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swanslieutenant · 4 years

Text

a place in time - chapter xiii

Summary: Emma’s an agent working to reunite missing people with their families when the biggest missing persons case of all time appears in front of her in a flash of bright, white light. Thousands of missing people from throughout history, including one particular pirate, appear on the shore of a lake in the middle of winter: none have aged a day since their disappearance and, with no memory of their missing time, must venture into a strange and uncertain future. Loosely based on the TV show “the 4400.”

Rating and Warnings: Teen. For now.

Catch up: ch1, ch2, ch3, ch4, ch5, ch6, ch7, ch8, ch9, ch10, ch11, ch12

Read on AO3

Note: *shows up nearly 2 years late with a Tim Hortons hot chocolate* - apologies for the length it took for me to get this updated. It has been a hard/chaotic two years for me and this fic is a hard one to write, but things are settling a bit, so I will try not to leave it for that long again.

thanks to all the folks over at the @captainswanmoviemarathon discord channel for welcoming me in and helping me get this finished with the many many writing sprints it took!

___________________________________________________________

Neither Killian or Emma speak as they march back to her office, their steps quick and staccato against the polished floors. The world seems to be on a tilt, like Emma is walking through a funhouse with slanted floors, with the glass doors of the offices lining the hallway like the twisted and bendy mirrors of the carnival house, warping and distorting reality all around her.

Emma supposes she should be used to this feeling by now. After all, her entire world has been on a tilt since that night down at the lake, with the sudden appearance of thousands of people.

But this time it feels different. Like her normal life, or what has been her new normal at this point, has been shattered once again. What she thought to be true, who she thought she could trust and rely on – broken, once again.

I know him from my time.

When they reach her office, after unlocking the door, she gestures Killian ahead of her. He hasn’t said a word yet, and his face is solemn, the utter shock now an icy grit. His jaw is set, his eyes steel, the cold-hearted pirate that lurks beneath his charming veneer returned full force.

“This is his doing.” His voice is shaking with rage, the words more a growl than a sentence.

“This is crazy,” Emma says, swallowing the growing bile rising in her throat as she shuts the office door behind herself. She grips the side of her desk, her knuckles turning white, as she falls heavily into her desk chair. “How – are you sure that it’s the same guy?”

“Absolutely.”

He is still sanding by the door, hands curled into fists at his side, almost vibrating with fury. There is clearly some history here, and Emma remembers the vile that Gold spoke of Killian with when the returnees first arrived, how he had demanded for him to be locked up and kept away from the others.

“Who is he, Killian? How do you know him?”

“He’s a monster.” He spits the words, and then lifts his left hand, shaking his sleeve up his arm and rubbing at the scar that encircles his wrist, ragged and rough. “See this scar, Swan? He did it to me.”

She has wondered about the scar ever since she first saw it weeks ago, and now the shadow that had darkened his expression when she mentioned it then makes sense. She is truly sick now, her stomach twisting at the thought of her boss, the man she has sat across from in meetings and who controls this entire goddamn situation, literally attacking someone to the point of leaving such a horrific scar.

“He – dear god, Killian. That looks like he tried to cut your hand off!”

“It was no mere attempt,” Killian replies hollowly, eyes darkening. “He did cut it off.”

Emma blinks at him, and then stares at his hand, clearly attached to his arm. Now fair enough, she doesn’t know a lot about surgery or how re-attaching a limb would work, but Emma sure as hell knows there is no way Killian would have had his hand re-attached or be able to use it with 1700s medicine.

“He – what? I don’t understand. But your – your hand? How was it … fixed?”

“Magic.”

Emma’s heart stutters at the word. She leans back in her chair, stunned as if she’s been slapped.

“What?”

“A witch,” Killian continues, oblivious to Emma’s reaction, and he waves his right hand airily. “Or a fairy or some other manner of creature. I suppose I never actually asked her. My crew and I had come across her once before ever meeting Gold, and we retreated to her after his attack. She was a bit prickly, but she re-attached it for me after my crew begged her to. She had only a little magic left after running into trouble of her own, and she was no expert, hence the scar, but she did her best.”

Magic, witches, fairies. Her superpower remains silent, indicating Killian is telling the truth as he sees it, but Emma can’t believe it. Abruptly, Emma feels on the edge of tears. A hand re-attached by magic?

What?

Killian seems to finally notice her thunderstruck expression. “To you, Swan, magic is a myth. In my time, it was as common as your light switches. And clearly,” he adds, holding up his hand and flexing his fingers, “it worked.”

Seriously, what the hell is her life these days? Magic? Fine, she has no explanation for why Killian is standing in front of her, two and a half centuries after he should have died. But magic? No way. Aliens or scientific advancements in time travel make more sense than magic. But then she thinks of the video Anna had shown her of her sister controlling snowflakes as naturally as could be, and well, hell, magic at this point may make as much sense as anything else.

“I don’t understand,” Emma manages finally, wrenching her mind away from the literal concept of magic to the problem in front of her. Gold, Killian, time travel, his hand. “How – why did Gold cut your hand off?”

“I stole something from him.”

… Of course he did.

Her mind starting to burst at the seams, she can only gape back at Killian as he explains his history with Gold, utterly lost for words. In Killian’s time, Gold had been a powerful landowner in England, who ventured to the New World after making a bad deal and losing his fortune. He didn’t know how long Gold had been in America before Killian heard of him, but he did know was already successful and rich in his new surroundings, a dangerous businessman who no one dared cross.

Except Killian.

“As you may remember, Swan, at that time I was a wanted man by the English Crown, having stolen and burned many of their ships. They had done their own damage to me, and it was my utmost desire at the time to ruin them in any other way I could. So, when I heard rumours of an enchanted object that Gold had brought over from England, the last of his previous fortune and a gift from the king and royal family themselves, naturally, I wanted it. Besides, my crew and I hadn’t had a good heist in months. It was a hard, cold winter, and the stormy weather had kept many ships trapped in European harbours, and my men were itching for some action.”

Even amidst her shock at this whole situation, Emma has to resist the urge to roll her eyes – pirates.

“My crew and I were moored in a town called Newport, near where his new estate was. We were restocking the Jolly Roger when I heard he’d left the town for business and would not be back for a fortnight, leaving his mansion unprotected.”

“So, you of course just waltzed in and stole it. What even was it?”

He flashes her a devious grin, a glimmer of his charming, mischievous self breaking through his dark demeanour. “I’m a hell of a pirate, love, even on land. It was only too easy to sneak into his manor. We took everything we could get our hands on, and then I found this object, the king’s gift.” Killian cups his hands, as if he was holding several apples in his palms. “It was roughly this size. I couldn’t tell you what it was called, for I’ve never come across anything like it before. I thought perhaps a music box or a small chest at first. It was circular, with the sides plated in pure gold leaf. The top of it was beautiful, no doubt painted by the finest artist to represent a dark indigo sky with white stars emblazoned upon it. I wondered if it was only the case for the true treasure within, but I could never get the damn thing to open. My crew and I tried everything we could think of – prying it, smashing it, hammering it. Nothing. It seemed empty inside, too, for when you’d knock on it, it was hollow. After all the efforts for seemingly nothing, I thought about simply selling it. But, then I heard Gold was desperate to have it returned, that he had ripped his manor apart looking for it, so I knew it was something valuable indeed.”

Emma is trying to picture the object Killian describes, and she has no idea what it could be either. Sounds to her like a little box, like something you’d find in an old antique or knick-knack store. “Okay, so what did you do with it then?”

“I buried it, somewhere safe where I knew Gold couldn’t find it.”

The entire tale is the most Killian has spoken about his past as a pirate since appearing in this time, and Emma supposes she shouldn’t be surprised it ends with a tale of buried treasure. Typical.

“Besides that,” Killian continues slowly, and he rubs one of his upper arms absently, as if recalling a past chill. “My crew didn’t like it. Once we realized we couldn’t do anything with it or allow Gold to have it again, we needed it off the ship as soon as we could.”

“Didn’t like it?” Emma echoes, her skin rippling with goosebumps. “What do you mean?”

Killian frowns, and he rubs at his chin thoughtfully. “I know you don’t believe in magic, Swan, but if you saw this, you would. Even though we couldn’t get it open, the damned thing seemed to suck the energy of the area around it. People were grumpier near it, more prone to anger, and more likely to need hours upon hours of sleep after being around it for a long time. As if it pulled their energy into itself and made them weaker, less honourable versions of themselves.”

He’s right, she doesn’t believe in magic. The thought of a strangle little box, gifted to her boss in the 1700s that caused hardened pirates to want it out of their sight, is something out of a movie. But … after all Emma has seen and all she’s heard, even just in the last few minutes, perhaps she better start believing.

“In any regard, we buried it and forgot about it for a few months until we returned one day to Newport. Gold knew my ship – hell, everyone knew my ship, then – and he was watching for it. He surprised us and thought to kill me and my crew, but realized rather quickly if we were all dead, he’d have no way to find out where the object was hidden. So instead … he thought to teach me a lesson.” He holds his left hand up again. “Hence, this.”

Emma leans back into her desk chair, sinking into the old cushion and letting out a deep breath. She’s starting to get a tight, fluttery feeling in her chest she gets when she’s becoming overwhelmed, the feeling that usually spurs her to run, run as fast as she can.

But there’s no running from this. This, this twisted world with time travel and now apparently magic, is her reality.

Killian falls silent, finally taking a seat opposite her instead of standing, fuming, by the door. But Emma doesn’t know what to say back to him, so they sit in silence for several long minutes. After all, what do you say back to someone who is telling you about their adversarial meetings in the 1740s with your boss, who was the one to cut off his hand that was then re-attached with magic?

Emma has always been a logical person; she’s had to be. There was no room for whimsy or belief in the unknown during her childhood, not when she was burned too early by a world that only showed her its dark and cruel side. Her mind is so overwhelmed, she’s not even sure how to begin processing all this. If Killian wasn’t between her and the door, she may have started running.

“So, you buried this object,” she begins, forcing herself to focus on the tangible parts of Killian’s story, though it’s not enough to not notice the irony of discussing ancient buried treasure with a pirate. “Probably in a place built over by a parking lot, or so deep underground that its lost to history, or found by a random person and sitting on someone’s grandma’s shelf –”

“That seems unlikely,” Killian muses. “I would hazard a guess it has never been found. After all, that must be why I’m here, in your time. He’s after the object again. He couldn’t get it from me then, and for whatever reason, he’s brought me here to find it.”

Emma has come to the same conclusion herself now, but she shakes her head in dismay. “I just don’t understand. If he wants this thing back so bad, why not get it from you back then, not invent time travel and wait nearly three hundred years for it?”

He shrugs, but his eyes flash. “Only the devil himself knows what madness lurks in that monster’s mind.”

Emma sighs and rubs at her eyes. If ridiculous was a line crossed back when Killian first said he knew Gold from his time, this situation is so far gone, Emma’s not even sure what to make of it anymore.

“So where is it buried? The object?”

Killian doesn’t answer, idly tracing the scar around his wrist. She watches him, wondering if he’s simply trying to remember, but when the silence stretches on, she realizes he has no intention of answering her, and for whatever reason, that hurts.

“Killian … you know you can trust me.”

“I do trust you, Swan,” he says, and his voice softens as he meets her eyes. “It’s Gold I don’t. This object, whatever its value to him, has been safe for nearly three centuries. Its secret is safest with just one person.” He pauses briefly. “For now.”

Though still stung, Emma nods. “Okay. For now.” She lets out a deep breath, and runs a hand through her hair, combing out the tangles. “Well, if this object is really what Gold is after and you’re the only person alive who knows where it is, it makes sense why Gold wanted you arrested at first.”

“He what?” Killian’s voice is sharp, his eyes flashing with anger again, and Emma winces. She supposes she hadn’t told Killian that part yet.

As his expression darkens, Emma explains how Gold had first wanted Killian detained more formally than all the other returnees due to his reaction down at the lake where he first fought and argued with the Storybrooke agents, along with his past as a pirate and wanted criminal. How, now that she knows this history, it was most likely just a ruse for Gold to be able to keep a closer eye on Killian than the others.

“That slimy bastard.”

Silently, Emma agrees. She doesn’t know what Gold is planning, but she already knows whatever it is, it isn’t good. At her last meeting with him, when he’d asked her about ‘anything odd’ with the returnees, she’d left the conversation with a pit in her stomach, the root of doubt and suspicion that has now blossomed into fully fledged mistrust and, frankly, fear.

“We have to get you out of here. Out of Storybrooke, away from Gold. It’s not safe for you here anymore.”

“I concur.”

But then Emma frowns. Regina is away today, attending meetings offsite in regards to the returnees’ release, and Emma knows there is no way she is going to get Killian discharged from here without her permission. Any other returnee, maybe, but not Killian the media magnet.

She could attempt to sneak him out, but if they are caught … well, it was bad enough that Emma was seen by the media near him during his previous escape attempt. If they are caught again when she’s aiding him in an escape attempt … she’d be re-assigned to another returnee at the very least or fired at the very worst, and Killian will be kept here, in Gold’s clutches, for even longer.

“I can’t get you out of here tonight,” she says, swallowing down the anxiety that comes with the thought. “We have to wait until Regina is here, and do it all by the books or … well, I don’t know what will happen. She’ll be back tomorrow.” Emma sighs, and rises to her feet. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to the barracks. I think you may be safer there with the guards all around.”

They leave her office, walking carefully around the corner leading to the foyer where the media conference had been. But it’s over now, all the chairs and the podium cleaned up.

The walk to the barracks is mostly in silence, both of them lost in thought. When they reach the lobby, Emma grips Killian’s arm, pausing him in his tracks.

“Don’t get into any trouble,” she warns, her voice a whisper. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow to talk to Regina about your release.”

“When have I ever gotten into trouble?” he replies teasingly, and he rests his hand over hers briefly before moving towards the staircase. “Goodbye, Emma.”

She watches him head upstairs to his room, until he’s gone through a door and out of sight. Emma should go back to her office and get some semblance of work done, but she pauses instead. The cafeteria is just ahead of her, buzzing with the hum of conversation. It’s lunch now, and the returnees are free to move about as the media are gone. An idea has occurred to her, and instead of heading back to her office, she walks into the busy cafeteria.

Near one of the wide windows at the opposite end, Emma spots David and Mary Margaret. As she’s walking over, Mary Margaret notices her first, brightening with a wide smile and shining eyes.

“Hi Emma!”

Their enthusiasm still makes her a bit uncomfortable, but she tries to smile genuinely as she takes a seat opposite them. They are smiling widely at her, clearly thinking she’s here for a friendly chat or at least a step in the right direction for their relationship, and suddenly Emma wishes that was all she was here for. A pleasant, light conversation with the parents she lost for 28 years, returned to her miraculously by (as it’s truly appearing to be) magic.

And yet here she is instead, a dark cloud of fear and suspicion hanging over her. She glances around before speaking, not really sure who she should be on the lookout for, but in any case, the other returnees and agents are pre-occupied with their own meal or conversation. And, besides, she supposes she has an excuse to be sat here talking with David and Mary Margaret – they are, after all, her parents.

“We’ve been wanting to tell you,” Mary Margaret starts brightly, before Emma can get up the nerve to speak. “Graham told us that once the first group of returnees start to be released, he thinks David and I will be allowed out for more visits. We were hoping, well …” she trails off suddenly, uncertain, and David grasps her hand tightly, squeezing it for support. Mary Margaret smiles at him, and continues, her voice much stronger now, “Maybe we could meet you and Henry somewhere for a meal one day?”

“Oh,” Emma says, taken aback. “Um, yeah, that that would be great.”

They smile in delight, and Emma finds she does truly mean that. If they had said something like this even a few days ago, she probably would’ve scowled and made up some excuse as to why it couldn’t happen, but instead, she is already imagining them at Henry’s favourite restaurant, with him showing them his favourite dishes and desserts. “Um, Henry will be so excited to hear about that. And I want to hear more about it too, but first – I came here to ask you for a favour.”

They nod, exchanging a glance with each other, plainly thrilled that whatever this is about, Emma has decided to ask for their help. Their willingness makes Emma’s heart twinge; they’re so happy to have anything from her, even if it’s an indication of a grain of trust, that it lights up their whole expressions as if she just agreed to start calling them mom and dad.

She gives herself a quick mental shake, and focuses again. She leans forward slightly, lowering her voice so they can only just hear her. “There’s something … weird going on around here, I’m still trying to figure it all out, but I need your help in the meantime.”

David and Mary Margaret trade worried glances at her tone. “Of course,” David says firmly. “What’s going on? What is it about?”

Emma hesitates. She wants to tell them what Killian told her, but it’s not her story to share. Besides, the less people who know about Gold, the better. Instead, she says, “Can you keep an eye on Killian Jones for me for the rest of the day? Make sure he’s doing okay and keeping himself out of trouble?”

David frowns, and crosses his arms across his chest. “The pirate?” he demands, and Mary Margaret glares at him.

“It’s important,” Emma continues, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I – can’t really say much else, but it’s important.”

“Of course, Emma,” Mary Margaret says, and she elbows David, who, reluctantly, nods. “That’s no problem at all. We’ll ask him to have dinner with us tonight.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it.” She then gets to her feet, and disappointment flashes across their faces. She winces. “Sorry, I have to get back to work. But, I – uh, well I’m looking forward to that dinner one day soon.”

The disappointment fades a bit, and they say their goodbyes. Emma returns to her office for the rest of the afternoon, trying to get through her stack of endless paperwork, but it’s pointless. She gets nothing done, her mind on Gold and buried treasure and even when she gets home, she’s a nervous wreck all night, unable to focus on anything at all.

