a break up conversation. "I love you too, but you're breaking up with me, aren't you?" he asked, relieved that she was the first to mention it somewhat first. "I'd be lying if I wasn't thinking about it too."

She froze at his words, letting them ring in her head before her body reacted. Sagging slightly, she let out an almost relieved sounding sigh. "Yeah, I am." This was a terrible thing to be relieved over, but the tears that welled up in her eyes were ones of genuine sadness. "I just think I need time, we both do. There's so much stuff I haven't let myself get over yet and I feel like I'm just....not me." Rory had always been very aware of the person she was at her core, but as time went on and all the trauma started to pile up in the dark corners of her mind, she felt that person slipping away from her. "I just need to be me again and I can't let myself become this dependent person." She reached out, gripping his hand tightly as the tears fell down her cheeks. "I need to do this for me. I've done everything for everyone else for so long, but I can't do that anymore."

When Rory started crying, Keaton didn't really know what to do. He wanted to hug her and tell her it would be okay, but this was happening, this wasn't a fix it situation. He wanted this too. "I want that for you too," Keaton replied. "I don't want this, but I think that it needs to happen. I don't know. I want you to be who you are, and I know who you can be, and I love that about you, and I want you to be happy, and I know that for you to do that, it's not with me." Keaton broke eye contact with her, feeling weird not comforting her when she's crying. "I don't want you to become dependent, especially on me, because I'm a mess right now too, and I'm just realizing so much shit I never realized before. I'm so dependent on you, and our relationship, that I don't even know who I am. That's not your fault at all, to clarify, that's a me thing. I don't want that for you. As of late, I've been a shitty boyfriend, a shitty person really." Even though he wasn't hugging her, he still let his thumb rub circles into the back of her hand that she had in his.

Blinking the tears away, Rory intently listened to everything he had to say and just felt so grateful that he understood where she was coming from, that he even agreed with her that this needed to happen for the both of them to heal. "Don't blame all of this on you, I haven't exactly been girlfriend of the year or anything lately." She leaned her cheek against the couch and froze so Sheep could get comfy again, tucking himself closer to her lap when he saw the tears in her eyes. "I want you to be so happy, Keaton and I wish that I could that person to help you figure out who you are alone, but I can't be right now. I let all this shit basically take over my life and you don't deserve someone like that holding you back from figuring out what makes you happy."

“It’s crap to say that I don’t want you to help with that. You have so much going on, that I know you need to work through too, and I don’t know how to be there for you,” Keaton said. “You’ve done so much for me already, and you need to do things for you, and I need to learn that I shouldn’t be so dependent on someone who isn’t myself. I don’t know if that even made any sense.” Keaton sighed and then looked up at Rory again. “We’re not who we were months ago, or hell, even years ago when we met. You’d never hold me back. What happened Rory, that shit was traumatic, it’s understandable that you need to figure out yourself and figure it all out, without me, especially for the fact that I look like a complete idiot trying to help you, because you were right when we fought, I don’t even have my own shit figured out. I’ve been running for so long, and I guess when you started running, I didn’t want that to happen. It fucked me up, and it’s a shitty road to go down, and I didn’t want you to feel all the hurt that I felt, that I still feel. It’s the last thing that I ever wanted.”

Rory shook her head. "That doesn't mean I had the right to say it. I was too proud to say that anything was wrong with me, or maybe I was just too scared to admit it. But what it was, it didn't change the fact that no matter what, you tried to help me. Doesn't matter if your way of doing so helped or not, but you tried and I'll always be grateful for that." A sad smile grew on her face, and her free hand moved to rest gently on his cheek. "We're definitely not those kids anymore, but we need to figure out who those kids became separately if we have any shot of figuring out if we work together anymore."

Keaton leaned his head sideways against the couch. "Aren't you scared though?" he asked, and then sighed. "I know we both need it, but I'm scared I'll just fall into myself."

"Oh, I'm terrified. But being terrified of myself is what got me into this hole in the first place, so." She shrugged and the humor in her voice had almost a depressed tone to it. "I'm tired of being scared."

Keaton let out a small laugh, it was almost comical how he didn't believe they would get to this point. "How did we even get ourselves here, Rory?"

Rory's brain quickly flashed through everything they've been through, all the trauma between them that they were too young to handle. Now that she was looking back, she almost wondered how they hadn't reached this point earlier. "I don't know, Keat. I guess everything finally caught up to us."

