#ma political science | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

driftward · 5 months

Text

Title: The Disappearance of Apple Silverberg Characters: Zoissette Vauban, Ryssthota Sundstyrwyn, Apple Silverberg Rating: Teen Summary: Apple's gone missing and there's a killer loose in the Twelveswood. Can Gage Acquisition's very own agent of inquiry crack this case before something horrible happens? Notes: Part of an ongoing series being written by my friend Darlain, base master post here

Ryss frowned. She'd greeted Zoissette when arriving at the workshop before settling down to focus on her latest set of equations, leaving the other woman to her own devices. But then Zoissette had made a beeline for Apple's area in the workshop, which while not against any formal rule, was, at least, kind of rude. She watched her for a few moments as Zoissette ducked down over Apple's desk, beginning to rifle through drawers and picking through various tools.

"What are you doing, Zo?" she asked at last.

"Have you seen Apple?" asked Zoissette.

"No."

"Weird, right?"

Ryss paused, and thought about it for a moment.

"Not really?" she said, finally. "We're adventurers, Zoissette, and Apple likes to go on those long sojourns into secured Allagan territory looking for materials for her work."

"Of course, of course," said Zoissette. She had found some kind of notebook, and was flipping through it quickly.

"...that's Apple's stuff," said Ryss, keeping her tone even. Working in the Assessor's Guild had taught her patience with the queerest of arcanists, and her friend was queerer than most.

"Ignore the last couple of sennights. Where has she been spending most of her time before then?"

"...well, she was helping out taking care of you," said Ryss. Zoissette had been in a bad way after a misadventure in the rift between realms and had needed to be nursed back to health. "And when she was not in the infirmary, she was in here, working on something that'd help you."

"Right. Right! She has been reliably in the same place, for several sennights, up until very suddenly she was not. Did not sign out, did not check with anyone, did not say goodbye to anyone near as I have found out. Wait. Did she say goodbye to you?"

"No..."

"No," echoed Zoissette.

"Zoissette," said Ryss.

"Right. Not to you, not to me, not to anyone else on the science team. Maybe to Y'zel, but he has vanished as well. Though Y'shtola has assured me to not worry about him. Still though. Just suddenly gone. Unusual break in pattern."

Zoissette frowned as she traced her fingers along a few lines in the notebook she had found.

"Have you tried linking to her?" asked Ryss.

"Naturally. You try. Maybe mine got fried during the time in - well. Maybe it got scrambled on some links without me knowing."

Ryss held a hand up to her linkpearl and tried to contact Apple through it, watching as Zoissette began to examine some device Apple had been working on.

The door to the workshop opened, and Yesuntei walked in, followed closely by a Wood Wailer. The linkpearl was making the noise that indicated it could not establish a connection, so Ryss gave up on it and turned to greet the newcomer.

"Visitor for Zoissette," said Yesuntei politely.

Zoissette looked the Wood Wailer over. So did Ryss. Elezen gentleman of some sort, wearing the typical green leather armor of one of their lancers. The very image of a typical member of the forest force.

"Foreseer Vauban?" he asked.

Ryss glanced over and saw Zoissette's forehead crinkle and her eyes flutter as she tried to affect some kind of specific facial expression, what, Ryss did not know. Zoissette gave up and wiped her face with a hand after a moment as she stood up and walked over.

"Not in some time, no."

"But... you are, or were, her, yes?"

Zoissette nodded, and he continued. "Ah, blessings of the elementals upon us all today. We've heard about your prowess for investigation, and you come highly recommended. Now, I know Gridania is a different sort of place, but I rather suspect we're dealing with a different sort of problem that's beyond my people just now. We think we may have a killer on the loose. I was hoping that we'd be able to hire your services as an adventurer to come take a look."

Zoissette looked over at Ryss, who shrugged in response, then back to the Wood Wailer.

"Begging your pardon, but I have no idea how I would have gathered such a reputation. Having said that, Gage Acquisitions does offer several adventurer hiring packages, and... uhm..."

She looked over at Ryss.

"...and, uhm, you will need to work through Ryss for them."

Ryss grinned at the man.

"Ah, but I was rather hoping for your attention, Foreseer Vauban."

"And you will have it," said Zoissette. Ryss watched as she tucked several things of Apple's away, from notebooks to tools to a device that she did not recognize. "However, contracts will need to go through her, as I am currently, uhm-"

"She's currently working on a project under me!" said Ryss, covering for her awkward friend.

The Wood Wailer did not look very certain at that, but he nodded.

"Yesuntei, kindly make the arrangements, if you would, I'm sure we can both spare the Wailers some of our time." Ryssthota continued.

"Certainly," the Au Ra said, gesturing at the Wood Wailer. He held his arms parallel to each other in front of him in the salute that was particular to Gridania, and then followed Yesuntei out.

"The game's afoot?" said Ryss.

"What game?" asked Zoissette, blinking at her. Ryss just laughed as she closed up her book, and went to grab her hat.

It was many bells and a couple of corpses later. The Wood Wailers had signed them on to the job officially, and had escorted them, first to look at the body of a man found in town, then to the body of a ziz whose injuries bore a striking resemblance to those of the man. Both sites were grisly, telling similar tales. Both bodies had been maimed, each looking as though they had been attacked with some kind of large bladed weapon or weapons.

As they had travelled, the Wood Wailers had shared the stories of similar incidents throughout the Twelveswood. Other bodies had been found over the intervening moons before hand. Many but not all of them were Spoken, and the Wood Wailers had found the bodies of both man and beastkin that had shown similar signs of mutilation, and brought these stories to the attention of the investigation as well.

Zoissette had not spoken much, and so Ryss had been left to ask questions. Where the bodies had been found, who had last seen them, anyone who might have talked to the victims before they died, things of that nature. Zoissette had mostly walked around and looked and taken notes, every once in a while reaching up to try to tap the rim of her glasses, which she of course did not have, and often winding up just thwapping herself in the nose instead.

It might have been funny if not for the circumstances.

Ryss wandered up to her as she was crouched, sprinkling some arcane powder over the site, and watching as its color shifted. Ryss crossed her arms and frowned, looking out into the forest. Nearby, Meya was looking up into the forest canopy, her eyes half-lidded. Zoissette had asked for her to help. As a Hearer, her ability to commune with the elementals might provide information they otherwise would not be privy to. As Zoissette examined the drifts of the arcane powder, Meya lowered her staff, apparently having finished communing with the spirits.

"The elementals are cautiously calm, and are not very upset on the matter," she declared. "Whatever it is, it is not unduly balancing the wood. They are unable to tell us who or what is behind these attacks, but they do know it is the same entity for both. Given some time to visit the other sites, they may be able to tell me more about the other similar scenes that the Wood Wailers report have occurred elsewhere in the Twelveswood. They say we are dealing with a creature of significant depth - I think maybe they are talking about its aether? - but not one they see as a threat to the woods as a whole."

Ryss nodded thoughtfully while Zoissette scribbled some notes.

"Almost want to say we have some kind of vengeful vigilante sort out here. None of the victims were well liked. Hells, other than the one drunkard actually found in town, none of them are even part of what I would call civilization," said Ryss.

"If so, it is an outsider of some sort pursuing what they see as justice," said Zoissette thoughtfully. "Gridanians are insular. In many ways worse than my own people. Think about it. They have a poaching and bandit problem, sure, but everyone knows everyone else here, usually with pretty small degrees of separation. This is not Limsa Lominsa, where a lone killer might have it out for a rival pirate crew, or Ul'dah where they're spread out and family lines are weaker. No, if you kill a bandit in Gridania, you are very likely killing someone's brother or sister."

"Oh. And that could mean bad blood between neighbors."

Zoissette looked thoughtful. "Right! But I do not think this is that. If vigilantism or some gesture at misguided justice, why bother with the beastkin, then?"

"I was wonderin' that. Killer got hungry, perhaps?"

"Too much meat left behind for that, and the Wailers pointed out that no body found yet has been even so little as field stripped. Consider the patterns we do have. The fact that the bodies are completely undressed leaves out poachers or hunters. They would want to harvest at least some of the material from the beastkin, leather, meat, useful bones and organs. I think we can also rule out a vigilante. A vigilante would not bother with killing beastkin. And further I think they would leave the bodies somewhere more conspicuous if they wanted to send a message."

"More conspicuous? The bodies are plenty obvious."

"Obvious, to be certain! No effort was made to display them, but also, no effort was made to hide them, either. The killer did not care if they were found. A vigilante, I would think, would either want to hide their tracks, so that they could get away with their grisly task for as long as they possibly could, or so as not to tip their hand as to what they are up to. Or, or! Or they would display the bodies prominently, so as to send a message."

Ryss looked thoughtful for a moment. "...but our killer has done neither. I noticed that myself. The bodies weren't moved at all. No drag marks. Just left to drop where they were killed."

Zoissette nodded.

Ryss returned the gesture. "That rules out the easy options, and explains why the Wailers are hiring outside help."

"It does. We have a few more left, however. Our killer left behind meat, but that does not mean they did not feed."

Zoissette gestured at the thin coloring of the arcanist powder she had spread as it drifted through the air. Ryss looked at it thoughtfully.

"Aetherical signatures?"

Zoissette nodded. "I used this powder in some investigations in Mor Dhona, and have made some adjustments to its capabilities. Like you say, normally it is useful for seeing someone's aetheric signature. I wanted to see if perhaps we could get a read on any spell work that had been used - if nothing else, we might be able to match it to a known spell caster, should we ever get any potential suspects. But, look - I will want to go back to the workshop and get a set of goggles from Sharlayan to confirm it, but there is more to aether than just its signature. There is also its density."

Ryss crossed her arms, and frowned.

Zoissette reached up for her glasses rim again, and again wound up just thwapping her nose. She did not seem to notice, however, and Ryss thought she caught a glint of purple in Zoissette's otherwise brown eyes.

"And each of our victims has an unusually low aetheric density."

"Uhm. Are... you sure about that, Zo?"

"Like I said. I would like to confirm that with equipment from the workshop. Or perhaps Meya's invisible friends can weigh in?"

"I can ask," said Meya, who had patiently been listening the entire time.

"Please do so. And check in with the other sites. Say, do the elementals have a concept of time?"

"Sort of," said Meya. "Or at least, enough for us to get impressions. They do experience time, just a little different from us, but similar enough. Why do you ask?"

"Hmn," said Zoissette. "See if you can get a sense of when each of the attacks occurred. Little interested in time of day. Very interested in calendar dates. Approximations will be fine, I do not expect them to know what a calendar is, but surely they can approximate the number of times the sun has gone past since an event happened?"

Meya nodded slowly. "I... think I can manage that. I will need some time. This is neither fast nor simple."

Ryss just looked at Zoissette oddly as the other woman stood up and stretched her back.

"I believe you have it. Thank you, Meya. Meet us back at the workshop?"

Meya nodded, and moved off. Ryss walked over to look over Zoissette's shoulder, to see that she was tracing a finger over dates she'd written down, of when each of the bodies had been found. Ryss frowned lightly.

"I don't see a pattern," she said.

"Of course not," murmured Zoissette. She tapped the dates each. They were the days on which the Wood Wailers had found one of the grisly scenes, including the most recent one. "How long do you think a body lasts out in the Twelveswood before scavengers get to it? Three days at most, you think?"

"Sure?"

Zoissette nodded, and flipped over to a calendar, in which she made marks on each of the dates, along with little red marks three days behind each of them.

"So that means it is entirely possible that a body would be gone before a Wailer patrol could find it and identify it. Consider also - they have told us of the bodies they found matching the pattern we see here with these two, the ziz and the man. But they will not always be able to identify a body as matching that pattern if the scavengers do get to it first. Lot of death in nature."

Zoissette thoughtfully made some more marks.

"I suspect Meya may be able to confirm this... but look. There is no pattern, but if you put a few additional data points in - one emerges. I think Meya is like to confirm this."

Zoissette handed the notes to Ryss, and Ryss looked. With Zoissette's additional marks, a pattern did emerge.

A semi-regular schedule. About once a month, an attack occurred, rarely more than a few days off in either direction.

Ryss quirked an eyebrow, and looked at Zoissette, but Zoissette just shook her head.

"Probably nothing for now. Just keep it in mind as we gather more evidence."

Ryss looked at the body. "So what are you thinking, then? A voidsent?"

Zoissette frowned lightly. "I am not sure. It would fit, except that voidsent, while common in the Great Wood, are generally not so messy. This speaks to a powerful voidsent, if it is."

"Right," said Ryss, thinking back to what they had already found. "Yeah, most of the places where it looked to be a fight, wasn't much of a one. Doesn't look like anybody even had much of a chance to run."

