servant of death
ffxivwrite2023 05: BARBAROUS
mercilessly harsh or cruel
lumelle’s having a really bad day. sorry. that’s on me. lumelle & emet-selch. 3401 wc.
i’m not sure how to warn for this, exactly? but CW for discussion & most of the actual task for what the carers for end-of-life patients at the inn do. i don’t think it’s worse than the SHB MSQ alisaie side but. yanno.
He was back again. Much to Lumelle’s personal dismay, he always seemed to appear whenever Alisaie left her side to go on patrol, which made it impossible to fully convince Alisaie of the presence of an Ascian—a Paragon—this close to the crystallized Flood of Light. At least he didn’t seem interested in doing harm to anything other than Lumelle’s sanity, and at least his presence here in the kitchen meant he wasn’t off harassing A’dewah in the carer’s dormitory.
Lumelle took a deep breath, and looked away from Emet-Selch sitting on the kitchen counter beside her cutting board as if he were Elwin and not a full-grown man in a hoity-toity, heat-trapping robe.
“Get off the counter before I decide to chop off your fingers and use them as eater bait tomorrow,” she said evenly, gripping the bone handle of the knife in her hands tight as she continued to cut up the last harcot for the topping.
“So barbaric,” Emet-Selch sneered, but he did get off the counter, if only to loom over Lumelle as she continued her work. Lumelle had never particularly begrudged her Elezen-typical growth spurt not happening on time or quickly—even now she was only a few ilms taller than she was two years ago—except for when he did that just because he knew she hated it. “And even beyond your propensity to threaten violence and enact it, you seek to kill your friends before they become foe. Hardly becoming behavior for a hero such as yourself.”
“Whatever, Solus.” Lumelle took the biggest chunks of the harcot that didn’t look mangled and set them aside on a plate—the rest she stuffed into her mouth and chewed angrily before she wiped off her hands and turned to pry open the lid of icebox. The rule she had set for herself repeated in her head: don’t let the Ascian win. He wants you to flip out.
Emet-Selch didn’t seemed so easily deterred today—or was it tonight? His shadow fell over her as she got the heavy, ill-fitting lid off the icebox and pulled out the chilled jelly with its accompanying jar of lemonette syrup. “I thought you would leave the dubious honor of such dirty work like cooking to your fellows. That Hume girl, if not your precious Scion. Feeling guilty, mayhap?”
She swallowed some of the harcot—made a reminder to herself to ask Rhon Ron if he had any more left to sell, because these were really good—and looked up at him. “You’re in my way. If you really want to observe, get out of the kitchen.”
His face twisted lightly with—disgust, maybe? Lumelle couldn’t really tell; he looked at everything like that, save maybe when Lumelle caught flashes of him watching her cut through swathes of sin eaters, sitting bored in the distance with a stare sharper than any blade. Whatever it was, it was only there for a fleeting moment before he moved towards the kitchen doorway and said, “Do finish chewing before you say anything else. I have the time.”
“My etiquette teachers would say the same,” she said, mouth still half-full. Don’t bow your head; keep breathing normally. She put the lid back on the icebox, hoping whoever needed it next would be able to get it open, set the jelly and the jar to the counter, and then pulled out the key to the locked drawer she’d borrowed from Tesleen. “I used to listen to them—when I was seven.”
Emet-Selch scoffed. “And how long ago was that, three years?”
Lumelle snorted—she might have been angrier, if she’d not spent most of her childhood expected to hold herself in a manner befitting a full-grown lady of the house and now found being childish almost refreshing at times—and stuck out her tongue at him with her smile oddly stretched from the lump of harcot she was holding in her cheek. The petty joy of getting someone incomprehensibly ancient to stoop to arguing with her was about the biggest win she was going to get out of parleying with Emet-Selch.
“Still here?” she asked, twirling the key on her finger. Usually Emet-Selch would scoff and disappear back into the aether after Lumelle got him to stoop to playing along with her conversation instead of whatever he wanted.
Not now, though.
Emet-Selch snapped his fingers, and a chair appeared beside the doorway for him to sit in, crossing one leg over the other. “Of course,” he said, that perfectly-rehearsed smile that reminded Lumelle of the lords and ladies back home settling onto his face. “I meant what I said—I have plenty of time to chat. It’s not as if you Scions have made any dent in my plans, and at the moment I find this part of the ruined star particularly intriguing to watch.”
Lumelle swallowed the rest of the harcot to keep from frowning. She didn’t want Emet-Selch to see the contents of the carer’s kitchen drawer, but she had little choice in the matter; he really was intent on seeing this part of Lumelle’s misery through.
She should have just stabbed him when he approached her after that cursed sin eater hunt, no white auracite be damned.
Unlike everything else in the Inn’s kitchen, this drawer still worked almost as well as the day it was built. She slid the key into the lock and turned it without needing to use her strength like earlier with the icebox, and opened the drawer to see the contents split evenly between the carer’s stock. The glass bottles clattered with the movement, some rolling around freely. Lumelle’s eyes drifted to the folded piece of paper underneath the vials on her right.
She reached in and pulled it out. Unfolded it.
Dosage suggestions based on food type, amount, & patient body weight.
“And lo, the valiant knight turns her blade against those she swore to protect.” Emet-Selch sounded so damn smug, narrating from his shitty little chair; maybe he’d done it before from his throne in Garlemald. Lumelle wanted nothing more than to get her sword and pin him to it through the stomach. “Mayhap a situation not so unfamiliar. I recall Ishgard determining her heretics based on a whim quite often.”
