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wasted-headspace-98 · 3 years

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Cataegis: Part II

Summary: An apprentice to the famed Mace Windu, your master has made sure you are strong with the Force. But, sometimes the Force has other plans. And you happen to be caught in the middle of them. Rating: 18+ Warnings: Nonexplicit sexual content, slow-burn, noncon elements (non explicit), underage elements (non explicit), inappropriate use of the force, etc Pairing: Sith!Obi-Wan x Reader Masterlist

Cataegis (n.) Latin word meaning tempestuous storm

Part I

“Master?” you asked tentatively, approaching him with your hands clasped behind your back.

Mace turned his head slightly when he heard your footsteps approaching. “I can feel your worry from across the temple, Padawan.” he said. “What’s troubling you?”

You sighed, shaking your head and dropping to your knees in front of him, mirroring his meditative position. You hadn’t had any other Force interactions with the Sith Lord since that day a week ago. But you could feel a presence pushing at the back of your consciousness, and you knew it was him. And you didn’t understand why the connection was so strong or why it had been made in the first place.

“What…what exactly happened? I’ve heard that Cataegis was once a Jedi. But what turned him to the Dark Side?”

Master Windu let out a breath. “I thought you would come looking for answers,” he said. He relaxed his position slightly, no longer as tense as he was a few moments ago. “I can’t give you everything you’re looking for, but I can give you a start.”

You patiently waited for him to continue. You knew that talking about a fallen comrade wasn’t an easy thing, and even less so when one had fallen so far from the light. So, you didn’t press him, simply allowing your master to take his time.

Something tapped on your mental walls and you blinked in surprise. Windu had closed his eyes and began breathing evenly. That tapping was coming from him. Relaxing into your seat, you closed your eyes and allowed him inside.

Master Kenobi was one of the most loyal Jedi I had ever met. Qui Gon trained his padawan well.

Images of the Jedi Master flashed in your mind. Master Windu began sharing some of his memories with you, allowing you to feel what knowing the man had been like. Pride and a strong bond of friendship flooded your system as you witnessed various points in the Jedi’s life. The emotions were Windu’s; he was simply allowing you to feel them as he had.

He was a strong Knight, one with a powerful connection to the Force. He grieved the loss of his Master, but did what he could to train Anakin.

Darth Vader, you responded.

Yes. They worked well together despite Anakin’s unusual approach to many situations.

Now, now, little one. Opening your mind to another Force User? Tsk, tsk, tsk. And here I thought what we had was special.

A loud gasp fell from your lips and your eyes slammed open as you yanked all of your mental shielding back up. Mace was forcibly ejected from your mind with a grunt, and he quite literally fell backwards a bit when he came to.

“Y/N, what-“

If you wanted to know more about me, love, all you had to do was ask.

“Get out of my head,” you hissed aloud, scrunching your eyes shut once again.

He hummed quietly. As much as you and I would both enjoy that, I don’t think I can. So, it seems you’re stuck with me.

When you opened your eyes again, you were still sitting across from Mace, but another figure had entered the room as well. He stood back towards the wall, his black robes blending into the shadows that danced in the dying sunlight.

“Master-“ you choked, eyes widening the longer you stared at the man.

“There’s no use, love. He can’t see me. That privilege belongs only to you.”

The deep voice and smooth Coruscanti accent rolled off his tongue with ease, sending a shiver down your spine. Every instinct you had was telling you to run, to get out of the dangerous situation you found yourself in.

But something else came over you, something you hadn’t felt before. A deep sense of calm flooded your system, sinking down into your very core. You felt yourself relax, and your shoulders dropped from the tense and defensive position you had taken.

“There’s such conflict in you,” Cataegis said with a frown, coming closer to you. You couldn’t see much of his face from beneath the cowl, save for the glowing golden eyes of the Sith Lord. “Has Windu not even taught you to control your emotions?” he asked in surprise.

“He has, you said, taking a shaky breath. “But it’s a bit difficult in a situation like this…”

Cataegis cocked his head as he examined you. He raised his hand, fingers outstretched to brush across your cheek. “Such power runs through you, little one. It’s no wonder you have a hard time keeping it in check.”

You didn’t even have to force yourself to stay still beneath his touch. The soothing calmness that washed over you kept you from doing so.

“Why are you here?” you asked eventually, now more curious than anything.

“I could ask you the same thing, love. Why am I here? It seems you have a power held over me that even I don’t understand.”

You frowned in confusion. “I’m not doing this,” you insisted. “I’m just as confused as you are.”

Cataegis hummed quietly and looked at your Master for a moment. Mace looked confused for a moment before quickly realizing what was happening. He stood back with his arms crossed, allowing you to deal with your experience.

“A Sith and a Jedi,” he mumbled to himself. “A dark Lord and a warrior of the Light.”

You frowned. “We have nothing in common, Sith. What do you want from me?”

He tsked you again, shaking his head. “I think we have more in common than you think, little one. The Force wouldn’t connect us like this without a purpose.”

You rolled your eyes and scoffed. “I doubt the Force is doing this.”

Cataegis raised an eyebrow at you from under the cowl. “Then Windu hasn’t taught you well enough,” he said. “The Force works in mysterious ways. Sometimes it takes more than a Jedi to see that.”

A huff escaped your lips. You were getting nowhere with this man. And honestly, you weren’t sure if you wanted to. The whole thing confused you to no end and you didn’t want him in your head. You raised your mental shielding even further, trying to quite literally shove his presence out of your mind. But as if reading your thoughts, Cataegis let out a quiet chuckle. “There’s no need to try and hide your thoughts, my dear. I won’t pry unless I need to.” You gave him a skeptical look and he rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Even as a Sith, I realize that there are things sacred to each individual. I won’t deprive you of that right simply to sate my curiosity.”

That gave you pause for a moment, and you blinked in surprise.

He snorted at you. “Don’t look so surprised. I might be a Dark Warrior, but I still have my morals.” He seemed rather put off by the fact that you would think otherwise. Why, you didn’t know. But he was right, it had surprised you. You were expecting him to simply reach in and take what he wanted instead of standing there speaking to you. And you had to admit, this turn of events wasn’t unpleasant, although unexpected.

“What do you want from me?” you asked eventually.

He hummed as he approached you, clasping his hands behind his back and walking in a circle around you. It was as if he was appraising you, taking in every detail that he could. “I would imagine it’s much the same as you want from me, love.”

The closer he walked, the more you felt your senses softening. There was something about his presence that soothed you to your very core. And that alone put you on edge. It was a rather interesting feeling to say the least. His presence was powerful, and you knew he was capable of unspeakable things. But strangely, you felt no sense of danger from him. Instead, there was nothing but peace. It was a similar feeling to that which you had while meditating. There was an odd calmness that washed over you whenever he was near you. And the affect didn’t go unnoticed. You opened the eyes you hadn’t realized you closed, coming eye to eye with a sea of golden depths.

“You feel it too,” you said quietly.

Cataegis felt no need to question you. He knew exactly what you were talking about. “Yes.” he said simply. There was a hint of curiosity in his tone, and you had to admit that you had the same feeling gnawing at you. As much as your training had gone against everything you were doing, you stood in front of him, not moving a muscle. You could feel his breath fan against your face as he reached up and brushed his knuckles across your cheek.

“I think our time is up, little one.” he said quietly. You stared at him unblinkingly as he brushed a piece of hair behind your ear. It had fallen out of the braid around your head, catching his attention. “But I think we’ll be seeing each other more often than not.”

Your eyes opened with a gasp as a wave of force energy exploded from your body. Your ears picked up on the sound of breaking clay and glass, and short circuiting wiring within the walls. Even your Master was sent flying through the air, his back colliding with the wall hard enough to crack it. You yourself were covered in a sheen of sweat and you realized yo0u were shaking.

“Y/N?”

Your eyes focused on Windu, who was pulling himself up and making his way towards you. You managed to pull yourself out of the trance you were in and you gasped, immediately bolting to your feet. You helped him up, quickly checking him over for any major injuries.

“Are you alright, Master?” you asked.

He coughed a couple times before letting out a quiet chuckle. “I think I can take a few hits.” he said. “The question is, are you alright? I haven’t seen you in a meditation like that before.”

You shook your head. “It wasn’t a meditation,” you said.

Mace raised an eyebrow at you. “Then what was it?”

A frustrated sigh escaped you as you helped him find a seat. “I think it was a vision,” you said.

He hummed quietly. “I can feel your fear, apprentice. There’s no use in hiding it.”

And it was true. You were scared. You didn’t know what these visions meant, or how they were happening. Cataegis seemed to think it was a Force connection. You had to admit, that made sense. But that didn’t mean you understood it. There was a chance it was all his doing and he was simply manipulating you into believing it. But then you thought about what his presence had felt like. Sith or Jedi, you’d never felt anything like it before. And you couldn’t bring yourself to believe that he was projecting it. There had to be something else, something stronger binding the two of you together.

“I saw him again,” you said quietly, grabbing Windu’s arm to examine one of the wounds there. A piece of a vase had embedded itself in his flesh and you made yourself busy with cleaning it up.

“Saw who?”

“Cataegis,”

A hum sounded from deep in his chest. You knew that sound. It wasn’t often that your master was perplexed. But when he was, it was a troubling puzzle indeed. And you couldn’t stand the thought of being part of that mystery.

You’d known Master Windu your entire life. You’d grown up admiring him as a youngling. And when he had decided to take you as his apprentice, you were over the moons. He was more than simply your master. He had become more of a father figure to you than anything. You relied on him and trusted him more than anyone in your life before. Yoda had said that it was a special bond between Master and Padawan, but you knew it went deeper than that. The two of you had been through hell and back. You’d been his commander in the middle of the Clone Wars, his Padawan in training, his closest friend in times of peace. But one thing you’d never been was a mystery.

Becoming one now was going to test the limits of your patience. You didn’t even understand what was happening, or why. You didn’t want to be a puzzle for Mace to pick apart.

“There’s no use asking,” you said after a moment. “I don’t know what he wants or why I’m even seeing him.”

Mace shook his head. “That’s not what I was going to ask,” he said softly. “I was going to ask if you’re alright.”

You blinked in surprised, taken aback by his words. “Oh,” you said. “I..I don’t know.” you said honestly. You weren’t sure how to process what was happening, and you were even less sure that you could trust what your eyes were telling you.

He nodded. “That’s understandable, Y/N.” His tone was gentle as he spoke, which was something he did only when he knew how much of a toll things were taking on you. He believed that trials were what built character and made one stronger. But even he knew there were things that were too much, even among the Jedi. “We’ll figure this out together.”

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amuelia · 3 years

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How do you think Roose will meet his demise? Or will he survive? What's your best Roose end game predictions?

Thank you for the question! This will be a long post under the readmore, going into my thoughts on the show ending and exploring what the books may have set up in regards to themes and characterization, as well as a bit of general analysis of Roose' story arc in a Dance with Dragons (and some speculation about Ramsay as well).

If you click on the readmore i will have divided the post into sections with bolded Headers, if you want to only read my specific endgame ideas you can skip ahead to the "His Endgame?" section.

In The Show

The show had him get killed by Ramsay in s6, which informs a lot of the fandom speculation about this storyline.

I am not a fan of the show's scenario as it was both similar to tywin and tyrion as well as a mirror of robb's death; it would also be offscreen in the books since neither of the characters are PoVs and Ramsay would need to do the act in secret. This would ultimately undercut Roose' role and impact, being a death scene that is not very unique and also isn't shown to the reader directly. Since no PoV is even in Winterfell currently, we would just hear of it from afar and not witness the consequences.

The show also has a different dynamic in the Bolton storyline, emphasizing Ramsay as the "main character" of this arc, and elevating him to the main villain for s5-6 to fill Joffrey's shoes as an evil character played by a very charismatic actor. Ramsay's show writing is informed by the needs of a TV setting that wants shocking moments and capitalizes on "fan favourite" actors; his rising importance in the show thus is not necessarily an indicator of his book importance. The show was also missing many central characters like the northern lords and the Frey men in Winterfell.

The show had a tendency to kill off characters early when they wanted to cull storylines or had no plans to adapt more of the character's story (like Stannis, Barristan, possibly the Tyrells...); In Mance Rayder we have the most obvious example, where they killed him off for real in a scene that in the book was a misdirection. We also have characters like Jorah where it appears the showrunners had their own choice of how they want his storyline to end, even if Grrm has his own ending in mind.

"For a long time we wanted Ser Jorah to be there at The Wall in the end," writer Dave Hill says. "The three coming out of the tunnel would be Jon and Jorah and Tormund. But [...] Jorah should have the noble death he craves defending the woman he loves." - Dave Hill for Entertainment Weekly

So a death in the show does not need to be an indicator that the books will feature an equivalent scene, even if it gives a hint as to what may happen. By s5 the show has become its own beast, and the butterfly effects from radical changes they made as well as the different characterizations results in the show having to cater to its own needs in many cases when it gets to resolving a plotline.

"We reconceived the role to make it worthy of the actor's talents." - Benioff and Weiss for the s5 DVD commentary, on Indira Varma's casting as Ellaria

In The Books

(Since this post was getting out of hand in length a lot of these arguments are a little shortened/not as in-depth as i'd like! Feel free to inquire more via ask if something is unclear or you disagree)

In the books i find it hard to make a concrete guess as to how it will end. Occam's razor would be to assume the show sort of got it right and that it will vaguely end the same, which could very well happen and i will not discount the possibility; Ramsay is cruel, desires the Dreadfort rule, and is a suspected kinslayer and has no qualms to commit immoral violence.

"Ramsay killed [his brother]. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison." - Reek III, aDwD

Reek saw the way Ramsay's mouth twisted, the spittle glistening between his lips. He feared he might leap the table with his dagger in his hand [to attack his father]. - Reek III, aDwD

Arguments against this or for a different endgame come down to interpretations of the themes in the story arc and opinions on dramatic structure/grrm's writing, and are thus very subjective.

The way the story currently is going, Ramsay killing Roose treats Roose almost as a plot device; his death brings no change or development to Ramsay's character as we already know his motivations and cruelty align with such an act, and we can assume that he would feel no remorse about it either. The results of such a scene would be firmly on a story level, as it brings political changes and moves the plot along into a specific direction. Roose himself cannot have any relevant character development about it as he does not have a PoV and we would not be able to witness his reaction from the outside.

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” - William Faulkner, often quoted by Grrm

Further, killing his father is very difficult to pull off in secret (Roose is frequently described as very cautious, and employs many guardsmen). And even if Ramsay pulls it off (people often interpret Ramsay as Roose' blind spot, assuming he might be caught by surprise, not expecting Ramsay would bite the hand that feeds him), Roose is the one that holds his entire alliance together; The Freys would be alienated by Ramsay who would antagonize Walda and her son as his rivals, The Ryswell bloc appears to dislike Ramsay (especially Barbrey), and the other northmen are implied to not even like Roose himself. Killing Roose would quickly combust the entire northern faction, and hinder Ramsay's further plans (another reason why I am not convinced of a book version of the "Battle of Bastards"). Though this might of course, if we look at it from the other side, be grrm's plan to quickly dissolve this plot and move the northern story forwards.