Henry is his usual chatty self, but Emma can’t keep focused on what he’s saying. She has no patience for cooking tonight either, so instead orders in pizza, much to her son’s delight. As he’s munching on his fourth piece of deep-dish pepperoni, Henry pauses mid-bite, glancing at Emma’s untouched first slice.

“Mom? Are you ok?”

“Sorry, kid,” she replies, and she forces herself to smile reassuringly. “Just distracted by work. Want to play a game tonight?”

He is satisfied with that answer, and playing Clue with Henry does help to pass the time, but her heart isn’t in it and she is soundly beaten in each of the three rounds they play. When it’s finally her son’s bedtime and he’s sound asleep, peaceful and warm in his bed, Emma herself gets ready for bed.

Sleep, however, has never seemed so far away. Her mind roils with the revelations of the day, her stomach turning with nausea and anxiety. With no wink of sleep in sight, Emma sits up in bed instead. She leans against the solid wood of her headboard, and hugs her knees into her chest, watching the tree outside her window sway with the cold wind.

It’s so simple, to watch the trees, illuminated by the street lights below. They are just as they were yesterday, unchanged by the revelation of magic such as controlling snow or re-attaching hands or transporting hundreds of people through time.

She watches the trees for a while, and at one point, Emma finally drifts off, her dreams a jumble of pirate ships and bright white light.

Those dreams, however, are abruptly broken by a shrill ring of her cellphone.

Emma jolts awake, and grabs the phone from the nightstand, answering it without reading the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Emma, it’s Anna!” Her colleague’s voice is frantic and harried, and Emma sits up, her heartbeat accelerating.

“Anna?”

“You need to get back here to Storybrooke right away. It’s – it’s about Killian Jones. One of the returnees was found dead and –”

Emma swings her legs out from under the covers, the floor cold beneath her bare feet, as icy as the shot of pure panic running through her. “What? Is – is Killian –”

“No, no, he’s fine,” Anna says hurriedly, as if just realizing the implication of her words. Emma’s heart stutters again, her emotions of fear and relief in whiplash. “Well, I mean he’s not hurt, he’s not quite okay as you would say, but –”

“Anna, what the hell is going on?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean – okay, like I was saying, I was staying here tonight with Elsa, and then – well, there was a commotion maybe an hour ago and when I went to see what had happened … well, one of the returnees is dead. It’s pretty clear they were attacked … like, with a sword.”

Emma’s heart sinks though she’s sure she already knows. If he’s not the one dead, and the victim was attacked with a sword …

“And what does this have to do with Killian?”

“He’s been arrested for the murder.”

_______________________________________________________

The drive back to Storybrooke is a blur. She’d woken up her neighbour across the hall and half-dragged her over to watch Henry and get him off to school in the morning, only telling her there was an emergency and she had to leave right now.

When she makes it onto Storybrooke’s grounds, she careens into an empty parking spot, half out of the vehicle before she’s stopped the engine. The main returnee barracks building is bright and illuminated, and Emma marches towards it, her heart pounding heavily with each step she takes.

On the steps leading to the building, outside the main doors, stands a group of several individual Emma recognizes as police and FBI officers from their emblazoned jackets. As she approaches, one holds her hand up to block Emma’s path.

“Hold up! No one is allowed entry right now. A federal investigation is underway.”

Emma’s hands curl into fists at her side, and she digs out her identification badge from her jacket pocket. She has no time to argue. “You don’t understand, I need to get in there.”

The officers’ frown at her badge, and she opens her mouth to furiously continue, when a voice calls her name from within the main doors.

“Emma?” The guards move aside, revealing Kristoff Reinsdyr, one of the guards at Storybrooke, looking pale and frazzled. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

One of the FBI officers scowls, and looks Emma up and down. “We have orders to not let anyone else in until Commander Hua says –”

“Emma needs to come in. She’s Jones’ agent in charge of his case here.”

Kristoff gestures her forward, and Emma doesn’t wait to see if the officers complain again, though they do move out of her way finally. She and Kristoff hurry inside, where the brightness of the fluorescently lit building makes her eyes sting as he leads her towards the back staircase.

“Glad you’re here, Emma. Anna told me she called you,” Kristoff says, as they take the steps two at a time up to the fourth floor to the isolation and interview area. Emma is reminded sharply of the first time she had come up here, when she’d met Killian the first night, when he’d been belligerent and thrown in here to cool down.

The thought sets her teeth on edge. “Kristoff, what the hell is this about? Anna said there had been a murder?”

He hesitates. “Yes, it seems like it. There was some commotion around midnight in the residences. We thought perhaps it was a fight, but when we got there to see what had happened …” He trails off, and shakes his head once. “It was awful, Emma. Truly horrific.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and Emma decides she doesn’t want to know. “And – they think Killian did it? Where is he now?”

“In one of the interview rooms upstairs. He was with a few of the other guards for a bit, until the FBI got here about an hour ago. Now he’s in with their commander.”

They reach the top floor, and Kristoff leads her down a cold, empty hallway to the cluster of interview rooms at the end of the corridor. Kristoff opens a small side door, into a small observation room that faces the larger interview room through one-way glass. Three FBI officers are in the room already and they frown at her, but she simply flashes her identification badge in their direction before looking through the one-way glass at the scene ahead.

Killian is seated in a similar room to the one she first met him in, his face smooth and impassive, as cold as she’s ever seen it. His wrists are bound with handcuffs, chained to the table in the centre of the room. Mulan Hua, the commander of the Boston FBI who Emma recognizes from the lake, is seated across from him, watching him with a careful, quiet gaze.

“Let’s go over this again,” she is saying, her voice strained with patience. Emma isn’t sure how long Killian has been talking to her, but by his sour expression, she knows they’ve already been over this conversation several times. “Tell me exactly what happened this evening.”

“As I have told you a thousand times since I was dragged from my bed by your deranged guards,” he snaps, drawing the words out so they are each peppered with a near growl. “I have no idea what happened. I was in my room all evening, save for dinner. All I know is what you’ve told me: a man has been found dead, and you suspect I had something to do with it.”

“Murdered,” Mulan corrects, her face solemn. “He’s not only dead, he was murdered.”

Killian rattles the handcuffs pointedly. “Not by my hand. If I’d done it, I’d bloody well confess. I may be a pirate, but I’m no coward. I’ve committed my fair share of atrocities, but I will not confess to something I did not do.”

“How do you explain the fact that your sword was found discarded nearby, stained with blood?”

It could be a damning statement, but Killian laughs, rumbling and low. “You think me fool enough to leave a murder weapon lying about where any bumbling twit can come across it? Not to mention that I haven’t had my sword since I arrived in this bloody time when your guards confiscated it, so how, pray tell, do you think I managed to get my sword back?”

Mulan sighs, irritation flitting across her features. “Well, we know how you did it. We have evidence. Video evidence of you removing the sword from the Collection Room.”

Emma’s eyes widen, and she feels abruptly like she’s been punched in the gut. They have what?

Killian, however, isn’t fazed by this bombshell; after all, he probably has no idea what a video is. “I don’t care what evidence you say you have. It’s all false, I didn’t do it and I haven’t had my sword in weeks. So, either arrest me and throw me in a dungeon, or let me go for I have nothing more to say to you.”

And at that, he falls silent. Mulan tries to get him to speak again, but to no avail. Eventually, she sighs and gets to her feet, the chair scraping loudly against the floor and making Emma flinch. “Okay. You think about things, and I’ll be back with something for you to eat and drink.”

As she heads for the door, Emma sees her chance to speak with her. She darts past Kristoff and the other FBI officers in the observation room, out into the hallway, catching Mulan just as she’s shutting the door behind her.

“Commander,” Emma calls. “What the hell is going on?”

“Oh, Agent Swan, I’m glad you’re here.” Mulan breathes out heavily. Now that she’s out of the interview room, she appears tired, her face pale, her eyebrows pinched together with stress. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you. Do you have any idea why Jones would want to kill Henry Jekyll?”

“No!” Emma replies vehemently. “Killian wouldn’t kill – who the hell even is that?”

“He is another returnee. Or rather, was. He was one of Jones’s roommates when he was released from isolation. He was found dead earlier by his current roommate. He’d been stabbed several times.”

Emma stares back at her, lost for words, as Kristoff peers out of the other room, as if making sure everything is okay.

Mulan nods at him. “Officer, can you get me a sandwich and water bottle for Jones?”

He agrees, and disappears back down the hall the way he had come with Emma. Mulan turns back to Emma, and at her expression, lets out another deep sigh.

“Emma,” she says gently, almost understandingly. “I know you must have gotten close to Jones while he’s been here –” Emma inhales sharply, but Mulan doesn’t seem to notice “– since you’re his agent and all. Obviously, you don’t want to believe he could have done something like this. But you have to remember that he’s a criminal. He was an outlaw and a pirate, wanted by the British Navy at the time for treason and murder. And that’s just the recorded crimes. We really don’t know anything about him, or what he’s capable of. I’m not surprised something like this has come up, honestly.”

“I am,” Emma replies bluntly. “There is no way Killian killed someone, not when tomorrow – I mean, we are trying to get all the returnees out of here not keep them locked up longer!”

Mulan pinches the bridge of her nose, and gestures for Emma to follow her. “Come with me, take a look at what we found.”

Emma follows her into a second interview room, empty save for a steel table with a laptop on it. Mulan opens the laptop, entering her credentials to log in. It seems to take an exorbitant amount of time, Emma’s nerves fraying further with each passing second. The screen opens to a generic Federal Bureau of Investigation backdrop, and Mulan clicks on a video saved to the desktop, labelled simply ‘surveillance footage.’

“This is from back in early February,” Mulan explains, as the video loads up to reveal a room Emma recognizes as the Collection Room in the basement, where she visited once before to collect Mary Margaret, David and Killian’s belonging, with its shelves upon shelves of boxes and plastic containers.

“Security pulled it for us once we identified the sword. Watch.”

The recording is of the deserted collection room for several moments, blurry and shrouded in shadows, the time blinking in the corner of the video as 3:30 a.m. Then, grainy white light floods the room, the main door swinging open to let in the hallway light.

Through the pixelated footage, Emma recognizes Killian as he strides into the room, confident as ever. He walks to the back of the room without hesitation, to a small area behind a chain link fence which reaches to the ceiling. He disappears off camera as he steps into the fenced-in area, but he’s only hidden for a few moments before he steps back into view.

In his hands, is a sheathed sword, its handle black and simple, apparent even in the poor footage. He removes it from the sheath, and holds it up to his eye level, admiring the blade. He then re-sheathes it and slips out of the room, the light fading from the room as the door swings shut behind him.

The video stops, and Emma stares at it, dumbfounded. There it is, plain as day. Evidence of Killian retrieving the sword.

But she shakes her head as she remembers her own visit to the Collection Room more clearly. “No, no, that’s not possible. Listen, I know he couldn’t have gotten the sword. It was checked out, I remember because I went and got his other stuff and saw it on the list.”

“The list?” Mulan frowns. “What list?”

“There was a list in the Collection Room, a list of each person’s items which weren’t allowed to be checked out, but his sword had a note that it was taken out. So he couldn’t have done it, because you needed special permission to get those restricted items out. I remember because I was –”

Emma trails off, because Mulan is watching her with a skeptical frown. She clearly doesn’t believe Emma, and after all, why would she? There’s video proof of Killian getting the sword himself.

Kristoff knocks on the door to the interview room then, opening it to show the water bottle and wrapped sandwich in his hand. “Here you are, Commander.”

“Perfect,” Mulan says, closing the laptop and striding towards him. “Thank you, officer.”

She’s already back in the hallway, food in hand, marching down to the Killian’s interview room, before Emma, still stunned by the video, springs into action.

She hurries out into the hallway and, before Mulan can open the door to re-join Killian, blocks her path. Killian may be her … well, Emma’s not sure if she could even call him a friend, but whatever he is, he’s her responsibility. Returnees are always given legal counsel if they require it for any reason, including an active criminal investigation whether they are defendant or plaintiff.

“Does he have a lawyer on their way?”

“No, he declined one.”

Mulan says it calmly, but something about it is the last straw for Emma. The last twenty-four hours have nearly broken her – the video of Elsa, the knowledge that Gold is from the 1700s too, that magic is the most probable reason why all these people have shown up here, and now this: her … returnee arrested for murder and being questioned without legal counsel.

“He’s from the 1700s!” Emma shouts, and Mulan flinches in surprise. Even Killian glances over to the door, as if he heard her too. “Of course he declined one, I don’t know if they had lawyers back then. He has no idea about our laws or processes or anything. Killian doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, he needs a lawyer!”

Mulan regards Emma quietly, and she shrugs. “Well, I’ll speak to him about it again, but I doubt he’ll change his mind.”

She opens the door with the food, and as she does, Emma leans slightly around her, to peer into the room. Killian is watching Mulan enter, stony-faced, but for a moment, a single moment before the door slams shut behind Mulan, he catches Emma’s eye.

If only magic was real; maybe she could send him a telepathic message to ask for a lawyer. But, Emma’s no magician, and the door swings shut, the breeze catching her in the face and rustling her hair.

“Here,” Mulan says, her voice muffled by the door, and Emma hurries back to the other room, to the one-way glass so she can hear better. The other agents are glaring at her now with open hostility, but Emma ignores them, moving past them so she is standing directly in front of the one-way glass.

Mulan has resumed her seat, the water bottle and sandwich on the table between them, but Killian doesn’t move to reach for them.

“Listen,” she says, casting a pointed look to the one-way glass. “Before we talk anymore about this, I’m going to remind you one more time that you are allowed to have legal representation before speaking with me.”

Killian remains silent.

Mulan huffs a sigh. “Alright. Okay, so let’s go over this again, shall we?”

Killian leans forward, the handcuff chains jangling loudly against the steel table. “Commander,” he says, intently staring now at her across the table. His tone has changed, the defensive snarls replaced with a charming lilt, soothing and persuasive. “You are a smart woman, smarter than those oafs who were in here before you. You know I didn’t do this. Even if I was so idiotic to kill a man I had met only a handful of times on the eve of being released from this prison, you know as well as I that any criminal worth their salt wouldn’t leave a bloody murder weapon tied to them and them alone near a massacred body should they hope to get away with the crime. Whoever did this wanted you to find that sword, to know that it was mine so you would come to me right away and keep me locked up here.”

Mulan narrows her eyes, and she asks, only half-jokingly, “So what? Someone is setting you up?”

Killian’s gaze flicks over to the door, to where he had seen Emma, before he shrugs, as if the suggestion is ludicrous. But it’s enough to clue Emma in.

Of course. He’s right, he has no motive to kill Jekyll. But someone else does. Someone else, who has something to lose if Killian is released from Storybrooke with the rest of the returnees.

Gold.

He must’ve seen them at the news conference, must know Killian would’ve told Emma everything about their history together. Know that, of course, Emma would try everything in her power to get Killian out of here before Gold could do anything like lock him up like he had always wanted to. So he moved faster, found a way to keep him here, in his grasp where he hopes to get the location of the mysterious object out of Killian, once and for all.

“Emma?” Kristoff asks, reaching out a hand to her in concern, and Emma realizes he and the FBI officers are staring at her.

She waves them away, realization and horror roaring in her ears as loud as thunder. She is still trying to process this, when in the interview room, Killian leans back in his chair, his expression dark and cold.

“Perhaps it is time I speak with an attorney.”

#cs ff #cs mc ff #captain swan #ouat #cs fic #a place in time #hope people like this one!#it's been a long time so i'm grateful for anyone still reading

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bitsandbobsandstuff · 5 years

Text

never let you go (2)

Summary: After losing the woman they love, Bucky and Steve make a desperate decision with unimaginable consequences.

Characters: Stucky x Reader

Warnings: Violence, blood, mentions of demons and gore. Brief hints of SMUT. Swearing. Bucky and Steve are not exactly nice. A very brief appearance by my favorite Hunter (SPN crossover).

Prompt: “Heartache is one thing, but this…this is worse.”

A/N: This is my submission for the fantastic @sherrybaby14 for Sherry’s Fall Into You challenge, thanks babe for hosting. This is a dark story fam, different than my usual writing. Bucky and Steve really do make some bad decisions, so please heed the warnings. This is a short series, only 3 parts.

Want to find all my stories? Search #bitsmasterlist or try the link in my bio!

Previously...

“How did you do it?”

“Hmm?” Steve murmurs, drifting toward the balm of sleep. Bucky says nothing, simply snuggles closer, his steady breaths puffing warm on your skin.

“I remember what happened.” Softly the confession falls. “Please don’t lie to me. Tell me how you did it. How you brought me back.”

Both men stiffen. Bucky stops breathing. Steve stops stroking his hair. Dread fills you, cold as ice. You know then, whatever price they’ve paid? It will tear the world apart.

Breath tickling the back of your neck, Steve murmurs so quietly, you strain to hear.

“We made a deal.”

*****

“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” Mahatma Gandhi

*****

Along the glass smooth lake, the tufts of grass are wrapped in furry white frost. Fog rises in slow curls from the mirror of dark blue, warm water battling cold air, while white ice crackles along the edges in paper thin sheets. Each morning you walk out to the lake, the ice creeps further, a bitter omen of what will come.

It all feels surreal. Impossible and improbable. An endless winter waiting in the wings.

From the outside, life is the same. The world turns, the sun rises in the east. Bucky still giggles madly at cat videos on YouTube and Steve still argues that cough syrup tastes delicious. For the three of you, nothing has changed.