Lumelle bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood, the juice from the harcot still sticky on her tongue making it sting. “I never swore anything. Stop talking so loud,” she grit out. Which carer wrote this? They had the smallest handwriting Lumelle had ever seen, so teensy she almost felt the need to squint to read it. In liquids & syrups, one-fourth jar, 100 to 115 po—
Emet-Selch kept talking at her. “An oathless knight. How pitiful. Even the knights of Voeburt at least had some civility and honor about them,” he said. “Though I suppose what little honor you had left you over a moon ago.”
“I’ll show you honor,” she muttered, wrinkling the slightly-yellowed paper between her fingers from how hard she was pressing them together. She hated this—she hated him. What did she ever—why did it have to be—why couldn’t he just go bother—
Lumelle rubbed her eyes hard with her free hand when the letters on the page blurred and tried to hide the moisture on her wrist, pretending it was irritation from the light sandstorm. No. This was fine. An Ascian? Psh. He could be doing this to A’dewah, and then she’d feel so much worse. He could be in the Crystarium with Elwin and she wouldn’t even know, but he was here.
She could be making lemon waffles instead of jellied harcot. She could be standing over a grave wondering how she was ever going to look at Alphinaud ever again. Maybe she was still really mad at her, but at least she was here. At least she could still—
I was fine! You should have stuck to the plan! Do you not trust me?!
“Having second thoughts?”
“About thinking you had anything important to say, ever? Oh, sure,” Lumelle snarked, reaching into the drawer for the right bottle only to pause when the glass frosted over near where her fingers were. After a moment she grabbed it anyway, barely feeling the glass in her palm, and hooked the ring of measuring spoons on her pinky before she shut the drawer with her hip.
“Please,” Emet-Selch drawled, his voice practically dripping with venom. Lumelle wondered, briefly, how Urianger’s research into making white auracite with Il Mheg’s prismstone was going. “Everything I say and have said is naught but the unvarnished truth.”
That was what Lumelle hated the most. She took one last look at the chart before she folded it back up, looked straight at him, and said, “It’s certainly not winning you any points with me. Would it kill you to be kinder about it?”
As those last few words left her mouth, she knew at once that she’d fucked up.
“Hah. Kinder, like you believe yourself to be?” Emet-Selch gestured to his side, hand waving through the doorway and down the hall leading to the patient’s ward. “A sugary lie will not suddenly make you a hero, nor stop the Light’s work. You chose to leave the girl’s side. You chose to abandon the plot laid out by your dear. You chose to leave her like this—allowed her the long defeat of transformation rather than swift mercy at your hand. And now you will prove yourself cruel yet again—at her weakest, you will deliver her poison and end her. What kindness could ever reach something as awful as you?”
Her vision blurred again as she looked down at the counter before her, where she put the vial of poison and the measuring spoons. In her mind, she knew she couldn’t take anything he said to heart, that he only wanted to hurt her for whatever dark purpose he was here for. He had done it before, out on the sands when she’d stayed behind to make sure the horde would stay away, and Lumelle had let him. She had let him now, too. She thought she was ready for it this time.
It hurt more than the force of that dhruva-shaped sin eater’s crystals slamming into her when she’d chosen to protect Alisaie over Tista-Rae; the hurt swallowed her, so large and there that she couldn’t decide whether to get angry and scream and rage or cry or curl up into a ball about it before she was there again.
The hunt.
The Inn at Journey’s Head was essentially a field hospital. Lumelle had followed Alisaie here after the Exarch brought them and Elwin across the rift, and she’d known by the end of their first day that they wouldn’t hold up against any real force. She’d heard of bigger Ishgardian encampments getting burned to the ground by hordes of aevis and diresaurs and biasts before anyone could call for the Knights Dragoon, and they didn’t make new dragons every time they killed. She and Alisaie could do some real damage, especially with A’dewah there to back them up, and some of the carers knew the basics and acted as guards—but the sin eaters. The hordes they would hear about, sometimes, at Mord Souq when they were getting groceries.
Lumelle might have been raised in Ishgard and faced off her own hordes for her city, sure. This world still found new ways to scare her.
Tista-Rae had smiled and told her to keep her chin up. To keep doing what she was doing, culling as many sin eaters as she could on patrol with Alisaie. She’d come from the Crystarium when Lumelle had written a strongly worded request to the Exarch with a few others and said she’d get the carers swinging swords like Lumelle in no time. She’d even made time in her day to help the patients get more active, fighting off that plastery stiffness awaiting them the only way she knew how.
They still weren’t ready, when it was clear they had to go hunt the largest group down. There were so many.
In the sea of white-white-white, Lumelle didn’t have the time to figure out which sin eaters were the really bad ones, the ones that could turn people, which meant she was just cutting through as many as she could. She was sweating through the scarf tied over her face to keep the dust and ichor from getting in her lungs, her mouth. Someone was screaming. Their line had been pushed back to forty yalms from the Inn. Tista-Rae and the Crystarium dispatch were fighting with her, in the center of it; her sword was almost glowing full white and dripping when she looked over her shoulder back to A’dewah and Alisaie.
She didn’t even remember what she saw, what was happening, if Alisaie was actually in as much danger as Lumelle thought—only that she felt the panic take her and ran towards them, Tista-Rae shouting her name, and didn’t get her shield up in time to block the crystals. The one that would have hit Alisaie hit her instead. Thank Hydaelyn for the Blessing of Light.
And at the end, after Lumelle had dove back in to finish her job slightly worse for wear, Tista-Rae had ruffled her hair and said, I getcha. Just give a girl a warning next time, hm?
