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wexhappyxfew · 5 days

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31. pinky swear from the touch prompt list please!! really i’d love this prompt for all three pairings but maybe carrie and dougie?

- @parajumpboots 💜💜

HI PERI!!!!! ( @parajumpboots ) 🥹 thank you so so much for stopping by and dropping this wonderful little prompt in - it was so fun to fill and write, especially for carrie and dougie!! they’re so fun to write and play around with in context! :) thank you again and please enjoy! <3

you pinky promise?

(a/n): this can be seen a bit as a part 2 to THIS piece i wrote a little while back, but they don’t have to be read together at all, so! please enjoy carrie and dougie and their antics hehe :)

Day was fading to night and she was still feeling like she'd been run over by a truck.

Everything ached, her head was woozy, her throat dry and scratchy, her nose running like it was something fierce, and everything just seemed so loud and in her face. It had been only a matter of time before she would get sick with something like this - even as a kid in school, she'd catch anything that ran through that building, whether from other kids or the seasonal changes of the weather.

And now, she was here, trapped in a cot in the Med-Bay, listening to distant screams from people in Triage or others in the sickness wing launching up lunch. Curled on her side, she stared lazily up towards the window where the sunset was starting to dance across the sky, a beautiful array of colors flickering across, mixed with clouds and nightfall, the blue and purple hues dotting with stars.

At least the sky was having a grand old time.

"How ya feeling, Bergie?" Carrie stiffened for a moment and then shifted, glancing up and over her shoulder to see Dougie. Dougie. Surprise-surprise.

"Okay." she answered, before turning back and resting her swimming head against the pillow and staring up at the sky again, "Queasy." She heard Dougie let a puff of air leave his lips in a response for laughter before a chair screeched against the floor and was pulled up at her side. Slowly, she looked towards him, sat in the chair, lighting up a cigarette and letting the smoke blow upwards.

"You serious?" she murmured.

"Ah, c'mon, just for a sec." he said, talking around the cigarette on his lip, as she rolled her eyes and adjusted onto her back, looking towards him.

"Just a sec, huh?" she said, "I bet even if I could pay you the largest sum of money in the world, that thing wouldn't leave your lips."

"Since when did you become so concerned with me and this cigarette?"

"Because I feel sick enough as it is, Dougie, and you're lighting it up in front of me." she said with a deadpan stare and he raised his hands in defense and then popped it off his lip and stubbed it out.

"Better?"

"You're a real sweetheart, ya know that?" Carrie murmured and he made a face, which she mocked back, "So. What's up?"

"Figured you wanted to hear about Lieutenant Bradshaw nearly throwing me overboard." Dougie offered rather expressively as his eyes grew wide and he held out his hands, "I promise, if you want to have a laugh, I am more than willing to offer it."

"At your own humiliating expense?"

"Precisely." Carrie laughed and then sighed, before smiling slightly.

"Well, go on, then," she urged him on, bringing the blanket up over her form a bit more, "you've got me invested now. There's no backing out."

"I can never back out of these sorts of things, can I?"

"Dougie. Story. Now." Dougie smirked and then leaned forward against his knees, before chuckling.

"Well, first-off, she called me Bergie I don't know how many fucking times-"

"That's because, uh, hello genius, I'm usually the bombardier here, alright-"

"Anyway," Dougie said, sending her a look, which made her smile slightly, "after calling me Bergie, I started making jokes back, ya know, try to give the feel that you probably give Lieutenant Bradshaw, when she basically has to hand the fort over."

"So you're saying I'm funny." Carrie said, with a soft smirk his way, "Thank you for that." Dougie looked to her and for a moment, they just watched each other, before they both broke out into laughter.

"That's a bit of a stretch, Bergie-"

"No, it ain't, you said it with a straight face!" Dougie looked to her and raised a brow and she raised her own back.

"Fine, yes, I realize that you usually try to get people laughing and I figured Lieutenant Bradshaw would appreciate it, so…." Dougie shrugged, "whatever makes you sleep at night."

"Asshole." Carrie murmured, before grinning, "So, what she'd say?" Dougie leaned back in his chair and then smiled wide.

"Well, we landed, right?" he said, "Bes is well, to be the nicest I can be, looking at me like I just bet on a losing horse, and then Lieutenant Bradshaw comes down from the cockpit and chews me out. Pretty sure Bes and Francis got front row seats to my funeral on that one." Carrie let out a bark of laughter and cough rather wetly, which wasn't the most pleasant sounding, but Dougie seemed to hardly care less, as he shook his head with a chuckle.

"God, she went 'Why do I have you doing Bergie impressions in my ear, Douglass! We're here to drop bombs, not put on a show for rich-fucks!'" Dougie said with a laugh and Carrie let out a string of laughter, her head falling back, just as the sight she got in her head,

"It was bad, I gotta admit."

"You really outdid yourself there." Carrie said with a snort, "C'mon, show me it." Dougie looked at her and raised a brow, and with what strength she had, she reached forward and punched his shoulder.

"Your impression of me, asshole," she said, "c'mon, I know it oughta be good enough for 25,000 feet in the air, huh?" Dougie looked to her and his face softened for a brief moment, before he gathered his bearings.

"'This shit tastes like it was cooked on the goddamn barnburner you call an engine!'" Dougie said, in a ridiculously accurate, rather high-pitched voice that made Carrie wheeze to the point all she could was cough wetly, and had to recover.

"I do not sound like that." she managed out, wetly coughing again and pointing a finger at home, "But that is absolutely something I'd say."

"See?" Dougie said leaning forward, grabbing the cup of water at the side of her cot and handing it to her, "No wonder I pissed off Lieutenant Bradshaw so much, she probably thought I was trying to make her lose her mind." She took the cup and drank some water down slowly, and then smiled.