But for the world, it has.

Part of you wants to hate them. It was the most selfish, self-sacrificing act either has ever committed in their long lives, but no matter how monumentally fucked up the situation, it changes nothing. Regardless of the road ahead, there are no limits to the love you feel for them both, and one truth burns with a steadfast certainty - you will always follow in their footsteps.

Perhaps that fact will be your downfall.

Staring bleakly across the clear lake, you think back to that night, when they explained everything. With the proverbial cards on the table, the most complicated question of your entire life now looms.

What will you do to save them?

*****

Eyes downcast, they sit beside each other on the edge of the bed, overgrown children awaiting punishment. Fingers linked atop your head, you pace a short path in front of them, back and forth, breathing fast, words locked in your throat. When they finally burst free, both men flinch.

“Explain what you mean. I don’t understand, Steve. What does a deal with a demon mean? What is that?”

Refusing to look up, Steve remains silent, nervously pinching the callouses on his palm. Bucky stares mutely at his toes, wiggling them into the ropey blue rug beneath the bed. He cracks his knuckles and you can tell he’s mustering his courage. Wetting his lips, he finally meets your gaze.

“It means exactly what Steve said. I know it sounds insane, but it was a real demon. Like the kind you find in - in fairy tales or something. We met a couple guys and they told us how to find her. Said you can make a deal, whatever you want, the demon’ll give it to you...” Bucky trails off, losing steam; another deep breath and he plows on. “...she gives it to you in exchange for 10 years. Those are the contract terms, the regular deal. At the end of the 10 years, that’s it. She comes back to collect, and you’re sent - down. To hell.”

Disbelief clenches like an iron fist, heavy and suffocating. It makes no sense - demons don’t exist. Something else must have happened, some unknown magic, a wormhole, an alternate reality, a time loop maybe. Each ludicrous option seems more likely than their calm explanation, they must be wrong. If demons existed, SHIELD would know. There would be a documentation, strategies, fighting methods.

There would be safe guards to stop idiots in love from making disastrous decisions.

“Bucky, what you’re saying makes no sense. Demons aren’t real,” you say carefully, and goosebumps flare across your skin when Steve lifts guarded eyes to yours. “Steve? They’re not real. It was something else…right?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Every fiber of your being screams this must be a nightmare, any moment you’ll wake up. Maybe you weren’t on the roof that day, maybe this is all a sick lucid dream. Maybe you’re alive and asleep in bed, and when you wake up Bucky will have stolen all the pillows and Steve will be in the kitchen making oatmeal.

Wake up, you chant to yourself. Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Nothing happens. Chest heaving, you spin away, hot tears burning your throat.

“So that’s what you did? You sold your souls to a demon? And in 10 years she comes back and - drags you to hell?”

“Wait,” Bucky says earnestly. “You didn’t let me finish, it wasn’t that. We didn’t sell our souls. That was the regular deal, but not for us. There’s no 10-year limit, we’re staying with you. All three of us, we get to stay together.”

He pushes off the bed and comes toward you, arms reaching for a hug. Surprise blooms over his face when you place both palms flat on his chest and shove. Stumbling back, he hits the mattress with a shocked bounce.

“No,” you grit out, “Tell me you’re not that naive. It had to cost something, so what was it. What did you give her?” Stubbornly, Bucky’s mouth tightens. Fine then. Turning to Steve, you cup his chin, tilting his face until you glimpse the swirl of shame glowing in his blue eyes. “Steve. Tell me what you gave her.”

It takes all of five seconds for him to give in; Steve never could keep a secret. Not from Bucky. Not from you.

“It wasn’t our souls,” he mumbles. Misery seeps from his skin and he stares intently, begging a forgiveness you never realized you had to give. “She asked for - humanity. That was what she wanted. We gave her our humanity.”

At his admission, a fresh urgency, a new panic, fills the hollowness in your heart.

“Your humanity? What does that mean? What happens now?”

Shrugging helplessly, Steve looks back to his feet. “I guess since we gave her that, then maybe we’ll - change. Maybe we’ll become - different.”

It clicks, then.

Different.

Two battle hardened soldiers, potent super strength flowing through their veins. If you take away their good hearts, strip out the kindness and patience and compassion, extinguish the beautiful tenderness that illuminates them from the inside, what remains?

Brutal violence powered by deadly strength. Something cold and destructive. It seems obvious now, why the demon offered this choice.

Stay above and be in love, happy and content for 10 years before death comes calling.

Or stay above and be in love, happy and content for as long as life allows, with one chilling caveat - abandon who you are.

Without a conscience to keep them in check, the scale of violence two super soldiers could wreak across the globe is breathtaking. And if they leave their humanity in the dust and use the serum thrumming in their veins for something dark and terrible? The outcome remains the same.

Someday in the future, death will still come for them. And with a list of innocent deaths attached to their names, it all means the same thing.

No matter what, they’ve damned themselves to hell. It’s only a matter of time.

“But she promised nothing changes between the three of us,” Bucky interrupts the morbid train of thought, gesturing at you, at Steve, at himself. “Other things might change, but she said the three of us, we’ll stay the same. We won’t change, not when it comes to you. We can make this work, I swear.”

His words make you want to scream. How could they be so stupid? How could they not realize?

“God dammit Bucky! You’re telling me that eventually every bit of goodness that makes you human, that will disappear? What then? The world has two psychopaths with fucking super powers? Is that what you’re saying?!”

“But we can fight it,” Bucky argues, rising again. He takes one step and you shove him harder, knocking him back. Frustrated, he slaps the bed. “We can. I know we can. This was a way around it.”

Before you, they both melt into blurry shadows as the tears spill over, rivers of sticky heat dripping down your neck, soaking the ragged collar of your shirt. Hopelessness shatters your voice.

“No you won’t, Bucky. You can’t. So now what? Huh? How am I supposed to save you?”

Deflated, Bucky hesitates before standing again. Cautiously, he steps forward, ignoring the hand you push against his chest, ignoring the bite of your nails scratching his skin. He murmurs your name, an imploring plea, and the sound breaks you. Trembling fingers curl into a fist and you slam your knuckles against the steel of his sternum, anger fading into fear. He says nothing, lets you expend your rage all over him, wild fists punching him over and over, until you collapse. Then he catches you easily, sitting on the bed, cuddling you in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, holding tight to your halfhearted struggles, before you finally give up. Burying your face against his neck, he rocks you gently, terrified tears drenching his skin like a spring rain. “But she gave you back. That was enough for us to say yes. You were worth the price.”

“I’m not, nothing is worth this,” you sob hysterically. Guilt pours out, overwhelming and soul-shattering. “This will kill you both, it’ll ruin you. I ruined you.”

“No.” Steve says fiercely. Gripping your arm, he gives a harsh shake. “You did not do this. This was our decision. We knew exactly what we were doing, sweetheart. This wasn’t a mistake.”

Steve moves closer, wrapping his arms around you both, one palm on the warm heat of Bucky’s shoulder blade, the other cupping your face. Pressing his lips to your forehead, the solidity of his presence a quiet reassurance. Tangling your hand in his hair, you tug hard, aching to bring him closer.

Maybe, you think, if you hold tight enough you can keep them intact. Humanity. Souls. Hearts. Whatever they’re made up of inside, maybe if you love them hard enough, you can save them.

“He’s right,” Bucky murmurs, trembling lips at your temple, “This was all on us. But if we had to choose between losing you and doing this again, we’d still do this. We’d choose you. We’ll always choose you.”

*****

There are five people who know the truth.

Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Steve tells them but keeps the specifics of the deal vague. Deep down, he knows Nick would lock them up if he knew everything. They were furious, but in different ways. Fury screamed at them for 30 straight minutes, before storming out in a swirl of black leather. Following close behind, Maria gave them a tight-lipped nod and somehow, that silent disappointment was worse.

And then there were the other three.

Natasha, Tony, Sam. All three received perplexing text messages asking them to meet at Bucky and Steve’s apartment; when they arrive, Sam knocks on cautiously and Bucky meets them with a blank face, wordlessly handing each a fresh bottle of whiskey.

“You’ll need it,” is all he says.

With each Avenger clutching their liquor, Bucky and Steve proceed to explain everything. Their sorrow, their grief. The inability to find any future without you. Their anger at everything, at the world, at each other. Calmly, they each offer their perspective and they see Tony looking confused, Sam looking uneasy, and Natasha looking - strangely resigned.

When they finally finish, there’s a long silence, until Natasha snaps the cap on her bottle of whiskey and takes a long swig. She wipes her mouth and asks.

“What did you do?”

Steve looks at Bucky, who stares determinedly at his feet. Nodding to himself, he rises slowly, walking into the bedroom. Beyond the doors, they hear the hum of low voices and then it creaks open. Bucky hesitates for a breath.

Then he leads you forward.

At the unexpected sight, Tony tumbles off the armchair with a garbled shout and Sam leaps to his feet.

Natasha still sits calmly.

“So. You met the Winchester boys,” she states. Defiance in his eyes, Bucky shoots her a cool glare.

“Yes,” he says shortly, and she simply nods. Carefully setting her bottle of whiskey on the floor, she rises gracefully and tiptoes toward you. Instantly, Steve and Bucky lean into a protective stance, mirrored snarls on their lips, but Natasha brushes them aside. With no hesitation, she wraps you in a fierce hug.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” she whispers in your ear. Burying your face in her hair, the sweet scents of lavender and leather swirl, so unequivocally Natasha.

They explain everything then. The deal, the magic, the price. All down to the last, gruesome detail. At the end of their story, the room is silent. Tony is the first to respond, ashen faced, shaking with unspeakable anger. He heaves his full bottle of whiskey into the fireplace and it explodes with a crash of flames, before he barrels through the front door with a resounding boom.

Sam sways where he stands, his vision folding along the edges. He wants to understand, he does. More than anyone, he saw the depths of grief into which they sunk, but this? He never considered this. But instead of screaming, he says nothing, just hugs you gently, thinking bizarrely of delicately spun glass. Shoulders sagging under the burden of knowing, he silently follows Tony, his footsteps as heavy as his heart.

And Natasha? Well. Standing in the doorway, she smiles sadly.

“I spoke to them too, you know. Found a crossroad in Colorado. Nine years ago,” she confesses. “One year to go.”

The door clicks shut, leaving them to ponder a new horror.

*****

The official SHIELD report stamps your return with CONFIDENTIAL block letters, and the file is buried deep in the vaults. It leaks to the press as a simple solution, a fake out, a way to throw the bad guys off the trail. Here you are, alive and well, on leave for an indeterminate period.

New York becomes too much. Hostile and loud, too many questions, too many opportunities to let the truth slip free. In the middle of the night, the three of you tangled in a mess of sleepy limbs, Steve offers a solution.

At sunrise you leave.

Refuge comes at a secluded cabin in upstate New York, a mossy pile of logs Steve fell in love with years ago and purchased on a whim. Hidden deep in the trees, it overlooks a crystalline lake and when you step inside, it smells of dust and mothballs. With a mop, a few dust rags, and a bit of elbow grease, it quickly becomes a home.

There, life finally moves forward.

Mornings with bitter coffee, mornings with breathless runs, mornings lazing in a massive claw foot bathtub, big enough for three.

Evenings by the crackling fire, evenings full of books and music, evenings filled with Bucky’s sweat slicked hair tangled in your fingers, with Steve’s quiet groans between your legs, with your shaking cries echoing off the walls.

Sheer perfection. Every waking moment.

After a few weeks, Bucky and Steve tentatively return to combat, agreeing to short missions that never tear them from your side for more than a few days. Stepping up together, they take on the world once more, protecting the innocent, righting the wrongs. Each time they return, they come refreshed and relaxed, full of sweet words and excited laughter, familiar bits of your former life spilling into the comfortable home the three of you have made together.

They seem so happy. So bright and wild and bursting with love.

It makes you wonder. Maybe, just maybe, Bucky was right. Maybe they found a way around the inevitable. Maybe the demon changed her mind. Maybe they’re safe.

Maybe it worked.

*****

Until slowly and certainly, things begin to change.

*****

Bullets are pinging around them, sparks flying through the air. Steve moves confidently, smoothly dodging every bullet slung their way with a flick of his shield. Behind him, Bucky slinks along, his gun at the ready. When they cut around the corner, three men put up a cursory fight, before all three are taken down with a flick of the shield and two well-placed bullets.

“Like taking candy from a baby,” Steve mutters. Sifting through a pile of paper, he gathers up the files, stuffs them in a secure pocket at his hip and motions for Bucky to leave.

They hear a faint moan.

Propped against the wall, sits a hostage. Mouth taped shut, feet tied together. Blood streams thick and heavy down his face, congealing in a warm pool along his collarbone. Death is imminent, even across the room they can smell it coming. As they come closer, the man registers footsteps and opens his eyes, blinking blearily at the two men looking down. Recognition when he sees the familiar red, white, and blue, a glimmer of hope cutting through the pain.

Staring down, Steve twitches his fingers, an unconscious motion to help, before something inside denies the move.

How peculiar.

Turning away, he issues a rough order at Bucky.

“He won’t make it. Put him out of his misery.”

Bucky gazes at the dying man at his feet.

Shrugging, he raises his pistol and pulls the trigger.

*****

Sunlight streams through the tall windows of the living room, as you laze on the couch. Down the hall, you hear the shower running, the sound of Steve’s off-key baritone singing as he soaps the red stains of death from his skin.

When he shuffles into the living room wearing sweatpants and a soft green shirt, his tired eyes find you. The lingering stress falls away and he bounds forward, flopping on the couch with a careless oompf. Dropping a kiss on your forehead, he carefully arranges a pillow in your lap, and plunks his head down. Post shower, his blond hair is wet dark and squeaky clean, the spicy scent of body wash still lingering.

“Scratch my head?” he asks, adding a sweet pout that never fails to make you give in. Dragging your fingers through the damp strands, you rub his scalp and he sighs happily. When he stretches his feet over the edge of the couch with a wide yawn, his muscles shift and twist, reminding you of a lion you saw once at the zoo. Big and lazy, soaking up the warm golden sunshine.

“Nothing but a big lazy cat,” you murmur, one hand in his hair, the other rubbing slow circles over his heart. Closing his eyes, he grins at the comparison. Catching the hand at his chest, he brings your palm to his lips and presses kisses along each finger, before linking his hand to yours. Moments pass, and his body goes lax, a low stream of steady breaths as he drifts to sleep.

In the shifting afternoon sun, you stay there, watching the light play off his pale eyelashes. You think about Steve. Warm skin and golden hair. Sharp claws retracted; teeth hidden. Deadly to everyone, except those he loves.

*****

“I gave you the intel, I gave it to you!”

Bucky stabs the knife into the muscled meat of the man’s thigh, and the responding scream reverberates off the walls. Like flame hot metal through butter, the pale skin is splayed open, revealing marbled streaks of yellow fat, white bone gleaming beneath. Blubbering incoherently, bloody spit foams in the corners of his mouth, wild eyes rolling back in his head.

“I gave it to you, I did, I did, I did, please!”

There is a pause and for a blessed moment, the man believes he has a reprieve. Swollen eyes fly open, meeting bright blue and Bucky smiles.

And then he punches the knife handle straight through the man’s thigh bone. It cracks and splinters apart and the man screams and screams and screams and Bucky laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Did you think I fucking cared?”

*****

The sticky scent of maple syrup wakes you.

Crawling from the empty bed, you wrap the feather down comforter around your shoulders and shuffle from the bedroom, eager for the source.

The sight catches you off guard. Unimaginably soft.

There in the kitchen, Bucky stands in nothing but skintight black boxers.

Hair twisted in a messy knot, he shimmies through the small space, dancing absently to the music tinkling from the small speaker propped on the windowsill. On the stove, he has a flat skillet coated in butter and filled with bubbling silver-dollar pancakes. Along the edge of the counter, he taps out a rhythm with his spatula, tap tap tap-a-tap-a-tap, and your heart swells at the gentle domesticity.

When he whirls around, he discovers you watching from the doorway, sleepy and rumpled. He lights up, a honeyed smile on his lips, and stretches out a hand, a wordless request. Tripping into his arms, he tucks you safe against his chest.

“Morning baby,” he murmurs, warm breath tickling your ear. “God you look beautiful. How’d I get so lucky?”

The words are simple, lovely phrases he’s shared a million times before, but still your belly flips. Rubbing your cheek against his hot skin, you relax. Let yourself believe everything is perfect, while Bucky dances you slowly around the cozy kitchen until the charcoal crisp of pancake flavors the air.

“Buck, I think your pancakes are burning,” you breathe against the sandpaper stubble along his neck.

He merely hums.

“Let ‘em burn. I’m dancin’ with my girl.”

Mellow notes of smoky jazz drift through the air and you burrow closer, until Bucky pulls you down to the smooth kitchen tiles. The feather comforter pillows beneath you, the searing heat of his mouth tracing down your neck.

*****

“We’re out of time, set the bombs off. Now.”

In all the time he’s known known Steve Rogers, Sam has never heard his voice like this. Brittle. Cold. Devoid of emotion. On the ground below, amid soaring walls of steel and glass, screaming voices echo off the tower buildings. From his perch high above the melee, Sam stares watches people streaming from the front doors. He hesitates.

“There are still people inside,” he responds.

On the other end of the line is a bone crunching thunk, a truncated scream. Steve’s voice returns.

“Did I fucking stutter? Set it off. Now.”

Again, Sam hesitates, the trigger clenched in his sweaty hand. He shakes his head.