Her arm was bleeding, Lumelle remembered. She’d wrapped it up with a ripped-off piece of her Elven partner’s cape. She wasn’t wearing her Crystarium guard chainmail because she had to send it back for repairs.
She’d been doing well. Tista-Rae had been smiling and laughing and dancing for a week or two after. Lumelle almost believed it.
Then she’d got sick so fast.
The other carers were worried it had been from ichor poisoning, but Lumelle knew. Not how she was okay for so long—but she knew the bandages in the bins were hers, knew her sword hand was her left and not her right even if she was ambidextrous, knew it was—what she could have—!
She came back to herself and chose anger.
Lumelle slammed her hands down on the counter, hearing the spice bottles rattle. Pain lanced up the heels of her hands and up her arms.
“Maybe what I’ve done and haven’t done is cruel. Maybe I’m cruel,” she spat, refusing to look at Emet-Selch again and feeling that same impossible coldfire in her stomach as she did facing the Warriors of Darkness, listening to J’rhoomale speak so easily of poisoning Alisaie and then daring to shoot at Elwin when Lumelle was right there, “but it’s a damn lot kinder to give them a chance to die as themselves rather than sit there, knowing their body will transform painfully and their mind will shatter from the twist, and do nothing but wait to let it happen.”
She waited for Emet-Selch to find his next venomous arrow, for the fire that drove her to drink dragon’s blood to be fed. Waited for the pain to come again.
When the silence kept stretching longer and longer like caramel strings, Lumelle opened up the jar of lemonette syrup—she bent the metal lid in her hand and winced—and measured out the right dose with shaking hands. If he said anything else, she really might do something bad, so maybe it was for the best.
The rest she did feeling distant from herself, every glass and metal thing she touched frosting over; the poison went into the jar, a spoon came out from another drawer, clattered on the jar’s rim as she mixed the contents in a rush. The syrup didn’t look any different as her hands poured it over the jelly already in its dish, and probably didn’t taste any different; the carers said the Crystarium put extra work into making it tasteless for them. Lumelle, knowing Tehra’ir personally, wasn’t as certain, but she didn’t want to think about everyone’s last meal never getting to taste right.
Only when she was putting the harcot slices on the top did she remember Emet-Selch’s unusual quiet.
She looked up again, setting the spoon into the jelly dish with a clatter, and found the Ascian staring blankly up at her… or through her? Whatever Emet-Selch was seeing, it wasn’t her or her anger; he might as well have been on another shard.
She just had to walk through the door and she’d be fifteen steps away from Tista-Rae’s cot, another ten to her longsword, but Lumelle knew better than to turn her back to an enemy—much less an Ascian—unarmed and alone.
“Well? No more ‘truth’ left in you?” Lumelle leaned forward to prop her elbow on the counter to hold up her head, feeling more furious and vitriolic and awful the longer Emet-Selch sat there staring a hole in the side of her head. Something about his face seemed so… wrong. “Say something, damn you. Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
It was as if he suddenly wanted to shatter everything Lumelle knew about him. He opened his mouth, eyes refocusing on her, but no words came. His mouth shut, and his once smug expression now looked like he was angry. Like he had any right to be.
Without so much as another word, he raised his hand, and with a wave he disappeared.
Well. At least she could let her eyes brim over with tears in peace now.
“Damn that bastard. Damn this stupid shard. Damn the Light,” she muttered, sniffling and trying to wipe all her tears away as they came only for them to freeze on her hands. Her anger shoved up against something in her heart and turned into the deep need to curl up in bed and spend the rest of the day crying, but she still had a dessert to deliver. Usually Alisaie or Elwin helped her pull herself back together, but Alisaie was still so mad at her and Elwin didn’t even know how bad a day she’d been having, from the carers telling her it was Tista-Rae’s time to go and Alisaie arguing with her to Emet-fucking-Selch showing his stupid face here.
What was that rhyme Tesleen told her about, again?
Warrior of Darkness, servant of death, take care of our souls at our dying breath...
“Let sinners and eaters of sin go with thee.” Lumelle sniffled a few more times, cringing at how awful her voice sounded now. Did she actually yell earlier? She hoped she didn’t. Elwin always said—he said that she got scary when she yelled now, after the whole thing with the real Warriors of Darkness back home. That turning into a dragon for a little bit might not have actually been for just a little bit. “That all may return to the sunless sea.”
She took another deep breath. Exhaled.
Could a Warrior of Light be gentle about death? Could she?
Her hands were hurting from how cold they were, she realized; she brushed her frozen tears off onto the tiles. There wasn’t really a mirror anywhere in the Inn, as no one wanted any of the patients to accidentally see themselves, panic, and possibly turn, so she’d just have to hope she looked acceptable. Carefully, so she didn’t break anything else today, she picked up the jellied harcot in one hand and walked through the kitchen doorway. Emet-Selch left his little chair—it was actually padded, he’d put that much thought into it—so she grabbed it with her other hand and dragged it with her.
Fifteen steps, and she was by Tista-Rae’s bedside. Her dusty-pink hair was down from her bun, turning white at the roots and the tips, and her eyes struggled to focus on Lumelle when she turned the chair around and sat down next to her.
“Hey,” Lumelle said past the lump in her throat. Her hands and her voice didn’t shake as she watched Tista-Rae smile up at her distantly, nor when Tista-Rae glanced at the chilled glass in Lumelle’s hands and her eyes cleared, just slightly, in realization; she refused to let them. She had to face this with her eyes afraid and awake, even if it hurt. “Sorry I took so long. Are—are you feeling up for dessert?”