Keaton looked forward again, his hand rubbing the top of Sheep's head. "Yeah, I guess so."

#d:keaton #d:keatonrory #keatonrory #keaton #discord

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 5 years

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you can ebb and i can flow (and we’ll take it slow)

Single Parents fanfic, Will x Angie. No warnings apply, also on AO3.

Fictober #19, “Yes, I admit it, you were right.” + this ask from @outfieldlove

****

After the last of the wedding stragglers left--it was them, of course, just the five of them in the Winebrary reluctant to begin their childless summers--Poppy closed the shop for the night.

“You wanna go back up and look at the stars some more?”

Angie was comfortably tipsy, leaning on Will a little as they walked to his car. She blamed the party buzz for the extra time it took her to realize she’d left her coat inside.

How did she leave wearing a chicken hat but forget her coat? One day without Graham and she was already losing her mind.

“Sure,” Will agreed. “Hey, where are you--”

Angie froze a few feet away from his car, then gestured toward Poppy’s business. “I left my coat in there, and now I can’t go get it.”

“Because...”

“Because Poppy and Douglas are still in there, and now they’re in there alone, and it’s probably weird because it was Ron’s wedding but this is like...their first date. I don’t want to interrupt that. I want to stay out of that.”

“Okay, but you also said you want to hang out under the stars. It’s going to be chilly up there, Angie. It’s nighttime.”

“What am I, five? I’ll be fine. Let’s just go.”

“Do I have to remind you that I am an actual weatherman on KZOP?”

“Never,” Angie muttered, while Will continued talking over her. “You never have to remind me. Please stop reminding me.”

“I would be remiss if I did not point out that you’re looking at lows of sixty-two degrees tonight, and it will feel even colder up there because of the wind.”

“It gets cold when the sun goes down. Got it. Come on, Will!”

The drive wasn’t long, and the spot overlooking LA was peaceful, especially without the rustling of Ratso’s drive through bags. Angie gave up looking for a comfortable position on the hood of Will’s car and laid down flat, staring up at the stars.

It would probably make her dizzy from that angle if she were still tipsy, but instead it was nice.

Will didn’t waste time like she did, laying half on his side so he could see both the stars and her, as though he were waiting for her to speak.

Which she did, so maybe that wasn’t surprising.

“That was weird, huh?”

“What?”

“The wedding.”

“Because it was at a Winebrary, or because they’re taking Rory on the honeymoon?”

“Yeah, both. But no, I meant, it was weird being at their wedding when we barely know them. Weddings are weird enough when you care about the bride or the groom, but Ron’s just...that guy Poppy’s better off without, and I don’t even know his fiance.”

“I guess that was weird.” Will was quiet for a minute. “I thought you were gonna say Douglas and Poppy getting together.”

“Oh, that. Nah, I knew about that. I told you--well, I sort of did.”

“You did not.”

“I did too! You wanted to know who she was dating, and I almost told you about Douglas. But I didn’t, I thought it wasn’t happening.”

“Right, right. I remember.” Will shifted onto his back, his shoulder touching hers.

“It’s not that weird, is it? Them together? I think they’re kind of cute. I want Poppy to be happy.”

“Me too,” he agreed. “They’re just...so different. Y’know? Their politics, their parenting styles, he’s like twice as tall as she is.”

“Well, we all have different politics. And parenting styles. I think it’s good, we bring our own stuff to the table and meet in the middle. It makes us better.”

“Yeah, as a modern village.”

Angie elbowed him for using that word. He’d expected worse.

“But we’re not dating.”

Will’s words lingered in the air before he heard how they sounded and rushed to overcorrect.

“The five of us, I mean! All of us, parents. Not you and me. Our whole...tribe.”

He wasn’t sure how much of a difference there really was between tribe and village, but Angie didn’t say anything about what a nerd he was.

She sat up instead, rubbing her arms. “Your car does not make a warm hangout spot, man, I gotta say.”

“Cold?”

“A little.”

“I tried to tell you. You had a perfectly good coat!”

Angie sighed, her reluctant words pulled from deep down. “Yes, I admit it, you were right.”

“Wow. That must have been hard for you.”

“Shut up.”

Will covered his laugh with a cough. “Next time, will you listen to my weather advice?”

“Probably not. Give me your shirt.”