"Got that right," Carrie said with a laugh, before catching his gaze, and placing down the water, "that or you hang around me far too often." Dougie smirked, watching her for a moment as it grew quiet between them. But then he shrugged and she looked away and he scratched his neck.

"Listen, I don't want to bother you much more, you're not feeling great so…." Dougie made to stand, but Carrie looked up at him, before reaching out and grabbing at his arm.

"It's okay," she said, her grip loosening on the sleeve of his A-2, as she realized how suddenly desperate she looked for him to stay (she didn't want to come across like that good Lord), "I'm not exactly tired yet, so….don't feel you have to go." Dougie looked down at her and then smiled softly, before she let go and he settled himself down into the chair again.

"Well, you better heal on up quicker then if I decide to hang around a little while longer, got that? I think Bes was gonna sucker-punch me in the nose of Silver Bullets," Dougie said, "she missed you." Carrie smiled warmly at the thought of Bessie and pulled the blanket tighter around her form and nodded.

"I can promise you, right now, not focusing on the fact I feel like shit is probably the best thing for me," she said, in a slightly joking tone, but genuinely honest one as well, "but I promise, alright?" Dougie watched her and then sent her a look.

"You pinky promise?" he asked her, holding out a pinky towards her. She stared between his pinky finger and his face and felt her shoulders loosen.

"Fine, yes," she said, looping her finger through his and smirking, "you just miss me out there in the chow line messing with your coffee that bad, huh?" Dougie looked at her, pulling a face in her direction.

"Where the hell would you even get that idea?" Dougie said, "And plus, when you do mess with my coffee, and let's just say it isn't entirely detrimental, adding more cream or sugar isn't exactly a negative in my sense."

"It's going to clog up your organs with shit." Carrie said and Dougie raised a brow.

"And here we are. Back again to Bergie Achterberg being so wonderfully concerned with my health," Dougie said, "you wanna write to my Ma? Ask for my birth forms too now, huh? That or you really are trying to get your karma out on me? Clogging up my organs with shit, huh?" Carrie watched him and then unlooped her pinky and sat back against the bed.

"Clogging up your organs with sugar and unhealthy stuff, Dougie," she said, before pulling the blanket up more, "must I repeat it?"

"Please do." Carrie cracked an eye open and watched as Dougie started chuckling and she did her best to hide her smirk.

"You absolute asshole."

"Oh c'mon, you love it."

Both her eyes opened and she looked over at him for a moment. They lingered in silence for a moment - somehow it always seemed to happen. One of them saying something that sent them both, separately reeling in a sense neither could quite compound in their minds. Especially when it was supposed to be something casual, something that rolled off the tongue and was in fact normal to say to friends.

But whatever was going on in this war and between them, it wasn't normal.

And something like that made them go silent.

Carrie watched him for a moment, as he seemed to smile, more to himself than her, and then looked at her.

"Get some rest, Bergie." he said softly, before leaning forward and patting the edge of the blanket where her you could see her legs outlined by the fabric, and then stood, "Need anything?"

Carrie looked at him rather quietly, suddenly feeling like a child again, watching him stand and ready to leave, except in a much more pleasant manner than anyone at home had ever been like. Because at home, it had been people leaving without explanation or well-wishes.

"Just some crackers maybe? Please?" she asked him quietly, her voice sounding more youthful than anything else in the past few days. Dougie smiled at her, that gentle grin rising on his face and he nodded.

"I'll be back, alright?" And she watched him give her a smile, before wandering away, finding a nurse and engaging in conversation.

And after that. He came back. With crackers.

#masters of the air #mota #mota writings #silver bullets #carrie achterberg #james douglass #carrie x dougie #THESE TWO!!!!#he got her WATER without saying ANYTHING #just on instinct #and he STAYED #and got her CRACKERS #(because her home life was never like that)#sobbing over them continually #fangirling like these arent people that live in my head lmfao #BYEEE #please enjoy!! :D

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whump-me · 17 days

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Obscure: Chapter 11

Chapter 11 of Obscure, novel-length interrogation whump about a rebel leader who can erase memories with a thought, an interrogator who can see inside his subjects’ minds… and the connection they share that neither of them suspects.

Masterpost | the Mind Games universe | Read the completed novel on Patreon

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Elias

The interrogation rooms must not have been cleaned on a daily schedule, because the next morning, Elias smelled his own sweat hanging in the air. The table was smudged with the nervous grease from his own hands. It cut the reflection a little, made it more bearable. He could have done without the sweat, though.

But if he was going to make wishes, he might as well wish himself back home.

Kirill sat across from him. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth were more pronounced. But those pale eyes themselves were daggers newly sharpened to a fresh point.

Kirill sat up straighter, inhumanly straight, like he was trying to blend in with the furniture with all its cold right angles. His breath came in a steady rhythm, like there was a machine in his chest breathing for him. The sound was hypnotic.

“What’s the mask this time?” Elias asked. “What game are we playing today?”

“No games,” said Kirill. “Not anymore.”

“You keep saying that. But we keep circling around to the same thing.”

As always when Kirill was in the room, a slow but steady trickle of fear-memories leaked out of him. A constant small betrayal on the part of his mammalian brain. Kirill might have been able to turn himself into a machine at will, but Elias didn’t have that ability. No matter what he had thought at first, in his hubris, with his hours of practice at desensitizing himself to his own grief.

“We were done with games days ago,” said Kirill. “If you think we’ve been playing, you haven’t taken my threat seriously enough. Should I show you a picture of your son, here in headquarters, to prove I mean what I say?”