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just posted an additional chapter to End of my tether where Tim goes to talk to Dick about what Bruce did, you can read it on ao3 now <3
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The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel
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I get the criticism of the Hunters of Artemis from a narrative perspective—it sucks that it essentially boots interesting female characters out of the story—but it always baffles me when people viciously hate Artemis for *checks notes* doing damage control.
Like. Thalia explicitly goes with Artemis to avoid the prophecy, and I definitely think that’s the reason Artemis tried so hard to get her to join—hell, you can view the hunters trying to recruit Annabeth as a way to get Thalia to join. And Bianca? You can’t convince me that Artemis didn’t guess there was something up there and react accordingly.
If Percy or Nico were even a little bit girl-adjacent you bet your ass she would be all over them to join. No one actually wants to risk the Great Prophecy happening, and Artemis is doing a hell of a lot more to stop it than anyone else.
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Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
Elie Wiesel
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The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel
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The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel
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yeah yeah canonically they all got seperate rooms at the gold gardens but to me they pushed two beds together and all slept in a huddle
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Derek: “Out of all the ways you could have possibly dealt with that, why the fuck did you think glitter bombs were a good idea?!”
Eli: “In my defense, it did work.”
(source)
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message with a bottle
ffxivwrite2023 01: ENVOY
a messenger or representative.
how’d i end up with a letter fic?? erenville & alle. 748 wc.
His payment for services rendered found him not long after he’d checked the last requisition off his list and stored it in his pack at the hands of an adventurer.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I believe I’ve a delivery for you!” The adventurer—looking rather ruffled, perhaps from the long trek between here and the closest town—pulled out a letter with no envelope sealed by unstamped wax and a small bottle no larger than his palm from her pack. Though he didn’t recognize the bottle, other than it being a common piece of glassware sold back in Sharlayan, he caught sight of the ink stamp on the letter’s back and smiled.
“Thank you,” he said, taking both the letter and the bottle from their hands. “I’m afraid I’ve little to reward you with, at the moment.”
“Oh, no need, sir,” she said, waving her hands. “I was paid by the lady beforehand—quite generously! I was almost afraid I’d have to find you knee-deep in monsters.”
With that, the adventurer left, ready to trek back out into the humid jungle haphazardly before he could warn her about the bugs being more active and irritable at this hour thanks to the floral bloom. Usual adventurer bravado, hopefully with the skill to back it up.
He’d give it a good half a bell before trying to leave, himself—with little else to do or plan, he pried open the wax seal on the letter and sat down to read.
TO E;
Here’s your proof of life.
I found her. The “ears” made it rather easy, thankfully. ^-^
At first she didn’t seem to trust me, but I suppose Archon marks can serve more than one purpose—never expected to get interrogated about my thesis so far from home. It was refreshing to be allowed to thoroughly explain myself, for once.
She left in a rush to respond to a call from the Scions—turns out the rumors of their downfall were exaggerated—and the Warriors of Light. Plural, as in possibly more than a dozen. A very curious bunch. They were quick to accept me into the fold upon seeing me at her side, and seem to be searching for a number of their members, as if there weren’t enough of them. Soon enough I suspect I’ll find myself in extreme excess of company where before I was lacking.
The prospect is… frightening? Perhaps that’s not the word for it. But—not to sound like some sap—even though I’m glad to be away, I miss our table overlooking the harbor, often.
At least the food here is comparable. Some of my fellow scholars at the Studium had nearly convinced me that food was meant to taste offensive, and that the Last Stand was the anomaly.
Very intriguing to see the once-New-Sharlayan for myself now that I’m old enough to remember. Lots of goblins and adventurers here now, if you haven’t been. They’ve certainly renovated the place—though they’ve kept a nice plaza free from “gobbie brainthoughts, pshkohh”. (Does the Studium offer lessons on gobbiespeak? You’d think I’d know, but I don’t. If not, they should think about it.)
I hate that it’s true that exercise and fresh air make you feel better. Utterly awful. Why can’t my body simply adapt to a more sedentary lifestyle? Stop laughing, that’s rude.
It’s likely unsafe for me to keep in touch—did you know that the Bibliothecs have no qualms about sending assassins overseas should it best suit their interests—but if you ever want for an ear (or pair of eyes, I suppose) to receive another scathing critique of the gleaner’s life, direct your letters to a Tataru Taru in Aldenard through a postmoogle. She is the Scions’ secretary, if I’ve understood correctly.
Don’t let that oversized plant you’re after get you with its sap—if it’s the seedkin I believe it to be, it’ll do something awful to your aetheric balance should even a few droplets get on your skin and you’ll be ill for weeks. Better not to question how I know, just that I do from a look at your current list of assignments. I’ve sent along some medicine should the worst come to fruition, if my warning is a touch too late.
Travel safe. By Thaliak’s grace may the waters you sail over be smooth.
Oh, and—thank you. Truly. The world would sooner end ere I forget the good you’ve done me.
ALLE.
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Your long day is over now
Dick's hanging upside down. For some reason he can't remember why or: a new one shot for the F1 au!
TW: car accidents, hurt/comfort (for additional warnings check ao3)
Read here on ao3 or continue below
(Parts of this fic and its dialogue is heavily inspired by the important conversation that I hope was had after Romain Grosjeans crash in the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, and especially comments made by Daniel Ricciardo after said race. I did not watch that race live myeslf, but I saw the live tweets and the outrage afterwards. In real life theres real guys out there racing. A lot of it for our entertainment. They deserve more than being treated as "lions in a cage for people going to the zoo." as Pierre Gasly once stated.)
He doesn't understand.
There is so much noise. Unfamiliar noise that's muffled in a weird way. There is smoke and dust and... and everything is upside down. His nose stings, the telltale sign of a fire.