"Which is unusual. Consider. How could a voidsent get that powerful and go unnoticed? And most voidsent that are that powerful will want to continue to go unnoticed, lest people like us get called in to deal with them. Or if it is not that smart, why is the last site from over a sennight ago, then? Did it suddenly get shy?"

"A period of terror, then a sudden stop," said Ryss, thoughtfully. "Maybe somebody dealt with it already. Or maybe the conditions were good for it to be here, then suddenly they weren't."

"Maybe," said Zoissette, sounding doubtful. "Well, there is little more for us to learn out here, I think. Can I ask you to verify that aetheric density theory of mine?"

"Sure thing," said Ryss. "What are you going to do in the meantime?"

Zoissette tucked her equipment away. "I am going to go visit Apple. Last I was aware, her houseboat had an aetheryte on it."

Ryss fixed Zoi with a long look. "This isn't the first time she's dashed off to chase some Allagan ruin rumor without notice. But you're fixating. Why?"

Zoissette looked away, worry clearly written on her face. Ryss rested a hand on her shoulder.

"...I want to give her my thanks for looking over me," said Zoissette, quietly. "And I am worried about her. Is this not just like what happened to me? Everyone just assumed I was fine until suddenly I was gone and it was obvious I was not. And maybe this is better than sitting on my own thoughts too long and too much. Again."

Ryss took in a deep breath, and nodded. "...yeah. Okay. You're right. Wait up and let me take those readings first and I'll go with you. Maybe it's all these bodies making me nervous, but I'm starting to get worried too."

Zoissette looked up at her and smiled. "Thanks, Ryss."

"Don't mention it. Or do. Preferably when someone asks about it for my next performance review."

Zoissette gave as short laugh, and Ryss grinned at her.

It did not take Ryss long to confirm Zoissette's theory. She was not sure how Zoissette knew, but examining each of the bodies with the Sharlayan aetheric goggles had confirmed what she had said. The aether of each of the bodies was far thinner than it should have been, even beyond the usual veil of death. They had been drained, and for what, she did not know. And despite what Zoissette had said, she still rather suspected a voidsent.

Something large, with claws like blades.

She met Meya back at Headquarters. The woman was all smiles, despite the grimness of her task.

"The elementals were cooperative. I was only able to get vague impressions from them, but the same thing has been in the Twelveswood before, and is responsible for the bodies found. And a few others aside. They cannot describe it to me, but it is distinct to them. They're a little worried about it, but not very, not yet - not enough to take action. I hope we're catching it before it becomes a problem."

Ryss nodded as Meya handed her a sheet of paper. "And here's the dates of the other attacks, as near as I could manage. The way they describe time is different than how we experience it, but it's like we like to say amongst the Hearers - the land has a long memory."

Ryss nodded, and checked over the dates.

"Huh," she said. "She was right. There was a pattern."

Meya nodded thoughtfully. And then tilted her head up at Ryss. "How is she holding up? After the breakup?"

Ryss blinked.

"She hasn't said anything about that."

"Oh. Oh! Uhm. She kind of just blurted it out when we were speaking earlier, but if she hasn't brought it up with you, then maybe nevermind then."

Ryss just groaned, and Meya patted her on the shoulder.

"Well, look after her, will you?" said Meya.

"Of course," said Ryss, rubbing at her head.

Well, at least Zoissette had found an arguably healthy outlet for her anxieties this time, she supposed.

She and Zoissette arrived at the houseboat in the same teleportation spell, Ryss taking the lead so as not to tax Zoissette's anima. The teleportation energies dissipated around them both and the world faded in rapidly as they arrived on Apple's houseboat.

Odd. This was not where Apple usually docked it.

Zoissette was off, quickly. Ryss kept a careful eye on her as she and Ryss took several moments to wordlessly walk around the top deck. The houseboat was moored, but had been abandoned for some time. The hatches were all battened down, and the windows and front door had all been warded and secured quite firmly.

"Guess she's not here," said Ryss.

"And did not expect to return," said Zoissette. "Examine the wards again."

Ryss looked at them carefully, this time paying more attention to the arcanima techniques that had been used to make them.

"...huh," she said. "No, I see what you mean. Static, shouldn't need maintenance for a while, and with a secondary arcanima array makin' sure they keep aether stable without needing more crystals than were used to bring them up in the first place."

"And the rest of the ship - you worked in the Maelstrom, same as me. Look at how the mooring lines have been done, the hatches, and the bilge overflow lineup."

Ryss checked again. Everything had been set to stay, rather than a more convenient setup that would make more sense for docking if the owner had, in fact, intended to come back.

"...this is more than just a gone-for-holiday setup," said Ryss.

"Indeed. I suspect you have rarely seen this setup; I know I have only seen it once or twice. This boat has been abandoned in place. Getting it properly seaworthy again would take bells, but with this setup, it will float for moons, possibly even summers, assuming a storm does not smash it."

Ryss put her hands on her hips and scanned the water, frowning as she thought. "Why the hells would she do such a thing?"

Zoissette just made a noncommittal noise, and Ryss turned to see the woman crouched down, fiddling with the front door.

"We can't break in just because we're worried," Ryss protested.

"No?" said Zoissette.

"Zoissette."

Zoissette sighed, and stopped what she was doing.

"Come on. Even if we're worried, there are other things we can do before we break into her house. Ask one of the spies to look into it. Ioh, Iyna, Nyx, they're all good at tracking people down."

Zoissette was quiet for a moment. Ryss decided now was as good a time as ever to bring it up.

"Dumped Mathye, eh?"

"This is not about that," Zoissette protested. Then she sighed. "...but yes," she admitted, letting her shoulders sag a bit as she leaned against the door.

"Better than stringing him along when you know it ain't happening. Chase your bliss, girl!" said Ryss.

Zoissette let out a breath. "Okay. Yes. I know it was the right thing to do. But it hurts. And he is hurting. And everything hurts. And I did not want to hurt him but I did and right now I would rather stay focused on Apple and hope she is okay."

Ryss nodded, and patted Zoissette on the shoulder. "It was a clean break. Nothing wrong with that. Clean wounds heal properly."

Zoissette blinked a few times at that, and a quizzical kind of frown crossed her face, as her eyes darted back and forth as she thought before she looked up at Ryssthota.

"...that is not a perspective I had considered," she said. "You are right."

Zoissette turned her attention back to the door, took a deep breath in, and let it out slow, her stance strengthening once more.

She was going to be alright.

"Atta girl. Now let's see-"

Ryss stopped suddenly. Zoissette was no longer fiddling with the door, but had been leaning against it, apparently resting her hand rather heavily on its latch. Apparently, because it was hard to say what she had thought she saw happened.

She was fair certain Zoissette's arm had faded and gone through the door for a moment.

She was not sure though, because in the next instant, the door had suddenly opened, and Zoissette had fallen into the houseboat.

"Zo!"

"I'm alright! I am alright! Sorry, just - startled."

Ryss rushed over and looked in to see Zoissette sprawled out on the floor, looking around the place and blinking owlishly.

"What the hells just happened? Zo, what'd you do?"

"I did not do anything! The door must have opened from the inside."

Ryss leaned over and looked around inside carefully, her mind starting to reach for Glitterdust to summon the fairy. If there was anyone inside, and they were not Apple, she intended to meet them with axe and magic.

But as she looked, there was no movement, no noise, no nothing. Just Zoissette starting to pick herself up off the floor, and Ryss herself.

"Well, since we are in here anyroad," said Zoissette.

"...right," said Ryss.

They took a bell to search the houseboat. It did not particularly need to take that long, as the houseboat was not all that large, as houseboats often were not, but they were thorough, checking under things, in the overhead, behind every stick of furniture and in every drawer. Zoissette found some notes of Apple's quickly and had split her attention between reading them and helping search.

Zoissette's focus was different, now. Less frenetic, now. Ryss was pleased at the change, as she went to confirm what they had already learned from the outside.

Namely, that the houseboat had been set to be abandoned in place. None of its equipment was set up for sailing, ceruleum had been drained, pipe systems had valve lineups set up for abandonment, wards set, everything locked, tied down, or otherwise secured.

"Nobody's here," said Ryss at last.

"And has not been in some time," agreed Zoissette. She was fiddling with one of Apple's drawers, using the arcane powder again. Whatever she saw caused her to frown.

"Find something?"

"...nothing that I want to say is conclusive," said Zoissette. "The bottom of this drawer has an arcane seal though. Fiendishly complicated.

"...wish I had Lavender," she murmured softly.

"I have Glitterdust," offered Ryss.

"Glitterdust is more frontline combat oriented. Lavender and I had advanced cryptographic arithmetics, since we delved deep into Nym research data. Wait. Hang on."

Zoissette pulled out the familiar arcanist's quill and inks, reaching into the drawer, beginning to draw geometries. Her eyes had that odd purple glow to them again, this time Ryss was certain of it.

"I might remember enough to do this without her," Zoissette was murmering quietly. Ryss wanted to ask her about the glow, but also did not want to break her concentration.

"There!" said Zoissette, doing something Ryss could not see, but a moment later she came up with journals. She flipped one open to read it.

"Zoi?" asked Ryss.

"Diaries," said Zoissette. "Here. I do not want to pry into her personal life overmuch, but..."

Zoissette gestured for Ryss to get closer, and then waved a hand at the little arcane powder that was left in the drawer.

"...no," said Ryss.

Zoissette nodded. "It is not identical, but there are too many similarities to discount, between the patterns and colors. Here. Let me try again. Go test some on her wards."

Zoissette handed a small pouch of the arcane powder to Ryss. Ryss nodded, and quickly began testing it on various wards around Apple's home. Questions about Zoissette's oddness could wait.

The results were quick and obvious. Ryss returned to Zoissette, who had begun reading through the diaries.

"Signature is close to the one we found in the Twelveswood," said Ryss.

"Aspects are slightly different, but the baseline is the same," agreed Zoissette. "Did you know she was working on a method of restoring my aetheric density?"

"I knew she was working on something to help you. I wasn't able to keep up with what. I was trying to tend to and repair the laboratory."

"And her diary entries talk about a condition she has," said Zoissette, softly. "The need to hunt animals. About once a month. She shifted to Azys Lla at some point to handle it."

Zoissette handed the journals to Ryss, who took them and looked through them cautiously. Zoissette had a haunted expression on her face.

"She has a research lab in Azys Lla," said Ryss. "We helped her set it up. Maybe she's just working on something else to help?"

Zoissette frowned, then shook her head, slowly.

"I think something has gone very wrong."

"Do we go after her, then?"

"Absolutely," said Zoissette. Then a moment later, more forcefully, "Yes. Yes, absolutely. Contact Erick or Dark. Whoever answers, let them know we might need a full team. Mix of heavy assault, assault picket, and support, two squads worth. While he works on that, we need to find her. I am going to contact Nyx and Klynt. We will go in as a light search and rescue party to begin with, see if we can find her."

"What do you think has happened?" asked Ryss, as her hand went to her linkpearl.

"I dare not speculate without more evidence," said Zoissette. She opened her mouth as if to say more, then shook her head, and she began placing her own linkpearl calls.

~*~

It was scarcely a bell later, and they were walking across the unusual landscape of Azys Lla, heading towards Apple's laboratory. Ryss was careful as she walked along, keeping an eye out, axe in her hands. She had not summoned Glitterdust - not yet - but the stone that held the little fairy was tucked into a pocket. Klynt was with her, with her long and deadly naginata on her back. Zoissette had her gunblade and was leading the way with Nyx, who had elected to serve as their spellcaster.

She saw Zoissette headtilt just a little at the same time one of Nyx's ears twitched and rotated, and both of them snapped to turn their gaze to the same place at the same time. Ryss and Klynt stopped and settled into a fighting stance, Klynt watching the other direction while Ryss tried to see whatever it was the other two had seen.

"Unknown contact, rank four aetheric signature, indeterminate nature, one hundred and fifty yalms at two hundred and eighty five by minus fourteen," said Nyx in their characteristic monotone. "Line of sight broken. Contact lost."

Ryss murmured to Zoissette, "Did you see it?"

Zoissette shook her head. "I - I am not sure what I saw. Nothing, possibly. Quickly, let us get to the lab - I want to use the arcane powder there, and see if Nyx can determine anything from the signature."

"Right," said Ryss. The party was quick to hurry on to Apple's lab. Periodically Zoissette would look around, as though she had caught sight of something, Nyx's ear twitching often at the same time, but Zoissette would only shake her head and ignore whatever it was as they continued on.

At Apple's lab, Klynt and Zoissette took to watching the perimeter while Ryss sprinkled the arcane powder on some of Apple's experiments. She watched as the colours and patterns fell out of the swirling dust.

"Same as we saw on the houseboat and in the Twelveswood," she called over to Zoissette.