"Ramsay will kill [Walda's children], of course. [...] [She] will grieve to see them die, though." - Reek III, aDwD

"How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we'd retain if the truth were known? Only Lady Barbrey, whom you would turn into a pair of boots … inferior boots." - Reek III, aDwD

"Fear is what keeps a man alive in this world of treachery and deceit. Even here in Barrowton the crows are circling, waiting to feast upon our flesh. The Cerwyns and the Tallharts are not to be relied on, my fat friend Lord Wyman plots betrayal, and Whoresbane … the Umbers may seem simple, but they are not without a certain low cunning. Ramsay should fear them all, as I do." - Reek III, aDwD

Roose' death at Ramsay's hand also removes him thematically from the Red Wedding, as we can assume such a death might have happened regardless of his participation in the event (seeing as Ramsay is getting provoked by Roose constantly in normal dialogue, and has a general violent disposition). Roose already took Ramsay in before aGoT started, and married Walda very early in the war, which is already most of the buildup that the show's scenario had. It also has little to do with the The North Remembers plot except set dressing, since the northmen are presumably neither collaborating with/egging on Ramsay nor would they appreciate the development.

Themes: Ned Stark and the rule over the North

Roose is treated as a foil to Eddard; They are often contrasted in morals and ruling styles, while also having many superficial similarities that further connect them (they are seen as cold by people, grey eyed, patriarchs of rivalling northern houses, etc...).

Pale as morning mist, his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes. They reminded him of the day at King's Landing when Ned Stark had found him seated on the Iron Throne. - Jaime IV, aSoS

They both have a "bastard son" that they handle very differently; Roose treating Ramsay in the way that is seen as common in their society. Ramsay and Jon as a comparison are meant to show that Catelyn had a reason to see a bastard as a threat (since Domeric was antagonized by his bastard brother), but also shows that her suggested plan for Jon would not have stopped any danger either (as Ramsay being raised away from the castle didn't help).

And if his seed quickened, she expected he would see to the child's needs. He did more than that. The Starks were not like other men. Ned brought his bastard home with him, and called him "son" for all the north to see. - Catelyn II, aGoT

"Each year I sent the woman some piglets and chickens and a bag of stars, on the understanding that she was never to tell the boy who had fathered him. A peaceful land, a quiet people, that has always been my rule." - Reek III, aDwD

It appears to me that Roose' story functions in some ways as an inversion to Ned. He makes an attempt to grab a power he was not destined to (becoming warden of the north), where Ned did not want the responsiblity thrust upon him ("It was all meant for Brandon. [...] I never asked for this cup to pass to me." - Cat II, aGoT). Where Ned rules successfully and his northmen honor his legacy ("What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned's precious little girl." - The Turncloak, aDwD), the Boltons are largely hated and there are several plots conspiring against them ("Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die." - The King's Prize, aDwD).

It seems possible to me that in terms of their family and legacy, Roose might also live through an inverted version of Ned's story; where Ned died first, leaving his family behind, Roose already lived to see the death of his wives and trueborn heir, and might thus also live to see Ramsay's death. Ned leaves behind well raised children and a North who still respects his name, and even though he dies it will presumably all be "in good hands" in the end (in broad strokes, obviously this is all much more morally complex). Roose however built up a bad and toxic legacy, and also built his way of life around evading consequences; it makes sense to me that he would be forced by the story to finally endure all the consequences of his actions and witness the fall of his house firsthand. After all we already have Tywin who fulfils the purpose of dying before his children while his legacy falls to ruins, and a Feast for Crows explores this aspect thoroughly.

Roose' arc in A Dance With Dragons

The story repeatedly builds up the situation unravelling around Roose, and him slowly losing a grip on it and becoming more stressed and anxious.

Reek wondered if Roose Bolton ever cried. If so, do the tears feel cold upon his cheeks? - Reek II, aDwD

Roose Bolton said nothing at all. But Theon Greyjoy saw a look in his pale eyes that he had never seen before—an uneasiness, even a hint of fear. [...] That night the new stable collapsed beneath the weight of the snow that had buried it. - a Ghost in Winterfell, aDwD

Lady Walda gave a shriek and clutched at her lord husband's arm. "Stop," Roose Bolton shouted. "Stop this madness." His own men rushed forward as the Manderlys vaulted over the benches to get at the Freys. - Theon I, aDwD

It also directly presents him as a parallel to Theon's rule in aCoK, who similarly experienced a very unpopular rule and his subjects slowly turning against him. Presumably, the point of this comparison will not just be "Ramsay comes in at the end and unexpectedly whacks them on the head". Both Theon and Roose invited Ramsay into their lives, giving him more power than he deserves, and causing Ramsay to make choices that increasingly alienate others from them (the death of the miller's boys for example has repercussions for both Theon and Roose). Grrm is likely steering this towards a difference in how they will deal with this situation.

It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. Roose Bolton was playing the part that Theon had played the last time round, and the dead men were playing the parts of Aggar, Gynir Rednose, and Gelmarr the Grim. Reek was there too, he remembered, but he was a different Reek, a Reek with bloody hands and lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey. - a Ghost in Winterfell, aDwD

"Stark's little wolflings are dead," said Ramsay, sloshing some more ale into his cup, "and they'll stay dead. Let them show their ugly faces, and my girls will rip those wolves of theirs to pieces. The sooner they turn up, the sooner I kill them again." - The elder Bolton sighed. "Again? Surely you misspeak. You never slew Lord Eddard's sons, those two sweet boys we loved so well. That was Theon Turncloak's work, remember? How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we'd retain if the truth were known?" - Reek III, aDwD

Roose' arc is deeply connected to the relations he shares to the other northern lords, which has been heavily impacted by the Red Wedding. It stands to reason that they are going to be an important part of his downfall, and we see many hints of them plotting to betray him.

The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer's farce is almost done. My son is home." - Davos IV, aDwD

Themes: Stannis and kinslaying

The books set up Roose and Stannis as foils as well; Both lack charisma and have trouble winnning the people's support, Stannis and Roose both parallel and contrast Ned, Stannis appears as a "lesser Robert" where Roose is a "lesser Ned", Stannis represents the fire where Roose represents the ice, both struggle over dominion in a land that doesnt particularly want either of them, etc... What i find interesting is how they are contrasted over kinslaying:

"Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach." - Davos II, aCoK

"I should've had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well … but the babe did have my eyes." [...] "Now [Domeric's] bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay. Tell me, my lord … if the kinslayer is accursed, what is a father to do when one son slays another?" - Reek III, aCoK

Stannis is set up as someone who is very thorough and strict in following his own code and his "duty", even if he does not like what it forces him to do.

Stannis ground his teeth again. "I never asked for this crown. Gold is cold and heavy on the head, but so long as I am the king, I have a duty . . . If I must sacrifice one child to the flames to save a million from the dark . . . Sacrifice . . . is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice. Tell him, my lady." - Davos IV, aSoS

The armorer considered that a moment. "Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends." - Jon I, aCoK

Roose however is frequently characterized as someone who tries to get as much as he can while avoiding negative consequences, and who does not have a consistent moral code and instead bends rules to his benefit to be the most comfortable to him.

It is often theorized that Stannis will end up burning his daughter Shireen; the Ramsay issue might then serve to contrast the two men. If Grrm intends it to be compared by the reader, I can see it going two ways: Either Roose will be forced to finally act in a drastic way after avoiding his responsibility in regards to Ramsay and he will be forced to get rid of his son, making him break the only moral hurdle he has presented adhering to during the story (though analyzing his character, the kinslaying taboo is probably less a sign of moral fortitude and more him using the guise of morals to explain a selfish motivation). Or he might not act against Ramsay and suffer the consequences, presenting an interesting moral situation where some readers might consider his action "better" or more relatable than Stannis', breaking up the otherwise very black and white moral comparison between the two men. It serves as an interesting conflict of the morality of kinslaying compared to what readers might see as a moral obligation of getting rid of a monster such as Ramsay; contrasting Shireen whose death would not be seen as worth it by most. Ramsay as a bastard (who was almost killed at birth if he hadnt been able to prove his paternity) also makes for an interesting verbal parallel with the bastard Edric Storm, and might be used for a look at the utilitarian principle of killing a child (baby ramsay/edric) to save countless people from suffering that underpinned Edric's story.

"As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy." - Grrm

"Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?" - Eddard VIII, aGoT

"If Joffrey should die . . . what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" - "Everything," said Davos, softly. - Davos V, aSoS

However Grrm decides to present these conflicts or which actions the characters will take in the end, it will result in interesting discussion and analysis for the readers.

His Endgame?

Looking at the trends of the past books, it is probably going to be hard to predict any specific outcome; every book introduces new characters and plot elements that were impossible to predict from the last book even if their thematic importance or setup was aptly foreshadowed.

Roose has a lot of plot importance and characterization that has, in my opinion, not yet been properly resolved in a way that would be unique and poignant to the specific purpose his character appears to fulfil. However I also have a bias in that i did not like the show's writing of that scene which makes me averse to see a version of it in the books, and i really like Roose as a character and want to see him have more scenes in the next book(s). This leads me to discount plot speculation that cuts his character arc short offscreen early. Roose is only a side character; however, i have trust in grrm's writing abilities and that he would give him a proper sendoff that feels satisfying to a fan of the character.

"…even the [characters] who are complete bastards, nasty, twisted, deeply flawed human beings with serious psychological problems… When I get inside their skin and look out through their eyes, I have to feel a certain — if not sympathy, certainly empathy for them. I have to try to perceive the world as they do, and that creates a certain amount of affection." — George Martin

Considering my earlier analyis, there is a case to be made for Roose killing Ramsay; however it appears grrm might have a different endgame in mind for Ramsay, foreshadowed in Chett's prologue:

There'd be no lord's life for the leechman's son, no keep to call his own, no wives nor crowns. Only a wildling's sword in his belly, and then an unmarked grave. The snow's taken it all from me . . . the bloody snow . . . - Chett, aSoS

I tend to think something might happen to Roose/the Bolton bloc later in the book that would cause Ramsay to attempt to flee the scene again like he did back in aCoK fleeing Rodrik's justice; perhaps Ramsay is sent out to battle but then flees it like a coward, or he sees his cause as lost. This time, the fleeing and potentially disguised Ramsay would not make it out to safety though, and get killed without being recognized as Ramsay, dying forgotten. This would serve as dramatic irony since Ramsay so strongly desired to be recognized and respected as a Lord of Bolton, without being too on the nose.

As for Roose, i could see him getting captured and somehow brought to justice (either when someone takes Winterfell or in some sort of battle). I see it unlikely that he will be backstabbed like Robb was, because it seems very "eye for an eye" and ultimately doesn't teach much of a lesson except "he had it coming"; But the various people conspiring against him could lead to his capture by betraying him (giving a payoff to the northern conspiracies and the red wedding). I would find a scene of him standing trial interesting since i believe we didn't have one of these for a true non-pov villain yet, and it would be an interesting confrontation that he cannot escape from (he also loves to talk so it would be a good read to see him make a case for himself).

I assume Roose will be out of the picture when the Other plot finally properly kicks into gear (whether dead or "in prison"). With Stannis as a false Azor Ahai and Roose as a false Other (with his pale, cold features), their struggle in the north seems to be a representation of the false "Game of Thrones" that distracts people from the "real threat" of the Others.

As always this is just my opinion, and it could all go very differently in the books! There could always be something that completely uproots my analysis and goes into a direction i did not expect from the material we had; But i have fate that Grrm as a writer will deliver and give me something i can be satisfied with.

#asks #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #roose bolton #valyrianscrolls #a song of ice and fire #not art #anonymous

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phoebe-delia · 3 years

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Hi! Song number 88, please and thank you! 💜

@julcheninred Jules, I was so excited to get your ask, but I made myself wait to write this as a reward for submitting a fic I wrote for a fest. And now that I'm done, I got to write this for you!

Thank you for submitting this prompt. The song is "Chinese Satellite" by Phoebe Bridgers. I hope you enjoy some grieving angst, and references to death, but not really MCD.

You put your hand on my shoulder. You squeezed it gently and you said, "No matter where I am, I'll always be with you, right here," and you patted that spot on my shoulder with your warm, calloused hand.

Sometimes, when the ache of missing you is a little too strong, I close my eyes and imagine your comforting grip, solid and real; the way you used to be. I pretend you really are on my shoulder as if you don't have anything better to do in the afterlife than hang out with me; than to keep your promise.

I hate that I can only see you at night when your name is written in the sky. I like to think that you watch over me like you said you would. Do you remember that? When you said we'd be a "proper family" together?

I wish you could meet Draco, could know him. I think you'd get along; you're both written in the sky, but he's here, with me, in person. He holds my hand instead of my shoulder, and it's nice to feel him like an extension of myself.

We've both died; that's something you and I have in common. The difference is that I got to come back, and you didn't have a choice. Or did you? Did you stand at King's Cross and see me and Remus on one side, and my parents on the other, and walk away from us?

I'd like to think you couldn't keep your promise, that you had no say in the matter, rather than the chance that you changed your mind.

I've never been very religious, at least not as much as my Aunt Petunia. She used to have people over for a Bible study and I'd press my ear against the door and listen to them talk about love and peace and hope and all the rewards of letting God into one's life, and I wondered what sin I'd committed that made me undeserving.

I wish I could ask you what you believe in. I want to know what kept you going all that time, when your friends were your family, and then when you were in Azkaban. Was it faith? How do you believe in something just for the sake of it?

Where are you? Are you in the sky? Beyond the veil? With my parents and Remus? On my shoulder? Or are you here, alive and sitting in the living room, and I simply forgot?

Draco tells me that Wizards really don't have religion; we celebrate Christmas, sure, but that's less about God and more to do with the merging of Muggle and magical cultures.

I don't know what I believe. Maybe religion would take some of the weight off my chest, give my heart some relief, but I don't like the idea of blind faith; I lived too much of my life throwing myself into danger and not always worrying about whether I'd die, and I don't know if I'll get the choice to come back next time.

Until I find out, I'm going to believe in Draco, and Ron, and Hermione. I'm going to believe in what I can control. And I'm going to ask Luna more about what she believes because I think she might be onto something.

And I hope you don't mind if I believe in you, too.

Send me an ask about fanfic, Harry Potter, broadway/musicals, The West Wing, and/or Taylor Swift! Or just about life in general :).

Also, I have a playlist of my 99 most listened-to songs of the year so far. Pick a number 1--99 and send me an ask and I'll write you a fic based on it!

#harry potter #sirius black #draco malfoy #grief #drarry #harry potter fanfic #drarry fanfic #marauders #wolfstar #prompt request #song prompt #phoebe delia

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starkidpotty · 3 years

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Sleep on the Floor [HJP]

Unbeknownst to Harry, the aftermath of the battle and its losses is just as cruel and grueling as the battle itself. With no one to turn to, you offer peace in ways he didn’t know he needed.