His shoulder hurts.
“-ickhead!”
Someone's yelling. There’s... a hand? In his field of vision, out of nowhere, waving.
There’s a face too, poking between the halo and the ground and why, why is he upside down?
“You alive, Dick?”
The face, it’s Jason. He’s in his race suit. Dick can spot the green of the Cards. But he’s not wearing his helmet. Why is Dick wearing his helmet then?
“Dick?” Jason, again.
He tries to answer, but fuck, his head hurts.
“I’m alive,” he manages to croak out at last.
Jason’s face relaxes, some of the tension falling. Good. Good, Jason shouldn’t look like that. All scared and worried. They aren't supposed to be worried about each other, he's pretty sure.
“They’re going to get you out of here,” Jason promises, voice remarkably soft compared to how loud he has to be speaking. There is so much noise.
Also, out of here? That's what Jason had said. Dick looks around. Yeah, he’s in his car. Hanging from his belts, judging by how tight his chest feels.
There’d been a race.
He was gaining on the lead. On Jason. He wiggles his limbs a little, just to check. Just to be sure they’re all still there and still in function.
“Why am I upside down?” Dick finally manages to gather the breath to ask. His voice sounds all weird, and his helmet is so tight against his head. Is it always like that?
Jason frowns at him, brows furrowing together. He reaches out with his hand, towards Dick, and oh. Dick wiggles, his arm pulling down towards the ground thanks to gravity.
Jason grabs it. Jason, his brother who’s not his brother, who left, came back angry and betrayed, is holding his hand.
Dick can feel the pressure around it, how Jason squeezes it with a firm hand. The glove can’t hide the trembling, but Dick doesn’t know if that’s him or Jason. Or both.
“You’ll be okay, Dickie,” Jason states like it’s set in stone.
Then something grabs Jason’s attention, outside of the car, where Dick can’t see. It makes his brother turn away. He sees Jason’s mouth move but is unable to hear what is being said.
As quickly as he lost Jason’s attention, Dick gains it back again.
“The paramedics want to get under here,” Jason explains. “To make sure you’re fit to flip the car back, I think.”
Yeah, that makes sense.
“You have to let go of my hand, now,” Jason tells him.
Oh. Yeah. Dick loosens his grip, which had grown quite tight without him noticing.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” Jason says, moving to shuffle out from under the car again.
“Promise?” Dick can’t help himself.
Jason freezes his whole upper body out from under the car. He looks up at Dick again.
“I promise.”
Dick nods and lets Jason go.
Jason is barely out before the paramedic is there, talking to him, and asking him all kinds of questions.
Is he hurt? He doesn’t know.
Does he remember? Some of it. If he tries really hard.
How's his neck? Sore. Okay, he thinks. Normal sore. Like he went a bit too hard in all the turns in the first race of the season.
Somehow he manages to get her to clear him for flipping the car back again.
After that, it’s a flurry of motion. Suddenly he’s upright again. The sky above him and the car under him. There’s smoke. The medics are on him straight away.
They’re extracting him. Not even letting him contemplate getting out himself. Carefully removing his helmet while someone holds onto his jaw. Fitting a neck brace on him, even if he’d confirmed no neck injury before they flipped the car. They’re strapping him to his car seat.
He's never been lifted out of the car like this. Only seen it done for practice.
Quick and efficient the medics and marshalls work. Practiced a thousand times over for scenarios just like this. They move him from his seat to the compression blanket, to a stretcher. Wheeling him away and into an ambulance.
“How are you doing, Grayson?” the medic from earlier asks, by his side as the ambulance takes off to the medical center.
“Don’t send me to the hospital,” Dick rasps back.
“I’ll take that as a positive sign,” the medic responds, “but we’ll let the medical center doctors be the judge of that.”
Not exactly the answer he wanted, but he’ll accept it. His head hurts too much to argue.
“What’s your name?” he asks her. He’s seen her around before, at drills or in passing. He’s having difficulty focusing on her now though, the woman above him is just a red blob.
“Kory,” he hears her reply though, “Kory Anders.”
“Nice to meet you,” he tries to reply, but he's unsure if his words come out at all. There’s a shout, loud but somewhere he can’t place.
It all goes black, anyway.
-
Tim’s shaking.
He can’t help it. The adrenaline from the race is still rushing through him. Now it's topped off with the fear of hearing Dick had crashed. That it had been a nasty one. The race was red-flagged. They were all sent to the pits. Gar, his radio engineer, had been short and weird over the radio as he called him in.
By the time they were exiting their cars, the scene had been replaying on the broadcast screen. It was the first thing he saw, after jumping out. The screens were right in his face. Showing images Tim couldn't fathom they were allowed to. Not so close after. Not when things were still so unsure.
They show Jason, on the ground by the upside-down car. Moving to talk to Dick, Tim assumes. He hadn't even known Jason had gotten out of the car.
Then there's the worst: Dick, getting lifted out of the car. Too far away to show any faces, but close enough to see limp limbs and how the medics were rushing.
And the fucking replays of the crash itself. Over and over again.
Tim had felt angry. Angry and upset and scared. When he'd managed to force his eyes off the screen he’d managed to motion with his arms at the screen. Then he'd yelled at a camera before Bart had been there to drag him away.
And now he is stuck in the paddock. Waiting for anyone at all to give him any news. Sitting on a stupid plastic chair, not knowing if his brother is alive. Not knowing if he in 20 minutes has to jump back into the car and finish the race. The fucking FIA can't even decide that.