“Negative, Cap. There are still - “

“Jesus Christ, Wilson, you fucking pussy,” Bucky snarls. He rips the black box from Sam’s numb fingers and shoves him aside. Without pause, he flips the switch.

Across the street, the building rumbles and sways and in the space of a breath, the world is rent apart: glass shatters, steel beams screech, concrete explodes. All those still inside, fighting their way to freedom, go down in a crush of rubble, screams and shouts silenced by the thundering rush of crumbling stone.

Stalking around the corner, Steve is sliding the shield onto his back. Without a glance at the crowd below, he rushes at Sam.

“When I tell you to do something, don’t you ever fucking hesitate. You understand?”

Beside him, Bucky snorts and flings the device to the ground. He grinds it under his heel and strolls away, resuming his stance above the disaster. Blanching at the rage in those blue eyes, Sam takes a wordless step back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand.”

*****

The last time Steve came to the familiar meadow, was because he needed space to let the rage in his heart spill into the world. In the desolation of those black nights, he screamed his fury into the heavens, broken beyond repair.

This time is different.

Velvety night drips through the sparse tree branches as you walk through the dense forest, Steve leading the way, Bucky close behind. Slivers of moonlight streak through the dark trees, illuminating the huffs of frosty white breath.

When you reach the clearing, Steve slips his warm hand through your gloved fingers, Bucky curves a protective arm around your shoulders. Together, they lead you toward the middle of the field, until they come to an abrupt halt.

Bemused, you stare at them. Under the shy glow of white moonlight, they look carved from marble.

Fallen angels, maybe.

“Is everything okay?” you whisper, eyes roving uncertainly between them.

From the depths of his pocket, Bucky pulls free a black satin box. It sits in the palm of his hand and he looks nervously at you, over to Steve, back to you. He clears his throat.

“We’ve been talking about this forever.” A crooked smile lifts his lips. “Since the first night you spent with us. This here, what we have with you, it’s the only thing we want. We don’t need anything official, but we thought you should know. We’ll love you forever, sweetheart. If you’ll let us.”

Gently, he opens the case, revealing a dark ring set against white silk. Eyes wide, you watch as Bucky lifts the simple band, two strings of delicate black vibranium twisted into an infinity circle. As he holds it aloft, Steve nudges him, and they both fall, kneeling to worship at your feet.

“What do you think?” Steve murmurs. Tentative, hesitant. As though the answer could ever be anything other the words rolling from your tongue.

No matter the circumstance, the love you have for Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers is the one shining light in a world of darkness.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Of course. I love you both so much, nothing will ever change that. Forever.”

Under the raw, naked gleam of the bright night, you kneel before them, face to face with their delighted smiles. Together they reach for you, pulling you into the safe haven of their arms.

*****

“God dammit Rogers! You’re out of line with this shit!”

Leaning over his desk, Nick Fury wipes irritably at the fat beads of sweat dripping down his temple.

Across from him, Steve and Bucky sit in matching leather chairs, both still wearing their combat uniforms. They look like heathens, covered in dust and blood, the pervading reek of death defiling the pristine shine of the SHIELD office. Bucky sits with his legs sprawled open, Steve with one ankle balanced on the opposite knee.

Both are smirking.

“Are we though?” Steve shrugs, eyes wide. “If you’re not gonna do your job, someone has to pick up the slack. Like always.”

Nick grinds his teeth so hard they nearly crack. He sees red.

“That’s it, you cocky sonofabitch. We’re done with this. Effective immediately, you’re relieved of your duties. Both of you.”

Steve tips his head back and laughs, an inhuman sound. Nick feels his gut twist.

“Really? Buck did you hear that? We’re ‘relieved’ of our duties. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds like a fucking relief,” Bucky drawls. He picks at his fingernail, scraping dried blood from beneath and flicking it away. Tilting his head, he looks up at Fury with a poisonous smile. “But I dunno, the thing is Director, we’re pretty happy with our jobs. Pays the bills and gives us something to do, so I don’t think we’ll accept your offer. Another day, maybe. That sound good Stevie?”

“Sounds great, Buck.”

At a loss for words, Nick stares. Over the decades, he’s encountered some genuinely fucked up people, a common currency in this line of business, but this? This right here? This is a whole other level. Every hint of remorse, every bit of humanity, every last fragment of goodness is gone. Disappeared. Nothing more than ashes in the wind.

It is a bleak world, when superheroes become the monsters they hunt.

Steeling himself, Nick presses his fists into the desk to hide the shaking tremor of nerves.

“One last warning Rogers. Turn in your weapons and go home. Stand down, or I will make you.”

“Oh please,” Steve sneers, delight in his voice, “give it your best shot. I can’t wait to see how that goes.”

Smoothly simultaneous, they stand. The sound of raucous laughter follows them through the door and into the hallway, before abruptly ending as the heavy wood slams shut. Wide-eyed, Nick sinks slowly into his creaking leather chair.

The skin along the back of his neck tingles.

“Motherfucker,” he whispers.

*****

Standing at the edge of the dark lake, gentle ripples slide along the edges of cracked ice. It grows so fast now, stretching frozen fingers to claim the sheet of blue. Like a parasite, hardening the shoreline, freezing the world to stone.

The wicked irony of the metaphor is not lost.

Staring at the mobile phone clenched tight in your icy fingers, you turn it on for the first time in weeks and the screen lights up with a sea of notifications, red blips and blinking green lights, texts, emails, voicemails. Indicators of an increasingly desperate world beyond the confines of your comfortable bubble. Scrolling through, the names are an endless loop and your heart plummets.

Natasha, Sam, Tony. Nick Fury.

While Steve and Bucky have said nothing, the question itched at your brain. Upon each return, you begged them to tell you: what happened, how were they feeling, what did they see, was anything changing? And over and over, they answered with bashful shrugs and dashing smiles, fervent kisses pressed to your lips as they murmured the same response.

Nothing changed. Everything is good, we feel fine.

Nausea rises, thick and sour. Why did you ever let yourself believe them?

Before, they agonized over morality, what was right, the cost of their decisions. But now? The evidence of their lies glare up in black and white. Thumbing through, you see the increasing alarm in every message, descriptions of all they’ve done. Bombs, gunshots, torture. Blatant disregard for lives, for their team, for anything and anyone other than themselves.

Any semblance of humanity whittled away to nothing. Shattered by a desperate wish and a bargaining dance with a red-eyed demon.

Fuck.

Finger hovering over the latest message from Natasha, you brace yourself and click it open. The words jumble together, swimming black letters.

Nat: Dean Winchester. 785-555-0128. Call him. Please.

Eyes shut, you tip your face up to the sky, sucking in a lungful of sharp air.

For all the darkness circling their souls, the truth is, it remains pure and clear when it comes to their love for you. Bright smiles in the morning, rich laughter teasing through the day, sweet caresses in the night. The unconventionally beautiful relationship among the three of you created remains flawless.

Just as the demon promised.

Selfishly, you want that to be enough - if only it could be - but no. Some wrongs need to be righted, and this tragedy now rests squarely in your hands. Maybe you can save them. Maybe.

And if you can’t?

Heart hammering wildly in your chest, you punch the number, lift the phone to your ear and wait. It rings for so long, you nearly give up, until a gruff voice finally answers.

“Hello?”

*****

End

*****

#stucky x reader #bucky x reader x steve #bucky barnes #steve rogers #stucky #stucky fic #bucky x reader #steve x reader #supernatural #spn #crossover fic

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everything-withered · 5 years

Text

Death and its deserving, a Tony Stark fic

Also available on ao3

This was meant to be posted here as a ficlet only but it got a little long so whatever.

@lovinthepizzalife please stop making me cry in my inbox (but also, don’t)

Tony never forgets that his parents do not love him.

He thinks that’s why he’s lived so long.

Babies, he figures out quickly, irritate them; his mother bemoans their neediness and his father finds them pointless.

Tony learns that he cannot afford to be either.

He babbles quietly to the box of spare parts until he finally learns how to put them together, coaxing companionship and purpose from their broken bits and bobs. If Tony will not know love, perhaps he can make it.

His first circuit is completed and operational by age four; the media praises his independence, his evident genius, and his parents preen.

The invention is put aside, displayed like a trophy; evidence of an experiment that’s passed its first test.

Except it’s not the circuit board that his parents so value, but him.

Tony Stark is the culmination of his mother’s scheming, the successor to his family’s legacy, his father’s greatest creation.

He is not their son.

He is simply theirs.

An object, a thing, and as his creators, they can do with him what they wish.

And they do.

With every punch and kick, every sting of every cut, every nerve sharpened to burning, every crunch of bone, every drop of blood; Tony hopes that the day will come when he doesn’t open his eyes in the aftermath, hopes that one day, he’ll fail.

But he doesn’t. He never does.

Sometimes he’s grateful; those days are few and far between.

While his father’s expectations, his little tests, are easily understood and easily accepted, his mother – his mother can never seem to decide.

It makes her worse.

There are some games that are easier to discern, the way her red nails dig into the flesh of his cheek as she coos, “Did Howard do that to you, darling?” that gets the immediate reply of, “No, Mama, I fell.”

But there are others, others he cannot seem to understand until it’s too late.

Like when she’ll consider a gun a little too long, play with the bullets; and even slides them into the chamber. It’s a tease, he knows it is, but when she points it to her head just to scare him, he falls for it.

She’ll laugh, beautiful and melodious, and Tony thinks he could love her.

But then she’ll stop abruptly, red lips pulled tight before berating, “Now, darling, what have we said about tears?”

Then she’ll point the gun at him, and everything inside him stills.

His face is wet with tears he shouldn’t have shed, and he knows the punishment. Hates it. But knows it all the same.

“They’re a sign of weakness,” he echoes hollowly.

Again though, she smiles. “You learn so quickly, my darling. If only the lessons would stick.”

The gun will go off, and there’s a new bullet in the wall.

It’s so close.

But never close enough.

“Darling,” she’ll tut, “I know what you’re trying to do: you’d rather it be you, don’t you?”

And he won’t reply because no answer is right, but she’s never needed his participation, volunteered or otherwise, “Death is for the deserving, and you, my darling, do not deserve.”

When Jarvis comes to clean the room, the smell of gunpowder and his mother’s perfume are near indistinguishable, like the alcohol on his father’s breath.

Jarvis will give him the spent casing, and Tony will add it to his necklace.

The bruises fade. The bones mend. The burns peel off to reveal new skin. And he’s made anew.

The bullets though, the bullets he’ll keep.

Each one a reminder to every day he wakes up: you do not deserve.

∞

Despite it all, Ana and Edwin are the cruelest, Tony decides.

They’ll clean up the mess. They’ll put him to bed. They’ll nurse his wounds, whisper apologies against his skin where they’ve pressed kisses, and tell him always the contrary – you do, you do, we love you, you deserve everything –

He believes them.

It makes everything hurt so much more.

∞

When his parents die, there’s a cold that’s settled against his bones like ice woven into his skin.

With the best money could buy, their faces in the casket are set in expressions of quiet peace, restfulness, so completely opposite to the way they’d died.

The blood in the video, retrieved from the night of the accident, is red against the whiteness of the snow, the black of the shadows.

All Tony remembers is the red. There was so much of it.

The cold digs in.

When Obadiah slips him the family ring, red just like his mother’s nails, like Howard’s knuckles, like the blood Tony tastes on his teeth; the facts can no longer be ignored: Death is deserved, and Tony is not worthy.

∞

His father used to call him a monster, an abomination, on bad days. Days when he’d forget that he was responsible; when he’d forgotten that the only reason he’d had Tony at all was to get to play god.

Tony thinks he had a point, but his father is no more, and Tony gets to call himself whatever he wants.

With his blood red family ring on his hand, his mother’s red smile and the quiet stillness he’s grown accustomed to, they call him Death, and with an ironic twist in his lips, Tony accepts.

∞

The Winter Soldier stares up at him; the fight sucked out of his limbs without Rogers forcing life unto his unwilling bones.

The Bunker is quiet except for their breathing.

His throat is bared in the most primal of submissions. He knows this game too. He knows it just as well as Tony does.

Half to taunt him, half to test in the same fashion his mother always did, Tony asks, “Do you deserve Death?”

And with the same blue eyes, sick with serum to keep him living, Barnes whispers into the cold, “No.”

#winteriron if you squint #tony stark fic #tony stark #these violent delights

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magicmagikarp · 5 years

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Fragments of the Past: the Interview

tw: death, torture, amputation, just bad stuff i guess. --

Michael ⦁ מִיכָאֵל (Mikha'el)

meaning “Who is like God?”. This is a rhetorical question, implying no person is like God. Regarded as one of the archangels, he is portrayed as the leader of heaven’s armies in war and is thus considered the patron saint of soldiers within religion.

How fitting of a name for a man who achieved immortality just like a selected few before him. It is ironic that such an unworthy person of infinite life is blessed with such exemption from being mortal, but the universe is a funny creature as she blesses those deemed unworthy. Michael would say that this is a curse rather than a blessing, but who cares what a lowly fool thinks?

Dark brown eyes that were as dark as the night sky stared lazily at the shapes before him. How many days has it been? He could not remember, the time has slipped away from him and he could not tell if it was morning or night. Yet, it did not matter to him anymore as he has given up on keeping his sanity.

With a lick of the lips, his eyes looked over at the camera that was propped up over them. Ah, so they were going to record him this time just like the last. What did they think they will accomplish this time that they have not already seen or done?

Michael cast his gaze down at the doctor before him, dressed in white robes and wore a light blue shirt. He was beginning to hate the color blue.

DR. ████ : How are you feeling today Michael?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : [ no response ]

DR. ████ : [clearing of throat ] Ah I see. Well, will you mind telling me what you remember on [ DATA RESTRICTED ]

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : Was I not detailed enough in my report, doctor?

DR. ████ : Yes, but that does not answer the question.

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : I was stationed at [ DATA RESTRICTED ] to find and locate [ DATA RESTRICTED ]. It took less than a week to locate and things were going as planned. The mission was complete within two weeks, but there were complications.

Michael exhaled as the ringing in his ears slowly faded and he could finally relax. His job was always like this, waiting for an opportunity to strike and to take it the second it showed up. He had done this countless of times, but he was still a rookie in comparison to the other members of the squadron. This was one of the few missions that he went solo. His partner, Tango Hotel, was completing another mission that would take a few months.

Shifting onto his knees, the young marksman quickly collected his equipment. Best to leave as soon as possible before anyone figures out that his target is dead and search the area to find the matching gun to the bullet.

Tch.

Michael clicked the back of his teeth as he adjusted his jacket and was hoisting his rifle over his shoulde-The sound of the door opening and the thundering sound of shoes against the floor filled the room. His instincts told him to react, grabbing the knife he kept on his person to try and defend himself, but he was quickly overtaken with the number of men he was up against. Michael found himself face-first against the dirtied floor beneath him and his body being restricted from moving.

“My my, what do we have here? A little rat in our territory, well I guess I should thank you for killing that guy for us, he was a real dick. But he was one of our own, so I can’t exactly let you go scot-free.”

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : I was taken prisoner. Interrogated and tortured for an unknown amount of time.

DR. ████ : You say this so calmly.

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : [ no response ]

DR. ████ : Sorry, please continue.

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : [ no response ]

DR. ████ : I mean, please elaborate?

Michael blinked once as he stared at the doctor in silence. It was obvious that they wanted to see how traumatized he was of his experience. Standard therapies did not work before due to his short and direct speech. It seems that they were coming with a different approach, and by the way the doctor was sitting...she was uncomfortable.

“Were the videos not sufficient?” Michael questioned as he watched the doctor’s eyebrows raise. Ah, so she did not know of the videos. How unfortunate. And here he thought they gave all the files to the interrogators therapists. Guess they left out the videos they sent to Giovanni in hopes of pressuring the Boss to save such a high valued operative. Ha. What fools.

“Michael, please...elaborate.”

Michael’s head and eyes glanced up towards the camera sitting in the corner. How long were they going to treat him as some lab rat? Pretending like he was some sick patient when all the did was see how far from human he was at this point. He closed his eyes as he let out a sigh. Eyes returned to the doctor with that same bored expression. This was a waste of his time.

His arms and legs were shaking out of fear as he was dragged up to the table. This was a familiar scene that was replayed every day thus far. And the trembling of his chest and breathing were doing nothing to calm his nerves as he was struggling to breathe. All his life he had not known fear, perhaps this was what it felt like. Certainly, the way he was breathing and the noises he was making were of those who had been caught betraying Rocket. So was this fear? Was he fearful of what was to come?

“How cute, the bitch is shaking. Don’t worry, it’ll be over before you know it. Just like it was yesterday.”

That voice again and that face. Michael pressed his lips together as his teeth chattered. Fuck. He refused to make a noise. He would not give them that satisfaction of showing them any more weakness than he was already displaying. Not when his face was forced to look forward. Not when he saw that rusted blade that was lining up just below his knuckle. Not when he could feel tears dripping down his cheeks.

“Shhh, take it like a man why don’t you.”

Michael wanted to close his eyes, but he knew the consequences if he did. He struggled to keep them open as his vision was blurred. He bit his lip and drew blood as the pain in his fingers and hand were amplified once again. The sound of a blood curtailing scream was so unfamiliar he didn’t realize that it was his own.

Michael watched as the doctor listened to his answer. Even when he used very few words, he could tell that she did not believe any of them. To say that he had lost his hands up to his forearms by amputation did not seem plausible when she could clearly see his hands were still attached to him.