Pairing: Harry Potter x reader

Warnings: loss, mourning, mentions of death

Word count: 1.9k

A/N: hi this is my first ever fic haha be nice to me <3 pls

The moonlight painted the living room a gracious dark blue color speckled with yellow light from the adjacent stars. The room was quiet, save for the large grandfather clock across the couch that was ticking away each hour of the night. It was a sleepless night for you in the flat, with Harry taking the bedroom (which you aggressively declined for the seventh time, and he begrudgingly took for the seventh time) and you on a roll-out much larger than the couch on the living room floor. It didn’t help that it was the summer as sweat was making your t-shirt stick to your skin, which made it impossible to find a position that could finally push you into a sweet sleep. Although inconvenient, the heat was a reminder of the two months that have passed since the Battle of Hogwarts and Lord Voldemort had finally ceased to exist. However, it would take months–maybe even years–before the effects of the war and the events leading up to it would wash away completely, if it ever did dissipate completely.

Harry, being the chosen one, the boy who lived, had taken the brunt of it all. It started with the night terrors. Harry would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, shooting up from lying to sitting with a layer of sweat sticking his stray hairs to his forehead and his chest violently puffing up and down. He had done it alone the first few weeks, until he couldn’t bear it anymore. He decided against sending an owl to Ron, as he was still grieving Fred’s death and rekindling his relationship with Percy. He had decided against sending an owl to Hermione, as she had just reversed the memory charm she had set on her parents and was making up for lost time. So, he sent an owl to you.

You and Harry met at one of Slughorn’s infamous dinner parties in your 6th year. Your very first conversation was about this odd dream you had that he was in. In it, he had cast a spell that set hundreds upon hundreds of spiders on you. Dream-you screamed a blood-curdling scream that made all the spiders disappear, leaving dream-you and dream-Harry in unstoppable, uncontrollable laughter. Looking back, you didn’t think it was very funny, but it became one of the things that you and Harry built your friendship over. You and he would talk about dreams a lot–recurring themes, plots, what parts you wish weren’t just dreams and what parts you never wanted to imagine ever again. It made perfect sense to him to send an owl to you when the night terrors started.

So here you are in Harry Potter’s living room, two weeks since that owl busted its head on your bedroom window with the letter he had written, detailing his latest nightmare. This was the 7th night you had spent at his place. It was your idea to sleep over, something he–although he would never admit it–was embarrassed of. Harry felt this was burdensome to you, that you responding to his letters was enough. You happily obliged and assured him that it was not, knowing that letters weren’t enough to get Harry through what would be some of the most emotionally draining months of his life. The battle and the events leading up to it in itself were already an immense ordeal, that Harry knew. But the months succeeding it, the getting over it, the making peace with it, unbeknownst to Harry, was just as bloody, just as cruel.

Tonight, however, was the longest Harry had gone without screaming. He would usually go to bed relatively early, leaving you to finish work for your newly-acquired job at Ministry, which you’d use as a buffer before you’d hear him scream into the night. You’d usually have to lull him out of his night terrors as early as an hour after he’d lay to rest, but tonight decided to allow you and him reprieve. Deciding to quit Ministry paperwork prematurely, there you were splayed on the roll-out unable to catch a wink. The heat was getting to you and you were getting restless.

“[Y/N],” said Harry in a voice so low had he said it a second later it would go unheard as the grandfather clock’s chimes would have overpowered it. You hoist yourself up, seeing Harry peering from the hallway opening.

“Harry, you’re awake. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard anything yet.” You say with a soft half-smile. He lets out a small chuckle, walking over to the sofa.

Looking at you, he responds, “Well, I wasn’t exactly sleeping.” Your mouth forms an O-shape with the sound following suit. He makes way to the roll-out on the floor, bending down to sit next to you. You adjust accordingly, hugging your knees which effectively gives him enough space to sit comfortably.

“To think I thought tonight would finally give you a break. Merlin knows how much you need it.” You say.

“I guess Merlin doesn’t know well enough.” Harry laughs as he looks down at his lap. The air stood still for a bit, with both of you sitting in silence as it was now one o’clock in the morning. Neither of you spoke, choosing to relish in the comfortable silence until Harry decides to break it again, “It’s hard. I didn’t think it would be,”

“What?”

“The past 17 years of my life, I had this huge weight on my shoulders, y’know. Voldemort. He’s gone, and I just thought now that he is gone, truly and finitely gone, that weight would leave and I could just live out my life. Nothing hanging over my head.”

“But?”

“If anything the weight’s even heavier. I feel like every time I close my eyes, he’ll find a way back. Some nights, it’s his face I see before he killed me in the forest. Some nights it’s the fifty–Remus, Fred, Tonks, Colin, Lavender–all of them.”

You’ve no words to say that you feel could completely absolve Harry of his woes, so you do the next best thing and take his hand in yours, sweat and all. He looks at you, then down at your intertwined hands. He plasters half a smile, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Both of you sit a minute more in comfortable silence. He doesn’t look at you, but rather takes interest in everything else but you, stealing glances at the window, the grandfather clock, the coffee table. You scoot closer to Harry, letting go of his hand and instead place both your hands on his face, making him face you. You’re both incredibly close, so close that you can see the little specks of brown Harry had in his eyes among the sea of green. Like instinct, he pulls you a little closer by the waist. You rest your forehead against his, while your thumb creates small circles on his cheekbones.

Your words finally find footing and walk out your mouth in tiny little steps, coming to a whisper, “Harry, Voldemort is gone and dead, he’ll never find a way back. And, the fifty. They’re not gone because of you. There’s no need at all to carry that weight all by yourself. We’ll get through it together.”

You release his face from your hands and pull him into a hug. He hugs back even tighter, like you were the only thing keeping him from floating upwards. His breaths grew heavy and tiny little sobs had erupted from him. His tears slid down your shoulders and back, but you didn’t mind nor care. Your right hand runs through his hair, while the other traces shapes on his back.

He cries hard, as though he is finally letting out the last 17 years–all the hurt, all the pain, everything he had to push deep inside him for the common good of the wizarding world finally cascading in hot tears down his face then onto you. You let him. A good few minutes pass and the sobs dwindle, until Harry pulls away, wiping his face with his forearms.

He mutters an apology that you vehemently decline, “Don’t apologize, Harry. I told you, we’ll get through it together. It’s my weight to carry as much as it is yours.”

Harry doesn’t reply, instead he takes his wet glasses off, wiping them down with his shirt and placing them on the adjacent coffee table. You didn’t mean to, but you stare at him as he does so. He meets your eyes and still doesn’t say anything. He lies down on the roll-out and pulls you by your left arm along with him. So, here you were lying on your side facing Harry, who you knew for a fact that without his glasses only saw a blurry outline of your face. His arm was wrapped around your waist and his legs all tangled in yours. The summer heat doesn’t hit as hard as it did minutes before. His face was now buried in the crook where your neck meets your shoulder and you could feel soft breaths coming from him, you assume he is finally asleep.

None of your thoughts at this point in the night were very coherent nor making any sense–if anything they were being quite intrusive. Your mind was jumping from point to point. This was the closest you and Harry have ever been and for some reason, you were nervous. Try as you might, the thoughts still make waves in your head, but for Harry’s sake, you attempt to block them out. Harry was just as nervous and he too could not find a reason why.

Turns out, Harry wasn’t asleep. He started to stir and pulls his face away from where it was perched. He’s now extremely close to your face but squinting to see you clearly.

“Thank you, by the way. You’re brilliant.” He croaked and you could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“I think that’s you, Harry. You’re brilliant, absolutely.” You reply beaming, even at this hour in the night.

Time freezes over for the next few seconds as Harry’s lips find the edges of your mouth. He moves away from your face sheepishly, but he kisses you again, this time fitting his lips over yours. The kiss wasn’t desperate nor hungry; it was gentle and delicate, using the perfect amount of speed and force. Harry is feeling an eclectic mix of emotions in those few seconds he spends on you, nervous to tense to idiotic to comfortable to sensational. It’s as though this is where he is ought to be, and it’s not just the familiarity that offers him this assurance, but just the sheer fact that it’s you. You, on the other hand, feel a release of pent-up emotion that you didn’t know you had. There is only relief and a calmness that you were sure you had never experienced before this moment.

You both pull away and you hush Harry as you feel him already starting with an apology. You lightly shake your head, hoping that your blurry outline sends the message clear enough. It does and he stays quiet. You bring your hand to his face, tracing the outline of his jaw and cheeks repeatedly. You brush your thumb over his lips. He understood, and so did you. So you both rest well into the night, making this the first night Harry makes it through unscathed and in one piece.

masterlist here

#harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter x reader #harry potter x y/n #harry potter imagines #dating harry potter #reader insert #hp x reader #harry potter angst

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vidavalor · 3 years

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Can we talk about how Sam is as useless at this as Bucky is, really, and it’s massively sweet?

Yeah, I’m writing about Sam because we all love us some brainwashed, century-old assassin endless array of hurt/comfort here but this idea that Sam, because he’s a therapist and not always a crying, nightmare-sweat-drenched mess, is Captain Got It All Together is not truth... because this poor broken-hearted kitten absolutely does not and it makes him so much more of a better-realized, fuller character...

I’m not trying to wade any ship wars here or any fandom strife over the Bucky slant to fic/sometimes erasure of Sam here... I love both of these characters equally and ship them but my point here is that I think that because Bucky’s trauma is more well-documented and, for lack of a better word, “flashier”, that some people might think Sam looks perfectly well-adjusted. By comparison, he probably is but this other, quieter story happening with Sam is necessary reading here if you’ve been sleeping on the complexities of one Sam Wilson that aren’t the ones the show is focusing on more explicitly relating to his lived experience as a Black man in America. (They’re not completely separate either but not only this part of his life.) What do I mean, exactly?

Been wondering how these two are falling in love but can mainly just get it from Bucky’s POV because Sam is awesome and Bucky is sad and need love? Not sure what Sam is getting out of his relationship with Bucky? Not totally sure you ship it but leaning that way? Yeah, pull up a seat because this thing I wrote after Ep 5 here (so spoilers through that) is basically an old-school ship manifesto at this point but comes at SamBucky/WinterFalcon from Sam’s side, rather than Bucky’s. (I have nothing *against* Bucky. I just think you’re missing half the goodness of this show and half the surprisingly tender romance of all of this if you are not focusing on Sam as much as Bucky.) If this interests you, then read on, being forewarned that it’s a little long...

So... Sam Wilson is a sweet, kind, warm-hearted, empathetic, drop-dead gorgeous superhero soldier flying military veteran therapist... whom the canon suggests is Bucky Barnes-level obsessed with his dead former partner (in some sense of the word), Riley. You thought it was just Bucky with the angsty past love? Oh no... oh, no no no....

Consider that Sam’s been back in Delacroix twice now in TFATWS and not once has his sister-- who adores him and who knows everyone in town-- suggested that she call up any one of the at least ten decent single people she has to know who live in the area to take her f*cking *dreamboat* of a brother out. Forget the show putting Sam in like twelve pieces of canon and not throwing a single human (not named Bucky) at him and what that implies-- we all know that Sarah wouldn’t care what kind of human her brother was attracted to and yet she and the entire community of Delacroix can’t seem to find this guy a date. He’s sweet and hot and an Avenger but our Sam’s a monk, you guys... More to the point... they don’t even try. They know better than to try anymore... which says a lot.

Going back awhile now, when Sam met Steve, he was still this equally dreamy and he didn’t even have any Avengers-related problems getting in the way of his potential dating life. He had a normal job working for the VA in DC. Yet, he clearly was seeing exactly no one and while I am willing to admit that pretty much any human would drop everything and follow Steve Rogers around the world, it’s clear that Sam wasn’t seeing anyone at the time because his life was able to be dropped in a second and he also had that file with Riley’s photo at the ready, man. At. the. ready...

He responded to the opportunity to follow Steve with no less need when it came to his own post-trauma-of-war identity as Bucky does. This isn’t to say that Sam is *as* lost as Bucky because it would be hard to out-do the once-brainwashed assassin who has been alive for a hundred years but Sam saw all sorts of hell. He’s a therapist for veterans because he’s had to get beyond *his own* PTSD and he’s really aware of how that is a journey that doesn’t exactly ever end. It gets significantly better and he knows how well it can-- that’s why he can tell Bucky that there is hope of that-- but it is very clear that Sam Wilson is still suffering his own kind of PTSD and his own grief for the death of a guy who likely couldn’t love him the way he needed him to.

I know we don’t know a ton about exactly what Sam and Riley were but I think there is enough to infer that they probably actually weren’t a couple. For one thing, Sarah never mentions him and even if the show wanted to be vague about things, they could phrase it like “it’s been forever since you brought back someone to the house, haven’t met any of them since Riley” or something. There are ways to infer that they were a thing and the nature of it, if the show wanted to do that but all they have suggested so far is that Sam was in love with Riley. We know he and Riley were friends and worked on the Falcon suit project together but what we are getting out of what they are giving to us is that Sam loved him but it’s not clear that they were even a couple. I’d even say the picture of them that he shows Steve and Natasha is supposed to evoke that they weren’t a couple-- it’s of Sam looking at Riley, smiling like he’s the moon and the stars, while Riley is smiling but just a bit and he’s looking at the camera, not at Sam.

In other words, remember Miller’s analogies from school? Sam is to Riley as Bucky is to Steve. I just offended every person reading this who thinks that Steve and Bucky weren’t an unrequited thing *ducks* but I feel like we’re supposed to take from what they give us that Sam knows a little something about being mad for a guy who thinks you are his best buddy but doesn’t look at you in a romantic or sexual way and you feel like you’re dying over it. Sam gets Bucky because Sam *is* Bucky when it comes to this.

If Sam and Riley were just the best of friends, Sam still would have mourned him greatly but it would not necessarily have impacted his love life the way it seems like it might have. I’m not necessarily saying there was no one but this is a man who even when it felt like Steve Rogers-- whom Sam obviously found attractive-- seemed like he was making Sam question whether or not he was coming onto him or just super-nice and making a new fellow veteran friend... even when that was happening, Sam’s response was that he didn’t hate it or anything and he was willing to help Steve with what he needed in this friendly, advice-giving sort of way and maybe they had a thing, who knows, but it was clear that Sam-- a guy who has to be hit on *all the time*-- wasn’t really used to the idea of there being someone in his life. So, he wasn’t letting anyone into his life. He would have had the chance, no doubt. He was choosing not to. Why would you choose not to? If you were grieving the loss of a man you couldn’t get over and you thought that you weren’t ever going to love anyone like that and maybe having someone wasn’t going to happen for you.

Like, imagine Sam’s surprise when The Winter Soldier turns up, nearly kills them all, disappears and they go on the run and he starts hearing Steve’s confessional stories about the guy who was his best friend and in love with him and Steve has literally never said those words aloud because they’re from the *1940s* and he’s felt guilty all this time for hurting him. Steve’s the kind of guy who would feel guilty for not being in love with someone who was in love with him. That’s when Sam, who thought he had more in common with Steve, realizes he’s actually *Bucky Barnes* in this story. He’s the damn Winter Soldier in the Steve-and-Bucky version of him and Riley.