The thought stopped Elias’s breath. But no emotion rushed out of him. A second later, when his chest filled with an inner warmth, he understood why. Negative emotion brought out the memories, Kirill had said. The thought of seeing a picture of Sammy, alive and grown up… that was the fulfillment of fifteen years of hope. Kirill could get nothing from that warmth.

The fear hit a second later. Because his dream had been to see his son happy and healthy, and if he was either of those things now, it was only because he was ignorant of the threat hanging over his head. Elias wanted to see him, but not like this. Not as a hostage.

Not as a PERI resource.

“Would you like that picture?” Kirill asked. His voice was strangely empty, even for him. Like someone had scooped out every ounce of humanity in him, and the thing in front of Elias now was what was left.

Elias shook his head.

“Do you still think we’re playing games?”

Elias shook his head again.

“Then let’s get started,” said Kirill. “You asked what part I was playing today. I’m not. I have a better way of getting emotion from you now. All I need to do is mention your son and what will happen to him if you stop giving me what I need, either through your memories or through what you tell me aloud.”

One more time, Elias shook his head. “Of course you’re playing a part. This isn’t who you are.”

“This?” Kirill looked down at himself, like he was trying to see what Elias saw. “There is no this. I’m not being anything.”

“Exactly. You’re nothing right now. No one is nothing inside.”

“Still looking for the answer to your question? You’re going to be disappointed. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about me. And we’re not here to play. I’m going to talk to you about your son, and you’re going to give me the information I want. If you’d like things to move faster, you can speak aloud, and spare yourself the grief and fear I’ll have to evoke otherwise. If I stop getting anything from you, I’ll take you to your son, and I’ll hurt him.”

The fear-wound tore a little wider, bled a little more. Nothing Kirill could use—Elias was certain of that. A face from a horror movie poster when he was a child, on one of the family’s big trips into town. They had always drawn looks—a dozen adults and twice as many children, clustered together in one big herd. Half of them small-mouthed and wide-eyed like a gaggle of country mice. The other half behaving like wild things, like the trip out was an excuse to let out the sides of themselves they had to keep buttoned up at home.

Their parents had let them, so long as they didn’t let their powers show—that was the only unbendable rule. The children had run around like rabid animals, grabbing all the unfamiliar brightly-colored things with their grubby hands, smearing fingerprints all over the ticket counter and the movie posters. The adults—eager for a chance to let loose themselves—had laughed too loudly and worn impractical clothes they never wore at home, and poured liquid from small metal flasks into their extra-large sodas.

Max had been one of the country mice. Elias had watched the wild things longingly, but had stayed with Max, letting him clutch his hand and hold him in place.

“We’re not here to talk about your ghost boy,” Kirill said, his voice sharp.

Elias blinked away the past. “We’re not here to talk about Sammy, either. Not really.”

“Your son is a means to an end. Focus on him. Think about the hands of the child you remember. How will it sound when those small fingers snap?”

Was Kirill’s cruelty another mask he could put on and take off at will, or was it part of who the man was underneath? There was no point in asking—no point in wondering, even, when he would never get an answer. Elias clung to the thought anyway, because any distraction would do.

But no distraction could hold up to the image Kirill’s words evoked, or the sound in his imagination of a tiny, delicate finger bone snapping. Sammy’s hands weren’t that small anymore, of course. They had to be the size of his own by now. Elias knew that intellectually. But when he thought about Sammy’s hand, he pictured the hands of an infant, of a toddler, of an eight-year-old. When he imagined them broken, those were the hands he saw.

Sick fear. Helpless rage. A river of memory overflowed its banks. A gushing wound, memory-blood pooling around him, bleeding out the entirety of his son’s history. In front of Elias, Kirill rocked back slightly as eight years of memory flooded him at once.

“The branches of your network,” Kirill said, his voice tight, his unfocused eyes darting back and forth like he was in the grip of a nightmare. “The command structure. Names and faces.”

Elias couldn’t control the flow. It carved a new path in his mind, veering away from Sammy’s childhood, passing through the details of the network he had painstakingly built over the past fifteen years. He tried to steer it back, but the memories were a river, and they flowed through his grasping fingers like water.

The names and faces Kirill had demanded poured from him and straight into Kirill’s brain. A rush of guilt followed. He was giving Kirill everything. And his people would suffer for it, the people had trusted, who had agreed to work for him despite the danger. The future children they could have rescued, the future Sammys, they would also suffer.

The river grew faster, stronger, drawing a soft noise of protest from Kirill. But Kirill’s mouth, curled in a hard smile, was satisfied, his hunger slaked.

Guilt was an emotion. Emotion made the memories come faster.

He breathed in. Breathe out. He stared his grief straight in its wide and helpless and relentlessly hungry eyes, and resisted the urge to reach out and throttle the creature. That wouldn’t help.

Fighting grief never killed grief.

Fighting fear never killed fear.

Fighting pain never stopped the pain from coming. It only multiplied it —the pain that couldn’t be stopped, times the pain of failing to stop it.

His son was in danger. But he had faced that before. He had stared that monster down, and it had blinked first.

His people would suffer and die because of his unwitting betrayal. But he had lost people before. He could still remember the feeling of hot blood on his hands, the thick and earthy tang of it in his nose, pleading eyes going soft and glassy. He could still remember the heat of the flames, and the dying screams of everyone he had almost loved.

Almost everyone. That last loss had come later.

So many losses. And he had survived them all. He had found a way to push the torrents of feeling down, to fight his way back to dry land rather than letting the current hold him under. Otherwise, he would never have survived.

Inhale for four.