Yet he could see the strain in her eyes. There was no doubt that she noticed the scars the littered his knuckles. How they appeared like rings and lined up perfectly to where he said they chopped them off. It was making her head spin just like his was already, unfortunately for Michael, he was stuck with it forever.

DR. ████ : Uh huh [ pause ] Right. So they just took off a knuckle [ pause ] twice a day.

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : [ no response ]

DR. ████ : Michael?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : Correct

DR. ████ : Was there [ pause ] anything else?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : A brand, a cut on my lip, and my eyes were gauged out before I was shot a few times in the chest.

His answer was short and sweet, like the other times. Michael knew that she thought he was insane with the way she shifted and stared at him. All the interrogates doctors were like this. Doubting his words, not that he could blame them.

“Okay...and how did you um...survive...”

And there was the question that everyone was asking. What he has repeated over and over again not only in his reports but also vocally countless of times. How many videos have they recorded him saying the same thing? Michael could not tell, but he knew that the Rockets were not the sanest people in the world.

“I don’t know,” Michael started, “I woke up to a city in shambles and my six gyarados demolishing everything in sight.”

He woke up to the sound of gyarados howls and roars. The scent of death and destruction lingered in the air. All he could do was push his body up off the ground. The rubble beneath him pressed into his skin and his body ached from having fallen asleep on the ground. The first thing he noticed was the dried blood that was beneath him and that he had his hands back.

Michael looked down at his hands with haze. From his dream he had lost them so brutally, same with his eyesight. He formed his fingers into fists before extending them again. A hand would be pressed to his chest as he felt three small divots in his chest, where he had been shot in the chest.

Eyes widened as he took in a deep breath and looked around. He was alive. And in the middle of a destroyed city. All around him, buildings were on fire and there was a deafening silence, well aside from all the broken water pipes and damaged electrical system. Michael could only fall to his knees as he took in the sight before him.

The sky was dark with storms and the shadows of six large gyarados soaring through the sky were daunting. A shiver ran down his spine as he slowly saw the patches of grass and vegetation slowly forming over the stone. It seemed almost unnatural as the terrain lacked anything that could hold life...

No.

His eyes stared at the bodies that were near him. He saw how plants were coming out of their bodies, as if they were a breeding grown for nature to thrive. It was a haunting discovery, to see corpses littering the abandoned city and to slowly turn into a tiny forest. Michael turned his head every which way as his eyes caught a four legged creature disappearing into the distance.

DR. ████ : And after that?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : I took a walk.

DR. ████ : Why did you not return to Team Rocket?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : It did not cross my mind.

DR. ████ : Did not cross your mind?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : I was abandoned, was I not?

DR. ████ : [ long pause ] Where did you go?

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : [ no response ]

DR. ████ : Team Rocket sent in agents to find you.

MICHAEL LETTERMAN : [ no response ]

DR. ████ : What happened to them?

“GOD PLEASE NO!”

“PLEASE!” *squelch* “HAVE MERCY!” *chomp* “please no”

“MONSTER!” “NONONONONO!” *gulp* “why me”

“AHHH” “GOD” *crack* “STOP!”

Michael inhaled the pleasant scent of cooking meat as he stared off into the night sky. The ocean was so beautiful in this light. How long has it been since he truly been at peace like this? When he did not have to worry about anything at all.

MICHAEL LETTERMAN: I don’t know.

DR. ████ : You telling me they just disappeared?

Michael blinked lazily at the doctor in front of him. It was always the same reactions, always the same questions. How are you? What do you remember? Where did you go? Where are those missing agents? Why did you abandon Team Rocket?

Michael sighed as he closed his eyes. The results were going to be the same. As soon as this therapy session was up, he would be back on that table. The only thing he could say is that he doesn’t scream as much as he did before, but it still hurt like a bitch.

“Michael, answer me!”

The agent opened his eyes to stare at the doctor once again. Her hair was a mess and by the way she was breathing, it seemed like she was yelling at him for quite a while. Ah, he must have ignored her for too long.

“MICHAEL DID YOU KILL THEM?!?!”

She was angry, more than any other one that had interviewed him.

Michael looked towards the mirror that he knew as a one way mirror. He knew there were guards outside in case he got out of hand. Not that he could actually do anything as he was pretty much changed to this chair like a prisoner. Though, he honestly did not understand why they chose doctors that were too emotionally invested in this case.

“Just give her the gun,” Michael said as he stared at the high ranking officer behind the mirror, or at least in the direction of them. Team Rocket was a mess and a shit hole. To think that they expected him to actually care about an organization who abandoned him and left him for dead? Ha.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

#ooc: { long post }#//i wrote a thing #//cuz i was bored #//:V does it make sense probs not #//what is story pacing?#//hahahaha #tw: death #tw: amputation #tw: torture #//*casually shoves onto dash and sleeps*

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artificialqueens · 7 years

Text

for all the honest world to feel (trixya) (5/8) - dare

Brian stared down at his screen, trying to understand what he was seeing – the mild frown on Katya’s face, and the other queen, hands raised, standing just out of frame beyond the gap in the bus bunk curtain.

(AN: so this is… long and sad. finally-throwing-in-an-angst-tag-at-the-bottom levels of sad. warnings for unsafe alcohol use and overdrinking; as usual, “she/her” for adore and “he/him” for trixie (brian) and katya. also, this might read a little weird, but i made the executive decision not to name the weho queen who’s been giving trixie shit because (contrary to, uh, all other signs, i guess) i don’t actually want to speculate on who’s a douche and who isn’t in the ru girl community. so that’s also a thing.

(OH, and, there’s more lyrics in this one, please don’t judge me, it’s very hard to try to measure up to trixie’s irl songwriting chops lmao)

this week on honest world: shit’s sad. shit’s real sad.)

| ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 |

FROM: SHEA - 9:57 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

[Attachment: IMG_3782.MOV]

Girl.

If you dont wife her up I will.

FROM: KIM - 10:03 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

holy shit

i don’t think i’ve ever seen her mad. like for real

FROM: SHEA - 10:04 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

This was some WWF shit girl. That bitch will be feeling it for a while.

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

katya’s from boston. she’s 90% salt, 5% feelings, 5% inner saboteur and 100% ready to fight

FROM: SHEA - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Thats a lot of math, Kimberley

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

are you being racist? don’t be racist shea. omg.

someone had to count trixie’s tips for her when she was passed out drunk in my bed

FROM: SHEA - 10:07 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

*Steal trixie’s tips from her.

FROM: SHEA - 10:15 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Trisha baby if you’re out there we love you girl okay? call us any time xxxx

“You know,” Katya was saying, perfectly conversational, “I found it kind of cute at first? Like a puppy trying to fight itself in the mirror – or one that can’t, you know. Stop pissing itself. You know what I mean? Funny but sad. But I don’t think I find it funny anymore.”

The other queen laughed nervously. “Come on, Katya –”

“I’m not laughing. Why are you laughing?” said Katya, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not laughing.”

The laughter stuttered into silence. Over the mic, Brian heard Shea expel a slow, cautious breath.

Katya tilted his head, and the expression on his face darkened like a spring storm. “I want to make it really clear to you how far you’ve managed to over-reach yourself, that you’ve actually crossed my limits. ‘Cause I don’t care how you run things in your club, how you treat your friends, whatever – that’s none of my business, since I don’t work in your club and I’m not your friend. Oh, in case you hadn’t noticed – I’m not your friend. FYI. Because you’ve been acting like I am, and I think it’s time for that to stop.”

The raised hands dropped out of sight. “Jesus. Why don’t you tell me how you really feel.”

And that – Brian winced despite himself. That was a mistake.

Katya grinned, showing too many teeth. “Can I? I’d like that, thanks.” He tapped his fingers rapidly against the side of his thigh. “I feel like you’ve gotten a little too comfortable as top dog in your scene, and when Trixie showed up and didn’t line up to eat you out like everyone else does, your ego plummeted out of your ass. And what we’ve been seeing for the past half a year – can I repeat that? It’s been half a year, which is beyond pathetic – what we’ve been seeing is some kind of hemorrhoidal psychosis, as you take obsessive potshots at someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck about you. It’s not just pathetic – it’s harassment. You’re showing your whole ass right now but guess what, girl? We’ve seen it.”

“You said yourself you’re not in my scene, so don’t talk like you know shit,” the queen snapped back. Her voice tightened like a screw being ground into drywall. “The bitch could have tried to be friendly, for fuck’s sake –”

“You aren’t being very smart right now,” Katya interrupted, with all the force of a tire iron punching through a sheet of glass. “This might be a good time to consider your word choice, if there ever was one. That would be the smart thing here.” Teeth again, manic. “You want friendly? I can do friendly. We have another week on tour – you want me to do friendly. Because the alternative is that I freeze you out, publicly and professionally, and I make your life and your career outside of that fucked up, incestuous bubble of a scene you’ve pissed all over very difficult. Am I – am I being clear? I want to be very clear. You’ve messed up enough shit in my life, and I want this over with.”

There was a pause and a shift in the shadows beyond the curtain – nodding.

“Good. So here’s how this is going to go.” A wooden sound, rap, Katya’s knuckles against the bunk frame. Brian could make out the rise and fall of Katya’s chest, shallow and too fast, in the gap between the curtains. “You don’t post about Trixie. You don’t talk about her. If, God forbid, the opportunity arises, you don’t talk to her. That last one is for you – I’m a lover, not a fighter, but it is my strong suspicion that if you pull this to her face one more time, she will beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Just a – a pro-tip, let’s call it. An insight.”

There was a weak laugh. “She can try it. Jesus, Katya, come the fuck on –”

Slam – an open-handed palm against the wood. “Do you think I’m fucking around here? I’m not. Don’t fucking push me on this.”

Brian had heard Katya angry a handful of times in his life. He’d never heard him like this. This wasn’t Katya out of control; this was Katya very near the end of his rope, and aware of every inch he had left, making them count.

The sick feeling in Brian’s stomach crept higher. He pressed his knuckles against his mouth.

“You stop coming for Trixie,” Katya was saying. “No more posts on facebook, no more whispers at shows. No more shit-talking to promoters – yeah, I asked around, I heard about that. Not that it did you much good. It has to hurt, I think – does it? Knowing that Trixie’s booking is worth more than your word? That’s gotta sting. But I’m not sure how much of a hold your word even has anymore, you bitter fucking cunt.”

Shea, behind the camera, drew in a shocked breath at the pure vitriol in Katya’s voice.

There was a stillness to the air for a long moment, like the silence after a hurricane has swept the earth bare and ragged. Then the other queen laughed again; louder this time, acidic, but with a definite note of finality – of defeat.

“If everyone could see you now,” she said.

Katya barked a laugh of his own. “Girl, they wouldn’t care. I’m America’s fucking sweetheart.” He stepped back and waved a hand in the space visible between the curtains; it was shaking finely, Brian could see it. “Get the fuck out of here. I’m not dealing with you today. Call back tomorrow – I’ll be friendly again.”

The curtains fluttered as hurried footsteps passed by and receded out of the room, the door to the common lounge sliding open and then shut.

Katya’s shadow shifted. Back and forth, like he was caught up on a decision; then he said, quiet, muffled: “fuck.” Footsteps rang in the opposite direction – towards, Brian assumed, his own bunk, as there was the fumbling sound of feet on rungs and then the rattle of metal rings as the curtains were pulled shut.

The camera reversed. Shea stared up at it, her eyes filling most of the screen, hilariously wide and scandalized. Then the video went black – and flicked back to that first still, frozen, the anger on Katya’s face deepening the hollows of his cheeks, his eyes throwing sparks through the screen.

Brian stared down at the rictus of his face, then pressed the phone down screen-first beside him into his mattress. The hard lines of its body bit into the insides of his fingers.

Fuck. What the fuck.

He could stop the video, but he couldn’t make his brain put away the tired lines that had cut into Katya’s face, or the ragged edge of his voice, or how the sound of his palm hitting solid wood had rung through Shea’s bunk, bouncing thickly off the walls.

The room was too small. Brian dragged himself up and went out into the living room, phone in his fist tucked into his pocket, but out there it was too big, and his skin felt all wrong, and he wanted to call Katya but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Katya hadn’t called or texted since the night of the pageant, when Brian had waited and waited all night but the internet – and that fan in the bar who’d clocked him – had stayed miraculously silent. Katya hadn’t called, or texted, or tweeted, or even updated his fucking instagram.

God.

Brian’s phone buzzed suddenly in his pocket and he almost threw it at the balcony doors in his haste to get it out. He fumbled it awake – and then he saw the name on the screen, and his shoulders slumped again.

FROM: ADORE - 10:28 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

I forgot to ask but can u water my plants??? this is the longest ive gone without killing any of them :(

LA sucks.

it’s like *jaws theme* all the time. and i forgot my sunglasses

He swiped his phone unlocked and read through the texts, mouth twitching feebly towards an almost-smile. It buzzed in his palm again and a picture appeared – Adore, nose scrunched, squinting into the sky.

Brian typed back, i promise, you can definitely afford another pair of sunglasses. and yes, your plants are safe in my hands.

The answer came quickly, every letter infused with the kind of wry snark that Adore was so good at: dont make promises my lawyers can’t keep

Brian huffed a quiet laugh. The sound was swallowed up in the space of the apartment, a small rock dropped in a large lake, not even reaching far enough to touch the walls.

Adore had come out the morning after that night to find him on the couch, his guitar abandoned on the coffee table, staring out into the thin morning light. It wasn’t even 7 AM. He’d gotten four or so hours of restless sleep before giving up on it; the room was lit such a soft grey that he might as well have wrapped in a dream anyway. He’d been staring out at the clouds and the inkstain crows flecked along the telephone wires for so long that they’d blurred, like an impressionistic painting – barely real.

Adore had gone and sat beside him. Then she’d leaned over, carefully, and rested her head on his shoulder. He’d shuddered – one long wave through his whole body. She was warm. When she breathed her chest expanded against his arm, slow and steady like waves coming into the shore. He’d only been able to bear it for a few minutes before he’d had to get up, fingers twitching at his side; he’d given her an apologetic smile, and she’d watched him walk back to his room with her chin on her wrist, her forearm braced against the back of the couch.

He’d checked twitter one more time, and then fallen into deep, exhausting sleep.

“That’ll be thirty-two dollars and forty cents, please,” said the bored young woman behind the till, eyeing his – genuinely embarrassing – collection of groceries: ramen noodles, tomato sauce from a jar, the kind of shitty white wine he’d drunk in senior year of college, and stuff to make a salad, out of the idealistic hope that he might actually make a salad.

“I’ll just put that on my credit card,” Brian said. He watched her surreptitiously as she entered the amount onto the card reader. Adore had brought him here a few times, but he didn’t recognize her.

“This your first day?” he said, then winced.

“Huh?”

“I mean. Are you new?”

Now she was eyeing him, even less impressed than she’d been by his groceries. “No…”

“Oh.” He ran a hand over his head awkwardly. He’d forgotten his cap at home. “I just, I haven’t seen you here before. I thought…”

Her mouth twitched, and she popped her gum, a sharp snap in the air. The sound was somehow scornful. “Listen, mister – I’m working, you know, and even if I weren’t, I don’t go out with the kind of guy that bothers –”

“Oh my god, no,” Brian said, flushing, “Oh my god, no, I’m gay. What? No.”

“Oh,” she said. She started turning red too. “Oh. Shit – uh, I mean –”

He laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it. Sorry for being, uh, super weird and stuff.”

The lights overhead were the sickly fluorescent yellow of small-time grocery stores everywhere. He could have been anywhere – east coast or west, north or south, any timezone, any city, any tour. His shoes squeaked on the floor when he shifted from heel to heel.

How was it less than a week ago that he’d felt so at home in this city he didn’t know at all?

“Your receipt,” the cashier said. She held it out towards him, then hesitated visibly. “Listen, uh… are you okay, man?”

He shrugged, stilted, and took the receipt, then grabbed the bags by their handles. “Oh, you know. More of the same,” he said.

It was awful to realize he meant it.

Touring was a little bit like being a ghost in your own body. You were breathing and eating and sleeping, but you might as well have been walking through walls, the way you drifted from place to place, squinting at google maps on your phone, talking to people whose names you’d either forget within five minutes or never knew in the first place. You could be anywhere at all; you might as well be nowhere.

Brian drank shitty wine and played into the night, the notes echoing hollowly across the big empty space of Adore’s living room. Music usually anchored him into his body on the road. Every chord brought him a little closer, the muscles, tendons, bones of his hands all tuned in to the melody with the ease of years. He could close his eyes and wherever he was, he was home.

But each time he opened his eyes again he was someplace new.

Seattle wasn’t a tour stop, but its grey skies, the neighbours he ran into on the staircase, the people he saw in the grocery store – none of them were home. But, fuck it, neither was LA, where he spent a few days every month or two and sometimes found himself waking up wondering whose walls he was looking at. And where the fuck did that leave him?

He played a sour note, paused, and corrected himself. Breathed. Tried to bring Emmylou’s lilting refrain back under his fingers.

Without Adore’s voice in the next room livestreaming her way out of boredom, the apartment grew stale and shadowed; without Katya’s calls every night, the days seemed endless, a pale stretch of hours where he did nothing and saw no one. And as each hour ticked past on the clock it became more and more obvious that the veneer of sunshine he’d pasted over Seattle with Adore’s friendly warmth and the sound of Katya’s smile was just that – a veneer.

Another sour note. He stopped and lay his guitar flat in his lap, then picked up his glass on the coffee table and drained it.

His phone lay still and silent beside the wet ring his glass had left on the wood.