That is how Bucky evolves from “the kind of guy you have to stop” in Sam’s mind to the guy he’s hanging out with in every fight and snarking over the car seats with. He’s like yeesh, I thought I had a few years of this ungodly pain and that was bad... this poor bastard’s been in love with a Riley who could and probably will live until he’s a hundred and thirty. Sam starts getting into this whole antagonist origin story of The Winter Soldier here because he realizes that one wrong move-- one case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time-- and he could have been captured during the war he was in. He could have been tortured like that, so easily, and he knows what it’s like to be tortured by love in that way.

Bucky, for his part, when he begins to get his mind back and more fully remember Steve and his past, takes one look at Sam and is thinking like... that poor SOB... oh, look, it’s 21st Century Me. So, you fell for Steve Rogers, huh? Welcome to the club. We meet every Tuesday at two to discuss being the pining best friend in love with a guy who, in all likelihood, is attracted to both of us but unless Tony Stark can shake loose a bit of the freak in The Star-Spangled Man With a Plan, we’re not getting anything but a most earnest and sincere friendship out of this (and if Stark can’t, no one can....)

Like, Bucky’s Steve love is pretty pure. He wants him to be happy. He’s hurt that Steve doesn’t love him the way he loves Steve but he does love him as his best friend as well and wants him to have what he wants out of life. If that’s going back in time to Peggy Carter (who wouldn’t, really?) and leaving him behind then, fine. He wishes he were still here but he’ll deal but he’s going to be keeping an eye out for the other guy left behind-- Steve’s new modern era best friend person. Bucky’s so gone over keeping Steve safe that he can’t even resent Sam’s presence-- he’s thrilled he exists. Someone good to look after Steve when Bucky couldn’t! Sam Wilson is heaven sent and must be protected at all costs! So frequently from some kid with webbed fingers, apparently!

Sam, meanwhile, is challenged by the dilemma that Bucky appears to think that they’re in the same boat while Sam, who for sure had a little crush on Steve as who doesn’t, has really come to realize that he is far, far more into the tragic one here. He’s so irritated about it. It would be simpler if he just fell for another blond soldier with red, white and blue blood who couldn’t love him. At least he’d just be completely hopeless then but the brainwashed one? The one that thinks he’s horrid but is so good that he can’t even bring himself to be that jealous of Sam when he clearly thinks Sam is sleeping with the guy he’s loved for years?

Oh, Sam’s gone on that one...

Bucky’s still a mess then so it’s harmless enough to just pretend he’s not writing himself into touch-starved Bucky fanfic in his own mind here but when Bucky keeps saving him in different fights? When he catches him looking once or twice. When the bickering is really flirting and Sam knows he means it that way, too? When the poor guy just gets his mind back, they all reunite and go to one battle and then the two of them disappear and miss *five years* of their lives? When then, soon after, Steve is gone, too?

When it begins to feel like *they* are now the story and meant to go through the rest of these things together? I mean, when everyone else is all on about the fate and destiny of it all-- Stark’s big sacrifice being the one way to save everyone, Doctor Strange going on about all the possibilities of the universe on a saving the world level but it so personal to the people Sam and Bucky know, Steve choosing to go back in time because he can and be with the woman he loved and never got to have...

...standing there in the funerals and aftermaths of all of this together, by virtue of being Steve’s Friends Who Aren’t Really Part of This Gang Exactly... are Sam and Bucky. What are the odds that they are supposed to be the rest of one another’s story? Sam was wondering it. He for sure hadn’t felt like this since Riley... he might not have really ever felt it at all before.

Can we just admit that while there’s been some guys in the past-- and it could be rephrased as ‘some people’, as while Sam is written to suggest he’s at least into men, he could be into people who don’t identify as men as well-- but there’s not been someone who has been able to love him the way he’s loved them.

He’s from the South and Black and the show taps into the racism he’s been through as a result. Not obviously in Delacroix, where he feels safe and seen, where people care about him and don’t care that he is not straight, but in other parts. He’s been in the military, where homophobia is still pretty rampant and it’s a culture of a lot of heterosexual machismo. (Hell, the show even has a kind of walking, talking example of a guy everyone knows was the epitome of that kind of culture, even if he’s been broken by that world, too-- John Walker.) It’s not even really clear if Sam is out and, if he is, to whom. He seems to be the kind of person to want to be himself as much as possible and Sarah likely knows because they are close but I’m not so sure that a lot of Sam’s military buddies actually did. He really strikes me as the guy who gets along with everybody and whom everybody loves-- but whom few people actually *know* because he keeps himself (all of himself, not just his sexuality) private from others...

...which is also a hell of a lot like one Bucky Barnes.

Guaranteed they became such fast friends not just from being sort of left with one another in the aftermath of Steve and their attraction but because Sam was amazed to find that Bucky was actually pretty funny and Sam just kept talking to him because while he has-- or had, anyways, before he ran off with Steve-- a ton of people he’d consider friends, he doesn’t really have anyone he’d consider to be a close friend and hasn’t since Riley. Bucky, just still stunned to be free of mind control and that there was another human being talking to him instead of looking at him as a weapon to program to kill, was eager to listen to and absolutely thrilled when he could find something sarcastic to say to make Sam laugh that surprised laugh and light up.

These two damaged couple of guys spent most of this show and the months before it just terrified by how much love they were feeling for one another and were very happy to let any conflict they could get in the way of it-- any excuse to claim they weren’t feeling totally seen and run for the hills back into their own trauma.

It’s not just Bucky doing this. He might have been the one not returning the texts at the start, the one who seemed to be withdrawing more, while Sam was texting him still to check in on him but how quickly that began to flip around by Episode 5.

Suddenly, the brave one is Bucky. It was Sam for the first few episodes-- he was stil trying and so hard, despite not getting what he needed in return and Bucky still sending signals that he wanted him but was happy to still revel in being too damaged and scared to try harder. By Episode 5, though? Bucky’s not only learned to trust himself again, it is proven to be what he was afraid of: not being able to protect and love Sam the way he wanted to and that Sam would leave him. Triggered by the shield as a metaphor for not caring about Bucky, not having a reason to still pursue him, Bucky thought he had successfully pushed Sam away and that Sam would really stop texting because to not do so would be to admit to one another that they wanted to be around one another and this wasn’t just about Steve/Captain America. By Episode 5, Bucky shows up in Delacroix not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but with eyes only for Sam and is every one of Sam’s favorite Bucky Barnes fantasies come to life.

It’s now Sam flipping out. Would you have expected the Sam of the first two episodes to be a babbling mess in the face of a flirty Bucky stretching and claiming it’s time for him to go get a hotel room? To try to be playing it cool but winding up asking him to stay forever and telling him he likes his tight t-shirts in the middle there? To get so nervous that he suddenly is babbling about six toes and flirting with Sarah, showing how jealous he was of Bucky just... smiling and being this guy Steve had said was under there but that Sam had only had small glimpses of so far? If he was gone for the broken Winter Soldier... he’s wrecked by a single smile from this Bucky.

This is the same guy who spent the first few episodes confident to a point of near-cockiness, loving flirting with and teasing Bucky, the one that seemed more well-adjusted and in control of himself. Overall, he is but there’s something there when Bucky shows up and White Wolfs Sam into a sputtering mess who is sending him little glances, as if they’ve switched bodies from the first few episodes. It shows *just how much* Sam is comfortable with Bucky and how rare it is for him because he would react differently to Bucky’s more overt flirting of Episode 5 if how he is with Bucky was his default in life. Instead, we see that some of it is posturing-- it’s the Sam equivalent of lifting heavy things and using power tools. His is the humor (what’s a better aphrodisiac than making the Winter Soldier laugh or flirt back or blush?) and the bicker-caring. We even see where it comes from, in a way. Sam is a soldier-- he knows how to help other traumatized soldiers and when we saw him in his VA group session when we met him, we saw him using that kind of machismo world and its language to communicate with the soldiers in the group. The difference for him with them versus him with Bucky is that he’s also flirting with Bucky. The buddy cop thing is intentional-- it’s Sam’s strategy, it’s been Bucky’s choice to respond to it and they’re playacting it as how they talk because it’s been easier than admitting that they are completely gone on another and just want all the soft things.

Up until recently anyway and now Sam’s reeling from a man he’s fallen in love with showing up and loving him back. Don’t think for a second that Bucky doesn’t know enough by now to know that it’d totally undo Sam but the surprise of it to the audience only really exists if you don’t think Sam and Bucky have anything in common besides their now-gone mutual friend. In reality, they’re endgame.

#tfatws #sam wilson #sambucky #bucky barnes #thefalconandthewintersoldier #marvel #bucky #buckysam #winterfalcon

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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a song recommedation: for me the biggest levihan song is Skulls by Bastille. i don't know if you've ever heard it (or maybe it's a basic song for every levihan fan out there and everyone collectively knows about it)...it sounds like they're having a conversation the entire time. especially these lines: "when all of our friends are dead and just a memory, we're side by side, it's always been just you and me" "i don't want to rest in peace, i'd rather be a ghost that annoys you"

Title: Milestones

Summary:

“And just like with every loss he had ever felt, Levi would count down the hours, the days, the months and the seasons following the death, labelling them each as a milestone to trudge past. In that aspect, Hange’s death was no different.”

Levi has this habit of counting milestones following the loss of a close comrade.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Notes: Thank you for the song rec anon! I made it a little homework for myself to listen to this song today while I did some grocery shopping and this really screamed Levihan, so loud I got a little inspired and I came up with this small ficlet.

The grieving process had always been respected.

Soldiers could easily request time off to mourn the death of comrades and loved ones. In the survey corps, one or two days after a mission were usually given as a little gift for those who had given their lives and for those left to pick up the pieces.

It was a generous gift at face value but for many who had experienced too many deaths to count, it had started to twist into something a little short of cruel.

Soldiers who had experienced more than enough deaths after all, eventually realized that the losses only completely sink in when they finally go back to their routines. The largest and strongest waves of grief come when the soldiers are left to navigate their routines, changing around their daily routines to fix what the dead had left behind.

For some cruel reason, losses were rarely felt in the losses and the memorials that celebrated them. They were felt in routines that followed.

Levi had survived one of the longest in the survey corps and had experienced more losses than he could count. Having to quickly go back to routines after dealing with losses and having had to navigate these same routines peppered with continuous losses of squad members and teammates, Levi had developed a little habit, something to occupy himself between expeditions and missions.

As Levi quickly noticed, that habit had gotten a little out of control that time around.

Of course it would, there was nothing else to do. Levi had made the decision to retire. There were no expeditions to prepare for. The government was more than eager to grant humanity’s strongest pension already. He was also certain he couldn’t fight like before anymore either.

And that extra time and mind space had given his grieving brain a little more wriggle room and consequently, a little more power. Levi found himself scrambling for a routine. With that free mental space, that habit decided to take control again.

Levi had nothing much else to do but let it take over. When he was at his most vulnerable, when he was at his most alone, that habit had ended up becoming his best friend.

He allowed that best friend to guide him once again as he went about the daily routine of a retired soldier. As it did with every loss, that best friend would religiously remind him that time continued to pass.

And just like with every loss he had ever felt, Levi would count down the hours, the days, the months and the seasons following the death, labelling them each as a milestone to trudge past. In that aspect, Hange’s death was no different.

At the same time, Hange’s death was special. Possibly because they had been working together for five years. Possibly because compared to the other times when he had wanted to grieve, he was in no pressure that time to recover quickly or go back to a routine.

There were no distractions that time to fall back on. Levi was left with memories, milestones and himself.

First sunset without Hange.

The sunset and the gradual flashes of colors from yellow to orange to red. Levi had always found sunsets beautiful. Objectively, nothing had changed about that sunset. Somehow, Levi couldn't help but notice that he was seeing less colors than before.

First Monday without Hange.

Levi hated the typical Mondays in the office. The paperwork always made it unbearable. He had always preferred expeditions and combat. He was retired though and Levi was sure the paperwork would be nothing more than a memory moving forward. But reflecting on that monday in particular, he was certain he would have given up the world for it.

First Friday without Hange.

Depending on who won the argument or bet of the week, Fridays could be either drinking or heart-to heart-in-the-office-over-tea days. That particular Friday, Levi made sure to do both. He wasn’t sure what she would have wanted and it’s not like he could have asked her.

First full moon without Hange

He didn’t even know he had built that habit of staring at the full moon until he looked out the window and felt time stop for a few seconds. In those few seconds, he was brought back to a time long ago, when Hange had been next to him, staring in complete awe at the full moon in front of them. He was too distracted by her then to have looked at the moon.

Time started to move and Levi was reminded that he did not have much to distract himself anymore from the full moon in the sky.

First spring without Hange

Levi, when this war ends and I retire as commander, I really wanna explore the flora and fauna outside the walls. Let’s study them together!

He had tried to appreciate nature. He had tried to sit on the grass and just stare and touch the prettier or the uglier weeds that stuck out of the common grass. They were all weeds dotted with some flowers.

Hange would have found them beautiful either way. He just found it mocking.

First summer without Hange.

Hange loved ice cream. Ever since the first ice cream shop in Paradis opened. They made sure to get one as a treat after a hard day of work. Levi hadn’t gone back to the shop since he had last been there with Hange last summer. He wasn’t thinking of going back there either.

First autumn without Hange.

Autumns were always special. The cool nights that only got colder and the days that only got shorter could have been depressing for most. Levi saw beauty in it because they built up to something else.

They built up to her special day. That one special day Hange kept as a little treat for herself. She always decided what to do and she always made sure to rattle off her plans to him during down times between meetings and deliverables.

Every year, she always had something she wanted to do and somewhere she wanted to go and every year, she always made sure Levi tagged along.

And as Levi thought back to their last conversations, he quickly figured out she had suggested one place she would have wanted to go with him.

That passing thought she had shared during one of their conversations, that one night in the forest at least gave him direction. With her gone, Levi was the one who made the final decision to go there himself.

I came here for sanctuary

Away from the winds and the sounds of the city

I came here to get some peace

Way down deep where the shadows are heavy

In the first autumn after Hange’s death, In the forest glade where Hange had nursed him back to health, Levi had a small cabin built. Many could have concluded it as a capricious decision, even Levi himself. As he walked out and lay on the soft grass beneath him, he couldn’t help but think if he just closed his eyes and focused on the familiar surroundings, he could imagine Hange next to him saying those words once again

“Maybe we should just live here together.”

I can't help but think of you

In these four walls my thoughts seem to wander

To some distant century

When everyone we know is six feet under

When Levi entered the newly built cabin and inspected it of any dust, he realized, maybe that was the first thing he had done for himself. He was already a retired soldier with nothing much to think about but himself. Levi was never one to constantly think of himself though, so he thought of everyone else.