He sat up, torn between startled and offended. “No!”

“You’ve got three layers on, Will, including that flannel, and I am sitting in the dark and windy Los Angeles night, wearing just this one long-sleeved shirt. Are you really going to be so selfish as to leave me shivering here? What happened to chivalry? What happened to friendship?”

“What happened to the jacket you could’ve brought with you?” Will retorted.

He was already shrugging his coat off.

****

“Morning!”

Angie flinched in the doorway and responded with a hand gesture that frankly, Will found both rude and unnecessary. But he knew her well enough to know all she meant by it was ‘take it down a notch please.’

He patted her on the shoulder as he entered, a silent apology.

“How’s Graham?”

“Whiny.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. It sucks to be sick at his age.”

“It sucks to be sick in general,” Angie countered. “It sucks to be his mom when he’s sick at this age.”

She looked better than she had two days ago when he came by to help with the laundry and some food prep. She was wearing normal clothes today, and managed to brush her hair.

Despite the D’Amato family’s collective whining--that thought made him smile a little--Will gave them three more days before Graham was back in the carpool.

“I brought the forms you need to fill out, and I can watch him for a couple hours if you want a break. Get some fresh air, maybe buy your own groceries? Whatever helps.”

“Awesome.”

Angie took a deep breath, sighed it back out. When she opened her eyes, she narrowed them at Will.

Graham might be on the mend, but she was clearly off her game if it took her this long to notice.

“Will Cooper, what are you wearing?”

He snuck a look down before he answered, hit with the sudden inexplicable worry that maybe he forgot pants.

Nope, fully dressed from head to toe.

“Clothes?”

Angie’s reply held as much patience as she could manage at 8 a.m. on day five of having Graham home sick. It was the same voice she’d directed at Graham when he wanted to make his own breakfast before Will showed up.

“Yes, but whose clothes?”

Frowning, Will checked more thoroughly this time. Shoes, socks, pants, shirt, flannel. Whose clothes, he scoffed silently. He was wearing them, wasn’t he? He’d sorted the laundry himself.

“Angie, what are you talking about? I’m wearing my clothes. These are men’s clothes!”

It had been a rough week for her, he thought, not without sympathy. She was barely sleeping with Graham awake all night. Anybody could have an off day. Why that off day needed to include mocking his wardrobe was beyond him--but this was Angie. That wasn’t exactly unusual for her.

“Close,” she said. “Those are almost men’s clothes. That flannel shirt is mine.”

“I-it’s--” Will sputtered long enough to feel ridiculous, then gave up. It was an easy thing to check.

Angie bit down on what she was thinking while he pulled off the flannel and reached for the tag.

Will only looked mildly defeated as he handed it over.

“Okay, so I was wearing a women’s XL. Big deal. I’m very secure in my masculinity.”

“Sure you are. You still stole my shirt.”

“I didn’t steal it! I borrowed it, accidentally. And only because I did your laundry, you know.”

Through the heavy exhaustion of the last week, and the amusement that was brightening her morning, Angie finally cracked a smile. “Yeah, I know. Did I remember to thank you for that?”

“No, you did not.”

“Well, thanks.”

She made a face as she pulled the shirt on over her sick-day outfit. “Jeez, it’s so warm!”

“Nobody said you had to put it on. Wear one of your twenty other flannel shirts.”

Angie frowned. “No. It’s kinda nice once you get used to it.”

There was a beat of silence while Will looked at Angie looking at him, wearing the shirt that he’d been pretty happy thinking was his five minutes ago.

That was happening more this year--the silence, not just Will losing his shirts.

Angie broke first.

“Want to stay for breakfast?”

“Hey, like I said, you’ve got me for two hours. If you want to spend that time making me breakfast instead of enjoying a world free of vomiting, that is your prerogative.”

“Eh, I can go out after breakfast.” She sat down and crossed her arms. “Which I never said I would cook.”

“Fine, I’ll make breakfast. Did Graham eat yet?”

“Not yet. He might be able to handle some toast.”

“Gotcha.” Will started pulling things out of her cupboards. “Toast and...waffles?”

Angie hugged her red flannel a little tighter. It was like fresh out of the dryer. Cozy.

“Waffles would be good.”