Exhale for four.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The flow didn’t stop. But it slowed. The memories came in jagged bursts. Not a current, but the fitful expulsions of a broken faucet.

“Focus,” Kirill urged, and Elias did. He focused on his breath—inhale, exhale. He stared into Kirill’s pale eyes and imagined himself staring down his grief.

But Kirill said, “Sammy,” and Elias saw his son’s face. No amount of focus on his breathing could banish the memory of those eyes or those pudgy child cheeks.

“I’ll start with the little fingers,” said Kirill. “They hurt the most when they break.”

And then, “The locations of your safehouses. With addresses.”

His memory lurched. The river surged down its new path. The images hovered half-formed in Elias’s mind, like vomit struggling to come up.

But if Elias couldn’t stop the flow of memory, maybe he could choose where it went. He couldn’t keep Sammy out of his mind, so he stopped trying. He thought about those cheeks, about his dark and solemn eyes. Those hands, with their perfect fingers Kirill kept threatening to break. A small face contorted in fear.

“The safehouses,” Kirill said. Still colorless, empty of feeling, but Elias imagined frustration lurking underneath. He imagined it because it made him feel like he was winning. He needed to feel like he would win, like he could win, or he would stop trying.

Safehouses. House. Safe. The little house he and Lisbeth had owned together. Her with her hands on her swollen belly, looking doubtfully down the basement stairs. He’ll fall as soon as he starts walking. We should keep the basement door locked—get a padlock and just never open it. We never go down there anyway. Him telling her she was being ridiculous to close off an entire room of the house, an entire floor. He said it with a smile on his face, so she’d know he was joking even though he wasn’t, because he never knew what would hit her wrong these days. He felt a tiny squirm of unease in his belly, gratitude that she had been the one to say it and not him, because he had been eyeing those stairs with trepidation for weeks now.

“Clever,” came Kirill’s impassive voice. “Now show me your network. Where do your people hide themselves?”

His people, his family, his son. He kept Sammy’s dark eyes fixed in his mind—the best memories, the worst, anything with enough emotion to keep the current from changing course.

But Kirill’s words lodged themselves in his mind. His network. Hiding. He pictured cabins hidden deep in the woods—

But there had been a different network once. And a different kind of hiding, one he hadn’t thought of as hiding. He had thought they were all family, and all they needed was each other, and it was as simple as that. He hadn’t understood the danger that had driven all his mothers and fathers to buy a hundred acres out in the middle of nowhere. Not until the danger had come knocking with a lit match in its back pockets.

For decades, since long before the loss of Sammy, he had held those memories at bay. He had forced them down, burying them deeper and deeper, piling more and more dirt on top. He had buried them the way none of his family had gotten the chance to be buried. They had burned instead.

The memories came out in his nightmares sometimes, once or twice a year, no more than that. The memory of fire, the stink of burning wood and burning flesh. Or, more rarely, happy dreams—chasing frogs in the marsh, picking flowers in the meadow, he and his hesitant shadow. He and Max, who Kirill had called the ghost boy.

Was his face really that blurry in Elias’s memory now? Had Elias buried the memory of him that deeply? He hadn’t thought so. But Kirill had sifted through his memories with the deft skill of a long-time prospector panning for gold, and Max’s face was the one thing he couldn’t see.

If there was enough emotion in the memory of Max for that, there was enough emotion in that memory to hold his thoughts in place.

All he had to do was let it in.

Kirill wanted his network. But his family had functioned in much the same way. Protecting each other, using their abilities for the good of the whole. Keeping the children safe and oblivious. That long-ago home—that was his network. That was the network he would give Kirill.

Kirill wanted safehouses. He wanted to know where Elias’s people hid. They had hidden in houses they had built themselves, in a wilderness of marshlands and overgrown meadows. The electricity had gone out with every storm. Sometimes it had taken weeks to come back on. They had eaten canned food and built fires for warmth, and huddled together under hand-sewn blankets, everyone all together in one house. to conserve heat.

They had lived like animals, Max had said later—We’ve been living like animals all our lives. Even before we had to run. I’m tired of it. Aren’t you tired? But Elias had never seen it that way. He hadn’t felt deprived, except for brief sharp pangs on those trips into town, glimpsing children who treated going to the movies or out for ice cream as ordinary.

He had never felt embarrassed by his hand-sewn clothes, not like some of the others had. The kids in town had blue jeans that looked like the ones in the movies, and shirts with cartoon characters on them. But Elias had pants rugged enough that he could climb the tall tree at the center of the marsh and never tear them. He had picked out the fabric for his favorite shirt himself, and sat with Mama Charisse in her living room as she had sewn it without using her hands to move the needle and thread.

“Your network.” Kirill’s voice was distant now, faded, compared to the vibrancy of Elias’s memories. Even so, Elias felt the pull of the current guiding him closer to the present day, closer to Kirill’s voice.

Thinking about his home wasn’t enough.

So Elias unburied the dead.

Mama Charisse hadn’t been what the outside world would have called his real mother, the one whose body he had grown in and pushed his way out of, the one he had shared a house with when he wasn’t sleeping over at Max’s house. That hadn’t mattered to him. Every adult had been his mother or his father. Every child had been his sister or his brother. It confused him, in the books he read and the movies he watched and the families he saw in town, how small the families were, and how many walls they placed between each other.

He had called his real mother by her name, the way he did with all the others—the adults had wanted that way, hadn’t wanted divisions based on blood. She had been Mama Jessie. She had smelled like oranges and sunlight and could make plants turn green in the middle of winter with just one touch. She had died screaming, like all the others, when their home had burned.

Max had wanted to go back to look for survivors. Elias had said no. He had said PERI could still be there, waiting for them to come back. And that might have been true. But it wasn’t the reason for Elias’s refusal. Elias hadn’t wanted to risk seeing the charred bodies of the dead.