"Nyx, compare and cross reference to the contact, and report," called back Zoissette.

Nyx stared for a few moments before responding.

"Signature patterns recognized. Match with limited data from unknown contact at thirty-two percent confidence," said Nyx.

"Is that high or low?" asked Ryss.

"Hard to say," said Zoissette, coming closer. "Nyx has senses neither you nor I possess, but Azys Lla interferes with them."

"I will be able to use this data to assist in locating the entity using the Azys Lla facility sensors once I am able to interface with a command and control station," said Nyx.

"I don't like this," mumbled Klynt. "Bad feeling on the wind."

Ryss frowned and looked out over the landscape.

"Alright. Let us move quickly, then. Nyx, lead us to the nearest station. I want to try to avoid contact with the entity until we have secured that station. And avoid the local life forms for now - they are additional trouble we can do without," said Zoissette.

The group all nodded, and moved efficiently as one. Azys Lla was a dim place, some aspect of the facility always generating a thick cloud that obscured it from the outside and gave it a dark foreboding haze. Strange plants grew from the ground and stranger creatures wandered its spaces, and yet, despite that, the place somehow felt lifeless. Or worse, faintly malevolent, as though it would snuff any life that fell short of its unreasonably lethal expectations.

The command and control station was a simple dome like structure, one of many that could be found scattered sparsely across Azys Lla. Inside was the usual array of floating spherical or egg-shaped drones and computing systems with their odd array of perfectly straight lines and sharp angles, walls made of unknown alloys, and an atmosphere that was dry and slightly uncomfortably warm.

Klynt stood near the entrance, watching the outside with a baleful eye. Ryss crossed her arms and leaned against a wall to wait while Zoissette slowly paced and looked around the space. Nyx walked to one of the consoles with its half sphere control interface and placed her hands upon it. It came to life with glowing lights and a gentle hum, and Nyx picked at several of the holographic displays.

"Acquiring access privileges. Taking local control. Subsuming protocols. Entering direct mode," said Nyx, who then suddenly locked up and went stiff while standing at the console.

"Uhm," said Ryss.

"Control established," said Nyx, only their voice did not come from their body, but rather, from the facility itself. "Scanning."

"That is passing weird," said Ryss, and Klynt barked a laugh.

"You get used to them," said Zoissette.

"Vauban. I am activating a map on one of the monitors. I believe I have located the entity, as well as secondary evidence to suggest what areas they have been frequenting."

Zoissette walked over to the monitor to look, tapping a finger to her lips. Ryss hovered behind them.

"Nyx. That building. It has multiple entrances. Can you secure them?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I have a plan," said Zoissette, turning to Ryss. "Klynt, you will stay here, protect the control room and protect Nyx. Her control of the security systems in this sector is paramount. Nyx, secure the two entrances I am about to highlight, leave these other two open. We go in, and confirm that the entity is there. Once confirmed, we close the entrance we came in, and make for the other one - have Dark bring the airship to a landing nearby and meet us there, but have her stay onboard, ready to bug out should this go poorly. I suspect that whatever it is may be intelligent - let it think it has trapped us. We stall it until the team arrives to give us backup, then mount a counter offensive."

Ryss looked at Zoissette. "...risky." She did not bother to point out that Zoissette was, arguably, still in recovery.

Zoissette shook her head. "We got lucky to catch up to her here. We cannot risk letting her get loose and run elsewhere. We may not be able to predict her future movements."

Ryss frowned, but after a moment, nodded.

"Good luck," said Klynt.

Dark was raised on the comms, and Ryss and Zoissette made their way carefully to one of the large abandoned specimen rooms where Nyx had thought the entity to be. Now, Ryss had Glitterdust summoned, and the little fairy flitted along with them. All of them kept an eye out as they approached the entrance to the underground Allagan facility. Ryss noted that Zoissette was no longer glancing off at things she could not see.

If the entity had been keeping an eye on them, it may have retreated and was no longer watching them closely, she surmised.

The inside of the specimen facility was dark and quiet. Large tubes made of transparent green glass, none of them intact, were scattered throughout the place. Many of them still had some kind of bioluminescent liquid in the bottom that glowed faintly in a way that somehow made it harder to see, the light casting confusing shadows and being too dim to provide guidance but also too bright for the eye to adapt to a natural night vision. Ryss and Zoissette swept their gazes about, as they slowly made their way in between gutted consoles and the detritus of a fallen civilization.

"How certain are we about Nyx's analysis?" asked Ryss quietly.

"Reasonably," responded Zoissette. "Even if you ignore their expanded repertoire of senses, did you see the highlights on the map? The system has been tracking unusual activity. Something has been acting as a predator. A newer one than the - hmn?"

Zoissette suddenly spun in place, and Ryss glanced over at her.

"...I think I see it too," said Zoissette.

Ryss felt a sudden pulse of alarm from Glitterdust. Before she could say anything, though, Zoissette had shoved her to one side, and a blade whipped through the darkness, neatly through the area they had once been. It retracted just as fast, with a whip-snap motion that was hard to track.

She felt resolve from Glitterdust. That would not be allowed to happen again. But they were still in the dark, still just the two of them, and this was the part of the plan where they ran. She quickly looked around to try to find Zoissette, and was surprised to see her friend already a good distance away, gunblade up, facing where the blade had come from, and waiting for Ryss.

"Come on! Time to go!" said Zoissette.

Ryss was not at all sure how Zoissette had crossed the distance so fast, but the time for questions could come later. She quickly ran to catch up to her, a hand going to her linkpearl as she moved.

"Nyx, lock the place down," said Ryss. "Where's the other team?"

Nyx's voice came back, flat and calm as doldrums on the sea. "They have landed and are making their entrance now. Locking area down."

Zoissette waited for Ryss, waiting for another attack. Another blade whipped out, and she was quick to deflect it with her gunblade, away from them, grunting with the exertion of doing so. Ryss ran past her, and she turned and followed quickly.

There was an unsettling sound behind them, like a dozen dozen blades all being run across a dozen dozen whetstones, sharpening, honing their edges to fine lethality.

Ryss decided she would prefer to not find out exactly how sharp without catching up to the group first and making sure they would be safe. She felt a heat in her chest, as Glitterdust began to pour aether into her, quicking her heart and strengthening her arm.

She was a Nymian Marine, and when they met the group, she would be ready to make her stand.

The team Erick and Dark had assembled was waiting. Ryss knew them well. Meya, a relief, an experienced healer she trusted. Riven, master of elements, who would be able to bring significant power to bear. Minti in a dancer's outfit, sure to be fast and nimble, welcome supporting fire and flamboyant distractions to hopefully dazzle the entity with. Violet, well, Violet was a bit of a wild card, but reliable in her own way.

Ryss turned, axe out. Glitterdust hovered nearby.

"Okay, stick to the plan, but be careful, do not go in full hard" said Zoissette. "I have a hunch-"

There was that sound again. Ryss found it to be uncomfortably close.

"Maybe we can save full explanations for later," said Ryss.

"Right," said Zoissette. "Heavies, to the front, keep the entity pinned down, but be prepared to fade back quickly to protect support. Picket, go for targets of opportunity and soft spots, but most importantly, keep yourselves safe, hit and fade. Support, stand back and keep us alive."

Zoissette snapped two cartridges into her gunblade and readied it as Violet came to stand on one side of Ryss and Zoissette stood on the other.

"Prepare for contact."

#final fantasy xiv #zoissette vauban #ryssthota sundstyrwyn #apple silverberg #the disappearance of apple silverberg #202312-03 #biot writes

15 notes · View notes

jen-with-a-pen · 1 year

Text

If You Go, I Go

summary: It's Bucky's last night before deployment. The evening does not go the way Steve, nor Bucky, thought it would.

pairings: complicated and closeted stucky

warnings: angst, loneliness, feeling the need to sacrifice yourself for preserum!steve, pining, closeted stucky, bisexual stucky, sad steve, messing with canon and adding some of comic canon in whoops

word count: 3.1k

a/n: literally this entire thing was written directly after seeing the gif above. My brain kicked into angsty overdrive and this was born. enjoy my first fic of the new year!

Please consider reblogging my work! Reblogging helps others to be able to enjoy mine and other writers' works! Help me help you help others and reblog <3

read here on AO3! | My Masterlist

gif by @daniel-bruehl | dividers by @firefly-graphics | beta read by the lovely Jane @lunarbuck

The Expo was loud. Louder than what Steve was used to.

Everything was more than what he was used to. So much going on in so many different directions– lights, sounds, voices, smells. Overstimulated was an understatement.

He wanted to be anywhere but there, standing in front of the open-air Science Expo. His clammy hands were stuffed into his wool pockets while he tried not to heave, fending off yet another anxiety attack. He only wanted Bucky.

But, for the pièce de résistance, Bucky invited Bonnie and Connie to join them, two doe-eyed gals in pretty skirts and zero interest in anything else. How Steve saw them, though, were two strangers hanging off of Bucky’s arms, vying for a kiss from the Sergeant.

The thought of it made Steve’s stomach churn like the butter his Ma used to make.

He had to admit, though, the girls weren’t complete strangers. Steve knew them from grade school. They lived around the street corner from the doctor’s office he unwillingly frequented. They’d say hi to him and were nice and polite, but that was it. They were only nice and polite. They, and all the other pretty girls Steve’s age, made it abundantly clear: no self-respecting girl wanted to court the cripple. Hell, for all he knew, if it wasn't for the constant reassurances from his Ma, Bucky could have been getting paid to be his friend– too fed up that even war sounded like a better reprieve than being around Steve.

It wasn’t that Steve didn’t want the girls there. Nor was it that he secretly wished it was only him and Bucky. In fact, it definitely wasn’t because it was his last night with Bucky before he shipped off to camp McCoy a thousand and one miles away.

Well, maybe it was.

"Stevie, you okay?"

The grounding timbre of Bucky’s voice derailed Steve’s spiraling train of thought. He hadn't realized he'd zoned out until Bucky clapped a strong hand on his shoulder.

Bucky's brow knitted with concern, baby blues searching Steve's with earnest worry. He reached his hand out and delicately wiped his cheek, his thumb resting on Steve’s cheek for a second longer as his hand cupped his face. Steve looked down at his two-sizes-too-big coat. Small dark spots had stained his woolen lapel sourced from the dampness on his cheek. He swallowed thickly, embarrassment and shame creeping up into his throat alongside the heat in his cheeks.

Steve hadn't realized he’d started to cry.

He pathetically raised a bulky sleeve to his face and rubbed at his cheeks hard enough that the wool felt like barbed wire scratching at his china-like skin. He cursed, blinking towards the night sky to rid his eyes of any more tears. They didn’t seem to stop until he bit his lip hard, holding back the bile rising in his throat. He wished he were anywhere but there.

He wished he could go with Bucky.

"'M fine, Buck," he mumbled, finally looking at his friend and forcing a pained smile onto his lips. "Gonna miss you, is all."

Bucky looked at him for a second more, eyes darting for a moment to Steve’s lips. Worry still plagued his features as he pulled Steve into the familiar embrace they both knew all too well. Pulling away, Bucky slung his arm around Steve’s shoulders and sighed.

“Well, punk, don’t worry ‘bout me. I’ll come back in one piece,” he looked down again at Steve and winked. “I’ll come back to you.”

Steve blushed, smiling at the ground. He could almost see himself in Bucky’s newly shined shoes, the black leather reflecting the festival lights from above as they made their way to meet the girls. Bucky paused, sliding his arm back and raising his hand to wave at the girls. The weight lifted off of Steve’s shoulders, and he shuddered, the cool air sneaking its way back into his body.

“Wait here, I’ll go get ‘em,” Bucky said, breaking away from Steve’s side and jogging to the gigantic statue the girls were huddled under. He watched Bucky as the same sinking feeling climbed back into his stomach, blinking back any more tears threatening to leave his eyes again.

Pansy. That’s what he was. Not a man, not even enough to be anybody. Nothing but a –

“Steve?” Bucky called, breaking through his clouded thoughts once more. “These are our lovely dates for this evening.”

Steve forced himself to meet Bucky’s eyes, only to be distracted by the two girls dangling off the Sergeant’s arms. Each of them smiled at their arm candy, doe eyes scanning his chiseled features and competing for who could grin the toothiest.

Steve stifled a laugh when he saw the lipstick between their teeth.

Bucky gestured his locked arms to Steve. He forced a smile, sticking out a hand for the girls to shake. The girls briefly broke their focus to acknowledge him, looking down at his extended hand. Their arms only gripped tighter to Bucky, a poor attempt to save face and keep their smiles from faltering. Steve sighed, knowing this would be the beginning of the end. He retracted his hand and returned it to his coat pocket, instead nodding to both girls and giving Bucky a defeated look.