#fictober19 #single parents #angie x will #will x angie #the amount of time i spent flipping between 1.23 and 2.01 to check my memories #i tell you...even with less editing i take this all way too seriously #anyway yeah today we're trying something new folks in which i post a thing i wrote the SAME DAY #instead of editing it for a week so...here you go #single parents fic #angie x will fic #outfieldlove #my fic

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thepersephonecabin · 4 years

Text

Legacy and Bullshit Mindfuckery (fic)

Summary: Luvander has two things for the Adamo’s first child: a gift and a wish.

Please see full tags and warnings AO3

Note: So... How did we get here? Well, basically, when I was writing A Very Adamo Christmas for @foxesonstilts for the @festivebastion exchange I meant to put in a short bit about a Luvander giving Laure and Adamo’s first child a very special gift, but forgot until after finishing FestiveBastion. So I told myself I was gonna write a small addition, and then my latent need to see the airmen recover after the war took over and suddenly I had a 4k+ luvander character study on my hands. And also about halfway through my if-i-dont-write-this-right-now-i-will-never-sleep craze a tiny part of my brain was like “you should make luvander a trans man for absolutely no reason” and I did and actually really liked the way it fit into the story.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy!

A day and a half following the birth of Rory Adamo, Luvander found himself on the doorstep of the Greylace Estate once again. Wrapped in one arm, he cradles a soft drawstring bag, cream in color with a light pink ribbon around the top.

He didn’t bother knocking as he shouldered his way through the doorway. Even though he still primarily lived out of the apartment above the hat shop, this place was dragon territory, and therefore as far as he was concerned, it was his home as well.

“Hello?” he called out, slipping his shoes off at the door. Maybe if he was really lucky, Rook would come in and pitch a fit about like he would in the good old days.

Balfour emerged from the lounge with a book cracked open in his hands and questioning eyes. “Oh, Luvander. It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Luvander confirmed. “Where’s the chief and his young lady love? I had something I wanted to bring to them.”

“They’re in their bedroom, I think,” Balfour said before quickly amending, “Oh, no, not like that! I think it was just time to change her.”

“Ah,” Luvander said. “How is the not-so-little tyke anyway?”

Balfour smiled and began leading him up the stairs to Laure and Owen’s room as if Luvander hadn’t been there not two days ago. “Oh, you know. She sleeps and eats and poops and cries. Lucky the three of us don’t room up in the same area of the house as Chief Sergeant and Airlady Adamo or I’m sure we’d all be knackered already.

The three of us. Luvander knew he meant the three Second Wavers outside of Laure of course. Luvander felt a sick little spark of jealousy flare up in his stomach and not for the first time at their mention before he stamped it out with the guilt of it all.

Balfour continued, “Mom and Dad are still smitten with her though. I wager that by the sixth week in they might be out of the honeymoon stage.”

“Sixth? I don’t know if I could make it to the second,” Luvander said. Of course, he was happy to have a little niece to dote on, but Luvander had never seen much draw in the idea of having a baby you couldn’t return to its rightful owners when it began to shit itself.

Balfour laughed good-naturedly, “I think Adamo’s a bit more levelheaded than you, however.”

Luvander shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ll stick to my instinct and take you up on that bet.”

They’d reached the Adamo bedroom now, and throught the door Luvander thought he could hear the baby’s wordless vocalization (Did most newborns make this much noise when they weren’t crying or was this one just especially talkative, he wondered) paired with Laure’s laugh and the low tenor of Adamo’s voice.

Balfour turned to him, touching Luvander’s elbow softly through his coat. Balfour wasn’t wearing his gloves today, Luvander observed. Good, he thought, he shouldn’t feel like he needed to hide them, especially not here, not with family.

“Before you go in…” Balfour began, “I wanted to ask how you were doing. I know Ghislain sailed out.”

Luvander resisted the urge to grimace. He liked to tell himself he did an okay job of deflecting everyone else’s attention away from his persistent problems with loneliness. On the good days he cracked enough jokes and sarcastic witticisms to keep the people around him too entertained to notice. On the bad days he threw himself into overworking, holed up in his workroom with little sleep and becoming overly perfectionistic about whatever he was working on until he felt like tearing it all apart again. But on the best days Ghislain was home, in this place Ghislain didn’t even think of as his home, but the place Luvander was, which in Luvander’s mind designated it as Ghislain’s home nonetheless.

Balfour, however had always been the one he couldn’t fool, and it was a fact that needled at him constantly. He didn’t enjoy it when others looked past the mask he’d so carefully crafted for himself like one of his custom hats.