He remembered Mama Jessie’s arms around him, the smell of her, the roughness of her hands. All the things he had buried for so many years, so he could sleep without nightmares. Those first few weeks after they had run, he hadn’t slept, because he had seen her dying every time he closed his eyes, her and all the rest. And if he didn’t sleep, he couldn’t take care of Max. He had buried the dead so he could tend to the living.

He pictured his father, Papa Graham, with his bushy beard and his long, long legs. Elias’s eyes had always been too serious, or so everyone had told him, but Papa Graham’s eyes had always been smiling. He smelled like the cigars he bought in town and smoked when he thought Mama Jessie wasn’t looking.

And then there was Max. The ghost boy.

They had been born the same week of the same year. The family had called them twins. Mama Kelly had called them photo negatives of each other, one with black hair and black eyes, the other with pale, pale eyes and hair so light it was almost the white of snow.

They had shared a crib as babies, on the days when their parents couldn’t get them to stop crying. Max had stopped crying when Elias was there to take care of him, or so the family legend went. Elias had stopped crying when he had Max to take care of.

They had talked in full sentences to each other before they said a word to anyone else. They had learned to crawl together, walked together, steadying each other with chubby hands firmly clasped together. They had been two halves of the same person. First twins, mirrors, photo negatives. Then, once they were old enough to explore, they were no longer mirrors but opposites, each of their differences perfectly complementing the other.

They had both been serious—too serious, Mama Kelly had said—but in different ways. Elias had been the protector, Max the one who needed protecting. Elias was the hard shell, Max the soft, defenseless creature inside.

The adults had shaken their heads over Max, wondering who he would be what he would do when he no longer had Elias to rely on. It hadn’t been until years later that Elias had realized their worries had been misplaced. They should have asked themselves what Elias would do when he no longer had someone to protect.

He would set out to protect the whole world—that was the answer. Or as much of it as he could reach.

Maybe what he had created hadn’t only been a response to Sammy’s death after all.

The adults hadn’t needed to worry about Max. Max had grown beyond Elias in good time. He had formed his own opinions, gained the strength and the conviction to make his own decisions. He had been the one to let go first, not Elias. It had been Elias who had tried to hold on. Elias, in the end, who had struggled to let go.

The memories of their last fight were the ones that came into his nightmare most frequently. But today, Elias unburied the deeper memories. Like wine or cheese, they had grown all the more potent from their years in the dark.

Like Elias urging Max to climb a tree after him. Elias didn’t shimmy up trees as a natural instinct, the way some of his more reckless brothers and sisters did. He had studied the tree at the center of the swamp for weeks, climbing up little by little and then back down again, a little further every day. Gauging its weaknesses, formulating his plan of attack. He had shared his acquired knowledge with Max, but Max preferred to stay on the ground.

Maybe Elias should have let him. But he had been a child, and he had wanted to share the view. And eventually, he had talked Max into it. Max had never been good at saying no to him, in those days. Elias hadn’t realized his mistake, not until he was safely on the ground again, staring up at a wide-eyed and terrified Max.

He’d had to call Papa Oleg in the end, and asked him to bring a ladder, like someone in a book calling the fire department for a cat caught up a tree. He had apologized to Max for not knowing how to get him down. That, in his mind, had been his failure—and an unforgivable one. It was his job to get Max out of any trouble he could get him into.

That early failure had done nothing to inoculate him against his more permanent failure later.

He lingered on the end of the memory, the feeling of his small arms around Max’s shaking body. After a moment, he realized the flow of memory was less like a rushing river now, and more like being immersed in a small and warm natural pool, out of the flow of the current.

The current had stopped. Without Kirill’s reminders, the sharpness of the emotion had faded.

Kirill must have noticed. Why hadn’t he said anything?

Elias let the memory fade. It drained away, leaving him out of breath from all his work digging up graves.

Kirill wasn’t sitting across from him anymore. He had his back against the wall. His eyes wide and desperate. In those eyes, Elias saw—only for a second—the eyes of a small boy trapped up a tree.

“A clever strategy.” Kirill’s voice was thin and thready. If it was part of a persona, Elias could figure out what.

“I can see you still aren’t ready to cooperate,” Kirill said in the same tone. “I may need to put you in a room with your son after all.”

The threat lacked sharpness. Kirill’s voice wobbled, an overcooked noodle where a knife should have been.

He stumbled out the door, leaving a startled Elias alone.

Elias had won a victory. He just wished he understood why.

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Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @suspicious-whumping-egg

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#whump #whump novel #my writing #my writing: Obscure #my writing: Mind Games #interrogation whump #superpower whump #emotional whump

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sploinky · 2 years

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makes me incredibly mad when characters who overcome being suicidal are killed off unnecessarily :(

#this is abt beth greene and max mayfield #peri stop talking #suicide mention

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errorryx · 6 months

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blood moon – part two

read on ao3 | read part one | gemcyt / life series, 2.5k words

An AU-within-an-AU of the wonderful gemcyt AU by @chrisrin, and the fic series by @sixteenth-days!

This part introduces two more characters, Mumbo and Lizzie, but since they're Homeworld gems, they don't use those names yet, and Lizzie doesn't use she/her pronouns yet. All that will change in the next chapter, but in the meantime, Mumbo is Peridot and Lizzie is Rose Quartz.

—

“I can’t believe this,” Grian said, looking at Pearl with a new eye. Now that he knew it was his old friend, he could see the resemblance, though it was mostly in Pearl’s expressions—her new form bore no resemblance to her previous one. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, obviously.” Alex gave him a gentle bump with her shoulder. It hurt a lot less than usual now that she was only twice his size.