Bucky chewed his lip, his brow knitting together at the pained look in Steve’s eyes. Turning to Bonnie, the blonde with neatly pinned curls and a pretty red dress, he wiggled free from her grasp and nodded to Steve.

“Bonnie, this is my best guy, Steve. Steve, you ‘member Bonnie?”

Bonnie’s strained smile didn’t reach as far as she intended it to. Her eyes stared blankly at Steve as if processing and accepting him as the fate she’d succumbed to by agreeing to be his date. Her eyes flicked over to Connie, imaginary daggers shooting straight into her friend’s chest.

This oughta be fun.

“Oh, Steve Rogers! I remember you!” She greeted in feigned excitement as she instinctively stuck out her hand to him. He gulped as he shot a quick, pleading look to Bucky, who mouthed, ‘kiss it.’ He reached his clammy hand out to hers, chapped lips meeting her delicately smooth skin. His nostrils flared, stomach churning as he inhaled her sickeningly sweet perfume. Choking back a gag, he glanced up at her as her smile turned into a subtle cringe. He looked at Bucky, whose hand around Connie’s shoulder seemed to tighten as he gnawed on his lip, the slightest bit of envy filling his gaze as it flicked from Steve to Bonnie.

“Nice t’ meet you, doll,” Steve sighed as he dropped Bonnie’s hand, his own snaking right back into his pocket.

“Well, now that we all know each other, how about gettin’ to Stark’s Show?” Bucky suggested. “I heard he’s gone all out this year!”

“Yeah, it should be starting soon!” Connie added.

Bucky smiled, Steve’s heart fluttering as he gave Connie his arm and began leading the group into the middle of the Expo. Bonnie trotted along next to him, wiggling her way onto his other arm as Bucky continued to tell them about Stark, his groundbreaking inventions, and his theories on how the man alone could alter the war as they knew it.

Steve trailed behind the trio, chuckling to himself as he listened to Bucky’s ramblings. The girls seemed to give less of a damn, bored out of their minds but hiding it better than Steve thought they would. He smirked to himself, Bucky’s excited voice taking him back to nights shared in their tiny Brooklyn apartment. The long nights they would both lie in bed, Steve forcing himself to stay awake to savor Bucky’s voice as he talked about science, books, and his theories on his favorite radio program, Avenger.

Steve would give anything for one more night like that.

As they approached the main stage, Steve's stomach rumbled. He cursed, realizing he forgot to eat again. How disappointed Bucky would be if he knew. He looked ahead to Bucky, who had turned over his shoulder with a concerned, furrowed brow.

‘You okay?’ he mouthed.

‘Snack,’ Steve responded as he pointed a bony thumb at the vendor next to him. Bucky nodded, his eyes lingering on Steve a second longer before returning to the girls.

Digging around for pocket change, Steve approached the vendor. The sugary scent of candied almonds and caramel corn wafted into his nose, his mouth watering as he pulled the coins out from the depths of his pockets. The girl at the booth smiled at him, all freckles and gap teeth. He ordered a small bag of almonds, his face flushing as his hand grazed hers offering the money. He swore he felt like he turned as red as her hair.

Get it together, Rogers.

He thanked her and dove back into the ocean of people, popping a few almonds into his mouth as he wove through the bodies finding Bucky. He spotted a waving hand clad in Army green poking out of the sea of people, and he beelined for it.

“Glad ya made it back, Stevie- er, Rogers,” Bucky fumbled, quickly glancing at both girls to see if they caught the name.

Steve’s heart, butterflies and all, died a little bit more when Bucky corrected himself. The familiar lump in his throat and the burn in his eyes threatened to return as he tried to ignore the nickname he knew all too well.

As Steve opened his mouth, music erupted from the loudspeakers surrounding the stage, announcing Howard Stark’s arrival as he forced one of the showgirls against his lips. His voice boomed over the music as the crowd applauded. The girls stared at the millionaire mogul in awe– Bucky included– as he introduced his latest feat of the flying car.

Steve popped more candies into his mouth, chewing as he listened absently at the selling points of the flying car. Bonnie looked back over her shoulder, her brow twitching upon laying eyes on Steve standing behind her as if remembering he still existed. She gave him a once over before turning back to the stage, her smile and awe returning to her face as quickly as it had disappeared. He paused mid-chew, looking down at his snack. Out of the sheer good manners his mother taught him, he extended his arm over her shoulder, the bag crinkling as he offered some to his so-called ‘date.’

In an instant, her demeanor dropped again, she snapped her head back to him. She eyed the bag of candied almonds as her nose scrunched, recoiling as if he’d offered her a handful of garbage. He looked at her in confusion, only to be met with the same daggers she’d shot Connie earlier being fired directly at him.

He slowly retracted his arm and looked at the candies. They were the same sugar-coated almonds he’d been eating the entire time, not some moldy science experiment. He blinked as he felt the sting return to his eyes, tears blurring his vision. The lump appeared suddenly back in his throat, thicker and heavier. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak.

He’d lost his appetite.

He didn’t care about the Expo, about Stark, about the stupid flying car that didn’t seem to fly at all. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to be with the girls, with the people, not even with Bucky.

He wanted to be alone.

He bit his quivering lip, turning on his heel as the crowd erupted again, his eyes searching for any escape route he could find. He stood up on his toes to scan over another couple behind him when he froze at the illuminated Uncle Sam poster at the back of the crowd.

‘I WANT YOU!’

A sign. Literally and figuratively.

If Bucky had to go, he would too.

The candy-striped bag crumpled in his hands as he shouldered his way through the crowd, the Uncle Sam poster a beacon of light as he made his way toward the recruitment station. The closer he got, the faster his legs seemed to work, carrying him to the entryway of the station. He’d barely crossed the threshold before a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Steve, hey, you’re kinda missin’ the point of a double date,” Bucky chided, turning Steve to face him. Hurt plagued his features as his brow knitted further, eyes searching Steve’s for an answer.

“And I think Connie’s missin’ a mirror with all that lipstick in her teeth,” Steve shot back.

“What the hell, Steve,” he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the entryway to the side of the station, shaking him slightly, “What’s gotten into you t’night, huh?”

Anger flooded into Steve’s veins as he grabbed Bucky’s hand and threw it off of him. He huffed, throwing the crumpled bag of wasted candies onto the ground and stomping on them.

“You don’t understand, Buck!” Steve’s voice shook, “You’ll never understand!”

“Understand what, Steve?” Bucky gritted.

“That if you go, I go!”

His chest heaved as tears spilled down his cheeks. His hands shook as much as his voice as they turned into fists at his side.

“If you go to war, I go to war. If you leave, then–” he choked out a sob, “then I have nothing left! I am nothing! Without you, I’m nothing!” He sputtered, choking down air as he grabbed Bucky by the arms. “I didn’t wanna spend tonight with the girls, I wanted to spend it with you!”

He sobbed again, pulling Bucky to him. The dark green coat had dampened with the blond’s tears. Bucky stood still, arms at his side, speechless.

“It’s ‘cause I love you.”

His confession, muffled and final, brought Bucky back to reality. He continued to cry, gasping lightly as he felt Bucky’s heavy arms slowly wrapping around him, squeezing tightly around his friend. Bucky bent his head to Steve’s, soft blond hair gracing his lips as he pressed a kiss to Steve’s head. Steve shook again and paused, slowly looking up to find Bucky’s eyes welling with tears of his own. He swallowed thickly, placing another shaky kiss on Steve’s forehead.

“I love you too, punk.”

Bucky wrapped his arms further around Steve’s waist, hoisting him up past the tips of his toes as he brought the blond to his lips. All of the air left Steve’s lungs, his eyes gaping widely as Bucky pushed into him. Bucky’s arms held onto Steve tightly, keeping him stable as his head spun wildly. Steve pushed into the kiss, locking his arms around Bucky’s neck. His fingers carded into the Sergeant’s hair, nearly knocking his hat off. Steve couldn’t help but grin at the soft moan he elicited from Bucky’s chest, savoring every second before Bucky broke from him.

Bucky placed Steve gently back on the ground. Steve sniffled, shaking his head as his mouth floundered to find anything to say. Bucky struggled too, reaching for Steve’s hand before he suddenly froze.

“Bucky? Bucky! Are we still going dancing?” Connie called. Bucky snapped to attention, turning on his heel and putting on his best ‘I didn't just kiss my best friend’ face.

“Y-yes! Of course, ladies!” He responded, his facade dissipating the instant he turned back to Steve. Concern dotted his features, making Steve’s heart pound harder.

“Look, Stevie, make me one promise,” He pleaded, gathering Steve’s hands into his own, “Wait for me, will ya?”

Steve’s face fell. Confusing, hurt, all boiling in his blood, spilling over into the mess of emotions he felt swirling in his head. This is all Bucky could say after that?

“What do y’mean, Bucky? I’m going in there to enlist. I’m going to fight. If you go, I go!”

Bucky faltered, grip loosening on Steve’s hands. He licked his lips, weight shifting as he glanced over his shoulders. Nobody paid them any mind, not even the girls. He turned back to Steve and set his jaw.

“Steve, this is war. This isn’t some back alley fight where I’m gonna come save your sorry ass again. There’re jobs here! You can stay at the apartment or work for the pharmacy. You can–”

“I can, what, work in the factories? Collect scrap metal until God says when?” He yanked his hands away from Bucky’s hold.

“Why not? It’s safe! It means you’ll be here! It means I won’t have to worry about you–”

“Bucky!” Steve’s voice boomed, snapping Bucky’s attention back to him. He silently fumed, biting his lip to speak any further. He felt like he drew blood when Steve reached for his hands this time. His small palms paled in comparison to Bucky’s, but he managed to hold them as well as Bucky held his. He tugged at Bucky’s fingers, commanding the Sergeant to look at him.

“There are men laying down their lives ‘nd I got no right to do anything less than them, less than you. This isn’t about me, or you, or anyone, or anything. This is about doing what’s right,” he said. His thumbs ran over Bucky’s knuckles, gracing the veins in his

hands he’d studied so many times before when he drew in his sketchbook.

Bucky scoffed. “And you got nothing to prove, huh?”

“Sarge!” Bonnie’s voice rang. “We goin’ dancing or what?”

Bucky gritted a sigh through his teeth, plastering another fake smile once more.

“Yes, we are!”

Steve blanched, letting go of Bucky’s hands and crossing them over his chest.

Bucky turned back to Steve, who stood with a shoulder to him, side-eyeing the Sergeant with hurt in his eyes. Bucky could tell Steve’s lip was quivering no matter how hard he bit down on it.

Bucky dropped his head, knowing it would be the last time he’d see Steve. He shook his head, looking for the right words to part with in light of their newly confessed love.

“Promise me one thing then,” he requested, pulling Steve into a hug. His arm slung around his shoulders, patting him as Steve mimicked his motions almost half-heartedly.

“What?” His voice muffled into Bucky’s shoulder.

“Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back.”

Bucky released him from the hug, turning to leave for the girls when, Steve stopped him, grabbing him by the tie. His bony, nimble fingers reached up, straightening the silk fabric, smoothing down his lapel, and fixing the gold buttons donning it. He smiled weakly, looking up at the Bucky one last time.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with ya.”

138 notes · View notes

indeedcaptain · 4 months

Text

Regulatory Relations, chapter 11: The Children of Tarsus

WAHOO THE PROBLEMS HAVE CONSEQUENCIES

First things first: content warning for descriptions of and discussions regarding someone's eating disorder. It's the fourth section, as separated by the stars. It's not super graphic, but it's present for sure. Go forth with the knowledge necessary to keep yourself safe.

Second: my deepest apologies to anyone who is a real programmer or hacker for the absolute nonsense. There's some real dubious science in the 'dubious science' tag here.

This chapter is also posted on my AO3 here!

☆☆☆

Elise crossed her legs, frowning, and tapped her pen against her chin. Jim slouched deeper into her couch. He was nineteen, still gangly but getting stronger, and he had failed a test that he hadn’t realized that he was taking.

“I’m sorry to hear that your break didn’t go how you wanted it to,” she said. She watched him carefully.

“It’s fine,” Jim said. He glanced out the window. The trees outside her building had all long since shed their leaves, and the bare branches were stark against the white winter sky. He hadn’t thought he would be back here so soon, but, as she had said, things hadn’t worked out quite like he had envisioned when he went back to Iowa on his break.

“What happened?” She no longer asked him if he wanted to talk about things. He wasn’t sure if that was because she no longer wanted to give him the option to be silent or if she knew that he was desperate to talk to anyone who would listen about the rot in him.

“What always happens,” he said, and he crossed his arms across his chest. She waited until he said, “It came up.”

“How did it come up, Jim?”

“How does it not come up?”

“Don’t mumble, Jim, these old ears can’t hear you.”