He flicked a bit of lint from the couch off his boxers and took up his guitar again, tracing out the melody that he’d been chasing these past weeks on automatic. The sky outside was ripening, edging into evening. It was almost fall. He’d been in Seattle for three weeks, and it seemed he really hadn’t moved an inch.

He could call Katya. He could suck it the fuck up and call Katya, because maybe Katya was waiting for him to call. Maybe this whole ‘respecting Katya’s space’ thing he was doing was totally misguided, and Katya was waiting beside the phone every minute that he wasn’t out there defending Brian’s honour or whatever that was.

I fucked you up, he could say. I was so busy pretending that everything was fine now and my problems were gone because they weren’t yelling in my face every two seconds that I didn’t realize I was setting us both up to get hurt. I was so fucking stupid, Katya, and I’m so – I’m so sorry.

And Katya would say…

What?

I just want you to be okay, if he was feeling self-sacrificial; it’s your irrepressible Virgo energy, if he was feeling avoidant. Maybe, maybe, I thought you said you didn’t lie to me, and you weren’t going to start, if he was feeling particularly honest.

Katya was always honest, more or less. It was just that the truth was flexible, more conversation than monologue, and irony always had to have the last word. Brian, meanwhile, was just a bit of a liar.

Not with Katya, though. Not before. And he hadn’t meant to – he really hadn’t meant to, not even for a second; it was just –

Fuck.

It’s worse than I was letting myself feel, Brian could say. There’s things I don’t know how to tell you. Because it is about you.

His throat tightened; he let go of the frets. He grabbed for his drink blindly and for his notebook with his other hand. Resting it against the body of his guitar, he opened to a blank page and scrawled,

You fought yourself to bring all your feelings down to heel,

and if you stopped yourself from looking, was it ever really real

but everyone’s been looking

and you –

Something inside of him was drifting dangerously, thin tethers tied to his ribs all that held it in place, like a threadbare sail on fraying ropes. The words on the page blurred in front of his eyes. He raised his glass to his mouth but the rim bumped against his teeth and nothing came out. Empty.

He frowned down at his cup. Like, fuck that nonsense. He’d put good money down on those teeth.

The wine sloshing into the glass when he poured himself another sounded like the ocean creeping onto the shore on a windless day. Like Provincetown – another place he’d gone to hide; another town full of strangers. He set the bottle back on the table, cap off, and picked up his guitar again.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday he went running in the morning like nothing had changed. Before, Adore would be waking up when he got back; one of them would make breakfast, then they’d jam for a while, and then Adore would smoke up and Brian would text Katya, if he hadn’t already done so.

Now Brian just jogged. Further and further each day, until Thursday found him running along the seaside, pounding the pavement with salt stinging the inside of his mouth on every inhale. The sky was a soft feather blue, the ocean a deep silk bedsheet wavering in his peripheral vision – and then the mass of Pike Place rose up in front of him. Before he could think about it, his feet were carrying him inside; past the florists, past the bursting orange and red arrays of fresh fruit, and down the stairs to the magic shop’s door.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the collar of his tank top, grimaced, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was just-opened quiet on the floor. No customers, no music; just a vague shuffling from behind the counter. “Just a minute,” the shuffler called. “If this accursed speaker breaks on me one more time…”

There was a crackling sound from the speakers set high in the walls, like a cheap firework skidding along cement, and then a whole storm of swearing below the counter.

“Uh,” Brian said. He approached cautiously. “Can I take a look? I might be able to help.”

“No, it’s really fine –” A frazzled head popped up from behind the register. “Oh! It’s you! I know you. You think you can fix it? The damn thing goes off all the time, the wiring’s too old –”

Brian shrugged. “I work in clubs and theatres and stuff, so I’ve picked up a thing or two. Let me see.”

Steph – that was her name, he remembered – was as curly-haired and strangely-dressed as when they’d met, with a sprig of rosemary tucked behind the large crow-shaped brooch pinned to her blouse and dust all over her knees. He crouched down beside her and squinted at the mess of wires and cords, poking a hesitant finger around and hoping he wouldn’t get fried. That sound had not been good.

“I think,” he said after a minute, “I think it’s this. Hang on. I’m gonna – if I die, tell my momma I loved her, and tell my dad –” he ducked further under the desk. “Well, whatever you like, if you can find him.”

She barked a laugh behind him.

He didn’t die, although he did burn his fingers a little bit, and when the music started playing (some kind of witchy Swedish wailing, possibly Bjork, Katya – Katya would know –) he let out a “Hah!” of triumph. Eat that, three years on the road and four years of theatre school and thousands of dollars funnelled directly into the University of Wisconsin’s incredibly deep pockets. Eat the shit out of that.

Steph helped him out with two hands around his forearm, shaking him delightedly once he was more or less standing. “You’re a miracle worker,” she said with a bright smile. “I should hire you on the spot, because clearly you’re the real magic here.”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his free arm and grinned down at her. Clear bright light was streaming through the high windows in the walls, glinting off her brooch, her earrings, the silver in her hair. Her smile and easy warmth was the same as it had been before, and, god, that was nice. “I’ve got greasepaint coming out of ears,” he said, shrugging modestly. “You can’t really call yourself a theatre kid until you’ve nearly died a dozen different ways trying to string up the speakers on the janitor’s old ladder. ”

“Different ways?”

He waved a hand. “You know, falling, electrocution – so boring. A good old-fashioned garrotte is where it’s at.”

Her eyes scrunched at the corners when she laughed. “I like you,” she said, grinning, “you’re strange,” and he grinned back, feeling lighter than he had all week.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. Then: “Oh, hey, the book you sold me is great. Who knew reading about the end of the world could make you feel better about life?”

“That’s right, the apocalypse poems, you…” Steph said, then paused. “God, I’m so sorry, I don’t remember your name. But you’re Danny’s friend, right?”

Brian blinked. Swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said; it came out forced, like he was overcompensating for something. “Yeah, sorry, it’s Brian. Yeah. I took some time off work and I’ve been staying with Danny.”

“Oh, do you work together?” she said, brightly and obliviously twisting the knife. “I know he does something or other with clubs and theatres and whatnot too. He’s very private about those things, but such a sweetheart. I haven’t seen him around in a while, though, how he is?”

“Away on business,” Brian said, “and, you know, we’ve been keeping busy otherwise. I’ll tell him you asked.” He wiped his palms against the sides of his shorts. “Listen, I actually – I should probably be going, actually. I’m supposed to be skyping him in about half an hour.”

An absolute lie, but Steph swallowed it without a flicker of suspicion. She smiled and pressed a hand to his arm. “Tell him I send my love. And thanks again for your help, Brian. I don’t know how many more shocks my old heart could take.”

“Oh stop,” he said, chuckling, and gave a little wave. “See you around, I guess?”

The polite small talk of strangers. Preferable to a slow death, but not by, like, a lot.

Brian took the stairs back up to the ground level slowly, although his heart rate was well back to normal by this point. He wandered out of the arcade, and turned, and walked, and turned, and then he was on a raised dock, leaning against a wooden rail next to a locked gate, which guarded the ramp down to the boats. The wood pressed into the front of his ribs. He curled his palms around the rail, ignoring the bite of splinters.

A light breeze ruffled his shirt and cooled his pink cheeks. The ocean stretched out before him, golden sunshine catching in the crests and troughs of the waves.

He closed his eyes.

At home, he typed, i hope you’re doing okay. i love you.

Deleted it.

Typed, today someone didnt recognize me and THAT made me sad. i think i need an intervention.

Deleted it.

Typed, went to the beach to sea what all the commocean was about but idk im still not shore

Deleted it.

Sighed, stared out the window, looked down at his feet.

Typed, i’m sorry. katya, i’m so sorry.

Deleted it.

“You’re so white from these shadowed winter months,” Katya crowed, shielding his eyes dramatically. “I don’t know if I can be seen with you.”

“You’re real white from being born, you know, caucasian and unfortunate, but I’ve suffered your company for years,” said Brian. He frowned and wiped at his nose where something wet was dripping – sweat or sunscreen, he didn’t know. “If you really can’t bear it, I’m sure I can find one of these tanned, strapping, oiled-up hunks of meat who’d be willing to walk with me –”

Katya grabbed his arm mid-gesture. “No no no, don’t you dare!”

“I’m just saying,” Brian continued, “you invited me, bitch –”

The shine of Katya’s grin, open-mouthed and laughing, was enough to blow his whole awful night out of the water.

They walked. The sun drew rippling air waves out of the too-hot cement; the ocean crashed beautifully green into the white shore. But it somehow wasn’t too crowded, for all that it was the dead of summer, the very peak of beach days. They moved in blissful anonymity. At one point, Katya bought him an ice cream. Brian ate it one-handed, making panicked noises and laughing as it dripped closer and closer to his hand. His other hand was – well. He’d taken Katya’s as they stood waiting for the cone, and he hadn’t let go yet. His stomach flipped giddily every time their steps fell out of sync – their palms would drag against each other, just for a moment, each time making him newly aware again of the calluses on Katya’s palm.

He traced his index finger along the big tendon on the back of Katya’s hand, and Katya glanced at him sideways, quick, lips parting on a short intake of breath. Brian licked at his ice cream and said nothing, warm and smug all over.

Sea breeze and the sting of salt. They leaned over the wooden rail, right into it, shoulders and hips pressed together. The blue stretched endless.

Katya started to turn red in the cheeks around four so they ducked for shade. Brian slouched back against the blush pink wall of some souvenir shop, under the awning, and Katya stood in front of him to block the sun from his eyes. One moment Brian was looking over Katya’s shoulder at the white gulls darting and dipping over the sea; the next, he was blinking up, and Katya was closer, leaning in, one hand on the wall beside his head, his gaze flickering over Brian’s face with the same combination of lazy ease and breathless flight as the birds in the air.

Brian blinked, processing, then licked his lips to wet them. “Feeling tall?” he said.

“Feeling lots of things,” said Katya, smiling faintly. “Tall may or may not be one of them. No one’s ever accused me of a Napoleon complex, Tracy – and my psychological rap sheet is longer than the Mariana Trench. You always take me to new and exciting places, did you know that? That’s why we’re friends.”

“I thought it was for the free therapy and life coaching.”

“Don’t undersell yourself, mama. What’s newer or more exciting than uncertified therapy and dubious life coaching?”

Brian laughed. “I don’t know that ‘new’ and ‘exciting’ are words that many people have applied to me – out of drag, at least.” His mouth twitched. “You might be du-biased.”

He expected Katya to throw back his head, lean away and laugh, but instead – Katya leaned closer, his eyes glinting with mirth. “I’m gonna kill you,” he said, “I’m gonna kill you right here and dump your body into the ocean in front of the tourists, God, and everybody, and no one will punish me when they hear about the years of pun-spewing bullshit you’ve put me through.”

He was so close. Brian’s stomach flipped again; he could feel Katya’s warmth all along him, make out the freckles on his nose. “Kill me?” he said, mouth dry.

Katya blinked. Something about the set of his jaw, the small lines around his eyes, seemed suddenly vulnerable, intense and somehow opened wide.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Or, I dunno. Maybe that other thing.”

Brian held his breath. All he could hear was the crashing of the waves, loud and close – or maybe that was the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. He reached up and brushed the tips of his fingers along the sharp line of Katya’s cheek.

Katya’s chest hitched.

The breeze chased the sunlight through the empty pier, stirring the sand across the wood, and Katya leaned in, slow enough that Brian could stop him if he wanted. Brian didn’t. He lifted his face, eyes slipping shut; and Katya’s mouth fell on the corner of his, once, soft, then warm against his right cheekbone, and again on his left. Brian exhaled shakily.

“What,” he said, unsteady. “Can’t kiss me when the cameras aren’t on?”

Katya huffed a laugh, the breath warm on Brian’s face. He curled a hand below Brian’s ribs; his fingers dipped into the hollow in his tank top to brush against bare skin. Brian shivered. Voice barely louder than the wind in the distance, Katya said, “My life would be so much simpler if that were true.”

Brian opened his eyes. He looked up and met Katya’s gaze, and his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Katya’s stubble scratched at his fingertips as he settled his palm more firmly along the curve of his jaw. “Well, you’re not really a simple woman,” Brian said, and Katya was laughing when he leaned down and kissed him properly.

When he opened his eyes, the sun’s lowest rays had dipped below the edge of the awning, lighting Katya up in gold, and he tipped his head back to rest against the wall, wrapped his free arm around Katya’s waist, and said, “Come home with me.”

Except that’s not what happened at all.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining, and Katya was lit with gold, and he tipped his head back against the wall and thought about saying it –

– then smiled crookedly, and said instead, “You kiss like you have heat stroke.” And Katya threw back his head and laughed, wheezed, “no, just heat rash,” while the sun caught in his hair and lashes.

It’s not what happened, but it could have been. He could have taken Katya home, and pressed him up against the hallway inside his door, all that sun-warm skin under his hands. He could have kissed him the way he wanted to. He could have blown him right there with his knees sore against the hardwood, or taken his hand again and drawn him back into the bedroom, kissing him all the way. And after – Brian could have asked him to stay.

That wasn’t how it happened, but, crashed out on the couch in Seattle after his run, Brian dreamed every moment of it. Every inch of hot skin and the rasp of sheets and falling asleep together and waking up together. And when he woke up – alone – he pressed his hands flat against his stomach, feeling like something had been taken out of him. Feeling ill, feeling exhausted, feeling like his head was buzzing and his mind was five feet outside of his body.

Eventually he dragged himself up and fumbled for his phone. He wiped at the inner corners of his eyes with his knuckle as he thumbed it awake; then he pressed his palm over his face, exhaling shakily.

No new messages. Of course.

His whole body hummed feverishly, the twinned effect of the sun on his morning run and the one in his dream. Maybe that was what fucked over his self-control, that sick feeling like he was out of his head, or maybe he was just giving in to the inevitable – but, whatever it was, he opened his messages and, despite all his better judgement, typed out: check in?

Hating himself a little, he hit send.

When there was no response thirty minutes later, despite the read receipt that had popped up almost immediately, he left to go find something to drink.

“Oh hey, it’s you,” said the girl behind the counter. She eyed his purchases. “Wow. I didn’t think it could get sadder than last time…”

Brian huffed a short laugh. “Still gay, don’t worry.”

“Uh huh,” she said. She ran the first wine bottle – yes, first, thanks so much – under the scanner and hit a few buttons. “So is the whole sad and gay deal an aesthetic thing? How much Lana have you listened to in the past three days? I’m trying to decide if I should be staging an intervention that I’m – full disclosure – not really qualified for.”

“Do sad gays get a discount at this establishment?”

“Nope,” she said, popping it like bubblegum. “Sorry.”

She finished ringing him, his three bottles of wine, his pack of sour key candies, and his thoroughly depleted dignity through the machine.

“Credit,” he said, offering it over.

He was threading his hands through the bag handles, waiting for his card back, when she said, “Hey. What’s your name, man?”

He blinked. “It says on the card.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said, handing it over wrapped in his receipt with an eye-roll. “So what is it?”

“Brian,” he said, and looked at the sallow lights on her face, wondering where she was going with this.

“Brian,” she repeated. “Hi, Brian, I’m Mariam.”

Her tone was conversational but somehow serious, weighted, and Brian – Brian swallowed against the sudden and unexpected feeling of his throat going tight.

“Now who’s hitting on who?” he managed, and she chuckled, but didn’t lose that look in her eyes.

“Brian. Take care of yourself, hey?” she said.

The lights glared brightly across the empty floor, the rows upon rows of no-name brands and the scuff marks on the shitty linoleum. She was watching Brian like maybe he needed watching. He swallowed again, and nodded, and left without another word.

Dust motes floated in the slowly draining sunlight when he returned to the apartment. The whole space of it echoed with the closing of the door. He kicked off his shoes, cracked open the first bottle, and went to get his guitar, glass in hand.

Hours passed. He drank more. He scribbled in his notebook, crossed things out, scrawled corrections in the margins. There was too much in his head. Words tumbled out like a hole had been torn somewhere, all the loose change and lint of his brain escaping despite his best efforts to plug the gap. His writing got sloppier, slanted; he wiped wine from his mouth with the back of his hand and turned the page.

The beach, the dream, the night before. The months of build-up, the moment of release. Wanting, wanting, he wanted so much and he had told himself, when he was a kid, that someday he would be able to have all the things he wanted. If he was smart enough and good enough, quick enough on his feet, he could make anything happen. But here he was: trapped into stillness as the path under his feet cut off abruptly. Because how could he have all the things he wanted when they existed at such cross-purposes?

Or was it just him? Not the fame, not the fans, not the industry, and certainly not Katya – maybe it was Brian at cross-purposes with all of it, putting himself in his own way, selfish and stubborn and cowardly, refusing to accept with good grace what the universe was offering him.

The sun dipped below the blocky Seattle skyline, the buildings across the road cast in radiant red, as he stumbled into the kitchen to open the third bottle. His hands slipped on the cap; he blinked wearily down at it, then out the window at the purples and pinks of the sky, dappled and streaked like watercolours. The sun was just a winking and burnished glare over the lip of the buildings. He inhaled deeply and it almost seemed like he could still taste salt in the air.