When all of our friends are dead and just a memory

And we're side by side it's always been just you and me

For all to see

When our lives are over and all that remains

Are our skulls and bones let's take it to the grave

The cabin was cozy and there had been nothing much to clean. It kept the cool air of early autumn out and if he had been feeling a hint of self preservation, he probably would have stayed inside. His body was not as strong as it was before and even the night air of early autumn had him shivering.

Self preservation had always been low on Levi’s priority list. Because of the lack of responsibilities that came with being retired, it managed to bump up to at least third. It was still the last thing on Levi’s mind though.

The cold air and the rustle of the trees brought back countless memories at once. It brought back the faint pounding of the hammer, the swish of the bandages and her hitched breaths as she worked tirelessly as he slept.

It evoked memories from times before that.

Every year, when the wind was starting to get a little colder and the leaves a little redder, there was always one special day where Hange would take him out.

To a place of her choice. It was that one day after all the commander would always spend for herself. The destination was always a different spot outside the walls. Sometimes it was a glade in the middle of the forest, sometimes it was a cave, sometimes it was a swamp. The places varied but the cool winds that came as the sun started to set were constant stimuli. The orange hues that stuck out of the green trees around him were also a constant view.

That night, Levi held his arms close to his chest, conserving warmth as the cool winds of autumn continued to barrel through his already battered body. He looked up at the trees around him, observing closely as some of the leaves started to stand out under the moonlight. The leaves were starting to take on a different shade and others were starting to fall off.

All those signs culminated into a scene and an experience Levi was all too familiar with. They were all heralding the coming of autumn

Hange’s special day always signaled the start of autumn.

Happy Birthday, Hange. That was the first birthday he’d be spending without her.

And his little habit made it so that he would never forget to spend it in the years to come. Even if he was painfully aware, he'd be spending every single one without her.

And hold me in your arms, hold me in your arms

I'll be buried here with you

And I'll hold in these hands all that remains

#levihan #levi x hange #levi x hanji #levihan fanfiction #drabble

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archiewindsor · 3 years

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The Losses We Share By Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex The writer is a mother, feminist and advocate. Nov. 25, 2020 It was a July morning that began as ordinarily as any other day: Make breakfast. Feed the dogs. Take vitamins. Find that missing sock. Pick up the rogue crayon that rolled under the table. Throw my hair in a ponytail before getting my son from his crib. After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right. I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second. Hours later, I lay in a hospital bed, holding my husband’s hand. I felt the clamminess of his palm and kissed his knuckles, wet from both our tears. Staring at the cold white walls, my eyes glazed over. I tried to imagine how we’d heal. I recalled a moment last year when Harry and I were finishing up a long tour in South Africa. I was exhausted. I was breastfeeding our infant son, and I was trying to keep a brave face in the very public eye. “Are you OK?” a journalist asked me. I answered him honestly, not knowing that what I said would resonate with so many — new moms and older ones, and anyone who had, in their own way, been silently suffering. My off-the-cuff reply seemed to give people permission to speak their truth. But it wasn’t responding honestly that helped me most, it was the question itself. “Thank you for asking,” I said. “Not many people have asked if I’m OK.” Sitting in a hospital bed, watching my husband’s heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine, I realized that the only way to begin to heal is to first ask, “Are you OK?” Are we? This year has brought so many of us to our breaking points. Loss and pain have plagued every one of us in 2020, in moments both fraught and debilitating. We’ve heard all the stories: A woman starts her day, as normal as any other, but then receives a call that she’s lost her elderly mother to Covid-19. A man wakes feeling fine, maybe a little sluggish, but nothing out of the ordinary. He tests positive for the coronavirus and within weeks, he — like hundreds of thousands of others — has died. A young woman named Breonna Taylor goes to sleep, just as she’s done every night before, but she doesn’t live to see the morning because a police raid turns horribly wrong. George Floyd leaves a convenience store, not realizing he will take his last breath under the weight of someone’s knee, and in his final moments, calls out for his mom. Peaceful protests become violent. Health rapidly shifts to sickness. In places where there was once community, there is now division. On top of all of this, it seems we no longer agree on what is true. We aren’t just fighting over our opinions of facts; we are polarized over whether the fact is, in fact, a fact. We are at odds over whether science is real. We are at odds over whether an election has been won or lost. We are at odds over the value of compromise. That polarization, coupled with the social isolation required to fight this pandemic, has left us feeling more alone than ever. When I was in my late teens, I sat in the back of a taxi zipping through the busyness and bustle of Manhattan. I looked out the window and saw a woman on her phone in a flood of tears. She was standing on the sidewalk, living out a private moment very publicly. At the time, the city was new to me, and I asked the driver if we should stop to see if the woman needed help. He explained that New Yorkers live out their personal lives in public spaces. “We love in the city, we cry in the street, our emotions and stories there for anybody to see,” I remember him telling me. “Don’t worry, somebody on that corner will ask her if she’s OK.” Now, all these years later, in isolation and lockdown, grieving the loss of a child, the loss of my country’s shared belief in what’s true, I think of that woman in New York. What if no one stopped? What if no one saw her suffering? What if no one helped? I wish I could go back and ask my cabdriver to pull over. This, I realize, is the danger of siloed living — where moments sad, scary or sacrosanct are all lived out alone. There is no one stopping to ask, “Are you OK?” Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few. In the pain of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them will have suffered from miscarriage. Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning. Some have bravely shared their stories; they have opened the door, knowing that when one person speaks truth, it gives license for all of us to do the same. We have learned that when people ask how any of us are doing, and when they really listen to the answer, with an open heart and mind, the load of grief often becomes lighter — for all of us. In being invited to share our pain, together we take the first steps toward healing. So this Thanksgiving, as we plan for a holiday unlike any before — many of us separated from our loved ones, alone, sick, scared, divided and perhaps struggling to find something, anything, to be grateful for — let us commit to asking others, “Are you OK?” As much as we may disagree, as physically distanced as we may be, the truth is that we are more connected than ever because of all we have individually and collectively endured this year. We are adjusting to a new normal where faces are concealed by masks, but it’s forcing us to look into one another’s eyes — sometimes filled with warmth, other times with tears. For the first time, in a long time, as human beings, we are really seeing one another. Are we OK? We will be. (New York Times)

#meghan markle #duchess of sussex #archie's mum #nyt opinions

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edith-moonshadow · 3 years

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Can we get an abo fic where Steve and Billy are together when season 3 happens and Steve witnesses Billy dying and grieves with max

Anon why you gotta break my heart like this?

Are they bonded in this story?

So you could do a story that would be very angsty but would be a character study of Steve and Max. Out of everyone in Hawkins or possibly even the world, they are the only two people who truly knew him and cared about him and even though they are in pain having someone else to grieve with would help them come to terms with their grief and hopefully move on.

If they were bonded the breaking of the bond with Billy's death would probably drive Steve to the brink of death or make his heartache almost unbearable so it would be a story where Max takes care of Steve until he stabilises again. Maybe their bonding was kept on the down-low and Max knows that the bond with Steve was the most important thing in Billy's life, it was the one thing keeping him going before his unfortunate death.

So with a bond, you could make that a way that Billy could return. Maybe Steve can still feel him due to the bond and he becomes determined to travel to where he can feel his presence the most, maybe at the place where Billy first encountered the mind flyer. I imagine that Steve trying to find the upside-down wouldn't be encouraged by anyone else; they may even think that it's a side effect of a broken bond and try to stop him.

Max would be sceptical at first but Steve would finally convince her, maybe he tells her something that only Billy knows (maybe she was close to him when he died and he said something to her that she kept to herself as she felt guilt over what happened) so she helps him and they find him. Billy wouldn't be the same at first, he's been alone, he suffers from unbearable guilt, maybe he's physically hurt but between Steve and Max, they help him recover so it could become a story about the two important bonds in Billy's life.

So I think that this is a story that can be angsty with a sad or hopeful ending (or you could go ambiguous with Steve starting to feel Billy's presence and leave that up to the reader as to whether that's Steve moving past his grief or not.) Regardless of how it ends, it could be a really interesting exploration of grief, the bonds that you build with other people both familial and through friendship, I imagine that they would grief differently but they wouldn't want other people to see their pain so they'd be alone in their grief at first, but then Max would come to Steve because she knew how important he was to Billy.

At first, Steve would want to be alone but realising how much they have in common with regards to Billy he lets her in and they form an important bond in one of their darkest times.

I personally love stories that feature a friendship between Steve and Max, it can be explored in so many different ways, Max could learn about Billy's crush and use it to get Billy to take her to the arcade. She subtly pushes them together because she thinks Steve is good for Billy, tells him embarrassing things about Billy to make him laugh and get an upper hand on Billy.

Steve could form a friendship with her through the party which gives Billy an excuse to speak to Steve when he turns up early to collect Max, maybe she sees the spark between them but realises that Billy is going about getting Steve all wrong so helps him because she knows him better.

I don’t know if this is what you were looking for, it’s an interesting concept if a potentially devasting one but anything that explores a friendship between Steve and Max is always going to be great.

#anon ask #harringrove #alpha beta omega #season three #angst #Steve & Max friendship

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jamiedc-they-them · 3 years

Text

Sibling Duty Part VI

Requested Imagine: As an older sister, you make choices to protect your loved ones. But, what happens when you don’t fully think you’ve made the right ones?

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It was weird, very weird, to have Phil Coulson back with you. Your sister and you were different on grieving, but also the same in other areas of that term: you had moved on from Coulson, and you were sure that Daisy had too. But, you see how she hadn’t opened the letter Coulson had given her yet. So, maybe not.

You wanted to ask her, but you knew that it would just end in tears and an argument. At least, that’s what a part of you told yourself anyway. Another part argued that you should be upfront about it, help your sister through it.

Then again, you’d already fucked up before with that judgement so –

“Hey, Y/nn,” Your sister said, breaking you out of your thoughts. You cleared your throat, turning to her, “You ok?” She asked as she eyed you carefully. Sadly, being a Johnson meant that she too knew all the tricks you had to lie, and the pitfalls of those tricks; she had them too.

“Hey, Dais,” You gave her a soft smile, leaning your back against the table that held the footage of the dead-man-brought-back-once-again himself, “I’m good, yeah. Just…just thinking.” You knew you wouldn’t be able to lie, not to your sister.

“Ok,” She nodded, appreciating the honesty, “What about?” She asked, moving to stand next to you as you turned back to the monitors, “Told ya, cocky bastard.” She commented.

You let out a chuckle, shaking your head, “Yeah, got nothing on Coulson 1.0 – wait, no…2.0 was the one we met. This would be 3.0,” You looked to your sister, “How many Coulson’s do you think we’ll go through. I’d wager a guess, but I have no money. Plus, probably be wrong.” Those last words seemed to spark something in Daisy, a look in her eyes as if she’d just put a jigsaw together.

Maybe it was the money thing, you had yet to be paid. Going to the academy was like going to college/university. So…you know.

“Y/N,” Oh, full name, you were in for a lecture (ha!), “I trust you, alright? Maybe not about the Coulson’s,” You had a timid smile at her wording, “But…your hunch about him,” She nodded to the monitor, “Whatever it is, you can tell me. Trust that little head of yours and this,” She pointed from your head to your chest.

“My head isn’t small,” Your little sister rolled her eyes lovingly, “But….I don’t know, somethings off, I just don’t know what. I made calls like this before, didn’t end well.”

Daisy sighed, but nodded, even if a little sadly.

You were then called down, Sarge was talking.

“If you don’t stop wasting my time, you’re gonna lose your planet.” Sarge said as he paced around the place.

“That’s what you like us to think.” Daisy countered with. While it went ignored to the person it was said to, you did hit Daisy in the leg with your foot. She looked at you with a confused look: Don’t provoke him.

“We had a deal, Mack. My truck and my crew. Now.” Sarge demanded.

“You’ll get them. But first, I need to know what your plan is.” Blah, blah, fucking blah. Don’t get yourself wrong, you loved Mack like a brother. But, you could tell the stakes of this: Earth, universe, whatever. You were clocking out, mind still spinning with just what about Sarge ticked you off. You knew him being Coulson was one of them, but there was something else.

Something dangerous.

This time it was your shoe that was nudged, by May. She was always one who could be blunt with words, but always preferred gestures to convey something when the situation called for it. This was one of those cases, as her look asked you a question: are you ok?

You nodded, but your eyes shifted back to Sarge. May followed your eyes, before looking back at you with a more understanding look.

“Agents May and Johnson will be going with you,” Were the words that made you break away from your thoughts about Sarge. You looked at Mack with a glare.

“Whoa, hold on, no,” You spat as you stepped in front of your sister and looked at Mack with a pissed off expression. In the corner of your eye, you saw Sarge looking at you with an almost amused look, “I’m going too.”

“Y/N –“ Mack had softened his tone, but you heard the sigh that was there.

“No, Mack! I am not letting my sister go on her own with him –”

“I have May, Y/N.” Daisy assured, trying to calm the situation down.

“Oh, what? You wanna be split up, again?”

“I can handle myself.” Your sister said, a bit firmer.

“I know you can, I just –” You stopped yourself.

“Just what?” Your sister questions, curiosity and concern in her voice.

You turned to Mack, “Can I go with them?” You were vulnerable here. Hell, you even saw Mack’s eyes soften a bit at the state you were in; the protective older sibling, the exact same role he had taken in Daisy’s life. It was something that had brought you both closer.

“….Ok.” He granted.

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So, that was what led to you all going on the truck. All going to the tower that Sarge had told you all would be the key to stopping whoever was coming.

When Daisy went to the cabin to talk to the man, you sat with May on the couch, your eyes continuously going to the door.

“She can take care of herself, you know?” May said, trying to help calm your nerves a little.

You finally looked away from the door and to May, “I know. It’s not that I don’t think she can. It’s just –”

“It’s him?” May guessed. You nodded.

“He’s not so bad. He did save me.” The crew member Sarge had picked, Snowflake, told you. She seemed sweet, but was psychotic. So, kind of a coin flip; either that, or a contradiction.

“We’ve all got layers.” You said, concluding the previous thought above too.

“I don’t know what that means.” There was this bit of childlike innocence with Snow as well.

You, however, only nodded.

You then rested your head on May’s shoulder, finding it hard to stay awake.

“I think it might just be him, Y/N. And I’m gonna show you that it is, I will.” Were the last words you heard before you drifted off.

When you next awoke, your hair was being ran through by someone’s hand softly.

“He kicked you out?” May asked. While you were slowly coming back to your senses, May didn’t sound as if she was behind you, but instead in front. So, it was only one other person who was doing the affectionate action.

“Yeah, he was tired of my questions and said he’d rather ride alone. At least, for a bit anyway. I’m ok with that cause I don’t have to look at him. But, not really ok with who he asked for.” Was Daisy’s reply.

“It wasn’t –”

“It was.” Ah, so it was you he had asked for.

“Dammit. Well, that makes two of us.” May said.