“You’re not even that old,” he said, more clearly, and she put on an air of being affronted.

“It is not polite to discuss a lady’s age, James,” she said, and when he met her eyes he gave her a tiny, hard-won grin. She smiled gently back. “How did it come up?”

“My mom asked if I wanted to see any of my home friends.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“Why not, Jim?”

Jim scoffed, rolling his head against the back of the couch to look out the window again. “Because the last time I saw most of them I was still dying in a hospital bed. I didn’t want them to come but my mom insisted, and now none of them will ever see me the same way. Even now they still see me like I was then.”

“And your mother didn’t like that?”

“She doesn’t like any reminder that things aren’t back to normal.”

Elise sighed and put her pen down on her lap. “I’m sorry, Jim. What happened then?”

“She cried about how she just wants to help, and I maybe yelled that she could help by letting me decide how and when I want to see people, and my dad yelled that I was upsetting my mom, and then we were all yelling and crying and then I bought another train ticket and came back.”

“Where was Sam in all this?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “He’s got some girlfriend now and spent the holidays with her family instead. Off-world. Like an asshole.”

“Only assholes get girlfriends? Or go off-world?” Elise asked gently, and her eyes twinkled when Jim’s face screwed up in frustration.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “He’s an asshole for leaving me to deal with Mom and Dad on my own. He was my buffer.”

“That must have been very valuable for you,” she said. “When did that start?”

“After everything. He came back when I got home,” Jim said. “He used to run interference for me when Mom started to be too much.”

“He left his school to come back?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, and his throat tightened at the memory of Sam throwing open the hospital room door, just a week after Jim had gotten back to Earth. He had sat down in the chair next to Jim, pulled out his school padds, and did not leave his side until Jim was released.

“He sounds like a good older brother,” Elise said. “Not an asshole.”

Jim frowned and ducked his chin to his chest. “He can be both.”

“Maybe,” Elise said. “Or maybe he saw that you were doing so much better that he knew he didn’t need to be there to protect you anymore.” Jim didn’t respond to that. “People are complicated, Jim, and they have their own needs. Now that you’re better, Sam needs to keep growing up. That means, for him, meeting a nice girl, falling in love, and spending the holidays with her family.”

“He could have brought her home to our family,” Jim grumbled.

“You could suggest that for next time,” Elise said. “Many couples alternate years. Let’s refocus, though--- it seems to me like the problem isn’t really Sam. It seems like the problem is with your parents.”

Jim pulled the throw pillow from the corner of the couch and crushed it against his chest before dropping his head against the backboard. “Aren’t we coming up on time?”

“You know I always have time for you, Jim,” Elise said, and he groaned. But they talked about his parents, and she very politely pretended to take notes on her padd when he wiped away angry tears.

“They have their own needs, like you, like Sam,” she said. “What they need now is to know that they didn’t lose their little boy forever. Of course things are different. They’ll always be different. But they need time with you that helps them to see what the future might look like. A future without the shadow of the colony over everything. And you can give that to them.” She smiled at him. He wanted to scream, “But I live in that shadow! I am that shadow!” But he didn’t.

“How?”

“Next time your mom asks if you want to see your old friends, you say yes,” she said.

“But I don’t want to.”

She tilted her head gently, and in her face he read the answer: it didn’t really matter what he wanted. “I know, Jim,” she said. “But it’s what they need. Your next break is a few months away. Let’s set a goal of seeing your home friends next time and see if that makes things easier with your parents, hmm?”

Kirk knew what came next. They had set goals, and he had failed to meet the benchmarks that they had set, and rather than go home and make things worse, he stayed on campus for the holiday at Elise’s encouragement. He still carried the shadow of what had happened over him, and rather than bring his parents and his old friends under the shadow with him, he stayed away. And it had worked.

Kirk stood and crossed the room, and when he turned back, he looked back and saw himself sitting on the couch. His face was blotchy with frustrated tears, and he wiped his nose on the back of his hand like a child.

“I’m dreaming,” he realized, but neither his younger self nor Elise acknowledged him. He blinked, and the nineteen-year-old version of himself was replaced with himself at twenty-three. This version of Jim sat up straight, with his legs crossed casually, one arm slung across the back of the couch. Kirk recognized the beginnings of the captain’s mask in the set of the young man’s face. He was older, more distant, but Elise looked at him just as warmly.

“These panic attacks, Jim,” she said, and looked down at her chart. She didn’t frown at Jim, but he could sense her disappointment in him.

“I don’t have to stay here,” Kirk said, and he forced numb dream legs to carry him to the door. “This is a dream and I don’t have to stay here.” He yanked the door to Elise’s office open and strode out.

He walked directly into Elise’s office, appearing right where he had stood before, behind her chair.

“You want to be a captain, don’t you?”

Kirk marched to the door again and crossed the threshold into the hallway to find himself back into Elise’s office. He could not leave. “Wake up,” he told himself, but the office remained material around him.

“More than anything,” Jim said.

Elise shifted in her chair, folding her hands in her lap, before pinning him with an intense gaze. “When you’re the captain of your own ship, you’re going to need to be unassailable.”

There was a break in the expression on Jim’s face, and it revealed his fear. Elise said, earnesty in every syllable, “You’re going to be amazing, Jim. I know it. But to be the man that a whole crew relies on in a crisis is going to require more from you. To keep them from panicking, you have to be able to hide your own.”

Jim nodded, and Kirk found himself nodding with him. He tried to keep his neck still, his head unbowed, but he blinked and he was back on the couch, back in his twenty-three-year-old body. His joints ached.

“You were doing so well,” Elise said sadly, and her tone was incongruous with the soft smile on her face.

“I am doing well,” Kirk said, defensive. He crossed his arms across his chest.

She consulted her padd. “You’ve been talking to your first officer, Jim? About your residual stress?” For a second her familiar warm tone dropped into a sneer; it told him exactly what she thought of his stress .

Kirk’s stomach flipped. “This is a dream,” he said. “This isn’t real. You don’t know my first officer.”

“How can he trust you if he learns that so many things trigger this response in you? Your crew needs you to be the bulkhead against which they rest.”

“I am the bulkhead,” he said. “They can trust me. I haven’t let them down.”

She smiled at him. Her pink and blue cardigan flickered into the bloody red of a security shirt, and her teeth were sharp and glinting. “Not yet.”

Kirk woke, gasping into his sheets. He buried his face in the mattress and fought to slow his pounding heart. He was thirty-five, and on the Enterprise , and safe in his quarters. He had not let his crew down, and he had no plans to do so. Everything was fine. He would settle himself, subdue his anxiety into something more manageable, and everything would be fine.

Fabric scraped against fabric as something moved across the room. Kirk bolted upright. Spock had crossed halfway to him, concern apparent in the scrunch of his eyebrows.

How can he trust you? Elise’s voice echoed in his head, and his face burned with shame. He turned away from Spock, pulling himself from the bed, clenching the edge of the mattress in his hands.

“Captain, are you well?” Spock had stepped closer, within arm’s reach of him.

“Fine,” he said shortly. How had he forgotten that he wasn’t alone? He had no space to breathe; there was a witness to his panic. “Just a weird dream. Excuse me.” Spock stood between him and the bathroom, trapping him. He sidestepped around Spock. Spock turned with him and reached for him, clasping his wrist loosely in one cool hand. “Captain---”

Kirk ripped his arm from his grasp and, ignoring Spock’s short, sharp inhale, strode into the bathroom. The door slid shut behind him, sealing him in blessed solitude. Forget hiding his feelings for a few days: he could not share quarters with Spock for a minute longer. He clearly could not trust himself not to have nightmares about the colony, or about Elise. Spock could not be there to see it.

Kirk had gotten sloppy, gotten weak. He’d let Spock touch him too much, had enjoyed it too deeply, and now that simple contact was going to undo his years of effort and secrecy. He could not let Spock count his heartbeats or sense his anxiety through his telepathy any longer. He needed to push them back to the boundaries that they had maintained previously, before he lost Spock’s trust in his stability entirely. He had to be the bulkhead.

He set the shower temperature to punishingly hot and stepped under the spray. Asking Spock not to touch him anymore didn’t have to be a huge deal. Maybe he would be relieved. Maybe the picture of the way he looked at Kirk at the wedding was a fluke. He dried, dressed, and walked back into their room.

Spock had dressed while he was gone and stood with his hands clasped, leaning against his desk. He pushed upright as Kirk entered.

“Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, and Spock tilted his head to the side slightly. The way he moved had become so dear to Kirk. He hated it. He exhaled hard through his nose and put his hands on his hips. “Look. There’s not an audience in here, and the paperwork is all signed. You don’t have to touch me anymore.”

Spock hesitated before taking a step forward. Kirk gave no ground. “I am aware, Jim.”

“Then you can stop. Mission accomplished.”

“I could,” Spock said, and he took another step forward. His eyes were fixed on Kirk’s. Kirk looked away. “But I have learned this week that you like when I touch you.” Another step. “I have learned that I do too.”

Damn it, Spock. Damn it all. His tone was warm, inviting, intimate. Spock’s words put fireworks in his stomach, and Kirk’s hands ached with the effort of keeping them at his sides. Kirk forced himself to say, “But I don’t.”

“You do not, what?” Spock’s voice was quiet. He was a foot away from Kirk. He could have put his hand on Kirk’s chest, felt the unsteady pounding of his heart, if he reached out.

“I don’t like it.”

Spock’s surprised blink was audible in the silence. “I do not understand,” Spock said, and his voice had turned robotic. Kirk’s heart sank, and shame burned under his skin. “Since you set this plan in motion you have encouraged my touch. You have accepted it. I have experienced your physical and emotional responses, both of which communicated appreciation and enjoyment. During--- during our wedding, I felt---” Spock stuttered, and cut himself off.

Spock never stuttered. Kirk, despite himself, looked up. He saw the war on Spock’s face before Spock snapped his impassive mask down. Kirk was hurting him. He was protecting Spock from a lifetime of misery by cutting off whatever they could be at the roots, but he was hurting him. He felt his heart dying in his chest.

After a painful, silent moment, Spock’s eyes met his. “Repeat yourself, captain.”

Kirk set his jaw as his stomach heaved. “I don’t like when you touch me.” Faster than Kirk could think, Spock’s hand flashed out and wrapped around his wrist as he said, “I want you to stop.” Kirk shoved Spock back

“What the hell, Spock? I said---”

“Why are you lying---”

Kirk tried to yank his wrist from Spock’s grasp but it had become an unyielding cage. “Let go,” he hissed, and to his surprise, Spock released him. Spock clasped his hands behind his back, but not before Kirk saw that they were shaking.

“Jim,” Spock said, and his voice was low and raw. Kirk’s skin burned where his hand had been. “I do not understand. Your words are in conflict with your emotions and actions from the past week, and you are in evident distress. Please. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need help,” Kirk said, and he turned away. He stared at his--- their--- shelves and crossed his arms. His shame and grief calcified into anger. Why could Spock not let it, him, go? “I need you to stop touching me.”

“I do not believe you,” Spock said.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Kirk snapped. “You just have to do it.”

Spock stiffened as if Kirk had slapped him, and turned so that Kirk could no longer see his face. Spock was silent for nearly half a minute before he asked, “Have I done something to offend you, captain?”

Kirk closed his eyes. “No, Mr. Spock.”

Spock was silent again before he said, “Very well.” Another pause, then he said, contemplative and cold, “You always surprise me, captain.” Kirk heard three steps, and then the turbodoor swished open and shut. When he opened his eyes again, he was alone.

☆☆☆

Kirk fled to Medbay as soon as he was sure he could leave their quarters without seeing Spock in the hallway. Kirk let himself into Bones’s office and, by the time Bones finished his morning appointments and let himself in, Kirk had claimed the less comfortable of the two chairs to slouch in and buried his face in his hands.

Bones sighed when he opened the door, but he showed no sign of surprise. “I thought I might find you in here,” he said. Kirk sat up.

“Why?”

“Because Uhura got a padd message while she was visiting Chapel and fled like a bat out of hell about thirty minutes ago.”

“Shit.”

“Good shit or bad shit?” Bones asked, and he dropped himself into his desk chair. “What happened?”

Kirk scraped his hands through his hair. He relished in the hurt of it. “Spock showed his hand.”

“He told you he was interested?”

“More or less.”

“And you swooned into his arms because you feel the same?” Kirk clenched his jaw and looked down. “Oh, Jimmy, no. What did you say?”

“I told him to stop touching me,” Kirk said numbly.

“That’s real cold,” Bones said, and Kirk glared at him.

“Thank you for that, doctor. Who’s side are you on, anyway?”