“I have so many questions.” Grian tried to organize his thoughts, but it was a hopeless task. “Why do you look like a pearl? Should I be calling you Pearl now, or Alexandrite? And why are you red?”

“I don't care what you call me, Gri. I’m just glad I finally found you,” Pearl said. “The pearl thing started out as a disguise, but I have no idea why I'm red. I was actually hoping you’d know.”

“I've never seen a gem change color before.” Grian landed on Alex’s shoulder and took a closer look, poking her arm in curiosity. “Maybe Scott or Cleo would know something, but I haven’t got a clue. Is this the first time it’s happened?”

“As far as I know. We landed last night, but I didn't leave the ship until morning because—”

“Hang on,” Grian interrupted. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and Peridot,” Alex said. “Oh, and this rose quartz we picked up on the way, but he ran off the second we touched down. Haven't seen him since. He was such a ditz, he probably tripped on a rock somewhere and shattered himself.”

She laughed, but Grian didn’t join her. His days of considering quartz soldiers expendable were over now that he knew some of them personally. If anything happened to BigB, he’d be inconsolable.

“How did you convince Peridot to come with you?” he asked. “I figured he’d never leave Homeworld again after hearing that I disappeared.”

“He’s currently refusing to leave the ship,” Alex admitted. “But he came because he had to, Grian. We both did. We couldn’t just not look for you, knowing you could still be out there.”

A horrible thought occurred to Grian. “This isn’t a Homeworld mission, is it? You’re not reporting back to them or anything?”

“Course not. We left the main ship three solar systems away and took an escape pod here. They can’t track us.”

Grian breathed a sigh of relief. If there was one thing Alexandrite was good at, it was hiding things from the diamonds. He should have more faith in her. “I thought I’d never see you or Peri again,” he said. “I still can’t believe you’re just here.”

“I’m here,” she said. “Come on, bring it in.” She spread her arms open, and Grian moved forward to let her hug him. He could actually sort of hug back this time, since she was smaller than usual. “I missed you so much, Gri. I wish I could have come sooner.”

“I missed you too,” Grian admitted. “Living with Scar is kind of a nightmare. Makes you seem level-headed and rational in comparison.”

“Me? Level-headed?” Alex laughed. “I get it, though. Peri’s been driving me up a wall with how much he talks about you, but I can’t blame him. We were so worried you’d been shattered, but I kept telling myself, Gri’s a survivor. He’d never just die on an alien planet like that. And I was right!” she crowed. “He’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“You think if we’re both there, we can convince him to leave the ship?”

“Who cares about that? We can catch up on the way back, right?” Alex said, her red eyes shining. “Come on, Gri, let’s get out of here!”

“Wait, what?”

Grian stopped dead, replaying the conversation they’d just had in his head. Alex had been glad to see him, she’d been shirking her responsibilities to come find him, but she’d never said anything about staying—in fact, the first thing she’d said to him had been the exact opposite.

“We’re going home, silly.” Pearl tilted her head in confusion. “Don’t you want to get out of here?”

Maybe if she’d come earlier, Grian would have jumped at the chance to get off this planet and return to Homeworld. But now, he’d gotten used to the freedom of doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. He couldn’t imagine returning to his old life just to have the Diamond Authority constantly breathing down his neck.

“I can’t just up and leave,” he told her.

“Why not? We’ve already come up with the perfect cover story.”

“That’s not the problem,” Grian said. “I’ve got a whole life here now. I’m making new friends, fusing, working on this base—” He gestured behind him. “I just put in a chimney. You don’t even know what that is! I don’t even know what that is, but I’m not going to find out if I return to Homeworld.”

Pearl just stared at him. She clearly wasn’t getting the message. “So…you’re not going to come back with us?”

“No,” Grian said firmly. “I’m not going back to Homeworld.”

“Oh.” Pearl stepped back, her eyes going blank. “Okay then.”

“It’s just—” He sighed. “I thought you liked it here. I thought this place would be right up your alley.”

She shrugged. “It’s alright.”

“I was hoping you’d want to stay.” Grian couldn’t blame Pearl for having reservations. He’d had plenty of his own, and it had taken him a while to shake them. “I know it sounds insane.”

“It does,” Pearl agreed. “I’ll have to think about it.” Her voice was flat and unconvincing. She was upset, Grian realized, and trying not to show it. She took a few steps back, glancing off in the direction she’d come from.

“You don’t have to decide yet,” Grian said. “I know it’s a lot.”

“I get it,” Pearl said. “I’ll just—I’ve got to work on some things. I should go.”

“You’re not going to tell anyone from Homeworld that we’re here, are you?”

“I wouldn’t,” she said, sounding offended. “We’re still friends, Gri. I’d never get you in trouble.”

“Or anyone else,” he insisted.

“Or anyone else.” She started walking away, but stopped after a few steps. “You’re not going to blow my cover, are you?”

“You mean tell them you’re not really a pearl?”

“I am a pearl,” she said, but faltered. “I mean—yeah.”

“We’re still friends,” Grian echoed her. He still didn’t know why Alex was in disguise, but he’d get it out of her eventually. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Pearl nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told him, and left.

—

Pearl’s return to the ship was concerning, to say the least.

When she left, Pearl had assured Peridot that she’d be back with Gri at her side. Not only was Gri nowhere to be seen, but Pearl had somehow managed to turn herself an entirely different color.

It may have been a trick of the light, but Peridot wasn’t willing to leave the ship to get a closer look. He hit the button on the wall to deploy the landing bay so she could come in.