There was pause from Daisy, a stillness in her actions, before she continued her action, now seemingly for both parties, “He died, May. He died, and we buried him, and that was hard enough. And now this ass-thing with his face shows up. I mean, is this some sort of cosmic joke? I….I mean, I remember when I saw Y/N in the framework and as an LMD….hell, I had to kill one.” Daisy ranted.

“I don’t know if this a joke.” May concede as she sat in the chair.

“He’s bad news. I don’t believe a word he says.” Daisy admitted. Seemed you were both on the same page on that one.

“I don’t know why, but part of me feels like I could trust him.” Why? “It’s just a feeling.” She continued.

“Is that because of the face?” You asked, know feeling more awake.

You opened your eyes, meeting her own ones. There was a bit of hurt in them, but she stayed strong.

You sat up, Daisy putting a hand on your shoulder to make sure you didn’t fall out of the bed, something that you once did and something that she tried to make sure didn’t happen ever again.

“I mean, really?” Daisy asked, continuing your thought, “If he’s telling the truth, then why not tell us everything? Who the hell is Izel? How could she destroy a planet? Why is he chasing her across the galaxy?”

The cabin door opened, and there he was, “You, other sister, let’s go.” He demanded, shutting the door after talking.

You felt your sister give you a loving squeeze, “Go kick his ass.” She said, with a small smile that held some worry.

You then looked to May, “We’ll be here.” She assured you.

You entered the cabin, seeing him just keeping his eyes on the road. That was good, at least.

You sat in the chair next to him, staring out at the road for a moment before looking at him, “Why’d you wanna see me?” You asked.

“You’re the quiet one, when it comes down to it really. Not saying that’s a problem. Just an observation. That’s something we seem to have in common, observation skills. Sizing the other up and trying to wrap our heads around them. You have a past, a family, I don’t. That’s not pity, that’s the truth.” He told you.

“You know it’s not because of your face, right? At least, not with me, it’s not about that. There’s just something about who you are that tips me off.” Was your response.

“You’ve got a good eye for that, kid. Maybe that’s why you’ve lived this long.” Maybe there was a part to his words that were right.

“Maybe there is. But, let’s get one thing straight. You hurt my sister or any of my family, I don’t care what you are or who you are really, I will hunt you down.” You threatened.

“Noted.” Was his response.

You came out of the cabin, more like storming out. The door slammed behind you, Deke and Snowflake stopped their kissing and looked at you, but you gave no mind to them. So, they went right back to it.

You were breathing heavily, pissed.

“Hey, Y/N. Hey, hey!” Daisy clicked in front of your face, with the other hand on your shoulder.

“Son of a bitch!” You seethed.

“What did he say?” Daisy asked, trying to keep you in control of your power.

“Nothing. Nothing. No, nothing about you guys. Just….we can read each other like a book.” You admitted.

Sarge then came out once again, sitting with you all as he explained who Izel was and his journey with her. About how it wasn’t him who destroyed the planets, but her instead. His intentions seemed to be good, to keep it from happening here. May seemed to be desperate to believe it, digging into it for more information, but also to show you that he was still Phil Coulson.

Sarge then pulled out the one thing that could kill Izel: A sword. No, really.

He then lunged for Daisy, with her Quaking it away, and you sending him back with dark powered ropes on his arms.

“There it is. Hacker’s, huh?” He scoffed. Daisy and you looked at each other, seemed that secret was now out of the bag. The device went off before he could question it further.

“It’s starting.” Sarge said when he grabbed the pad.

And what was starting? Well –

The end.

The end in question was a tower being built out of whatever was in the shrike. It was why he was killing the shrike. That’s how the planet dies.

Your sister moved to the shotgun seat as May leant out the door as you all observed the tower. However, as Sarge passed you, he gave you a look: be the observant one.

You went into the drivers seat, looking for something. That look had to mean something.

“Y/N, what you looking for?” Daisy asked as you tried to open glove boxes to find what you were apparently told to fine.

Daisy looked to May, a bit of concern in her look as you clawed at everything. It all culminated in a slam of your hands on the desk, “Fucking, asshole!”

“Hey!” She put a hand to your shoulder, “What are you looking for? We can help.”

When you looked at her, your eyes were becoming teary with frustration, “I don’t fucking know.” You admitted, voice cracking a bit.

“Ok, ok. Here, we’ll call Mack, tell him what’s going on, see if he can help.” She suggested, grabbing the sat phone to call him, but held one of your hands in support.

“How do we stop this? We’re trying to get a visual. I want to see what this thing looks like.” Mack said, his voice being surprisingly clear on the radio.

“It’s growing, Mack. I don’t like this.” May was honest.

“Until this beast woman appears, everyone should sit tight.” Daisy suggested.

“Well, Benson gave us some information that might help us understand her. Has Sarge shared how he plans to take her out?” Mack sounded almost desperate.

The three of you shared a look, he wasn’t going to like this, “It’s unclear….but it may or may not involve a magical sword.” Daisy had her wit as always, but still was the one to give the bad news.

Deke had fixed the….well, whatever it was. Looked like a radio from your perspectives. Again, Sarge looked at you, as if he was almost taunting you; as if it was right there this whole time.

As he walked into the cabin and you heard the door lock, your mind went back and forth on what it could be as the truck barrelled towards the tower.

“Fuck.” You cursed, standing at the door and ready.

“What is it?” May asked.

“It’s a fucking bomb.”

He came out, holding a hand up at May holding up her pistol.

“Where is it?” She demanded.

“Where’s what?” He asked, trying to play it off as if you guys weren’t aware.

“The bomb,” Daisy filled in for him as she threw him the phone, “Mack’s on the phone. He wants to talk. Your boy Pax squealed.” Daisy said, trying to get him to see what the obvious play would be; trade him for stopping the truck.

It did not work.

He was willing to them leave them to their fate it seemed, and let a town burn to save however many other people.

As he made Snowflake panic at the realisation, he disappeared through the door again, locking it.

“Fucker!” You exclaimed, slamming your hand on the door.

Snow then started having a panic attack. If you were honest, so were you. You were on the verge.

“Y/N.” May said, coming over to you and putting her hands on your shoulder, “Y/N, focus on me. Focus on my breathing.” She took a deep breath in, then a deep one out, hoping that you would follow.

You did, slowly regaining your breathing to a normal-ish pace.

“You…..He……You – were wrong…about him.” You said, trying not to rush yourself despite the situation you were in.

“I’m sorry.” Was all she could say. You could tell she meant the words, though, your gut told you.

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Still, it wasn’t going to save you from this scenario, being in a truck with no way out and speeding towards a tower with a very, very, powerful bomb.

In fact, it was an atom bomb, going by Snowflake’s explanation of it. Now, even Deke was panicking.

“Deke. Deke, look at me.” He did so, “Listen, this is probably way out of your element, alright? I get that….But, we need you, ok? We need you to be the billion dollar inventor that actually earned his money to come out right now, alright? You’re not the playboy, you’re the inventor. Time to…well, I don’t know what you call it.”

“Time to dazzle.” He filled in for you.

You shard a look with your sister, “Sure, dazzle.”

“Hey,” Daisy said as she joined you in the corner. You had gone there and started to pace. Daisy knew that his moment as stressful, and knew how you could be in these situations, “You ok?” You gave her a look, “Right, sorry, bad question,” she then looked back to Deke, “You think he can do it?” She held some hope in her voice about your answer.

However, “Guy can’t even pour milk into a fucking bowl properly. What if I gave him false confidence. What if I just fucked us?” You asked, going into a ramble.

Daisy grabbed your arms, “Then –” She gulped, “—Then we go out together. You, me, and May. We tried. We went with what we thought was the best option. Followed our instinct to the end.”

She led you back to Deke, but kept a firm grip on your hand in worry. Just in case it all went wrong.

Deke then looked up at you all, shame in his features, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. This is happening.”

“You said it was time to dazzle.” Daisy said, not accepting it despite your conversation just moments ago.

“I’m sorry. I tried.” He was genuine.

You both then went to May, each taking a hand of her’s as she was in the middle of two now terrified children.

May’s face was understanding.

However, Daisy’s face then became full of determination as she dove for the bomb.

Then it all went dark.

You heard the truck hit, you all fell to the ground. You expected that to be it.

You didn’t’ expect to be shaken awake by a worried Daisy who then let out a breath of relief as you woke up, “Oh, thank god.” She said as she helped you up.

“What’d you do?” You asked as you stood up, a little shaken.

“I – uh – I contained the explosion.” She said, almost a bit unsure of it herself.

You couldn’t help the smile on your face as you hugged her tightly, “Oh, I am so proud of you!” You cheered as you kissed her on the forehead and hugged her again.

Then the Shrike were pounding the truck, with you all trying to stop them from getting in. You boarded up windows and closed doors, but they still continued to bang against it like there was no stopping them.

You used your power, covering up cracks and even creating a ball of dark energy that went off and sent some of them back.

“Y/N!” May called out, throwing you a blade, you caught it.

“You sure this is enough?” You asked.

“I’m hoping so.” There was no point in lying, she guessed.

Daisy looked at you, looking at your ability in the cracks, and it sparked an idea in hr mind.

“Fall back. Protect the bomb.” She ordered, giving you a message in her eyes: trust me.

Despite how you felt about it, the worry about her plan and what it could entail should it fail, you did stay back.

You trusted your sister.

She held out her palms, a look of pure concentration on her face as the Shrike entered the truck.

The next moment, they were all dissolved. All turned into nothing.

It was a whirlwind of happiness after this; Fitz was home, you had finally found him, and you were all reunited as a family. It was happy, it was nice.

You were leaning on the table, watching your family in this rare moment of peace. Your eyes going from one to the other; Daisy and Mack, the younger sister and older brother being little shits as always; Jemma and Fitz jus relishing in the fact in being back together.

Jemma had always held hope about finding Fitz, even going as far as to use what precious fuel you had left on a gamble that had paid off.

Where you jealous of your sister? A bit envious, not jealous. She had gotten her instincts right, there was still something wrong with yours.

What was it, though? You just didn’t know.

As you tried to sleep up the drink you had consumed, the alarms – that weren’t your normal alarm, but the blaring ones in the base – were not helping.

Sarge was now dead. Not in some big way – well, it was a big way, but not the big dramatic one that you thought would happen – actually, no, it was dramatic.

God, you needed sleep.

You seemed to be so out of it, that you didn’t even know that you were about to walk into Daisy until you actually had.

“Oof! Sorry, Y/NN.” She apologised, grabbing your arm as you were the one that almost fell.

“Sorry, my bad.” You said as you tried to suppress a yawn.

“You manage to get any sleep?” You shook your head as another yawn left you, “Told you that you shouldn’t have kept drinking.”

You shrugged, “Thought I could handle it.” Your sister only nodded.

The both of you were now playing detective, both trying to find what had made May commit the act of killing Sarge. You were both working off of the same theory, though: that May was innocent.

That led to you walking around the base and making mental notes of what you found.

It had led you to Davis and another agent who had been downed, but no memory. Seemed that your idea had merit to it.

That was kind of new, for you, even if you had been right about Sarge. At least you could stop this one from escalating.

Yeah, no. That didn’t happen. Instead, it led to you all second guessing one another.

You all needed to give secrets about one another.

Yours’s wasn’t anything big. No, not at all. Just Piper saying what your birthday gift for Daisy was going to be.

You didn’t have time to be mad, though. Davis was then taken over and killed as Piper was shot.

Now you were another agent down. Now, you were losing people you cared about. Now your instinct was getting people killed.

Mack and Elena were gone, but Sarge was now losing control.

You sat with him in his cell, trying to see if you could find an angle on him. Sure, May had faith that this was Coulson, but he wasn’t to you. He was just a husk.

“There’s hatred in your eyes. A bitter look. You’re finally getting it aren’t you?” He taunted you.

“May thinks there are memories, maybe there are. But, they aren’t yours. You’re a mix-matched fuck up of a man I looked up to.” You weren’t backing down.

“You still living up to your threat?”

“You going to be a threat.” Seemed you were both goading the other into action.

You finally got it when you were thrown across the room.

You knew that Daisy would be coming down to back you up, but you had the seemed destined sword. However, this one was to be used to strike him down. Not Izel.

You cornered him in a hallway. You held the blade up, fully intending to go through with it, when –

“Do it, Y/N! You always had the strength to do what needed to be done –” He had the face, he had the tone, he had the look in his eye.

The blade fell to the ground. It clattered, but neither of you cared. Maybe May had a point. Maybe she was right.

Maybe you just had it wrong.

Maybe it was Coulson.

Now you were on her side, almost fully on it. There was still a voice in your mind that told you that you were just fooling yourself. But, now you were torn.

He took you all to the temple. This was it, this was were it was going to come to a head. This was where you would face Izel, maybe now fully as a family.

A few fights later got you closer. Sarge looked at his pad, seeing it beep so much that you were sure it was going to break with the amount of Shrike around.

“I’ll distract them.” Daisy offered.

“Hey, no –”

“Y/N, I got this. I’ll quake ‘em if they get too close.”

“Daisy –” You tried again to stop her, but she was stubborn; the main Johnson characteristic.

“I’ll see you on the other side, Y/N.” She promised you, giving you a hand and then going on her own journey.

You had made it in with Daisy’s help. There she was, Izel. She didn’t seem pissed to see you, only happy.

It wasn’t a good start.

Still, you watched as Sarge kicked her ass. But, still, Izel held in there and tried to convert him.

He went with the blade –

Then stopped.

You had to watch in horror as the blade went into May and she was pushed through the portal.

“No, no, no, no.” You cried as you ran to fully go through with your threat, only to be thrown into the wall.

You weren’t Izel, you weren’t a god/alien, so it hurt, hard.

You got up, only to be knocked down again. Then again. Then again.

You weren’t dead. But you were damn close. You were pretty sure there wasn’t anywhere that didn’t hurt. Your own darkness blade was in your stomach, your suit cut and ripped. Your face a probable pulp at this point.

The world was blurry, and the sounds were echoey.

However, as you looked at the portal, you thought of the woman on the other side.

Melinda May, the one who didn’t back down if she had even an inkling of faith in her idea. Sure, it had gotten her thrown into the portal, but she would come out. You were sure of it.

You were also sure that the rest of the team would arrive.

So, by some miracle, you found the strength to get up on your feet. It wasn’t exactly quick, or sleek. But you got there.

“Just stay down, Y/N. I’d hate to have to show your corpse to your sister when she arrives.” Sarge taunted you as you swayed.

“Just need to hold you off long enough for them to get here. There’s no way in actual hell that you’re opening that fucking gateway.” You breathed out, spitting some blood out as you did.

You had a gut instinct that they would get here, that you would win.

And, for once, you didn’t doubt it.

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Another wall cracked as you hit it. Ok, if there was one thing you weren’t sure about, it was how much more this you could take.

The mere fact that you were still standing was a bloody miracle.

You got up, and he let you. So, credit were it’s due.

“Just sta—”

“Shut the fuck up.” You sighed, getting up for what would be the last time.

Harnessing your ability, you launched it at him. It pushed him back, but he still came forward.