The skyline blurred before his eyes, replaced by the memory of the things his dream had omitted. Walking the long way back down the pier, Katya with one arm hooked around his elbow and the other hand clutching at his bicep like an ingenue, twitching with laughter every minute or so because apparently this was the most heterosexual he’d ever felt. Which, Katya had definitely licked at least one pussy in his day, so. What he meant was probably that it was dumb, and romantic, and brought them so much closer together than held hands as they made their way between the shadows of the tall lights that lined the boardwalk. The sun set in brilliant gold in the distance. Brian remembered the warmth of Katya’s chest against his arm; he remembered looking at Katya’s lips, then away, and wash, rinse, repeat; he remembered the sign they passed, jutting up out of the middle of the boardwalk: END OF THE TRAIL.

He remembered going home alone, flushed and giddy with the heat of the day, and turning on his phone to see a new notification from his facebook messages. date night tracy?, it said, captioning a photo of him and Katya on the boardwalk, arm in arm, the soft look on his face all too bare in the deep amber light of the sun setting over the ocean.

Brian shook his head, and poured himself another drink.

The night after that was all in flashes. His fingers sliding along the strings of his guitar. Losing his pen under the couch; hunting through Adore’s drawers for another one. Sweet sad notes filling the room, lingering in the air like sea salt. Fumbling with his phone; his guitar; his own hands.

Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail, that was good, that was fine, but I find that I’ve been tryin’ ‘cause, ‘cause what, ‘cause what –

He lost another pen. After that… he didn’t remember much after that.

Brian woke to a splitting headache and a buzzing phone.

The phone was on his stomach; his head was on the arm of the couch. He blinked into the bright morning light and groaned, covering his eyes.

His phone buzzed again.

Whatever it was, it could fucking wait. He let it fall to the side as he rolled over, taking in the mess of paper and pens – what the fuck, where did he get so many pens – on the coffee table, the empty wine bottles, his guitar abandoned carelessly on the floor. The glass doors to the balcony were open, though he didn’t remember opening them, and the harsh cawing of the crows outside made his eyes water.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He stood unsteadily and made his way to the kitchen, where a bag of sour key candies lay splayed open and empty on the counter and a plate with the mysterious remnants of what might be a drunken midnight snack lay beside the sink. He stared at one, then the other, then turned decisively to get a glass out of the cupboards and fill it from the tap. He downed it in one go and poured himself another.

Back by the couch, his phone was buzzing again.

Katya, he realized through the groggy fullness in his head. That could be Katya.

He returned to the couch and lowered himself gingerly, full glass clutched in one hand. He fumbled the phone trying to grab it, which probably said bad things about the balance of alcohol to water in his system at that moment; then he thumbed it awake and scanned it as quickly as he could through the low-burning nausea of his hangover.

There was, in fact, a notification from Katya. A missed call at 2:23 AM. Brian’s heart leapt and his mouth went dry; but then he looked past that, at the avalanche of notifications from twitter and instagram, and his whole body turned cold, shoved into full wakefulness and unholy sobriety.

What the fuck had happened last night?

He unlocked his phone and opened instagram to see notifications in the thousands. Thumbing over to his profile, he found a post he didn’t remember making, dated 1:57 AM. That was – he looked at the little clock at the top of his screen: 7:13 AM – barely five hours before. The little thumbnail showed his shoulders over his guitar; when he opened it, he saw it was a video.

Brian stared at the post in horror for a long moment. Then – because there was literally no other choice – he flexed his fingers, which had gone numb, and he hit play.

The screen cut to his face, frowning blearily and too close, as he tried to prop his phone up. He looked – exhausted. Shit. Dark circles under his eyes, a tight, stressed set to his mouth, which twisted down as he failed to make the phone stand steady a third time. Finally he – the Brian on screen – muttered a sharp fuck, and just leaned the phone back against something or other, putting his glass of wine in front of it to hold it upright, so the rim blurred out the bottom of the frame.

He stepped back, sat down, and pulled his guitar into his lap.

Brian, the Brian watching, took shallow breaths against a rising nausea. His pulse thrummed loudly under the thin skin of his neck.

The camera captured the body of his guitar, the slouch of his shoulders, and part of his mouth, which he wiped at with the back of his hand, pick balanced easily between his fingers. Then he sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders and sliding his other hand up the neck of the guitar into place – Brian remembered that, cool smooth wood under his palm, he remembered glancing at the camera and thinking fuck it, fuck this –

The Brian on screen played an open chord and then set into the melody that made up the verses, the tumbling notes, middle finger – pinky finger – ring finger, and, watching, his brain cut through the fog to focus on that, ring finger, ring finger, the song he’d been working on all this past month coming together despite the drunken way he slid between the metal frets.

And then he started to sing, and Brian went from feeling slightly nauseous to being absolutely certain he was about to throw up.

It wasn’t the verses, thank god. Not the harried scribbles that filled pages upon pages in his notebook, most of them awful, all of them never to be fucking revealed to the world at large because they were his, ugly and sincere and too personal. All the moments that made him want to try; all the things that made him afraid. But this –

“Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail

But I find that I’ve been trying ‘cause

I can’t see the when and where –”

A chorus is a vague thesis; but, watching, he still felt stripped wholly bare.

“I hear waves in my dreams at night,

Feel the sunlight and your stare,

So maybe it’s to no avail –

And maybe ‘stay’ won’t turn out stale –”

Brian swallowed, fumbled for his glass of water, tried to hear anything but the roaring in his ears, see anything but his face dipping into frame as he bent lower over the guitar, eyes closed, face pained as he sang stay. And he was sliding through the notes like a drunk stumbling through a door, graceless but functional and – worst of all – far too honest.

“But I still don’t know if I can go

Off-road at the end of the trail.”

Fuck.

The video didn’t end abruptly – apparently, when drunk, he couldn’t make the crop function work for him – but with an agonizing slowness, the last, aching note from his guitar hanging hollowly in the air. His shoulders on-screen rose, then fell; then finally he reached forward for his phone. A flash of his mouth, his cheek, his eyes squinting – and then it went dark, and looped back to the beginning.

He jabbed at the screen to stop it, and stared down at his phone in mute horror, jaw slack and mouth dry.

First things first, he deleted the video. It wouldn’t shut people up, but he couldn’t just let it sit there, all of him laid out in the bare daylight. The raw sound of his voice, scratchy with exhaustion, on his shitty phone mic; that one glimpse of his face, like opening a door you’re not supposed to by accident, the kind of door you can’t close again or back away from. All a room’s quiet secrets, the small ones that cut deepest, framed starkly by the open doorframe.

He wasn’t going to load twitter, or look at the texts that had come in from his friends who’d seen, but then a new one appeared at the top of his screen as his phone buzzed in his hand. It was Shea – a youtube link. His phone buzzed again with a second message, a third, more, all from Shea. He thumbed messenger open, still numb all the way through, and scanned the group chat dispassionately. Then he stopped, and read it again.

FROM: SHEA - 7:17 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1L34kn0

Please watch this, get your collective shit together, and stop making me feel sad for both of you

Ive got better shit to do with my time

And PLEASE reach out to us, jesus, brian, we care so much and i know youre doing your own thing but we’re really, really worried.

Well. I cant speak for kim. Im worried; that bitch is probably just hungry

He huffed a laugh, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt like something was cracking open inside of him.

His phone buzzed again.

FROM: KIM - 7:18 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

i can be hungry and worried at the same time cunt

but sheas not wrong, bri.

please.

Brian swallowed, then swallowed again, throat tight and eyes stinging. He took another gulp of his water, then, after a moment’s hesitation, typed, i’m here. i’ll watch it in a minute. i love you guys and im sorry

He wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. There was a whole laundry list of reasons he should be; he might as well cover his bases.

It wasn’t – it wasn’t that he’d been wrong to leave. It wasn’t that he’d been wrong to want out or to go silent. It was just that it could be right for him and wrong for them, and he could be sorry for that, even if he wasn’t sure yet that he regretted it.

He hit send all the same.

His phone buzzed almost instantly with their replies, but he didn’t look, pulling up the youtube link instead. Then: for the second time that morning, his heart stopped and his body went cold.

“help me i’m not dying fast enough”, said the title under the loading video. “Katya Zamolodchikova Periscope (August 29, 2017 @ 2:40 AM)”.

He didn’t want to click – he knew he didn’t want to, and also that he shouldn’t – but he did anyway, because sometimes he was a masochist like that. Lately, especially.

Katya, on-screen, stubbed out a cigarette and lit another one, inhaling deeply.

“I’m not going to tell you how many of these I’ve had tonight,” he said to the camera. “Because it’s none of your business what hell cycle of ideating and ovulating I may or may not be going through right now. That’s first of all.”

He looked… gaunt. Unkempt. Worse than in the video Shea had taken a week earlier.

“It’s a funny thing, to have – kind of – resolved myself to wanting something, and always having it sort-of in reach, and then to realise maybe I can’t have it at all. I could have, but maybe I missed my moment, maybe I didn’t lay out my thesis convincingly enough – maybe maybe maybe. Maybe what I wanted isn’t on the proverbial table anymore. That’s harder, I think, than knowing all along you can’t ever have it. It’s a different kind of wanting. I don’t know.”

He flicked his fingers in the air by his ear, ash falling grey and soft like snow from a rooftop.

“I’ve never been good at wanting things. That’s funny, right? From an addict, I mean. It’s funny. You can laugh – I’m laughing. Maybe you are, I don’t know, I can’t see you. I don’t care.

I’ve never been good at wanting things – I’ve had them, or not had them. It all seemed kind of –” he paused, then laughed, a hoarse bark. “You know, insignificant in the face of the rapid decay of the environment, our bodies, society as a whole, and ultimately the universe itself. The universe is dying, by the way, in case you hadn’t heard. I took a first year physics class, girl, so I know what I’m talking about.”

You read Neil Degrasse Tyson’s book once, you fucking idiot, Brian thought; it rung hollow, as if it came from someplace a good distance from his own body.

“So I’ve never been good at wanting stuff. Drugs isn’t want, drugs is need. And that’s not – I know I look like a mess right now, but a) not on drugs, and b) still not about need. I’m not in some kind of I’ll-die-without-you pseudo-love psycho-abusive Nicholas Sparks kinda bullshit. I’m just – I’m just sad. I’m just really fucking sad. And I’ll delete this tomorrow, and anyway –” Katya looked sharply into the camera, and for a moment, Brian felt seen – “I figure it’s only fair.”

“So anyway,” Katya continued. He turned away, towards the road; his eyes lit up with amber streetlight, glass-green and shadowed. “We’re all dying. I know, Brenda, I’m a broken record over here about it, but we’re all dying, and that’s kind of a big deal. And I love it! In some strange, existential way, it’s liberating, it’s electrifying, it brings you closer to your own body and soul and maybe even God, if, I don’t know, that’s your thing sometimes – ‘your’ being mine – but then –”

He stopped himself. Brian watched as his fingers tapped frenetically against the side of his cigarette for a moment, then he raised it, pursed his mouth, inhaled. Exhaled. He lifted his face to watch the smoke rise and disappear.

When he looked back down, he was smiling, crooked at the edges, like it hurt. “But then something comes into your life, and suddenly, it’s like, wait. Hang on. I want to see more of that – let’s stop the death train, maybe. Let’s put a hold on this dying shit. Because whatever it is I’m feeling, I want that, and – and – and why the fuck am I wasting time killing myself when this has been here, maybe all along. Self-indulgent fatalism suddenly starts to feel – selfish.”

“I mean,” he interrupted himself, suddenly and obviously changing tacks as a thought struck him, “please still come to my show. It’ll be so good. All these questions and more will be addressed – not answered, because who cares about answers, but asked? Yes. More questions than you ever wanted. Please come.”

He flashed a smile, plastic-white, but it melted away too quickly into the same tired pallor.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if anything I’m saying is true. I want all sorts of things all the time, but it’s always a little bit – intellectual. Like, wow, I wonder what having that would be like? Feel like? I’ve never experienced this kind of wanting that doesn’t have an endpoint – it won’t just stop once I get it. It goes forward. It has a future. What the fuck is up with that, you know?

But it’s not – you don’t just get to have things.”

His voice cracked.

“No. Okay. One second,” he said, and then he disappeared around the camera. Brian could still hear him breathing, though, quiet in the night air, an eerie echo of so many phone calls over the past month.

When Katya returned, he lit himself another cigarette, and this one didn’t shake between his fingers. “I’m going to delete this the minute it ends, for the record. I don’t know why I’m even doing it. I guess I’m just lonely. I know, I’ve been on tour, and that’s great, but – I dunno. It’s lonely. Work is lonely. Dying is lonely. And there’s one thing I want and I thought I could have it but – turns out – I probably can’t, and that’s – that’s lonely too.”

His mouth twisted, an almost-smile.

“I always thought that was such a cliché: to feel alone in the middle of a crowded room. And I love a cliché when it’s not played straight, but. Maybe, sometimes, the crowd doesn’t matter when one person’s not in it.

Anyway. I’m doing a lot of whining for someone with not a lot of problems, comparatively. And this problem isn’t even really mine. Not at its core. Selfish, right? But hey – no one’s making you tune in, Elizabeth.”

He took a final, decisive drag on his cigarette.

“Okay. I’m gonna go listen to some ambient noise and try to sleep.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ocean sounds, track four: a classic. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

The streetlight blanketing his face in fragile white, he looked into the screen again, directly, as if he could see Brian there looking back at him, heart sore in his throat. Then the video went dark.

Brian sat and stared down at the phone in his hands. Between the low buzzing nausea of his hangover and the Seattle morning greyness, the world around him felt – distant. Not quite real. Not as real or as close as that twitch of Katya’s mouth, or the wry, exhausted humour in his voice. The frustration and sadness and longing in every line of his body.

They were both so stupid. And so fucked.

He tapped out of Safari and into his messages, where he typed again, check in?

Knees tucked into his chest, he waited, and a minute later the reply came in – the little OK emoji, thumb pinched to index finger.

He exhaled loudly and pressed his hand over his eyes.

The phone buzzed against his thigh a moment later and he looked down again. It wasn’t from Shea or Kim like he thought it might be – it was, unexpectedly, another text from Katya. All it said was: you?

He bit his lip, thinking about it. He wasn’t going to let himself lie, to himself, to Katya, not again. He wasn’t going to do that to them. But the honest answer was – yes. He wasn’t good. He wasn’t better. But he was okay, for all the values of okay that the check-in had meant since the first time Katya had needed it: I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m here.

Yeah, he typed and sent, that’s about right.

He looked up from his phone at a sudden noise beyond the front door – a thump, like something heavy had been dropped.

It could have been one of Adore’s neighbours, so he dragged himself up and started to walk over, ready to offer assistance if needed. The woman upstairs was older, and generally bought more groceries than she could carry. But as he was approaching the door he heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and then the handle began to turn.

Adore wasn’t supposed to be back until that evening.

“Hello?” he started to ask, but then the door swung open, and he was staring into a pair of very tired, very startled eyes that definitely weren’t Adore’s.

“What the fuck,” said Bianca del Rio.

To his own surprise, a burst of laughter punched out of Brian’s stomach. “Yeah,” he said, staring back at Bianca, at the douchey sneakers on his feet, the Shangela shirt he was wearing, and the small duffel he’d dropped behind him. Brian found himself smiling, just a little. “Same.”

#I've said this to u already but… why #trixya #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #dare #angst #submission #fathwtf #canon compliant

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crimes-wears-goggles · 7 years

Text

Sore Loser

Fandom: Undertale

Characters: Undyne character study with a bit of Asgore and Undyne father-daughter fluff and some Alphyne

Length: 4227 Words

Summary: Undyne ran away. She had never run away before, let alone from a child. In the aftermath of her defeat and just before a fateful cooking lesson, Undyne sorts through her thoughts. Also she plays piano.

I missed Undyne Appreciation Week but my life is an UNDYNE APPRECIATION LIFE so by God I am getting this up here. Here you go, character study going over what was going through Undyne’s head after she loses to Frisk on the pacifist route but before the cooking lesson. If you enjoy it, please be sure to let me know!

I have included a headcanon here about Undyne finding and meeting the Yellow human soul before meeting Frisk. I know I don't have game evidence to support or deny it, it's just my headcanon. If it doesn't match your particular headcanon... well, you were warned, maybe don't complain? It's very easy to ignore anyway.

Can you guess which songs Undyne is playing on the piano? It's preeeetty obvious, haha.

Link to A03 or you can read it below

She had never run away before.

Fortunately, Undyne had always been good at running. The instant the heat of Hotland faded, she was off like a shot. Her feet pounded against the cooling stone of Waterfall, the cacophony of her heavy armor and the whistle of her breath joining the percussion. Cliffs, stalactites and stone passed by in a wet blur. The darker rooms passed by before she even noticed them, her movements so quick she barely registered a flicker of blue light from mushrooms and crystals. She stumbled only once, twisting her ankle in the damp grass. Undyne cursed as she slowed, taking in the sight of lit pathways where there should have been shadow.

That thing had been here and they hadn't even had the decency to turn out the lights when they left. They’d just waltzed right on through her territory, through her home, and she’d been powerless to stop them. That was way worse than a twisted ankle.

So she kept running, because that was all she could do.

Undyne squeezed her eyes shut and ran once more. She’d always bragged she could run the entirety of Waterfall blindfolded and now was the time to prove it. It was just another workout, just a push to see if she could get a faster mile. All focus went to the motion of her arms and legs, the push and pull of her muscles. Gills flared as her breath burned in her lungs, set her chest aflame. Her ponytail flared behind her like a comet. She ran and ran and all too quickly she was bursting through her own front door. Her boots clanked as she stumbled into the main room, her own feet seemingly confused.

Breathe in. Breathe out. She paced back and forth for a moment. There was a routine to follow after her shift, and she needed to follow it. Soldiers followed the routine and she was still a soldier.