Bones slapped his hand down on the desk. “Yours, Jim, always, but it seems like you’re not even on your side right now! You found everything you wanted in the man standing by your side and you turned him away? Look, I know that I can never understand what you went through, but---”

“This isn’t about me!” Kirk was on his feet before realizing that he had moved. “I am trying to be a good captain and a good friend. I am trying to keep him from having to live with what I live with. Forget bonding. We can’t even live together. He tried to touch me after a--- a nightmare this morning, and I won’t risk losing my first officer’s trust in me because I can’t get my act together!”

Bone’s eyes were sharp over his desk as he jabbed his finger in Kirk’s direction. “I don’t know who put that damn fool idea in your head, but it’s about time you got it out. I know you went at school, Jim, but therapy might---”

Kirk scoffed. “No more therapy. That’s where I got these damn fool ideas, anyway. You know, the crazy notion of protecting your crew,” he said, and turned to leave.

Bone’s face went entirely slack. “What do you mean, that’s where you got these ideas from?” He mirrored Kirk, bracing himself on his desk as he stood, and Kirk turned back to him. “Jim, you endured an unendurable situation as a kid . My God, man, the stress response to hunger alone regardless of context is---”

“Stop, Bones! Just don’t! I don’t want to talk about it!”

“That is the entire problem!” Bones’s face was reddening. “Jim, I need you to explain what you meant that your therapist was the one who said that you were untrustworthy.”

Kirk grimaced and turned away from Bones, the quick flare of anger condensing into a bleak numbness. “Not in so many words, but yes,” he said. He had never prayed harder for a black hole to swallow him up. “Just, that. Are you genuinely going to make me spell this out for you?” But he had lost Bones’s attention to the wall over his shoulder.

“Jim, why did you ask me about a therapist crossing over between departments?”

“No reason,” Kirk said, but Bones narrowed his eyes. Gone was the southern gentleman, and his friend: he had been replaced by Starfleet’s number one diagnostician, the chief medical officer on the Federation’s flagship, a surgeon who regularly pulled miracles out of gaping wounds. Kirk might have been the captain of the ship, but Bones ranked him in Medbay.

“You saw a Starfleet doctor rather than a civilian one when you were yanked off of Tarsus.” Kirk absolutely did not flinch at the name. “You were assigned a Starfleet therapist at the Academy, one who apparently pushed you to hide your post-traumatic stress response in the name of your crew ,” Bones said, voice acerbic, and his eyes scanned from left to right in a way that made Kirk think he was reading his medical records from memory. Bones turned back to Kirk. He came around the desk, standing in front of Kirk. Kirk took a step back. “Jim, I need to know. Why did you ask about security officers?”

Kirk had to look away from those blue, blue eyes. “I looked up my old therapist. The morning of the wedding. I had forgotten her name.”

“And you found her?”

“Yeah. But she wasn’t in Medical. She was a security officer. And her record is nearly empty.”

Bones stared at him, frowning. Kirk finally looked back at him. For a moment, Bones read his face before focusing hard on the wall over his shoulder, thinking.

“Jim,” he said slowly, and leaned back against his desk with his arms crossed.

“I’m fine,” Kirk said.

“You’re not,” Bones said, voice rough, and his eyes flicked to Kirk’s. “And I’m sorry I didn’t press the matter before. But I need to be your doctor before your friend right now, and you told me, Jim, you said you weren’t having nightmares anymore.”

Kirk looked away. Bones said, “For how long?”

“It’s not every day,” Kirk said. That was apparently not the right answer, because Bones’s eyes grew even more protuberant than usual.

“Jim, your record says that your therapist completely cleared you for duty when you graduated. You told me you were fine. You’re telling me that you’ve been having consistent nightmares about Tarsus for over ten years after being cleared by a psychologist who wasn’t even licensed?”

“I---” Kirk’s throat closed.

“Please tell me you at least understand that something isn’t right here.” He stared at Kirk, eyes wide and full of heartbreak. “Jim, if I had known how badly you were still suffering, I would have---”

“I’m fine,” Kirk whispered, and Bones inhaled to argue as his office door flew open.

“Head trauma,” Christine Chapel said. “Your assistance, please, doctor.” Bones nodded to her and pointed at Kirk.

“You. Stay. We are not done.” Then he followed Chapel across the Medbay to a prone red-shirted body laid out on a biobed. But before the turbodoor had the chance to swish shut, Kirk slipped out silently and left.

☆☆☆

Kirk ended up in the observatory with no clear memory of how he arrived there. The decorations had all vanished, leaving only the white and chrome interior of the room and the enormous blackness of space beyond. He was alone, and only his footsteps interrupted the comfortable hums and beeps of the ship around him.

He crossed to the window and sat, staring out at the stars as they warped onward towards the starbase where they would pick up Pike and April. Fewer than ten days ago Pike had made one little suggestion about how Kirk might keep Spock on the ship, and somehow, after it had all started off so well, Kirk had ruined everything. He had fallen in love, or realized that he’d already been in it, and Spock had come to him offering himself in return, and he had pushed Spock away. Kirk’s palms burned as he remembered that he had genuinely shoved him; had laid his hands on him in violence for perhaps the first time in their entire friendship.

And then he had raised his voice at Bones. He pressed his hands against his face as his guilt threatened to drown him. He was trying to protect his friends from the shadow of Tarsus, the shadow that lived over and in him, and all he had done was hurt them. He wanted to be a good captain and a good friend, and had tried so hard. But he had discovered today that it was impossible to be both of those and be himself at the same time.

He had thought, when he was younger, that his career would be worth losing himself beneath his mask of perfection. And he loved his career: he was Starfleet’s youngest captain, adored by his crew, trusted by the brass to lead an unprecedented deep-space exploratory mission. But for the first time, as Spock’s stuttering confusion and Bones’s gruff questions echoed in his head, he questioned if it would ever be worth it again.

There was the heart of it, the truth that had made it so easy to turn down the potential of any stranger on a starbase: he had never before minded hiding himself away because he had never before so wanted to be known. But now he wanted to be known. He wanted the comfort of Spock’s presence and touch when he was unsteady and Spock’s continued faith in his abilities and leadership, but there was no future that he could see that would allow him to have both.

A stubborn tear wormed its way from the corner of his eye and down his cheek, and he wiped it away angrily. He stared out the window, repeating his mantra in time with his heart rate, willing himself into stillness: I am the bulkhead. I am the bulkhead. I am the bulkhead. But in the space between one heartbeat and the next, something in his mind clicked. Everything fell silent.

Elise had taught him to do that.

Elise, who had lied to him.

Elise, who he had loved, who had been his primary support during his days at the Academy, who had perhaps never been a therapist at all, had taught him how to use a mantra to calm his racing heart and had drilled into him that he could only protect his crew if he never revealed any of the weak parts of himself. And Bones, his doctor, one of the smartest men he had ever known, had been horrified to know that.

He had trusted Elise. But he trusted Bones more. Kirk shoved himself to his feet and wiped his hands over his face once more, clearing away any evidence of stray tears. He might have irrevocably damaged his relationship with Spock and set the bloodhound of Bones’s medical mind on his own trail, but there was one person on the ship that he could talk to about Tarsus and all that came after without gagging. Someone who already lived in the shadow. There was no horrific secret to reveal to Kevin, because he had been there. Kevin had already broken the glass wall of silence between them; there was nothing to stop Kirk from talking to him now.

“Computer, where is Lieutenant Kevin Riley?”

“Lieutenant Riley is in his quarters.”

Kirk set off at a run.

☆☆☆

For one long second, Kevin didn’t answer. Kirk stood outside his door, debating the merits of ringing the chime again or just overriding the lock, when it slid open. Kevin was framed by the doorway, dressed in his pajamas, a holovid playing on the wall behind him.

“Oh!” He stared at Kirk. “Captain, I’m sorry--- I’m off duty today, I wasn’t prepared---”

“I’m not here as your captain,” Kirk said quietly. He peered behind Kevin: though there was another bed, his roommate was not present. “Can I come in?” Kevin stood aside to let him through, and the door slid shut behind him. The dialogue of the holovid continued quietly until Kevin tapped his padd and it paused. On the screen, an enormous lizard attacked some large metropolitan city. The sudden silence was heavy.

“How are you doing?” Kirk asked, after a moment of quiet.

“Fine. How are you?” The answer was so robotic, so automatic and familiar, that Kirk swore for a second that Kevin’s response had come out of his own mouth.

“Fine,” Kirk said, and they were quiet again. Kevin wouldn’t meet his eyes; his gaze instead flickered over his room. It was not exactly to regulations, but, then again, the lieutenants didn’t have Janice Rand or one of her minions coming into their quarters to cite them for uncleanliness.

“Look, Kev, I’m sorry to have to do this. But I have a couple of questions for you about…” Kirk trailed off. He wouldn’t say the name.

Kevin swallowed, and the knobby bump of his Adam’s apple bobbed. “But…”

“I know. I’m sorry.” They were silent again. When Kevin had been little, he would never shut up. He would babble to whoever was listening, or sitting watch; they couldn’t take him out to hunt for food with the older kids because he was unable to hush himself. But this older Kevin had run out of words. Maybe he used them all up on Tarsus.

“Did you see a therapist when you got to the Academy?”

Kevin’s eyebrows pulled together. “Yes,” he said eventually. “I was assigned one. But I was cleared for duty when I graduated, captain, it’s in my---”

“Kevin, stop. I’m not here because of your conduct. Who was your counselor?”

“Some lady,” he said, scrunching his nose. The gesture was so familiar to Kirk, even after all this time, that it hurt. “Siobhan Murphy.”

“Can I borrow your console?”

“Sure,” Kevin said uneasily, and Kirk sat himself in Kevin’s desk chair. It was not as comfortable as his, and his console was smaller, but it accepted his credentials and booted up with only a slight wheezing. He accessed the Starfleet personnel log and searched for Siobhan Murphy.

Nothing came up.

“Are you sure, Kevin?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said. He was leaning over Kirk’s shoulder now, peering at the logs with childlike curiosity. “It stuck with me because Siobhan is--- was--- a family name for me. We were both Irish.”

Kirk removed her last name and searched all personnel. There were a handful of Siobhans across all of Starfleet, but as Kirk slowly scrolled past each one Kevin shook his head.

“She’s not there,” he said. “None of them were her. What’s this about, Jimmy?”

Kirk spun in Kevin’s desk chair, running his finger along the desk. He met Kevin’s eyes and felt the same protective tug in his chest that had pulled him as a kid. He didn’t want to bring these memories back to the surface. What if Kevin had been coping just fine, and it was only Kirk who was still under the shadow?

But there were dark circles under Kevin’s eyes, and the arms that stuck out of his baggy shirt were too thin. The bones of his hands were too prominent, and all of the skin that Kirk could see was covered in a fine, thin layer of downy hair. He had not looked, properly looked, at Kevin since he had seen the name on the personnel list at the start of the five-year mission. Elise had said to stay away from the other survivors; she had said that they were doing just fine, that they wouldn’t want the reminder of what had happened. But Kirk was looking at him now, and he did not see someone who was doing just fine.

Kirk turned back to the console and typed Elise’s name into the personnel file. He turned back to Kevin as her holo appeared. Kevin’s face slackened in shock, and the little piece of Kirk that had still hoped that Bones was wrong, that Elise was who he thought she was, shriveled and died.

“That’s her,” Kevin said. “That’s Siobhan.” He looked back to Kirk.

“Her name is Elise Darling,” Kirk said. “Probably. And she was my counselor too.” Kevin’s eyes flicked back to Elise’s picture.

“Red shirt?”

“Yes,” Kirk said.

“Is that… is that normal?”

“No,” Kirk said. “It’s not.” Kevin’s eyes were wide with confusion, his mouth twitched to the side as he chewed on the inside of his lip. Kirk meant to explain that Elise was not who she said she was, that he was starting to think that they had been manipulated into silence, but instead what he said was: “Kevin, are you okay?”

Kevin’s eyebrows pulled together, and his mouth opened like he was going to respond before he stopped himself. “I’m fine.”

Kirk stood, pushing the chair back under the desk, and took a step towards him. “Kevin, are you okay?”

“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” Kevin said, and his face started to crumple. “I’m trying, god, I really am, but I just feel---” He ringed the fingers of one hand around his wrist, thumb and middle finger overlapping to the second knuckle, rubbing it anxiously. “I’m so sorry, Jimmy, I know what Siobhan said---”

As Kevin, one of the children that Kirk had made himself responsible for, fought back tears, Kirk thought he understood why Bones had lost his composure earlier.

“You don’t have to apologize to me for anything, Kevin. What did she say?”

“She said that she would clear me for duty, send me to the Enterprise , as long as I promised not to talk about what all happened to us,” Kevin said, and his face grew red and splotchy. “She said it was to protect you, that telling people that we were both there would hurt your career.”