You ducked under a punch, catching him with your own before pushing him back with your ability once more.

You then met the floor once more.

However, as he raised his foot to stomp on you, he was knocked back by a vibration.

You laughed, “Oh, you are so fucked now!” You coughed some blood up as you felt more dribble down your face, but that wasn’t the point.

Your sister was here to kick his ass.

You heard the fight as you went in and out of consciousness. When you came back once more, Mack was with a downed Elena and it was just Daisy.

You then heard what was unmistakably Izel cry out in pain. You raised your hand, managing to bring some strength to you one more time. Dark ropes wrapped around Sarge’s arms. You looked to your sister, and she nodded.

She Quaked him, revealing him in his true – pure alien – form. Mack, having caught the blade from May, used it to strike him down once and for all.

You then let your hand go, and you hit the ground one more time.

This was it.

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“Mack –” Daisy Johnson said as she moved away from May’s still figure and other to your figure that still had some life left in it. She looked at damage; the amount of blood trails on your face and cuts on your body.

“Mack, please –” She begged, voice raw and pained.

Her older brother looked conflicted, about whether to let her see you in your final moments. He knew that, if it was Rubin, he would want to be there too.

He moved to Elena, to support her after her moment with a Shrike.

Daisy gently grabbed your body, resting it on her knees as she ran a hand through your hair, “Hey, Y/NN.” She greeted, softly. It was almost so quiet that the other two didn’t hear.

You barely opened your eyes, but you gave her a timid and tired smile when you did, “It’s ok – it’s ok….Daisy.” You comforted. It was your job as an older sister, after all.

She continued to run the hand through your hair, all while trying to hold back more tears a they built up.

“You’re gonna be ok.” She said.

“I – I hope so.” You were vulnerable. And so very tired.

“I – I’m proud of you.” You managed to get out, before you went into that darkness once again.

Daisy sobbed, loudly as she held your body.

You had died. But, then again, you hadn’t. You were gone, but here all at once.

They were in the past, and Coulson was back in LMD form. They were only missing Fitz.

But, you and May, you were alive.

You were healing.

She put her hand to your pod window, “I’ll see you when you wake up, Y/N. I love you.” Were her last words before she followed her friends out into this time period.

She just had to wait until you would wake up.

Because you would wake up.

Her gut instinct told her that you would.

#daisy johnson x reader #daisy johnson imagine #agents of shield imagine #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d imagine #agents of shield x reader #sibling duty

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dibs4ever · 3 years

Text

Grieving

Nathan Gordon smiled at the little red headed bundle in his arms. So tiny, and new. Only a month old and so much had already happened to the poor child she had already gone through so much. Her mentally unstable mother running off in the night with her 4 year old brother.

Leaving her father alone with the newborn and a paper signing her rights over. Why keep one but not the other?

Nathan couldn’t understand it

Then again Barbara Keen never was exactly right in the mind

“Dad thanks again for offering to do childcare.” The voice of Jim Gordon spoke

Nathan looked up at his son and shook his head “Think nothing of it. It’ll give me something to do with my days now that I’m retired” he smiled bringing his infant granddaughter to his shoulder

Jim smiled “Well there is absolutely nobody else in the world I’d trust Barbara with. You raised my sister and I on your own which wasn’t exactly common in the 70s and 80s “

Nathan chuckled “Your mother was involved.”

Jim looked at his father over the brim of his glasses. Okay so maybe he did raise the kids on his own for the most part

Little back story on Nathan Peter Gordon

After getting an honorary discharge from the Vietnam war due to an injured leg he did what all the war men did and found a wife to marry and settle down with. It was 1962 he was 25 years old when he married Francis.

She wasn’t like his friends wives, she wasn’t sweet or doting. She didn’t ask him how is day was

She was a bitter women who wouldn’t stand for anyone who didn’t agree with her.

If he was being honest with himself the only reason he married her was because that’s what was expected of him. Women weren’t where his attraction laid. But being a gay man in the 1960s was just asking for a lifetime of criticism. Besides Francis could give him what he desired to be most. A father. Which happened in 1963 when his his daughter Hannah was born and then 3 years later when James was born

He absolutely loved being a father but always feared leaving them with Francis when he left forgot work as an attorney . She was cruel to them.

In 1970 after years of verbal abuse and accusations from Francis he finally confessed to the woman that he was gay.

They promptly divorced, Francis shocked the judge when she requested only to have the children every other weekend. Allowing Nathan to be the primary caregiver.

Something he thanked it was probably the only nice thing she ever did for him. Although he was certain she didn’t want them anyways. It wasn’t easy being a single dad but he wouldn’t trade it for anything, he supported and loved his children. Praising their accomplishments. Hugging them when they were downs and giving advice as they grew up under his wings.

Fast forward it’s 1996 and he’s holding his 30 year old sons newborn daughter.

Nathan takes care of his granddaughter every day and some nights for the next 5 years as his son worked his way up in the GCPD.

Then in 2001 she starts kindergarten and he only has her after school and some nights. It’s a bittersweet moment for both Nathan and Barbara. The two of them were each other’s best friends

Nathan waited outside the school with the other parents and caregivers. The school doors opening

“Grandpa!” The five year old shouted running across the school courtyard and into his arms with a flying leap.

She snuggled into his chest “I missed you.”

He chuckled lightly “So did I, come on little one, let's go get ice cream. It's Friday after all.” He smiled

4 years later he’s on his way to pick her up from school again. He hadn’t been feeling right . He has a coughing fit, then looks down at the kleenex...blood. Something wasn't right

Stuffing the napkin product in his pocket he decided to put on a brave face and go pick the light of his life Barbara Gordon up from school. She’d help him relax till his Doctors appointment next week

Nine year old Barbara opens the back car door and climbs in

“Hi grandpa.” She smiles leaning over the seat to plant a kiss on his cheek “Did you make any snacks at home? I’m starving.”

Nathan smiled, he almost always prepared a small snack for his growing grandauter to have when she returned from school. But today he had felt so ill and afraid due to coughing up blood that he completely.forgotten be had planned to make a her-her favorite snack of homemade nacho.

”I thought we’d get ice cream” be spoke looking back at the girl in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the driveway

She laughed lightly he freckles doing a little dance when her nose scrunched up. He adored her freckles “Grandpa it’s only Tuesday. We only get ice cream on Friday’s.”

He shrugged “Who says we gotta play by the rules.” He winked

Barbara smiled at him

The following year Nathan Gordon passes away from cancer. He’s surrounded by his daughter Hannah, her husband and their children along with his son and Barbara.

Barbara Gordon sat in the office chair of her fathers office. Since her grandfathers recent passing her dad had yet to make arrangements for a new childcare provider.

Not that she needed a babysitter. She wasn’t a baby. She was 10. Besides the past couple months her grandpa had been so weak she basically took care of herself anyways

Her dad had been gone for a while. Where to? she didn’t know. He never told her anything anyways.

She sighed and continued drawing random doodles on the piece of copy paper she’d been using for the past 30 minutes to occupy her time.

The door opened. Her dad stepping in. But he wasn’t alone . A boy with dark hair, shorter than her but probably around her age stood at his side. This she knew wasn’t common. Very rarely did her father handle children personally like this at work. The boy was looking down sadly.

“Why don’t you take a seat son” her father waved to the pair of seats that sat infront of his desk. The boy nodded then moved and took a seat in one of the chairs

“Barbara this is Richard. He’s 10 like you. Why don’t you keep him company while I make some phone calls in the hall.” Her dad informed

She nodded and watched him walk out, the office door closing behind him

After a moment of Richard not looking up, Barbara moved and switched seats to the available one beside him

“I’m Barbara, how are you Richard?” She asked

He shrugged

“Not much of a talker Huh? It’s okay I’ll talk. I’ve been bored out of my mind all night. My dad thinks I need a babysitter but I don’t. I mean I’ve literally been sitting in this office by myself all night anyways so tell me what the difference would be if I was sitting at my home all night alone?”

Silence

“I’ll tell ya, nothing. I finished all my homework within 30 minutes of being here. My grandpa had me on a strict routine. If dad was ever around when I got home from school the past 5 years he’d know I always finish my school work promptly. What grade are you in Richard?”

“Can you call me Dick?” He spoke softly

Barbara grinned “He speaks....uhh sure I guess. Like I was saying my grandpa. He knew, he always said I should skip a grade. Grandpa knew more about me then my dad.”

Dick looked up at her “I’m in 4th grade. You talk a lot” a small smile played on the boys lips. Although his blue eyes were still filled with saddness

Barbara flashed him a smile back “Sorry my grandpa always said I talked a lot when I was nervous and you being so quiet kinda brought it out.”

Dick nodded “You and your grandpa are close? You’ve already talked about him 3 times in the past 10 minutes”

Barbara inhaled a breath at the mention “We were he Umm. He died last month.”

Dick looked down again “Oh”

She nodded “First time someone close to me has ever died. Have ugh have you ever lost someone. Maybe you could help me, give me some advice.”

Dick was silent “I’ve lost someone. But I don’t have advice.”

Barbara tilted her head “Who did you loose?”

He took a deep breath “My parents.” He squinted his eyes

Her eyes widened she couldn’t imagine loosing her father. Loosing her grandfather was tearing her up inside as it was “When?” She wondered. They were only 10. How young was he when he became an orphan?

“Tonight-they were murdered. I saw it.” He choked

Barbara’s jaw dropped. That explained why he was here “Dick, I’m so sorry!”

Tears began to flow slowly from the boys eyes

Not knowing what to do, the young girl moved her hand grabbing the fellow boys hand and lacing their fingers. To her relief the boy squeezed hers tighter. Letting her know that the small movement was just the right amount of comfort he needed at that moment. Together the two adolescents sat holding hands. Tears slowly streaming down their faces. Finding comfort in their newfound friendship and grieving their recently lost loved ones

#dickbabs #dick grayson #barbara gordon #nightwing #batgirl

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kirishimas-lil-shark · 3 years

Text

Shot One: Katsuki Bakugou

Warnings: Smut 18+, some toxic coping oh well, dom Bakugou, Thiccc Y/N

Anyways enjoy your read and lemme know your opinions!

Words: 2.5k+

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Spicy Shot One (Bakugou)

You sat in the cold empty common room, your face in your hands, tears wetting your palms. You let out ugly sobs and curled your fists. It was unfair. Hugging your knees close to your chest as your tears shedded from your eyes and your sniffles slipped from your nose. It was unfair because you knew he was totally fine. You knew how much he didn't care and how many times you saw him looking in another girl's direction. You had to be happy for them because when you dated him, it was all fake. Just to get someone's attention. And it worked. They’re dating now and you have to sit back and grieve silently. The intent was to date, get the girl, walk away as friends. It was unfair that you caught feelings when he made it feel so real and that he didn't feel even a spark towards you. You needed to get it together and go to your dorm. Shaking, you pulled your trembling body off the couch and clutched your arms close to your chest. You slid your feet across the floor, keeping your gaze on the light caramel stained wood. A flash of baby pink ran through your vision and you were confused until you ran into a chest. Muscular arms embraced you and stood you back up to your feet before your knees hit the ground.

“What? The HELL!” His angry voice cut off when he saw your face. “...shit...are you okay?” You heard a familiar ash-blonde’s voice say and you instantly tensed up. There were certain things about you that you didn't want people to see. Crying was at the top of your list and here you were, with your classmate, sobbing into his toned arms. All your reply was just a weak sob of what you hoped he understood as a ‘no’. His fingers clenched as he hugged you closer, not saying a word. After about a minute your chokes, hics and whines dialed down to nothing but silent drops and you stepped slightly closer to your friend.

“I’m sorry Katsuki…” You half whispered. He tightened his grip and placed a hand on your cheek, making your sad eyes look into his. He smiled softly and kissed your forehead.

“Don't apologize, I knew how much you liked that stupid Deku...It must have crushed you. He didn’t deserve you” He replied in a grumly soft tone. All you could do was nod your head and bury your head in his chest. You weren’t used to coping this way but you swallowed up your nervousness and pressed your chest against him a little more. His eyes widened and he watched you slide your hand down to his hand and his breath caught when you intertwined your fingers with his. You knew this was a bad way to deal with how you felt but you also knew that Bakugou was a hot, steamy person you knew would show you a good time. You also knew of his feelings toward you as well. They didnt go past just having sex or...so you thought. You felt every hot sigh, hot breath, intense stare he had. Maybe it was more that he wanted, past what you wanted to do at the moment. Maybe you wanted more with him as well but tonight would decide that.

“Katsuki…” You shuttered out, looking in his eyes. He gulped and pulled you into a hot kiss. You stood up to your full height, your weak knees gaining new confidence and your other hand tugging his shirt collar. The action pulled him closer to you and he hovered his open hand over your waist. Your body was pressed against him and your self esteem rising each second his tongue worked in your mouth. You finally pulled away to catch your breath and his lips followed you, not wanting it to end. You smiled and looked him in the eye.

“Y/N…” He gasped out, pulling your waist and pulling you in for another hot kiss. You pulled away before it escalated again and pushed him slightly. He bit his lip as you leaned up and placed a small kiss on his neck. “Fuck…I…” His hand on your waist tightened and you started to drag him to his room. His dark room sat quietly in the night, only the sounds of the forgotten window he left open. Light flooded in the room as the couple stumbled inside. You close the door and start to slip off your shirt. His hand crept to his mouth as he watched you take off the clothing item. Blush furiously spread across his cheeks and nose when you tossed the item to the side.

“What?” You ask teasingly. He just shakes his head in response and moves toward you.

“You're gorgeous.” He whispers in a low growl that sends shivers down your spine. You brushed a strand of hair out of your eyes and looked at him, batting your eyelashes. Hooking your thumbs in the sides of your leggings, you pushed them down your legs slowly. They were soon kicked to the side where your shirt layed.

----

Katsuki was going bat shit crazy. How many times had he imagined your curves, your vulnerability, and of course your sweet succulent voice calling his name. Here you were, displayed in front of him, cladding in only your underwear. He could practically smell your heat from here and he wondered if he should do something. However, when you moved towards him, the thought of your body was being permanently engraved into his mind. He thought of him being the only one who got to see this. Not Deku, nobody. His excitement was running wild and he wondered if you could see it through his jeans.

Soon you took his hand in yours, intertwining your fingers and guiding him to the bed. He sat up with his elbows resting on the bed, legs spread as you sat in between them. Unlocking your fingers from his hand, you slid his shirt off his shoulders and caressed his toned muscles. Your lips found his again as your hand traveled down his chiseled chest, grazing the hem of his pants.

“Do you want this?” Your voice is barely above a whisper as you stop your movements. Katsuki lifts his hips ever so slightly, trying to get the friction he needs. His response is quick, placing a hand on your neck and pulling you in a kiss.