A few strands of sweat slicked hair clung to her face, obscured her good eye. Undyne ignored them, slammed a cupboard open with such force that her entire house shook. The glass in her hand clinked against her armor as she thrust it under the faucet. She downed three glasses of lukewarm tap water with sloppy enthusiasm, ignoring the way some of it dribbled down her front. Finally she let out a long breath and slammed the glass onto the countertop.

Undyne then turned her attention to her armor. She grit her teeth as she pushed shaking fingers to move, undid clasps and buckles with quick jerks. Off went the armor, cast to the floor in a pile of gleaming metal and sweat. Her arms and legs shivered as if they’d lost a security blanket. She watched her own limbs betray her, felt something catch in her throat.

Follow the routine, soldier.

She dropped into a series of stretches. Legs, abs, arms, shoulders, back. Extra attention went to her dominant arm, which screamed with each movement-- apparently she’d pulled something. An easy enough fix with food and a bit of rest, but in this case the insult was worse than the injury. It should have been the fight of her life, and all Undyne had to show for it was wounded pride and a pulled shoulder.

Sharp teeth ground together against the thought as she stomped into her tiny bathroom. She very nearly tore the shower nozzle off in her haste to turn it on, jerking the mechanism as far toward ‘hot’ as it would go. The act of shucking sweat soaked clothes was a mindless one. Without something physical to really focus on, her brain wouldn’t take the damn hint to shut up.

Undyne had fought two humans in total. The first had come shortly after she’d become Captain of the Royal Guard.That battle had cost the newly promoted Undyne her eye, though it was the trail of dust in their wake that really got to her. The memory of eyes shadowed beneath a ragged old cowboy hat and a gleaming pistol in an unwavering hand would stay with her forever. “For the others” was the mantra, and the most frustrating part was how easily Undyne had understood with the dust under her boots. There had been only one option. A human could not be allowed to make it all the way to the CORE ever again and from that day forward, Undyne had tried to make sure of it. She’d restructured the whole Royal Guard system, hired a whole team of new sentries and guards to train. She would be the hero she always wanted to be, the Justice that creature demanded with their last breath.

And of course that hadn’t mattered at all, because a human got through anyway. Her royal guard had been reduced to a pack of overexcited house pets. Her worst sentry behaved as expected. Papyrus had befriended the human. None of this was surprising, most monsters didn't have a truly violent bone in their body-- sometimes they didn't even have bones at all. It was still frustrating. Why did Papyrus even want to be a member of the Royal Guard with this kind of pedigree?

Undyne grimaced as she tugged red hair out of its ponytail, allowing it to cascade down her back and into her face. That kind of thinking had never gotten her anywhere and it wouldn't help now. All she had to do was press forward like always, keep following the routine, and that meant taking a damn shower. She stepped into the wall of steam and scalding water. Hotland was difficult because of the dryness of it, but boiling water? Sign Undyne the fuck up, even if it meant she’d have to drink a gallon of cold water to compensate later. The steaming spray pounded against her scales like an attack, beating against knots in her muscles and scouring off sweat and slime. She inhaled deeply, letting the steam and heat wash over her.

This was fine. She was fine. She was great, because Undyne was always great, could never be anything but great. She was Captain of the Royal Guard, hand chosen by King Asgore himself. She’d been mentored by Gerson, the Hammer of Justice. So maybe she wasn't the best at tactics and she'd placed her forces wrong, that wasn't a surprise! She’d always been better at taking something head on than leaving it to somebody else, to say nothing of things like her puzzle “skills”. Sure, she was gonna have to have some words with her troops, she was gonna have to tighten up the ship. If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself, and that was fine, because no one was a better yourself than her! That was fine, every blow she received in battle was a lesson, pain was just something to build upon and that would be the case for the Royal Guard. After all, they’d need to be better for the war!

Right. The war. She let out a hiss through clenched teeth as she scrubbed at the dirt clinging to a bruise. If this whole situation was any indication, the Royal Guard was completely unprepared. Maybe her boys up in Hotland would have a better shot, but that was still only a few soldiers against all of humanity. She felt her stomach drop at the idea of sending the dogs out in any sort of actual battle-- before she’d been confident, but now she wasn’t so sure. If the barrier broke today, and it was still possible that it might, they would lose the coming war for certain. Especially if all of humanity was as good at freaking dodging as that kid was...

Blue fingers clenched into fists of her own hair, Undyne’s growl echoing against steam-clouded tile. She’d been expecting the fight of her life, something to match the epic battles she’d seen in Alphys’ history videos. Nothing had gone right. She’d trailed the child for hours through the marsh with nothing good to report beyond a few nicks with her spears and a now missing part of the docks. Her heroic speech before the final stand? She’d totally blanked on it. The expected back and forth exchange between hero and villain, trading barbs of wit with their blows? Her opponent had been silent! The memory of the seventh child dancing around her attacks was the worst part, small feet stepping exactly where her spear wasn't like they’d practiced for it. The dusty tutu was the cherry on top of the whole sick joke.

All of that training for nothing. All that strength behind her spear, and what did it matter if the blow never connected? Sure, the clash had been something, the way each attack would shudder its way up her arms when two spears connected, but it wasn’t a fair fight if her opponent never actually fought back! All that buildup and in the end, she’d blown it.

“DAMNIT!” She roared, slamming her fist into the shower wall. Tile crumbled under the blow, the dust collagiating into mud under the shower spray. Fingers flexed, her knuckles were bruised but it wasn't the worst collateral damage of her biweekly forced remodeling. At least she hadn't put a hole in the wall again. She’d fix it later.

The shower spray made quick work of the new mess clinging to her scales. In return, she didn’t tear the nozzle from the wall when she tugged it off. She toweled off quickly, her aggravation so great she only gave her favorite sushi towel (a gift from Alphys) a cursory moment of admiration. By the time she’d pulled on new jeans and a tank top, her blood was all but boiling.

“Stupid kid,” She cursed as she tugged her damp hair back into its customary ponytail, not even bothering to really comb it out.. Thinking of the fight had been a mistake, her adrenaline was back now and it didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. There was an equally angry training dummy outside for just such a purpose, but her muscles disagreed with that idea. Her entire body felt drained from the fight, all the adrenaline did was make her feel jittery and emphasize the shaking in her limbs.

“Damnit, damnit, damnit,” Undyne grumbled as she paced through the main room. An expired energy bar and more tap water did nothing to ease the jitters, just made her feel trapped. A walk, maybe? Undyne glanced at the clock-- nope, she only had a bit of time before Papyrus’ cooking lesson, and he was never late. Her piano sat invitingly in the corner, beckoning her. How dare it, didn’t it now now wasn’t the time for music? If anything, she should have been making phone calls, giving her so-called royal guard what for, telling them…

The piano invited her once more. Grumbling under her breath, Undyne stomped over. In rebellion to its polite beckoning she sat down rather hard, crossing muscled arms before herself. She didn’t feel like playing, and why would she? She’d lost. She’d built up so much and she’d failed, she hadn’t been able to land a hit on a child who couldn’t even be bothered to fight back. She’d...

Breath drained in a long, hard line from her chest as webbed fingers traced across battered wood. This was the third piano Undyne had owned since getting her own place, the other two had been lost in some unfortunate cooking accidents. Number three was technically an interesting amalgamate of the remains of pianos one and two, a gift from Alphys. Absurd to be on piano number three, but well, Undyne was just kind of hard on everything she owned. Her clothes lasted only a few months before wear and tear went from “sweet punk style” to “Undyne, please that is not socially appropriate”, and that wasn’t even touching her “remodeling” fund. The danger Undyne posed on her surroundings really suggested she shouldn’t be anywhere near something as potentially delicate as a piano. Undyne loved playing enough to find the constant loss worth it, though.

The space beside her on the bench seemed large but not empty, the space tinted by memories of King Asgore in that very spot. Absently, Undyne’s fingers hovered shakily over the keys, then lightly tapped four in quick succession. C, D, C, G. Undyne took in a deep breath as she continued to tap out the first song the King had taught her, a light and simple tune that spoke of memories. She would never forget the day he’d taught it to her-- this was back when she’d been quite young and was still prone to mischief. Gerson had escorted her scuffed knees and excuses to visit her new mentor and she’d been… indignant, to put it mildly. After all, how was she supposed to learn to fight if she didn’t get in as many scuffles as possible to practice her new skills, and besides, the other kids were jerks and deserved it!

She thought for sure she’d be in trouble, but the King had simply smiled and suggested they find a better way for a little soldier to channel her energy. His paw engulfed her small hand as he lead her down the hallway of his home to a room that seemed to be “under renovations”, and had quickly dusted off an old piano so she could sit at it. Undyne had grumbled and sniffed, because what did this have to do with fighting? “Dexterity and focus,” Asgore had replied simply. “Now watch me, little one.”

Undyne had been enraptured instantly by the sound, finned ears perking up as she listened. She watched her King’s face take on a sad, wistful smile as he played, watched large fingers deftly glide across keys in a way no one would have expected. Instantly, she’d been determined to do the same, clamouring to slam her tiny hands on the keys and letting out frustrated grumbles when they failed to draw out the same sweet tones.

“Now now, my child, just relax,” Asgore had hummed, reaching out to gently stop her pounding. “Music is not about brute force, It is about care and focus, which take time to learn.” He’d carefully guided her through the notes, gently running her through the names for each key and what they meant. Undyne was hooked-- she couldn’t remember all the names, sure, and she didn’t quite get what half of the terms meant. But feeling, the sound, the way it vibrated through her, the way the King’s face would change when he heard the song… that, she could get behind.

Undyne put the same energy into learning to play the piano that she did her physical training, and within a week or so she had mastered the simple tune. Asgore cried like a baby, which had been weird, but all attempts to get the King to say what was wrong just got a shake of his head. “It is nothing. You... remind me of someone with a similar disposition. I am happy to pass the memory on once again.” He’d reached out to pat her head and she’d swelled with pride. Undyne never understood the whole “crying” thing, but she was all about making Asgore proud.

Undyne practiced piano every day after that, though, to be honest, she never got particularly good at it. Even at her best, Undyne was simply not known for being careful. She made up for it in sheer passion and Asgore was too kind to really comment on it. He did give her some waterlogged sheet music, but that quickly became a dusty fixture of her room-- those straight lines and squiggly symbols meant nothing to Undyne, she learned best with the sound reverberating in her ears and up her arms. That could only get her so far, but piano was a hobby, unlike the fighting that was quickly becoming her life.

Asgore happily indulged her newfound passion. However, he only knew a few songs aside from the first he’d taught her, and of the few he taught he was rather rusty. “I am sorry,” he murmured as thick fingers stumbled over keys again. “To be honest, my wife was always the better musician.” His copper eyes would then be lost to memories and his bitter smile. These moments always left the young Undyne feeling stranded and alone on the piano bench, watching her King sink somewhere she could never follow.

Shortly into their training together, Undyne had noticed the differences in that smile. She’d watch the way it didn’t meet his eyes, notice the way he’d occasionally wince in pain at her childish laughter as if it physically hurt. His thick shoulders always seemed bent inward, tugged downward by the weight of the mountain above him. Sometimes they would relax a fraction, loosening as he watered his plants, as he spoke warmly with friends and subjects over a cup of tea, as he sat with her on the piano bench or in the dirt after a particularly rough training session. But the mountain was always on her king, an unavoidable, crushing fact.

The keys beneath her fingers became weighted and heavy as the tune changed to a song Undyne had heard Asgore play time and again. It was something regal, something that started slow and powerful that spoke of Mountain Kings. Then abruptly she was pounding on the keys, slamming out something fast and intense. Undyne remembered hearing the song echoing down the hallway in the King’s new home, something so impressive it had knocked the breath from her preteen lungs. An epic struggle in every note, the weight of every monster’s hopes and dreams, a sound that tossed back and forth as if in battle. Some internal struggle she could not even begin to understand, a slower, quieter bridge that spoke of the loss in her King’s smile.

Undyne bit her lip as she missed several notes in quick succession. She’d only heard Asgore’s song a few times and felt honored to know it at all. She’d never quite been able to play it in full without messing up a note or two. The notes seemed physical expression of a weight that was her King’s alone to carry, and in spite of her best efforts, her fingers could not keep up with it.

A few missed keys at the bridge turned the song into a garbled mess. “I just wanted to help,” She grumbled. It wasn’t right, her sitting here playing the stupid piano while that little brat marched closer and closer to her King. It was no secret that the deaths of the six fallen humans before weighed on Asgore significantly. If she had just won, she could have saved him some of that pain. After all this time he’d trusted her with so much and Undyne had gone and blown it. It wasn’t right.

“NGYAAAAAH!” Fingers slammed into the keys so hard the piano shook from the blow. Undyne's hands moved to their own beat now, s pounding roar that almost spoke more to a trumpet than piano keys. It was the tune that suited her best, a battle theme that spoke of a rolling ship on the waves of an imagined sea. The song was her, the Spear of Justice, loyal soldier marching on with her power and might, sheer unbridled passion that shook the instrument under her hands. She howled as she played, raw anger leaving her in a mess of vowels and snarls.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair! She wasn’t supposed to lose and it wasn’t even a real loss! She hadn’t been beaten into the dirt, her aches and bruises were self inflicted from over-extension! She hadn’t faced a villain, it had been some wimp who couldn’t be bothered to fight back and that was the worst insult. All her training and she wasn’t even worth fighting? What the hell!!? All that she’d learned about humans being the enemy, all the wishes she overheard from echo flowers and yet...

Her fingers moved on their own to a high,clear set of notes. Her song was no longer triumphant, it was something more desperate. It rose and fell with her voice, notes thundering down in a stormy downpour. They’d be trapped underground for who knew how long if the kid made it past Asgore, and if they didn’t make it past Asgore he’d know she failed. Of course, Asgore would never think less of her, Undyne doubted he had it in him to really think less of anybody. She wasn’t so sure he’d even give the “I’m not mad, just disappointed” face. Her orders, in retrospect, had just been to capture the human and escort them to the castle. Given the choice, her King would rather take the burden himself than make someone else get their hands dirty.

The song slowed to a quiet, soft melody as Undyne chewed at her lip. The song was surprisingly quiet and light, something no one would have expected, the dirge of a people longing for the sun. Her eye burned, something heavy and awful weighed in her throat and wasn’t that just stupid? Here she was, the true heroine, fighting back tears over losing. But there was more to it-- she’d lost their chance to see the sun, but even now she wasn’t so sure it had been the right call. Sure, the child was a human, but they had yet to hurt a single monster. Hell, they’d refused to fight her, which in spite of running like a weenie, took some guts. And then of course there was the fact that she’d seen the human save that little brat from falling off the bridge with her own eye...

She’d always been taught that humans were the enemy of hopes and dreams. Today her opponent had not felt like an enemy. Her opponent had been an innocent, and was Undyne really a hero if she killed someone like that? Asgore may have been collecting human souls, but surely he wouldn’t take the soul of a good person. The protection of the innocent was why Undyne had been trained at all-- along with the chance to teach her some wicked sweet moves, of course. If she’d actually run the child through her spear today, if she’d watched the light fade away from someone who wouldn’t do the same if the roles were the roles reversed…

Undyne’s stomach twisted as her fingers finally stopped. She reached up to scrub the tears from her eye. What was she even doing? She would have had to do it, there was no choice, they had to get out there. The whole underground had been counting on her and now everyone would know she was a sham. So many people had believed in her, had looked up to her. Her own royal guard, those kids, Alphys… she’d even told Alphys to save the tape of her inevitable victory so they could watch it together! Had her best friend seen her lose?

Would Alphys have really wanted to see her win against somebody who wouldn’t fight back?

“...Nah,” Undyne murmured, a small smile coming to her face as she reached out to tap the keys again. Alphys deserved to see a fight for the history books, not that sorry story. If anything, Alphys would probably like the kid’s “hug it out” philosophy, it sounded like something from Mew Mew Kissy Cutie. She’d think it was great, inspiring even. Add this to the fact that Papyrus had already befriended the brat and Asgore’s many lessons on the concept of protecting the weak and innocent…

Laughter bubbled from her throat. Why was it everyone who mattered to her was a total chump? This was why Undyne had to be the strong one! Sometimes being strong meant losing with grace. So maybe she’d work on that.

A sigh escaped her lips as Undyne began to play again, a few light notes, a bouncy, odd rhythm. She’d heard Alphys humming it to herself while she worked, and when she’d pointed it out, Alphys had stuttered that it was just some dumb tune she’d heard somewhere. “Totally stupid, a-and it sounds really dumb when I sing it!” Undyne had been enraptured. She’d taken to putting the melody together herself, let it take on a passionate, determined march that eventually climbed to the point where Undyne was pounding on the keys once again. Her dear friend had teared up when she heard it, pulled off steaming glasses and wiped at her face.

“W-what’s this?” She stuttered.

“Well, it’s you, Al!” Undyne grinned as she pounded at the keys. “It’s your song.”

“O-oh...oh…” Alphys hugged herself, swiped at the tears on her face. “You make me sound so beautiful… t-there must be some mistake.”

No, definitely not, and Undyne grinned to herself as she slammed on the keys. She was Undyne, she didn’t make mistakes. If she said Alphys’ song was pretty, then it was. If she said the kid who had lead her all the way to Hotland, then given her water, if that kid was innocent… well, so be it. She called it how she saw it.

But it didn’t mean she had to like it.

#Undyne #Undertale #Undyne Appreciation Week #Undertale Fanfiction #My writing #Asgore #Alphys

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