“Tim,” Conner is suddenly by his side. Still in his racing suit, just like Tim. “You okay?” the other driver asks, as Tim feels him sit down beside him.
“No,” Tim replies honestly.
“I yelled at the media,” Conner confesses, like it’s a secret he can’t keep in any longer, “I- They just wanted a comment. I ignored that. Instead, I said how disgusted I was with the broadcasting. That it’d never been so disappointed..”
“Thanks,” Tim says. “I yelled too,” he adds. Because it’s true, and he doesn’t know what else to say.
“They’re all assholes,” Conner replies. “They’ll probably spin it in any cruel way they can.”
Tim breathes, long and slow. So does Conner, by his side.
“They never should’ve shown those fucking images, we don’t even know-”
“I know, Conner,” Tim interrupts. He can’t bear to hear it.
“So no news?” his best friend questions.
“No news,” Tim sighs. “Just that he was alive when they pulled him out.”
“No news is good news, I supposed,” Conner says. It makes Tim snort.
“We both know that isn’t the case in our sport.”
His best friend doesn’t answer that. But he doesn’t leave either. Just joins Tim in the silence, ignoring the media doing everything they can to catch a glimpse of them. Of anyone.
"Do you think the race will start again?" Conner asks, then.
"Conner," Tim says. "Honestly, I have no idea."
They both know he isn't just talking about finishing the race.
-
In the end, Dick escapes with a sprained wrist, bruised ribs, and a hell of a concussion. They tell him he was lucky. Dick isn’t sure. Most drivers nowadays walk away from their cars broken into multiple pieces without a scratch. Maybe at worst, a sore neck.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t thankful. Cause he is. He wants to live.
He's at the hospital now, close to the track. He's pretty sure he would've ended up here anyway. Yet they tell him it's because he blacked out while they were driving him off the scene. The on-track doctors didn’t want to risk anything.
He hadn’t been out for long, he woke up again right before they were loading him into the helicopter.
“We had to skip the medical center,” Kory had said when she saw he was awake. He was grateful to see her familiar face.
He’s never been flown like that, with the helicopter, before. A day of many firsts. Even if he knew accidents like this were a possibility, he never spent too much time actually thinking about it. He knows the risk and accepts it, but it doesn't mean he thinks about it.
Apparently, it was the concussion. Paired with stress and low hydration, it caused the blackout.
“So my brain isn’t about to like, leak out, or something?” he had asked the hospital doctor once they got him settled.
The doctor smiled, “No - no, your brain is still intact. Just got a bit of a wack.”
He isn’t sure that’s such a positive thing, but they don’t seem to be worried.
Bruce arrives not much later. By then Dick’s already had both his wrist and ribs wrapped, and gotten a precautionary MRI for his head. Also a thousand other tests. He has no idea what they're for.
His father arrives like he usually does. In a blaze of loud words and stress as Dick is settling back into bed after his scan.
“Dick,” he breathes more than says. Like he hadn’t actually believed Dick was okay before now.
“Hi,” he replies.
Bruce has a chart in his hand, probably napped it out of some poor doctor's hands.
“You all caught up?” Dick asks, mentioning with his good hand to the chart. Bruce smiles a little at that, but it looks worn and tired.
“Yeah,” his father says, and drags a chair closer to Dick’s bed. “Alfred wanted to know too.”
“I’m sorry,” Dick says, even if he still is unsure of what really happened.
He does remember, however, how hard he was pushing. Taking every corner with everything he had. He'd been pressing Jason in front of him for all that he had. He remembers Wally, telling him, yelling, about tyre pressures and sliding and close calls.
“Don’t be. It.. it was the curbs. They.. were too damn high. Just like we tried to tell them.” Bruce says, and Dick can see that the older is trying to reign in his anger. Those poor track officials. There's gonna be one hefty discussion about the track after this.
Still, it's weird that Bruce is so quick to pin it on the track. He usually isn't afraid to comment on Dick's driving mistakes. Or anyone else's, for the matter.
“I was pushing very hard too though,” Dick says, unsure of why he’s even defending the track. Not letting it go. “I wanted to win.”
“It was.. risky,” Bruce ends up replying, “but let’s not... Let’s not delve into that now.”
So they will later, Dick thinks. Bruce has gotten better. Better at containing his emotions, and his lessons, for the right time and right place. It has helped, raising multiple kids, Dick suspects. Still, Bruce isn’t a man you cross or a man you disappoint, without feeling it in the aftermath.
Yet he isn't always the best in an emotional situation like this either. Maybe that's it. Maybe today's emotions are too much compared to Bruce's anger at Dick's risky driving.
“How’s Tim?” Dick asks, familiar with his little brothers' worry from smaller accidents. On top of that, he's also familiar with how Bruce's mind can work. Getting so focused on one thing he forgets everything else.
“Worried,” Bruce says. “He uh- he was angry at the media. Yelled at the camera.”
Now, that is something to worry about. Tim is usually calm and collected, even if he’s a little anxious and prone to fall into deeper pits. He doesn't lose his anger like that.
“Shit,” Dick starts, but Bruce isn’t finished.
“Actually, he wasn’t the only one.” For a second, Dick fears Bruce lost it too. That all the news channels are gonna play Bruce Wayne losing his mind over and over again. That they're going to be up to their neck in media work the rest of the season.
“Conner Kent had... Quite a few words for the media too. And your old friend Harper too. Even harsher, actually. He’s always had a bit of a potty mouth that one.”
Dick can’t be bothered to tell Bruce that he and Roy aren't close anymore. That Roy somehow chose Jason in a choice Dick wasn’t even aware had to be made. It’s touching though, that Harper apparently talked to the media.