“Fuck yes” he hisses between his teeth. You move down by his pelvis and you stalk his jeans off of his legs. You glance at his boxers after his jeans are kicked to the side and you can't help but notice the dribble of pre-cum staining his dark grey boxers. You could practically see the outline of his dick poking through the thin material. Pulling the hem down, you finally give him the release of pressure that he needed and he lets out a guttural groan. His hips practically shutter as you spit loudly onto his throbbing heat. A lewd noise escaped his mouth as this explicit scene dragged on. You gave kitten kisses to the tip, keeping your hand loosely cupped around the base of his cock. You licked the pre-cum that dribbled from the slit, swallowing it down your throat.

You licked your lips and gave a long stroke to the underside of his shmeat and he sucked in a handful of air. Your hand stroked the bottom of his dick as you started sucking the tip into your mouth. Coming off it with an audible ‘pop’, you lowered your head and took him in your mouth as far as you could. Tears pricked at your eyes as you couldn’t fit the rest of him into your mouth. You lubricated the remaining skin with your spit in your hand, pumping wildly as you bobbed your head up and down. Katsuki watched this sight with hazy eyes. How cute you looked while you sucked him off. He grabbed a fistfull of your hair and grinded his hip to meet your movements. You hummed and hollowed your cheeks at the new sensation and it set him rolling towards the cliff.

God he needed to restrain himself from face fucking you through his orgasm.

“Wait- shit stop-” He hissed, pulling your head off his pulsating dick. You looked at him with curiosity as he quickly caught his breath. He looked at your face, your spit and his pre-cum dripping down your chin. Fuck. “Was gonna cum” He sputtered out. “I wanna do it inside you-fuck- let me fill you” He could practically see your pussy throb at his words and he put you on the bed, towering above you. You squeezed your thighs together to get some friction and a mewl came from your throat, earning a growl from him.

He slid his fingers down your panties, rubbing quick circles over your clit which made you gasp. You had never had this happen to you by another person. It felt amazing. His cold, calloused fingers flicking at just the right spot that built liquid in your folds. “‘Gonna make you feel so fucking good baby” He muttered, leaning down to give your neck and open kiss. He slid his middle finger to your entrance, his thumb never ceasing movements to your sensitive bud as he slipped the finger knuckle deep inside you. Your cunt unconsciously clenches around the tip of his finger as he pumped it in and out of you.

“Katsuki” You moaned, earning a grunt in response. You didn't expect him to respond in words because he was so busy marking your neck. “Please- I need you to fuck me” You let out and he bit down on your shoulder, kissing it afterwards. He pushes himself off you and uses his other hand to rip your panties off, earning a quick gasp from you due to the cold air. He pulls his hand away, licking the juices off his fingers and takes off his boxers. You watched with anticipation as he lined up with your entrance and you couldn't help but grasp the sheets. He slid his dick over your folds for good measure, the tip brushing up against you throbbing clit.

“Fuck you’re so wet-” He spoke, finally pushing his head into your slick cunt. It feels so good, but it's not enough for you. You grind your hips toward him, his cock sinking another inch inside you. The movement tore a moan from both of your lips as his hands dug into your hips. “I cant fucking wait to put my thick cock inside this sopping wet pussy of yours-” As if on que, more wetness seemingly gushed from your heat, your pussy sucking his dick deeper inside of you. He let out a string of curses as he finally pushed until he bottomed out inside of you. Letting you adjust, he glanced at your face and he almost lost control at the sight. Your head was looking up but he could see your mouth gaping a silent moan. Sweat dribbled down your body and your bra wasnt covering your soft breasts.

He traveled his hand to your ribs and ripped the material away.You didn't even react to the ruined garment that lay on the floor. You were too focused on the immense pleasure that ran through your body. A thick vein that traveled down his cock was rubbing up against your sweet spot and on top of that, his gruffudd was pressing down on your swollen clit. You needed him to move. To show him, because words weren't really catching up to your tongue, you grind your hips against him. It sent a shock wave spiral through your body and you felt your orgasm fast approaching.

As soon as you showed him that he could move, Katsuki wasted no time in slipping his cock almost all the way out before slamming back into you. The moans you let out were so pretty, he wanted more of them. So he repeated the same action. Multiple times. Your body felt so good. You couldn't even remember why you were crying earlier. One thrust from Katsuki finally sent you over the edge and you cried out his name as he rocked inside you. You rode out your orgasm, overstimulation building another inside you as you looked up to see. The sight made your second orgasm roll off of you and tears pricked your eyes. Katsuki was pistoning himself inside your dripping pussy, going at an unforgivable pace. It felt so good. Too good. He was smiling, probably feeling accomplished as he built up his release.

“You feel so fucking good-” He complimented, the head of his cock ramming into your cirvix. The mixture of pain and pleasure it brought you was bringing you to your third orgasm. You felt a little embarrassed that he made you feel that good. But you took this orgasm that washed over you to clench around his pulsating dick, milking him to his release. Hot, thick strands of cum spurted from his slit and inside of your heat.

You both stayed there for a while, your legs wrapped around his hips as his pulsing dick that stayed inside of you. All you could hear was the sound of your calming breaths and the slight breeze that came from the window.

“Katsuki I-”

“Be my girlfriend.” He interrupted, looking you in the eyes.

“What-” you sputtered. “But i thought that this is all you wanted.”

“It's not.” He smiled. “Its fucking great, yeah, but I bet you that I could be better than Deku ever could. In every way.” He kissed a tear off your face before speaking again. “Please. I really really like you…”

You smiled shyly and nodded your head. “Okay, yes I'll be your girlfriend.” He sighed in relief at your answer and plopped himself gently on top of you, your sweating bodies connecting as you wrapped your arms around him.

---lil time skip :)---

The morning rolled around and you fluttered your eyes open. You weren't naked anymore, but you decided to skip a bra and put one of Bakugou's shirts on when he went to go shower that night. While he was quick to get back to you, you had already fallen asleep on his bed and he didn't bother to wake you. Instead he just sighed and laid next to you, spooning you until morning.

He was still beside you when you sat up to check, rubbing sleep and post-sex from your eyes. You were ruffling your hand through his hair when there was a knock on the door. You inwardly groaned and didn't think about your attire as you opened the door. Deku stood at the other side and the twing in your heart still hurt but you noticed it wasn't as bad as yesterday.

“Izuku…” You twirled a finger through your hair.

“Oh, Y/N, I just wanted to ask Kacchann if he knew where you were. I figured you'd have a sleepover.” He smiled, rubbing his neck.

“Yeah a...sleepover..” You chuckled awkwardly.

“Um anyways, I hope you had fun.” You nod your head in response. “That good! Uh...I wanted to tell you something.”

“What is it?” You ask.

“I'm in love with you.”

-fin-

———————————————————————

Okay lemme just explain what a gruffud is. It’s basically the place where male pubic hair is. Like where you see the v line? Yeah there :)

#bakugou x reader #Bakugou #katsuki bakugō #mha #my hero academia #smut #katsuki #katsuki x reader #my back is fucking killing me #help #anyways #hope you're all well #late night story’s #go to bed #no

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anon-e-miss · 4 years

Note

I wonder if Prowl will shun Jazz for taking the little seedling or go willingly in the hopes jazz will take him to his baby ❤💙💎

As the light-cycle passed slowly by, the bitlet never really settle. He took the shortest of naps as exhaustion overtook him, but he spent the majority of the long joors wailing or sobbing. Jazz had prepared to bribe his creations with energon goodies to keep their peace but they surprised him with their empathy. They tried to draw smiles from the bitlet, using the puppets their grand-ori had made them for their emergence-cycle. Separation from his originator, and almost certainly hunger made the newling miserable but from time to time he calmed enough to watched them for a bream here or there, before he fell back into his misery. Throughout the mega-cycle Jazz and his ori tried to convince the newling to take some fuel, but he refused the bottle each time. It might have been Jazz’s imagination but he thought the bitlet’s colour had dulled a little, though that could have been the dim light of their habsuite. All of the windows were boarded shut, like every other habsuite in the Dead End. It protected them from stray bullets.

Punch left Jazz to mind the inconsolable newling and his own bemused creations. At least the Twins had decided to see some humour in the situation, instead of sulking about the cacophony. They had never seen Jazz unnerved. It had been important to him to keep the anxieties of their situation, and his business from them. Too soon they would be too old to hide the realities of the Dead End, and the family business from. Jazz would guard their innocence as long as he could.

“Good news, Jazz,” Punch declared after the door had latched behind him. “The Death’s Head took off the light-cycle and the Constructicons are on his tail. Bruticus actually tried to knock Lockdown out of the sky.”

“So Swindle’s personally on the hunt... That’s good. There might be nobody home to guard the dryad.”

“Y’re gonna go this dark-cycle.”

“I gotta. Newlings don’t last long without fuel.”

“How do ya plan on convincin’m to come along quietyl?”

“Hopefully he’s reasonable... or desperate. If I have to use the bitlet to lure’m out, I will. But I’d rather not bring’m out. If anyone’s at home, his wailin’ll draw’m out.”

“Ya’d be right, I suspect. I’ll listen for yer call. If ya can’t gettin’m this dark-cycle, will try again tomorrow. Don’t be stupid.”

“I won’t get caught.”

Swindle had not delayed his hunt by servicing his security grid. Jazz found it still disabled, though he triggered a second EMP grenade just to be safe. The garden was utterly silent, despair hung heavy in the air. It seemed to Jazz as if every crystal shrub and tree was grieving with the dryad. He rubbed the back of his neck. Jazz knew he should have spoken to the mech, reassured him that he would return for him, but Jazz had been impulsive. His progenitor protocols had screamed in his helm as Vortex’s glyphs repeated over and over in his memory banks. It did not matter to his core programming that the newling was not his. He as innocent. Jazz saw Gripper’s brutalized creations in his helm and took a long intake. His programming had never settled back down after he had stumbled upon that scene.

Jazz set off another two grenades as he found Swindle’s boobytraps. It was more than there had been the dark-cycle before but it was far too little and far too late. Swindle had trusted his high walls and his flashy security grid to keep out thieves, but any thief with a couple vorns experience would have been to find a way around the grid. It was all show, and no real substance. Fear of the fate that lay in wait for thieves and debtors had kept Swindle’s loot save. Too bad for him Jazz was not sensible enough to be afraid.

The crystal brush was dry and brittle, Jazz realized as he slipped passed. The flowers that had been in bloom all over the grotto were limp and dead. A visualization of the dryad’s mourning. Jazz looked out towards the sprawling garden and saw the whole of it was dark and dead. With his grief the dryad had killed every crystal planted in the garden. Swindle must have been furious. What would he do to the dryad if it remained like this. Some of these crystals were rare imports, and Jazz knew what they had cost. He had stolen more than a hundred of them for Swindle from all over the globe over the course of the vorns. They would not be easily replaced.

He found the dryad where he had left him. The tree he was bound to was as dead as those surrounding the grotto. Without the lush foliage disguising it, the cuff around the dryad’s wrist could not be mistaken for anything but a vicious restraint. Ugly chains wrapped around the crystalline dryad from the base of his crystal form, all the way his frame. It was horrid, and ugly. Might it be punishment for the death of Swindle’s garden? Or had the dryad tried to escape somehow? Jazz stepped into the clearing and inched towards the dryad, searching the ground for more traps. It worried him that the dryad remained crystalized. Might the perceived loss of his creation have caused him irreparable harm?

Suddenly a vine, or perhaps a root reared up and slashed at Jazz from just metres to his left. Jazz dodged neatly. Another erupted from the soil and Jazz jumped again. They lashed at him from all sides and Jazz twisted, jumped and flipped about, only barely avoiding the dryads attack. Jazz leapt over the mass of angry vines and scaled the faux waterfall even as the vines slashed up at him. He found himself clinging to the dead tree, chassis to chassis with the dryad. Before Jazz’s optics, the dryad transformed from a roughly mech shaped crystal, into a striking, and enraged Praxian.

“Thief!” The dryad snarled in his face.

There was contempt in the glyph and unbridled hate in his field. Jazz could not exactly fault him. He stared at the dryad for a moment. It was still difficult to wrap his processor around the idea that dryads were real, that this garden ornament was a living and ventilating mechanism, but he was pulled from his stupor as the dryad tried to thrash against his chains. Fresh energon flowed down his arm from his cuffed wrist. Jazz could hear the chains around the mech’s plating grinding against his plating.

“Stop, stop, stop,” Jazz entreated, though he could not imagine how he could actually force the dryad to obey. The bound mechanism’s pale optics glowered at him with contempt.

“Why? Because my value will be diminished?”

“No. I don’t care ‘bout yer value. I don’t want to see ya hurt.”

“Lies. You are a thief.”

“I am a thief. Y’re right about that.”

“Lockdown hired you to steal my creation.”

“How’d ya know Lockdown hired me.”

“He has been persistent in his efforts to get Swindle to sell me. But Swindle wishes to fill the grotto with living statues. I was not, I am not, for sale.”

“So why not steal ya?”

“He knew well I would not go with him.”

“Ya wanna stay here?”

“Lockdown lusts for me. Swindle lusts for wealth and beauty. Both are intolerable, but one more so.”

“Scrap,” Jazz’s fuel tank rolled as he asked: “Is the bitlet his?”

“No. My creation is no ones but my own,” the dryad replied, and his optics flashed with white heat. “Swindle has not found another dryad despite paying a great fortune on the services of bounty hunters. I would not tell him where my kin reside, thus he settled on propagating me.”

“Propagating...”

“Lockdown paid a dear some to help stimulate me so that I would bud.”

“‘M sorry.”

“Do you think I care if you are sorry?”

“Probably not. Look. Swindle’s off chasin’ Lockdown ‘cause he figures Lockdown took the bitty himself. There’s no tellin’ when he’s gonna come back. We don’t got a lot of time to get away.”

“You think I will go with you?”

“If ya want yer bitty back, ya,” Jazz replied. The suspicion the dryad was all but seething with was not a surprise. He would have been worried if the mech was too cooperative. “Even if ya could get out o’ these chains on yer own, ya got an entire city to search. Come wit me, ‘n ya get yer bitty back ‘n ya won’t be Swindle’s ornament, or Lockdown’s berthslave.”

“And what would you have me do for you?”

“I don’t fraggin’ know. I took the job from Lockdown ‘cause he was willin’ to pay the crystal’s weight in shanix. I didn’t know he was a dryad. I didn’t think ya existed in anythin’ but my ori’s stories.”

“My kind do best when we are nothing but fairytales.”

“Y’re probably right.”

“I am worth more than my weight in shanix. It has been millenia since my kind were commonly found in manicured gardens.”

“I don’t deal in mechanisms.”

“A thief with a conscience.”

“Everyone has their limits.”

“What did you need that payout for?” The dryad asked. “Drink? Whores?”

“My brother.”

“Why?”

“He fragged off his patron ‘n Kaon. ‘M tryin’ to put together ‘nough credits to pay his fine ‘n get’m home.”

“It appears we have something in common.”

“What’s that?” Jazz asked.

“We both do stupid things for our brothers.”

#anon-e-miss writes #maccadam #dryad prowl #thief jazz #tf jazz #tf prowl #lockdown is a creep

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