A white roar rose in Kirk’s ears, and he was distantly aware that his hands were shaking. “This woman,” he said, gesturing behind him to Elise’s smiling face, “told you that she would only clear you for duty if you stopped talking about Tarsus? And she told you that it was for me?”

Kevin nodded miserably, and the motion of his head tipped tears over his eyelashes and down his cheeks. Kirk stared at him in abject horror as Kevin sniffed hard.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy, I didn’t mean to---”

“Hush,” Kirk said harshly. He grabbed Kevin’s wrist, and yanked him forward. Kevin stumbled forward, and Kirk swept him into a hug. Though they were older and changed, Kirk put his hand against the back of Kevin’s head like he had when they were little, and Kevin bowed his head against Kirk’s shoulder, pressing his face into Kirk’s neck. Through his thin sleep shirt Kirk felt the angry lines of Kevin’s shoulder blades and the ridges of his spinal column.

Kirk could feel the tears soaking the neckline of his shirt, but he didn’t care. He held onto Kevin and squeezed until Kevin’s arms came up around his back and held onto him like a lifeline. As Kevin cried into his shoulder, Kirk told him everything that he knew: that Elise had told him he had to hide how Tarsus still affected him, how he had given up honesty in the name of being a good leader, and what Bones had said that morning. After a small eternity, Kevin pulled away and sniffed again. Kirk slid his hands to his shoulders and gave him a gentle shake, trying to keep the blinding rage from showing on his face. He had thought that he was protecting Kevin by staying away. But Kevin was one of his kids, and no one was going to hurt his kids and get away with it as long as he was alive.

“You don’t owe me any apologies,” he said. “But I promise you, I’m going to figure this out.”

“I don’t understand. What would have been the point of keeping us quiet? It’s not like what happened was a secret. Starfleet was there.” Kevin turned, wiping his eyes on the hem of his t-shirt.

“I don’t know,” Kirk admitted. “I only learned that she wasn’t Medical two days ago, and that she had given me bogus advice an hour ago.”

“What does Mr. Spock think?”

Kirk couldn’t stop himself from grimacing. Kevin, eyes wide, said, “He doesn’t know.”

“I---,” Kirk said, and choked.

“You have to tell him,” Kevin said. He sat on the edge of his bed, and Kirk came to sit beside him. Kevin leaned against him, resting his head on his shoulder, and it was easier to breathe when he was looking at the blank wall in front of him instead of Kevin’s face.

“I don’t want to,” Kirk said. “I don’t want to tell anyone. If I had it my way, no one would ever know that I was there.” He felt the clench of panic around his heart. Kevin sat up, and when Kirk turned to meet his eyes Kevin was giving him a look that he couldn’t interpret.

“Well, I for one am glad that you were there,” Kevin said. “Because I would be dead if you hadn’t been. And the others would be too.” He rapped his knuckles against Kirk’s knee. “Did you know that I requested the Enterprise because I knew that you would be here?”

“No,” Kirk said, throat dry.

“Well, it’s true.” Kevin swallowed. “I thought that… if you were able to keep the five of us alive when you were just a kid, I wanted to know what you could do as the captain of a starship.” Kirk’s throat tightened, and he felt tears prick his own eyes. They sat in silence for a few moments.

“I’m going to figure out why we were given a security officer as a therapist,” Kirk said, “but in the meantime, you need to go to Medbay.” Kevin immediately stiffened. “I’m ordering you to submit yourself for psychological evaluation.”

“Jimmy---”

“Nope, I’m your captain now.” He wrapped his hand around Kevin’s wrist, and it felt like his bones would break in his grasp. “I am so sorry that I didn’t check in with you before. And you might be able to hide this in uniform. But you need medical attention---”

“I’m fine, captain---”

“You are not,” Kirk said, and his words reminded him so much of what Bones had said to him that morning that he had a dizzying sense of deja vu. “You’re suffering. I don’t know how you made it this long without getting a physical, but you’re going to Medbay to be checked over and you’re going to talk about whatever you need to talk about. Forget whatever Elise--- Siobhan--- said to you. I outrank her.” Kevin shrank into himself, and Kirk tightened his grasp on his wrist.

“Someone did a very good job making sure we never talked about what happened, and I intend to figure out why,” Kirk said. “I’ll keep you in the loop, and I might need to know more about what she said to you, but in the meantime, you need help.” Kevin deflated, and the curve of his spine highlighted the sickly lines of his body.

“I just,” he started, and his voice was raspy. “I needed one thing that I could control. After everything.” Kirk released Kevin’s wrist and wrapped his arm around his shoulder instead.

“I get it,” he said. “I really do. But you can’t live like this forever.” Kevin sighed.

“I know,” Kevin said. “I’m so damn tired.”

“Why don’t you go get dressed,” Kirk said. “I’m messaging Medbay and letting them know you’re coming in. Today.”

“Yes, sir,” Kevin said miserably, but he got up and vanished into the bathroom. Kirk pulled his padd out of his pocket and opened his messages with Bones. He had missed several messages over the past hour.

>TheRealMcCoy: Where the hell are you

>TheRealMcCoy: Jim, I’m serious

>TheRealMcCoy: Where are you

>JTK: I had to talk to someone

>JTK: But I’m sending him to you now

Bones responded immediately.

>TheRealMcCoy: ??

>JTK: Crewman with severe psychological distress. He’ll tell you more when he gets there

Kevin reappeared from the bathroom in black slacks and a thick sweater. Without his arms showing and with the bulk of the sweater’s knit disguising the lines of his shoulders, it was easy to see how he had hidden the evidence of his anguish.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“Thank you, but no,” Kevin said. “I would rather do this by myself, I think.”

“McCoy will message me if you don’t show,” Kirk said, and Kevin blanched.

“Understood,” he said, and he followed Kirk to the door. Before Kirk opened it, he turned and pulled Kevin into one more hug. Kevin’s arms came around him more readily this time.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Kevin mumbled into his shoulder. Kirk patted him on the back and released him.

“We’ll figure this out, and things will get better,” Kirk said. “For both of us.” Kevin nodded, and when they entered the hallway Kirk split off to head to his own quarters and Kevin continued steadily to the turbolift that would take him down to Medbay.

Kirk watched him go, and when the turbolift doors opened to receive him, Kevin turned around one more time. His eyes met Kirk’s, and without a second’s hesitation he snapped a salute. Then the doors closed in front of him and he vanished.

☆☆☆

Kirk was in his quarters, hunched over his console with the programming manual for the personnel directory open on his desktop, when his padd buzzed again.

>TheRealMcCoy: Jesus christ

>TheRealMcCoy: I need you to either update the automated med reminders programming or bring it up with the brass to fix

>TheRealMcCoy: He got away with skipping his physical for three years because he made a weekly appointment and then rescheduled it for the next week. For 150 weeks.

>TheRealMcCoy: This cannot happen. Ever again.

So Kevin had made it to Medbay and actually followed his orders. That was good. Kirk turned back to his computer screen, scanning through the file to try and understand the platform that the directory was built on. If he knew how it was structured, it would be easier to understand where information could be hidden, inaccessible from the outside. He needed to know where Elise had been between her time on the U.S.S. Maddox and her retirement. He knew that she had been at Starfleet Academy for part of it; he had seen her on campus nearly every day for consecutive years. But Kevin hadn’t graduated until after Elise’s so-called retirement date, and she had been operating under a different name.

There wasn’t a file for any Siobhan Murphy in the directory, but he wondered if it would be listed in Elise’s own profile as a separate posting. He tapped different commands into the directory, but no new information appeared.

Kirk’s padd buzzed again.

>TheRealMcCoy: He’s getting set up with one of the specialists and his replicator logs are going to be monitored.

>TheRealMcCoy: You did good sending him here, Jim

>TheRealMcCoy: Please respond or I’m coming to find you

Kirk hastily grabbed for his padd.

>JTK: In my quarters. He and I had the same therapist at the academy

>JTK: trying to dig up more information on her now

>TheRealMcCoy: good god

>TheRealMcCoy: ok

>TheRealMcCoy: have you talked to spock?

Kirk flipped his padd facedown and shoved it to the corner of his desk. His burning guilt at how he had treated his friend--- his husband --- that morning had dulled into a heavy weight that settled in his chest, over his heart and lungs. There was no sign that Spock had returned to the quarters after his abrupt departure this morning, but every time Kirk heard footsteps pass by in the corridor outside his heart leapt. He didn’t even know what he would say if Spock walked in.

Good evening, husband. Sorry I pulled rank on you in our marital quarters because I panicked when you touched me. Have you considered not being a telepath?

Hello, holder of my heart. I think I might have been manipulated as a teenager and young adult and now I’m realizing I’ve been operating for years under a set of rules that no one else understands.

Mr. Spock, quick question: have you ever thought about what it would have been like to be on Tarsus IV during the genocide?

The last made his gorge rise in his throat. No. He wasn’t ready for that. He shoved his guilt from this morning and the mournful bleakness he felt when he looked at his empty couch into a box in the back of his mind and focused back on the personnel directory. If there was more information about Elise Darling, he was going to find it.

Six hours and a replicated protein bar later, Kirk had whittled down the shape of the directory to the boundary around Elise’s real profile, but he was no closer to understanding how to breach it than he was before. He understood that there was a gap where there should have been information, and he could almost understand the infrastructure of the software around it, but he wasn’t able to follow any loose tangents into the information itself. He rubbed his aching eyes and dragged his hands down his face. He had to work tomorrow, and he needed sleep. His mind hurt, his heart hurt, and the silence in his quarters after a night of sleeping near Spock was deafening.

He showered, brushed his teeth, and heard Scotty puttering around in the quarters that used to be Spock’s. Where was Spock sleeping tonight? Crashing on Uhura’s couch was the most logical option, but Kirk could easily see him avoiding any scrutiny that sleeping elsewhere would bring and spending the night working in his lab.

He wanted to message Spock and ask him to come back, but shame stayed his hand. What if Spock said no? What if he didn’t respond? What if he did return, and demanded an explanation for Kirk’s behavior that Kirk wasn’t ready to give? Kirk ditched his padd on his desk and dressed in pajamas. He set his alarm and sat on the edge of his bed. His room felt too large without another body in it.

His gaze caught on his blanket, folded neatly on the back of the couch. Spock had slept under it the night before. Kirk was across the room in a heartbeat, sweeping the blanket up and pressing it to his face. It was faint, but it was there--- the earthy, spicy scent that Kirk had long ago come to associate with Spock. He inhaled deeply. The smell was a comfort to him. Even as a small part of him berated himself for his behavior, he laid down on his couch and draped the blanket over his body.

“Computer, lights to zero,” he said, and he fell fitfully into sleep, curled in the space where Spock had been.

#spirk fan fiction #my writing #kirk/spock fan fiction #k/s fan fiction #fake married #regulatory relations #star trek tos fan fiction #k/s

14 notes · View notes

solarianradiance · 2 months

Text

“Cmon!” Bubblegum said as she stretched the hose. “Come... ON!” The hose snapped as she stretched it too far, wrecking the rest of it. She held the broken item in her hand, her hopes of fixing it gone, dashed to the winds.

She threw it away in a fit of anger. “Grob, DAMMIT!!!” She then thrusted the butt of her flamer into the ground, stabbing the Earth over and over again in a tantrum.

“MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER MOOOTHERRR!!!” She then paused upon her last strike. Some tears began to slowly trickle out of her eyes. She was holding them back, but the thought she couldn’t fix a simple hose had gotten under skin.

She then leaned back into the tree she sat under with her palms in her eyes. She sighed deeply, trying not to sob over this mess. She wiped away her tears and got herself mostly under control as she looked around the forest, she was in.

It was an oxbow lake she was on specifically, a sort of moated island the river naturally made then mostly left.

There were flowers basking in the sun, bees and butterflies tending to them. It was beautiful, which gave her some comfort. The place was peaceful, something she craved. She looked around more scanning the area to admire the wonders of nature, working together in harmony, shifting her head from one way to the other.

She knew their popular names, Giant Honeybees, Starwing Butterflies, Sugar flowers. But she also knew their scientific names, ones given to them in the Ancient languages of the Latins and Greeks, those pioneers of Science & Culture that she admired and whose traditions she continued in a way to honor them.

The Magna Apis. Stella Cornu Gloria. Ursa Mino- wait what?

“Hi!” Said the Bear Boy with a cheerful smile.

“AAAAAAAA!” Screamed the Princess as if she was some sort of victim in a horror movie.

“AAAAAAAA!” Shrieked the boy like a girl.

The two screamed and they harmonized, killing much of the tension in the air. Then their harmonized screaming slowly pittered out, the two staring at eachother for several moments, as if time had stopped just so they could do so, only the sound of running water keeping them company.