Not that Luvander had anyone but himself to blame for that. Balfour always suspected Luvander’s yearning for affection and attention and approval had been more than the average loneliness, but then Luvander just had to go and fuck it up even further.

It had been at least a year and a half or maybe even two when it happened. He, Raphael, Balfour, and Rook had been drinking (because of course they had) in Balfour’s room at the Greylace Estate. These rooms were a damn sight bigger and nicer than the ones in the Old Airman, a fact that Luvander could never parse out about whether he appreciated or was annoyed by. As such, Balfour had set up a couch and a few chairs to fill the space between his bed and the opposite wall. Ever since Raphael turned up again, they’d started having little get togethers one or twice a month, alternating whose place hosted.

Then Thom’d been offered a job as a professor (a real one this time) at the ‘Versity and Rook had come back to Thremedon bitching and complaining the whole way back from whatever adventure they’d been on when they received the letter. Apparently Thom had already begun writing a letter back declining the offer when Rook found out and through some well-intentioned bullying and ripping of half-finished correspondence got Thom to accept. From Luvander’s understanding, Thom had decided immediately to pass on the job in order to continue looking after his older brother, knowing that Rook had very important reasons for staying away from Thremedon. He couldn’t ask Rook to go back there, and he didn’t feel comfortable letting Rook travel alone without eventually winding up dead in a ditch from asphyxiating from his own vomit either. According to him, Rook’s mental health had markedly approved once the Dragonsoul was destroyed and th’Esar’s plans thwarted. He’d finally been able to properly grieve, Thom said, but that didn’t mean he was ready to part ways and risk Rook relapsing without him to drag him out of it.

Rook found all this out and stubbornly refused to go along with that “bullshit mindfuckery” Thom was always practicing on account of the fact that teaching at the University had always been Thom’s dream job, and he would be damned if his little brother threw it away for his sorry ass. After all, while the ‘Versity had improved in regards to letting in more students from poorer walks of life since Thom had been awarded for his work with the Airmen, the same improvement hadn’t come in regards to hiring choices. For all any of them knew, this might be the last time a mollyrat was offered a job at the Empire’s highest learning institution in a long, long time. So, back to Thremedon they came, and Luvander, Balfour and Raphael’s little survivor’s club had expanded from three to four members. (There had always been an open invitation to Adamo as well, but he only rarely took them up on it.)

So, anyway, they’d been drinking thoroughly and Luvander more thoroughly than the rest. It’d been months since Ghislain had come to port- not his fault, some jobs simply took longer than expected- and Luvander was in the pits. That said, he’d been holding it together pretty admirably that night, and it had all been fine until Rook and Raphael left. Raphael said he had Royal Guard duty the next day- it was a job offer Luvander, Ghislain and Raphael had all received from the Esarina herself after she’d almost died by her own guards that night when they’d had to rescue the Adamos. Raphael had been the only one to accept.

But so when Raphael stood up to leave and appropriate one of the Estate’s carriages Rook also decided to leave “before the Professor starts hyperventilating over me” and figured it would just be easier to go back in one carriage. It was, in sober retrospect, a suspiciously sensical thing to come out of Rook Molly’s mouth, but who knew anymore. Luvander didn’t know what kind of bullshit mindfuckery Thom had exposed that man too while they were travelling, but Rook’d been all kinds of weird since they’d come back and by “weird” Luvander meant “vaguely decent.”

The two of them took their leave and after that the details grew fuzzy, but he did remember drunkenly confessing his depression about missing Ghislain to Balfour and Balfour being nothing but supportive as understanding.

“You’re so sweet,” Luvander had told him, slurring his words and cupping the other man’s cheek. “You know that? You’ve always been so sweet, Balfour. Sometimes I wonder how someone as sweet as you got mixed up with all of us selfish ingrates. You always deserved so much better than us. Hell, if you’d never met us assholes, you’d still have your hands.”

Balfour blushed and looked away. “My hands weren’t your guys fault, and even if I don’t have them, I have my girl and all of you. Besides, I’m not so inno-“

And that had been as far as he’d gotten before Luvander launched himself into Balfour’s lap and shoved their mouths together.