“What- what did they say?” Dick’s surprised there’s such an outrage.
“The media showed scenes from the accident and replays before we could release anything on your condition. It was already playing as the drivers got out of their cars at the red flag, it... was the first thing many of them saw.”
“That’s... irresponsible,” is all Dick manages to say. He imagines his colleagues piling into the pits, full of adrenaline with pits in their stomachs. That is a feeling he knows.
Stepping out of their cars only to see the accidents replaying, maybe scenes of the aftermath... That must have been terrifying. He then thinks about Alfred, at home. Watching the broadcast.
An anger blossoms in him, too.
Bruce nods, in agreement. “Both Roy and Conner talked to the media shortly after. Full of adrenaline. Showing their disappointment in how it was handled, said they were disgusted.”
Dick feels overwhelmed by the support of his colleagues, especially since it isn't from two he talks to a lot. Conner is Tim’s best friend, but still. They didn’t have to do that. The emotions in the paddock must have been heavy, and the accident must have looked bad.
It churns in Dick’s gut, and he’s actually happy he hasn’t had to see it himself yet.
There’s still a thing he and Bruce haven’t spoken about, and it's going to be painful. But Dick has to ask.
“And Jason? I took him out, right?” the words come fast, almost all strung together, “he was there. Afterward.”
Bruce nods, again.
“Yeah, when your car launched off the curb it was close enough to tag Jason. Pushed him into the gravel, where his race ended. First, he was mad. Yelling over the radio. Then he realized..,” Bruce trails off. When Dick looks up at his dad’s face, Bruce’s eyes look far away. His mouth is in a thin line. “He jumped out of the car. Ran over to you. He wasn’t supposed to do that.”
Yet Jason did. They’re supposed to stay in the cars until given the all-clear if there isn’t an emergency. Any real danger. Fuck, the crash must have looked bad if it made Jason that worried.
He’d looked worried too, Dick recalls, when he’d crawled under Dick’s car. Even if his time hanging upside down in the car is a bit of a blur, Dick remembers Jason’s face.
Jason, who Dick has barely spoken to all season. Jason, who he might have squared a little bit up with as the races have gone past. Jason, who still is his little brother but also isn’t anymore.
Jason who had promised Dick he would be there, in the aftermath. Like he meant it.
“Tim’s on his way,” Bruce is the one who breaks the silence first. He’s pulled up his phone, Dick realizes, probably answering messages. “He was a real trooper and gave a short interview. Just to show the fans you're alright.”
A real trooper, huh. Dick’s not sure about how he feels about his little brother taking on media duties. But then again, if Tim said yes...
He takes Bruce’s change of subject for what it is: the end of their talk about Jason. That doesn’t mean he can’t push Bruce some more.
“So, you think I’ll be ready to race in two weeks?” He asks, already feeling his well-practiced shit-eating grin take over his face. Bruce sighs, loudly and tired, but Dick can see how the corner of his mouth is pulling upwards.
So maybe they avoid talking about Jason anymore. And avoid talking about how bad that crash could’ve been. Instead, they argue about racing, free practices, and cars. Maybe that isn’t exactly healthy coping, but they’ve never been about that.
He knows Tim will force him to see their psychiatrist. Probably try to get Bruce to go too, sooner rather than later. But now? Right now, he can sit with his dad and argue. Make fun of him.
All of that while continuing to avoid thinking about how the sport he loves almost killed him.
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The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel
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boy yuri
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Pairing: max verstappen x male reader (could be read by masc presenting people)
summary: sometimes things go right in the moment but will they always be right? can they survive through the hardships of love? can their love hold the test of a treacherous path of love?
a/n: this has been in the works for a bit, do let me know if you all want a part 2 :)
[series masterlist]
iked by charles_lerlerc, lewishamilton, maxverstappen1 and 350,900 others
ynln-official: After 8 wonderful years with @scuderiaferrari, I have signed with @redbullracing for the next two years. I couldn’t be more thankful enough for all the wins and opportunities I have had with Ferrari, I can’t wait to race for redbull. Let’s see what the 2024 season brings(can’t wait to beat Charles lmao) :)
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charles_lerlerc: gonna miss you in the paddock next year dude but there is no way you are beating me ;)
ynln-official: in your dreams Charles, in your dreams
user32: not y/n rubbing it in charles’ face
user48: God this is perfect for y/n, he needed this!!
user37: I agree, I was literally manifesting this for him
user45: I’m so proud of him for this!
maxverstappen1: Can’t wait to race with you (again).
ynln-official: neither can I :)
user87: AGAIN???
i hope you all enjoyed this, it took alot of effort and i'm very excited to post this. I hope you all have a wonderful day/night ❤️
tagging: @leosxrealm, @miloformula123fan
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How would the genshin characters hug you/react to you hugging them
A/N: Just wholesome hcs, hope you guys enjoy! I also realize how many of the characters I forgot on my last post. 😭
Characters included : Eula, Jean, Beidou, Ganyu, Shenhe, Yelan, Itto, Kazuha, Raiden Ei and Yae Miko
Eula
❄️- I cannot see Eula being very used to hugs so when you do hug her I can see her freeze up a little
❄️- ”Oh Y/N…” Awkwardly hugs back. Her hugs are pretty stiff
❄️- Usually when you hug her you wrap your arms around all of Euls so that she can’t even move her own arms, when she is able to wriggle one arm free she will pet your head
Jean
🛡️- Jean loves your hugs and appreciattes it alot when you come into her office and just hug her
🛡️- Sure it may be distracting but it is the distraction she needs
🛡️- You usally hug her from the side or even sit in her lap and hug her from the side.