The two gazed upon one another, they saw each other as strangers, yet they both felt like they have somehow met before.

A butterfly landed on the bear boys head, which snapped the Princess back to reality.

“You snuck on me there! Hehehe.” She chuckled with a mild blush, realizing it was rude to stare, thinking about how silly it was.

“Yeah, uh, s-sorry about that! Sneakin ain’t my usual style.” Said Finn as he kept a respectful distance.

“How long were you there for? WERE YOU SPYING ON ME?!” She demanded.

“Wah?! NO! NO NO NO! Well, not on purpose! See I was walkin through the woods and I kinda spotted you sittin under this tree and you started fiddlin with that thing-a-ma-jig-thingy and you sorta... started crying and stuff, so I came outta hiding to see if you needed some consolin and junk.”

“That’s what spying is ya dingus!!!” She said in anger. “That’s twisted creepy! ACHOO!”

“Bless you.” Said Finn.

“Danke.” Said Bonnie.

“Well, I wasn’t doin it on purpose and... um... I’m sorry.” Finn said with sincerity. “Do you... need help?”

Bonniebel’s anger subsided slowly, she remembered it was a public space, one that she technically owned, but he had a right to be out here like anyone else. She had no right to be angry with him spying on her.

“...Y-you... got a hose or something on ya?” She asked, trying to be polite, not expecting him to have anything on him she could use.

“Uh...” He flipped his backpack open, emptying out its contents. It was mostly junk, food, drinks, a pencil, a toy slingshot.

“Hey, lemme see that slingshot!” She said. The boy passing the item to her. Then she noticed it was a rubber band and not a tube. “Ugh, no, that won’t work. I need a tube hose.” She then tossed it back to the kid. “Thanks anyways.”

“Hmmm... why not, make a tube from something, like clay or dough?” Finn offered the pink lady.

Bubblegum felt a tinge of anger from the suggestion, she brushed her hair out of her face, ready to give the kid a piece of ehr mind. “A tube from claydough? Really? That s...” Then she paused and realized she was made of gum, which was like claydough. “Actually... gimme that pencil, will ya!”

Finn gave her the writing utensil. She took it and then ripped off a piece of her hair, with which she began to roll into a ball, then wrapped it onto the pencil, and kept rolling it until it was an even shape.

She spent a minute working it until it was satisfactory. She then pulled the pencil out, giving it back to the kid and then attached the new tube to her flamer, taking another moment to shape it just right.

Then she stood up, lifted the flamer, lit the flame, and gently squeezed the trigger. Out poured a great blast of fire into the air. “OOO-HO-HO-HO YEEE-HEHEHESSSS!” Said the Princess like she was a giddy pyrophiliac. Which she was not, mostly, that was Flame Princess, probably.

“SHAMAZOZOW!!! THAT IS AWESOME!!!” Finn cheered with his fist up in the air. “You invented a flamethrower?! That is so cool!”

Bubblegum felt a tinge of pride within her, which she tempered with humble honesty. “Heh, well, invented in a strong and inaccurate term. All I did was just build off of the concept and replicated previous designs for my purposes. But I did design this one myself. I actually have better ones back at my place, including a handheld one I use for cookin!”

“A handheld flamethrower?!” Finn asked rhetorically. “That is so cool! Or hot! Spicy hot! Spice!”

“Heh! Spice!” She said back to him, liking the term.

“Spicy spice flamethrowers are so spice!” Said Finn with enthusiasm.

“Yes! So. Very. Spice!” Bubblegum said with emphasis, followed by a cascade of cathartic laughter, something in which Finn joined along with her as if she told a profoundly deep joke.

Bubblegum then kept on laughing for a while longer, slowing down as fell on her butt, relaxing a bit. Whatever tension was between the two, it was gone, almost like it was never there and she was in the company of an old friend.

“So, feelin better?” Finn asked the lady.

“Yeah, actually, I do feel better! In fact... I can’t say when I last laughed like that! Thanks kid!”

“No problemo! If you need any help, I’m your Man!” He said with a gentle seriousness.

“Heh, I’ll keep that in mind, I actually need some help from time to time. So, what brings you out to the taffy forest?”

“Oh, I’m on my way to the Candy Kingdom for the first time, as a birthday present for myself! I just turned 12! I’m gonna go see the Princess!”

“PFFT! Hahaha!” The Princess laughed, almost like he was being absurd. “You wanna see the Princess?! What for?” She asked, wondering if the kid had something particularly important to ask her. Probably for a toy or cake or something.

“Well, I heard a lot of stuff about her havin probs, like big probs! Big problems she can’t solve and how they’re makin her grumpy n stuff over it all, cuz she can’t get any time to herself! So I thought I would come and help so she can do stuff she wants to do and live her! Cuz Princesses got rights to have fun and junk too!” He explained in a rather quick and long winded, almost deadpan manner.

Bubblegum stared at him waiting if the child had anything else to say. “Th-thats why you wanna see the Princess?” She asked, almost not believing him. “Just so you can ask to help her? And that’s your birthday wish?”

“Well I wanted to check out some other stuff. Never been to the Candy Kingdom, or any city for that matter. My brother Jake is easin me into things about life and all that song & dance.”

He sounded childish, as the bear boy should, he was 12, but he also sounded completely sincere as opposed to not really meaning what he says or understanding what he means.

“So you... just... wanna help the Princess with her problems to take the time off for herself in exchange for... what?” She wanted to know what he wanted in return, or if he actually thought any of it through.

“Nothin! Just wanna have fun doin quests for her so she can have a good time and stop bein a grumpy butt or whatever! Not to mention I get to help all kinds of other peeps while doin it!”

“Huh...” She huffed in surprise, a bit of her cynicism subsiding. “Why help m-... her specifically and not somebody else like somebody out in the town?”

“Why? Why not! I mean... u-um...” Finn pondered the question, trying to think of it longer term reasons besides just doing it. “Well, shes the Princess, so shes got the job of lookin after everybody. So, if I help her, I can help lots of folks all at once!!!”

“And... you just trust her to know what she's doing and stuff? You would just do it for her?”

“Heck yeah I would!” He threw his hands up into the air. “Cuz that’s what guys like me do! She’s the Princess so she probably knows what to do when it needs doin!”

Bubblegum stared at him, he had such a light and energy that sort of made her own sour dour fade, like a shadow by the sun. She liked his enthusiasm and wished more people had it.

“...What are you anyways?” She asked.

He gasped. “I...” He stood up onto his feet and in front of her and pulled out a golden sword from his backpack, raising it up into the air. “-am an Adventurer! And I wanna be a Hero!!! Just like Billy!”

“Like Billy?” She asked, giving a soft giggle. He was a kid with a petty dream, probably playing more than actually meaning it. “Well, you got a long way to go. I mean you aren’t exactly hero shaped right now. More life... friend shaped!”

“Well, yeah, I guess I am.” Finn agreed, looking upon himself. “Gotta start somehow, yknow?!”

“Yeah, I like your attitude.” She agreed as she stood up, towering above the boy. “You’ll grow tall.”

The two starred at one another, gentle soft smiles were on their faces, a gentle breeze blowing as the sun casts its warming rays upon them. It was almost as if time had stopped for a while.

“But don’t forget to enjoy your childhood.” She warned, breaking the silence, snapping back to reality. “You only get to have one for so long. Some people don’t even get to really have one.”

“YEAH! Cuz bein a kid, is... well it’s... Blabbabloopy!!!” He declared.

Bubblegum felt a sting of reality, a longing for something she saw everywhere, every day, something right in front of her right there and now but could never have for herself. Her duty to the burden of leadership and sacrificing for the good of others demanded that she could never even try to have a childhood of her own. Far too many people were relying on her.

People like the boy in front of her. She had to protect them all. This sweet innocence of the boy, who did not know her name, yet was eager to be her friend and help her however he could. As if they were never strangers to begin with.

One day the boy who thirsts for adventure would be gone, replaced by an adult, maybe like herself. But for now, she needed to protect him from anythig that would hurt him, even his own foolishness.

She smiled at him, one that came easily. “Well, maybe when you grow taller you’ll appreciate it even more! Heh... blabbabloopy! Hehehe... What’s your name anyways, kid?” She asked.

“My name? I didn’t tell you?!” He asked in confusion.

“Nope!” She answered, sucking on her cheek. “Guess ya forgot!”

“Oh, sorry, It’s Finn! Nice to meet ya!” He said with a toothy smile.

“Finn? Finn... Finn Finn Finn!” She said. “I like that name! It has an elegance to it!”

“Whelp, it’s been a blast lady! Be seein ya!” Finn waved as he turned to wander.

“Wait, where are you going?!” She said in shock, having not given her name yet, she was actually a bit offended. He must have forgotten his manners, or that she didn’t give him her name yet.

“The Candy Kingdom!” He said. “I’m off to see Princess Bubblegum, like I said! See ya later!”

She gave the boy a glare. “What makes you think you haven’t already met her, Finn?” Said Bonniebel with a tinge of anger, honied with a tone of teasing.

“Huh?” Finn looked back at the girl. “What do you mean?”

“Kinda obvi, ain’t it?” She asked. Was this kid actually dense or did he not know how to spot a Princess when he saw one? Especially one as famous as she was.

“...Um... ar-... are you her!?” Finn guessed, unsure if that was what she meant.

“Yup!” She confirmed, planting her hand on her hips, striking a pose of triumph. “I am Princess Bonniebel Bubblegum of the Candy Kingdom! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance!” She then gave a formal curtsy.

“No way!” Finn said.

“Yes way! I am happy to fulfill your birthday wish.” She began with a happiness in her voice, like it was coming out of her chest. “As I am su-”

“Nah-nah, I mean, no way!” Finn interrupted. “You can’t be the Princess!”

Bonnie stared at the kid and gaffed at him with a huff. “Uh... yeah, I am! I am obviously the Princess!” She retorted, thinking the Bear Boy creature really was dense. Maybe he needed his ears cleaned?

“Nah, you can’t be, why would a Princess be out here in the middle of the woods. Plus you don’t have a crown! Princesses need crowns to let everybody know they’re Princesses! It’s the rules and stuff!” He threw his hands up into the air as he approached the girl.

“Uh, first of all, I can be out here if I want, these are my woods!” She said with a hint of righteous arrogance, like a teacher lecturing a student. “Second of none, I DO have a crown! It’s on my head, as you can clearly see! I mean, it’s more like a Tiara, but it totes counts!” She pointed to her head, bowing a little to show it off.

Finn stared at Bonnie’s head for a moment, scanning it. “...I don’t see nothin.” He shrugged.

“Are you blind?!” She asked in frustration. “Or color blind and it’s blending in or something?!” She then placed he hand upon her head. “It’s right... there...”

The Princess then waved her hand around her head, then rubbed her hands directly upon it, only to discover the shocking horror. “Oh FFFFFUUUUUUU-” She began, only remembering just now that a child was present. “-uuuu-dge. Fudge.” She censored. “Fudge, FUDGE! FUDGE FUDGE FUDGE ME ALL THE WAY TO CHURCH!!!”

“I like fudge!” Finn commented, partly trying to diffuse her anger by being silly, but also stating a fact.

“I LOST MY CROWN!!!” She yelled, almost panicking as she searched around the area. “OH GLOB! I-I need to retrace my steps! Oh Grob it better not fallen intot he river!”

“Whoa calm down, Princess! It’s just a piece of jewelry!” Finn said, trying to calm her down. “Nothin you can’t replace!”

“MY CROWN IS A SYMBOL OF MY AUTHORITY! One that you clearly demonstrated that I needed!” She spat. “Besides, the crown itself isn’t all that important, the Gem is! I NEED that Gem! More than anything else! It’s crucial to the lands safety.”

“Oh zip! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to downplay it!” Finn said with remorse, feeling an icy chill of regret. “What does it look like!? I’ll help find it!”

She huffed and then sighed. She did need his help right now in finding it and this was her fault for losing it to begin with. No need to take out her anger on him for something he didn’t mean to do.

“Okay, thanks kid, I appreciate it! Now it looks... like... what’s he’s wearing right now.” Her face grew into one of fear as she pointed behind Finn.

“Wuh?” Finn looked behind himself and saw a pink guy on the top of the waterfall wearing a red gown, a fashionably cute Tiara meant for girls, sporting a most mighty and righteous beard.

“Hey good lookin!” Said the Ice King with a grin most crazy wicked. “Watchya got cookin?”

Adventure Time Presents: The Good, The Fair & The Beautiful. - Chapter 7 - Zalloj - Adventure Time (Cartoon 2010) [Archive of Our Own]

#adventure time #princess bubblegum #finn #Ice King #Straight up the whole chapter

7 notes · View notes