Now, it’s important to note that Luvander had always been a touchy drunk. He’s sure he’d made passes at all thirteen of the other airmen more times than he could count while trashed out of his mind. He even had one absolutely disastrous incident with Adamo that had gotten a very stern talking to about appropriate relationships between a superior officer and his subordinates the next morning. Luvander had deeply respected the things Adamo said to him at the time despite the massive hangover he was fighting his way through as he said it and the urge he had to hang himself rather than have this conversation at all. That didn’t mean he hadn’t brought up the irony of it in his speech at Laure and Adamo’s wedding, though.

Which was all to say that Luvander was no stranger to make-out sessions with his friends after a few too many drinks. In fact, drunken fooling around had been the bedrock upon which his entire relationship with Ghislain was founded. Even after Luvander and Ghislain were “official” they’d kept the relationship fairly open because Luvander wasn’t the sort to abstain from sex for months at a time while his lover was at sea. It had simply come with the condition that if anything that strayed from the “casual sex” territory and into the “feelings” territory had be to discussed- Ghislain wasn’t jealous about Luvander being with other people physically, but he was jealous about having to share Luvander’s heart and overprotective at times about the idea of someone taking advantage of Luvander’s emotions.

This had been different though. This kiss with Balfour hadn’t been borne of happy delirium or playfulness like most of his less-than-sober escapades were. This had been borne of deep, deep sorrow. A desperate effort to patch a leak in a dam ready to burst. The other reason it was different was because Balfour had only had had two drinks that night, and Luvander had had at least five times that.

On the bright side, if one had to have such a mortifying experience in their lives, Luvander could think of very few people better to have it with than Balfour Vallet.

The epitome of gentlemanly behavior, Balfour had gently broken off the kiss and softly and without malice told him that they couldn’t do this, not when Luvander was so intoxicated. Luvander had nodded and understood, but then broken into wracking sobs as he blubbered about how fucking alone he felt all the time. Balfour let him cling to him like a security blanket even though Luvander was still straddling him and repeatedly assured him that he didn’t care if Luvander covered his shirt with snot and tears.

Then Luvander woke up the next morning on Balfour’s couch with a blanket draped over him. His clothes were all intact with the exception of his shoes and his binder which he had a bad habit of sleeping in and Balfour knew it. Balfour must have peeled it off once Luvander had passed out along with the boots and then buttoned Luvander’s shirt back up and even replaced his signature scarf. Both binder and boots were now neatly laid out on the coffee table with care.

There were still a few bottles of alcohol too, and ordinarily he might have been tempted to drink them. This time though, he reckoned he’d done enough damage under the influence for one day.

That was about when Balfour appeared, already dressed for the day and carrying a tray of water and coffee. “Oh, you’re awake,” he’d said, kicking the door shut behind him. He sat next to Luvander on the couch and set the tray on the table. “I hope you don’t mind that I took off your…” he said awkwardly, wringing his hands like he always did.

It took Luvander a moment to understand he was talking about the binder. “Oh. Oh no, it’s- Balfour, I know you’d never do anything to me or go further than protecting my ribs from some rather tragic pain in the morning. And it’s not anything you haven’t seen in the showers before. If anything I think when it comes to invasions of peoples’ personal boundaries, I should be the one apologizing to you right now. What happened last night… the way I just went after like that was unconscionable and I promise it will never happen again. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest if you never wanted to see me again.”

Balfour looked shocked. “Of course, I don’t want that. What happened last night wasn’t ideal, obviously, but you were plastered and having a rough day. I get it.”

Luvander could’ve both laughed and cry at that. “But it wasn’t just a bad day. It was… Bal, I think I have a problem.” He could practically feel the bile coming up just from saying those words out loud, but he told himself that if there was ever the time to admit it to anyone, this was it so he continued: “I think maybe I always had. Even before Xi’an it was like this, just not as intense or constant. I don’t know how to be alone. I don’t know how to feel unimportant or like I’m not the center of attention without letting it control me. When there were fourteen of us I could ignore it, right? Because there was always someone around, but now…” He wiped away tears with his scarf and adjusted it anxiously. “And, like, the way this place just fucking tossed all of us out like yesterday’s trash the second they didn’t need us anymore and that blasted medal ceremony was over didn’t exactly help.”

Balfour nodded slowly. “I think I know the feeling or at least a fraction of it. I felt so isolated and broken at the end of the war, but even before that I… well, I suppose I always felt like I was second to Amery.”