“Don’t just stand there,” Pearl said, gesturing for him to join her. “Get out here.”

“I thought you said I wouldn’t have to leave the ship.”

“Change of plans.” Pearl crossed her arms, fixing him with an exasperated glare. “It’s perfectly safe, Peri. I’ve been out here for hours now without a scratch on me.”

“But—”

“Do you want Gri back or not?”

“I don’t want to change color,” Peridot said. “Can’t you just come in here?”

“Nope. You’ll be fine.” She walked up the ramp and grabbed him by the elbow, pulling him down with her. “See? Look, you’re still the same.”

Peridot winced as his foot touched the ground, but nothing happened. Pearl had told him the truth. His usual shade of green had gone a little dull from the dim light, but it was nothing like Pearl’s dramatic shift in hue. “Goodness,” he said, staring down at the earth beneath him. The soil was obscured by a thick layer of organic matter. “What is this stuff?”

“Don’t scan it. You can’t access the database here,” Pearl reminded him.

“I know, I know.” His arms stayed in place, his fingers tapping nervously against his elbows. “So what happened?”

Pearl let out a loud noise of frustration, making Peridot jump. “It went horribly,” she said. “I don’t know what Gri’s problem was. I showed him my gem and everything, and I even told him you came with me, but it was like he didn’t even care.”

“Even though he knows I’m here?” Pearl nodded, and Peridot pulled his arms a little closer around himself. “Oh,” he said softly. “I see.”

“I asked him to come back here with me,” Pearl said. “I told him you were waiting for him, but he refused. He wants to stay here, Peri. He doesn’t care about us anymore.”

Peridot didn’t think Pearl would lie to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Gri would have rejected them so harshly. “There must be some kind of misunderstanding,” he said. “Maybe he was just upset over something else. We can’t give up after getting all the way here.”

“I’m not giving up on him,” Pearl said. “That’s why I called you out here. We’re going to march right back over there and get this sorted. He can’t say no to us both.”

Peridot stared out into the darkness. Other than the light from the ship, their surroundings were rather dim. If he were to follow Pearl to wherever Gri was, he might risk unwanted contact with all manner of unseen creatures. “Can’t we wait until morning?” he asked her.

“I told you, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Besides the other gems, I haven’t seen a single motile organism since we arrived.”

Right as she finished speaking, something began rustling around in the greenery close by. Peridot immediately ran up the landing bay to hide inside the ship, but Pearl didn’t move. Instead, she drew her gem weapons, a pair of curved blades as long as her forearms, and held them aloft, ready to strike.

“Reveal yourself!” she shouted. “Who’s there?”

“What are you doing? Don’t draw its attention over here!”

“Guys, relax! It’s just me.” A few more branches snapped, and the bushes parted to make way for Rose Quartz, dirty and disheveled but no less chipper than the last time they’d seen him. “Did you find your little friend yet?”

Peridot had never met Rose before this journey. The only reason Rose was here was because he’d overheard Pearl and Peridot discussing their plans. Instead of ratting them out, he’d asked to join them, and they hadn’t had much of a choice but to agree.

“Where have you been all day?” Pearl asked Rose, letting her weapons vanish.

“I was looking around for other gems,” Rose said. “I followed the sun like you told me, but then it disappeared, so I turned around and came back.”

Pearl pinched the bridge of her nose. “Rose, I told you that the previous mission landings were in that direction,” she said, pointing east.

“You said they were towards the sun,” Rose said. “And the sun moved, so I followed it.”

“Are you like this on purpose, or are you really just that stupid?”

“Hey!” Rose crossed his arms. “Don’t call me stupid!”

“I’m glad you’re safe, Rose,” Peridot said, trying to steer the conversation away from an argument. He couldn’t make sense of why Pearl was acting so hostile. Until now, she’d had no problem being kind to Rose, keeping all her frustrations with Rose’s cluelessness between the two of them.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Rose said with confidence. “I’m a lot stronger than I look. Hey, Pearl, why are you red now?”

“That’s not important,” Pearl said. “What matters is that I saw all the missing gems today, Rose. None of them were shattered.”

“Wait, all of them? Really?”

“I cross-referenced every gem I saw with the reports of gems that were lost on Life. Everyone was accounted for.”

“What about Pearl? Where’s Pearl?”

Peridot pointed at Pearl immediately, only to find that Pearl was also currently pointing at herself. Rose laughed, waving them off.

“I know about that pearl, don’t worry,” he said. “I’m talking about Pink Pearl.”

“Wait, that’s who you’re here for?” Pearl asked. “Not one of the quartzes?”

“You know,” Peridot reflected, “maybe it would have been a good idea to ask that question before we let a random gem join our illegal top-secret mission.”

Pearl ignored him. “What do you want with Pink Diamond’s pearl?” she asked Rose.

“Erm.” Rose looked stumped. “That’s…classified?”

“We’re not playing by Homeworld rules anymore,” Pearl said, drawing her gem weapons once more. “You agreed to be a part of this mission, so you’d better tell me the truth.”

“Hey, woah, no need for violence!” Rose threw up his hands in surrender. “I kept seeing Pink Diamond really sad without his pearl, so when I overheard you guys talking about Earth, I figured I’d come too! That way I could bring the pearl back and make my diamond happy.”

“You didn’t tell anyone, right?” Pearl asked, stepping closer. “You’re not in contact with anybody from Homeworld?”

“No, no, of course not! Nobody knows I’m here.” Pearl took another step forward, undeterred, and Rose began backing away. “I’m telling the truth, I swear!”

“Pearl, what are you doing?” Peridot asked, his voice betraying his panic.

“Come on, Peri. You don’t find it suspicious that Rose is here for a diamond’s pearl?”