🛡️- Jean always has a spare hand to pat your arm that wrapped around her while she wrote her paperworks
🛡️- When she is done however that is when she can hug you in a less one sided way.
”Y/N, you have no idea how happy I am to see you today”
Ayaka
❄️- Ayaka can just be doing her work and you will come up from behind to hug her, wrapping your arms around her waist and putting your chin on her shoulder while she writes paperwork
❄️- ”Oh hello Y/N, I didn’t hear you coming” Ayaka says and smiles, lightly petting your head. After she is done signing paperwork though she will give you a proper hug.
❄️- Her hugs are very soft and she usually sets her head at the crook of your neck, she breathes in very content and happy that you are here with her
Beidou
⚓️- ”Oh? You want a hug? Then a hug is what you’ll get!” Those are the last words you will hear before Beidou crushes your spine in a bearhug.
⚓️- Beidou’s hugs are like said, bearhugs. With two big arms wrapping around you and then squeeze!
⚓️- But if Beidou does not feel as playful and same with you she will just wrap her arms around you and hug you normally
⚓️- Her hugs are really sweet and warm. She loves stroking her hand on your back. Preferbly if you can sit on her lap and she can do the same.
Ganyu
❄️- Ganyu would never except your hugs, everytime you do she is never really prepared leading to a yelp and then hug
❄️- If she holds something she accudently drops it and then hugs you. Even if that has lead to accident sometimes, atleast she values more than the item she is holding-
❄️- Ganyu loves your hugs and always hug back softly. You can feel the heat from Ganyu’s cheek on your shoulder or the crook of your neck
❄️- She doesn’t mind hugging and can stay there forever, her hugs usually lasts very long but you never dare to be the one to let go first.
Shenhe
❄️ - She would not know what a hug is either. INCREDIBLY stiff. You hug her and it is like hugging a rock.
❄️- She will just stand there all quiet.
❄️- ”I am hugging you, this is a hug. Usually you do this when you love or appreciatte someone or this is one way to greet your close friends” You patiently explained.
❄️- ”Oh okay” Shenhe then wrapped her arms around you and like you did she squeezed…hard.
❄️- ”okay maybe not thst hard!-” You wheezed out and Shenhe stopped hugging before hugging you a little softer…this time too loose
❄️- ”Is this better?” You let out a hum of reassurance and you could feel Shenhe nodding with the way her head moved, rested on your shoulder.
❄️- She got used to hugging more later on, her hugs were light and she never squeezed. Her cold hands sent shivers down your spine at times but you didn’t mind <3
Yelan
🎲- After a long day of work there was nothing more Yelan wanted to do than come home and hug you.
🎲- as soon as she opened the door you were there to greet her with a hug
🎲- If Yelan held something she would drop it (or gently put it down if it’s delicatd) and hug you back
🎲- You could tell she was waiting for that hug all day when she just melted in your arms. Her body relaxing almost like you had to hold her from falling onto the ground
🎲- She is usually the first one to break away from the hug, she did so but that was just so you two can cuddle in bed later.
🎲- ”Okay let’s not let the cold air in” Yelan chuckled, she stepped into her home more and closed the door behind her.
🎲-”Let’s just cuddle in bed, I am exhausted” Yelan sighed, her shoulders drooping. You giggled at Yelan before taking her hand and leading her into the bedroom where you two fell asleep in eachothers arms
Itto
👹- Bearhugger number 2!
👹 He is tall and has strong arms, usually when he hugs you you get swept from your feet as well, your feets dangling, your arms being unable to hug Itto back while he swings back and forth like you are his plush
👹- Shinobu sometimes have to remind Itto to be careful hugging you, so that he does not break your spine <3
Kazuha
🍁- Sweet boy loves your hugs even if he himself does not initiate on them first.
🍁- Kazuha is the type to recite poems while hugging you, whispering it into your ear to soothe you.
🍁- You usually hug him whenever you feel like it while he modtly does it when he hasn’t seen you for a long time.
🍁- He always complements you while hugging you, he is just so sweet <3
🍁- ”Your eyes are beautiful like maple leaves that depart from the tree”
Raiden Shogun/Ei
🍡- Ei was not used at all to these hugs
🍡- When you hugged her for the first time she tensed up.
🍡- ”Y/N, what are you doing?” She asked while your arms were wrapped around her.
🍡- ”A hug” you replied smiling at her
🍡- ”I see…” Ei would then awkwardly try to hug you back even if her hug was extremely loose, you could barely feel her hands on your skin.
🍡- Yae would be very anused to see the oh so strong electro archon loose her composure over some hug.
🍡- Ei does get more comfortable with the hugs though and when she has resched that point her hugs are quite nice! Very comforting.
Yae Miko
🦊- She is not a hugger type of person but will of course accept your hugs because she loves you
🦊- You usually give her side hugs or back hugs when she is reading a book, if the book looks interesting enough or Tae reccomends it while you are hugging her, you will read with her.
🦊- You can see her sitting on the stairs of Narukami Shrine reading a novel. You sit beside her and give her a side hug.
🦊- ”Greetings to you too Y/N” Yae replied sparing you a glance.
🦊- ”Hello!” You greeted her back. Yae let out a amused sigh when she saw that you were not gonna let go of her anytime soon.
🦊- When Yae hugs you however her hugs are a bit more loose, you can always feel her fingers trail lightly over your back, especially when your back is bare.
🦊- She always rest her hand on your shoulder when she hugs you, she won’t admit it but she always feel a sense of peace hugging you.
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Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
Elie Wiesel
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