Luvander felt another pang of guilt. None of them had been sure how to react when Balfour replaced his brother in the Corps, but Rook more than anyone. Before Amery died he’d been the one of them that Rook was closest to, so Balfour’s presence was anything but welcome to him. So, whenever Rook had a problem, Balfour was usually who he took it out on. And Luvander had always just let him. Because sometimes crossing Rook was like crossing god in that house, but it didn’t excuse how cowardly he’d been.

“Got feminine parts between his legs, airman’s honor.”

That’s what Rook had said about Balfour when he’d tried to be kind to Thom that first day when the Professor had them do introductions. Even then, Luvander, the real one with “feminine parts” among them was sitting right there, and he hadn’t said shit to stop Rook.

(Luvander had always felt Rook didn’t mind trans men as much as he minded trans women. Something about the way trying to be more masculine was seen as noble, while trying to be more feminine made you a Mary in a world where women were always seen as lesser. But he also felt like Rook’s somewhat backwards and begrudging acceptance of Luvander’s presence was conditional, like it was something that he was able to revoke at the barest hint of insubordination. Luvander was tolerated as long as he fought well and shut up and was cruel like him, but that didn’t mean it was real. At least Thom had seemed to have trained some of that out of Rook over the years, but it was still a nagging fear for Luvander.)

Luvander didn’t say any of that. He just said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix it.” I don’t know how to fix me.

Balfour escorted him to the ‘Versity after that and made him talk to Thom about it. Thom being Thom, of course, looked at it as the academic he was. He talked about all kinds of fancy words like ‘schizoid’ and ‘histrionic’ and ‘dependent personality’. Basically, Thom said he couldn’t be sure exactly what the problem was without examining further. But he assured Luvander that there were coping mechanism they could try and that he had colleagues from the ‘Versity that he could ask for more medically focused advice as compared to Thom’s social theory perspectives.

Bullshit mindfuckery, Luvander remembered. As much as he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of Thom “examining” his psyche, he was significantly less thrilled about a perfect stranger doing it. At least he could trust Thom. At least Thom knew jackshit about how the airmen worked beyond the court gossip and bards’ song and those fucking statues that made them war heroes and not real people anymore. At least Thom was there when he woke up on an infirmary bed unable to talk for how deep his throat had been slit only to find out that four out of fourteen of them had come back. Even if Thom had been beside himself with grief, unaware that number five, Rook, was still breathing somewhere out there, at least Thom had borne witness for himself what they’d gone through, and Luvander wasn’t about to have to hash all of that to someone new.

But he couldn’t sit on his hands and not accept help when it was offered. Because he’d made Balfour a promise. He’d promised that he would never kiss Balfour again without fair and honest consent, plastered or not, and he’d meant it. He had so few friends left in this world. He wasn’t about to lose another due to his own selfishness and stupidity.

And so, he gave himself into the bullshit mindfuckery. He’d been meeting with Thom once every one or two weeks (or more than that if something set him off and crisis called for it). It was helping, Luvander thought. Slowly but surely.

Back in the present, Luvander shrugged at Balfour noncommittally. “It sucks, but I’m seeing the Professor tomorrow. And I guess now if I need someone to keep me company I could come and let the baby keep me busy so Mom and Dad can have some alone time.”

Balfour smiled at him. “You could have come over anyway. Well, I won’t push for specifics, but if you want to talk later…”

“I know where to find you,” Luvander confirmed.

Balfour gave him a bigger smile now. “Okay. I’ll let you talk to them then,” he said, and began descending the stairs, leaving Luvander at the at the door to the Adamo’s room.

He knocked briskly on the door and heard the Chief say, “Come in,” from the other side.

When Luvander opened the door, he found Laure on the bed over the covers cradling not-so-little Rory and making faces at her. Adamo was over by the radiator holding a bottle over the heat.

“Ah, I thought I heard someone out there talking to Balfour,” Laure said. “I didn’t know you were coming over today, but then again, I don’t think the pregnancy brain is totally out of my system yet.”

Laved waved moved to sit on the bed at her feet and waved her off with a hand. “It was unannounced. I had a gift for the baby and thought I’d bring it over.”

“Oh, that was thoughtful of you,” Adamo remarked walking over. To his credit, he only let a sliver of the wariness of a man who put up with thirteen uncontrollable ever-pranking monsters with dubious respect for authority for Regina even knows how long it’s been slip into his voice.

Luvander took the drawstring bag from the crook of his elbow and held it in his lap. “Well, I started working on this once you announced she was on her way. I guess I could have given it to you earlier, but it just felt like I should wait to give it to Rory in person. And of course, I didn’t exactly know you would choose to go into labor in a blizzard, so I didn’t have it on me the other night.”

He had a million things to say, a million possible preambles he could make, but he figured it was best to just show them. So, he pulled open the drawstrings, reached in, and pulled the carefully constructed figure of silver-grey fabric and held it up for inspection.

Adamo looked too shocked to say anything. Laure’s mouth had dropped into a soft “o” shape. But Rory had caught sight of her new toy and vocalized with one hand in her mouth and the other reaching out toward him with demanding hands. Bossy, he thought, Like her dad.

“I’m not sure I got all the details right since I was working off memory, plus she never really let me get that close to her anyway, but… Here she is,” Luvander said, because in his hands was a very small plush dragon.

“Is that…” Laure began.

“Proudmouth,” Adamo breathed. “Can I see her?”

“Of course,” Luvander said.

Adamo took it from him as if squeezing too hard would make it turn to nothing in his hands, turning it from side to side to see all the craftsmanship Luvander had put into it. Embroidered patterns where Proudmouth’s metal had been engraved, carefully cut and stabilized fabric made to take the shape of gears, a brass-colored ribbon where brass-colored brass reigns would’ve been. Every detail down to the shape of her claws had taken hours to craft and even more hours of meditating and sifting through bittersweet memories to recover. And here were the fruits of his labor all pieced together. Finally, Adamo let out a breath and said, “Looks just like her.”

“Well when you two starting talking about having kids, I wanted think of something special I could pass down to them, and eventually thought, well, every Adamo needs a dragon, right?” Luvander said. “So, I settled myself of making a different for each of your kids, if you have more that is. And it felt important that Rory got Proudmouth as your firstborn. I think… I think if things had turned out differently than they did Proudmouth could have been her birthright what with the way Anastasia picked two Vallets in a row to ride her.”

Adamo’s face as always was had to read, but somehow with a dragon in his hands, he looked years younger, and Luvander could tell whatever he was feeling he was feeling a lot of it.

Then Adamo smiled and said, “Thank you. It’s perfect, Luvander, really. I guess we should give Rory her girl and see if they choose each other.”

He passed the dragon to his daughter’s grasping hands, and they all watched as Rory immediately pulled Proudmouth to her chest.

“I think that’s your answer,” Laure laughed, dabbing at her eyes.

And in that moment, it seemed to Luvander that the world shone brighter. Welcoming a new generation was always hard, especially when the old one had lost so much, but it felt nice to be able to give the Airmen a proper legacy- one that wasn’t bronzed in statues, written in theses, or whispered behind hands at palace balls. But one that was simple- from father to daughter. And wrapped up in that gifted legacy was a wish, the most powerful wish Luvander had ever made, sewn into every stitch and seam: I wish that the ones who come after us won’t need our bullshit mindfuckery in the first place.

And then, Rook ruined the moment when they all heard a loud bang of the front door opened way too forcefully, followed by “BASTION FUCKING DAMNIT, WHO LEFT THEIR BOOTS IN THE DAMNED DOORWAY, I THOUGHT I DIDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT ANYMORE!”

Laure, Owen, and Luvander all looked at each other, and all at once they burst into laughter.

#volstovic cycle #havemercy #the oc's #rebloggable #my fic #screams into the void im actually so proud of this fic and i dont know why #also i know janie isn't on tumblr anymore but i just think of her every time i write about luvander so im wondering if it would be weird to #hey remember me? probably not we talked like 2 times but i wrote a fic about luvander and i miss seeing you in the fandom because i dont ha #ve a pillowfort

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mbavholidayexchange · 4 years

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To @bennyxweir, from @livelyvaltersen

Title: And I know that you're scared because hearts get broken

Rating: Gen

Summary: Ethan thought coming out to his family meant they’d stop asking him if he was dating someone. He wanted a normal conversation with them, which meant no mention of if he was dating. The only problem was he never got that. Instead now he has to find a boyfriend before Christmas Eve, and Benny suggests that maybe they could pretend together.or, the one where Benny and Ethan fake date in attempt to convince people Ethan has a boyfriend.

Ao3 Link: Link

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