“I suppose, but…” If he was being honest, Peridot thought Rose’s story made sense. He’d never seen Pearl like this before. “I don’t think this is going to help. Please just put the knives away, Pearl, you’re—” You’re scaring me.

“Fine.” Pearl rolled her eyes and let her weapons dematerialize. “But if I find out you were lying, Rose…” She gave Rose a death glare, and Peridot shivered.

“Well, I’m not.” Rose briefly met Peridot’s eyes, but all Peridot could offer him was a helpless shrug. “I just want to find my—my diamond’s pearl. That’s all.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause before Pearl broke the silence. “I’m taking Peri to see the other gems in the morning,” she said. “You might as well come with us if you want to see Pink Pearl.”

“I never agreed to that,” Peridot said, before he could think better of it.

“Well, there’s always Plan C,” Pearl said. “Where I go out and poof Gri and take him home with us by force.”

Peridot grimaced, imagining Gri’s reaction when he reformed on the ship back to Homeworld. “I don’t think we should try that one.”

“Then it’s decided.” Pearl gave him a dangerous grin, and Peridot shuddered. He was not looking forward to this.

—

if you read this all the way through and enjoyed, please consider reblogging!

#gemcyt #pearlescentmoon #grian #mumbo jumbo #ldshadowlady #3rd life series #traffic series #my writing #my stuff

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aylacavebear · 2 months

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Stockroom Antics - Chapter 15

A/N: This is, by far, my favorite chapter out of the ones I've written. I love how it turned out, and I hope all of you like it as well. Enjoy.

Maria had changed jobs numerous times over the last five years, more to keep herself safe than anything else. Her mother had told her she was a fairy but she thought it was just her mom being weird. Honestly, though, she had no other way of explaining what had happened to her that stormy day before she'd gone into a coma for two weeks.

Please don't take my work. I'll post warnings for each chapter. Will probably be 18+ I haven't decided yet!

Word Count: 2675

Pairing eventually Dean Winchester x OC

Warnings: Angst

A/N: This one's written a little differently than my last one. Let me know what you think. It's the first time I've tried this type of writing. Chapters will alternate viewpoints as well. I also looked into an actual area so this one could feel more realistic. This one is taking on a life of it's own in a turn I hadn't anticipated, so adding a new tag.

----------------------------------------- Stockroom Antics Chapter 15

The dream came to you again, but it was far different this time than you’d ever experienced. Typically, you didn’t interact with any of them, and you barely ever interacted with anything in the environment.

The breeze was cool against your skin in the forest that towered over and around you. This place always made you think of how an ant might see the world around it. The trunks of the trees were so large that a home could be built inside one of them, with several stories. Then there was the plant life that came in all shapes and sizes, even some interesting yet odd colors. There was a well-worn path, so you followed it like you always did. This time, though, you gently touched the plant life around you as you passed by it, even smelling some of the very odd-shaped flowers. As you walked, you heard odd sounds. All you could guess was that they were either birds of some sort or perhaps even bugs. Everything prior to this was always muffled, and you were more of an invisible observer. Soon, the path opened up to what looked like a village. You noticed other things that looked like people, but only a tiny portion of them were human. You weren’t sure how you knew this; you just did. There were even children running around, playing. Several of these people smiled at you as you walked by, so you returned a friendly smile to them.

“Nice to finally see you,” a woman said when she approached you, causing you to stop in your tracks. “You can see me?” you asked, completely puzzled. “Of course I can. We’ve all been waiting for you. I’m Asteria. It’s my job to greet the newcomers,” she told you excitedly. At this point, you felt like you had a million questions but no idea where to even start, “How?” was all you managed to get out. She giggled and took your hand, “Come on. Let's sit down and talk.” Asteria took you over toward a large tree that looked like it was someone’s home, and a table with two chairs appeared out of thin air. Your shock made you sit down, slowly, setting your hands on the table as you did to steady yourself. “Okay. I’m going to guess that you either found your soulmate and are in the beginning stages of getting to know each other. Or…” she paused, tilting her head a bit, “You’re trying to exhaust yourself and force the awakening.” The mere mention of the soulmate thing helped you find your tongue, “Soulmates aren’t a thing,” you stated, rolling your eyes. She giggled again, covering her mouth to stifle some of it, “Oh dear, soulmates are a thing. For a Peri, it’s a very important thing, too.” That was when a man came up to her and kissed her on the cheek, gently setting his hand on the small of her back, “Hello dear. I felt your excitement. Care to introduce us?” he said with a happy smile. All you could do was tilt your head a bit in confusion, your expression matching. Something you’d never believed in was apparently very real. After your accident, you had reserved yourself to be alone, figuring no one would ever accept you for the things you could do. More than likely finding you odd or a freak. “Breccan, this is Maria. She finally made it, at least in her dreams,” Asteria told him, still utterly excited. “I’m trying to explain the soulmate thing to her.”

“Oh,” he said, then turned to you, giving you a friendly smile, “Nice to meet you, Maria. Soulmates are a very real thing. I’m not a Pari like you and Asteria. I’m an angel. Anything with a soul is capable of having a soulmate.” You literally couldn’t believe what you were hearing at the moment. It went against everything you’d believed and everything you’d told yourself. You just looked between the two of them. Breccan looked back down at Asteria, “You’ve got your hands full with this one,” he chuckled before he kissed her on the cheek again and left. She smiled and shook her head a bit before looking back at you, “Why don’t you believe in soulmates?” It took you a moment to snap out of your thoughts and confusion, as well as your surprise and shock of this entire situation before you could even answer her. “With where I’m from, no one will accept me with what I can do,” you sighed and finally were able to look away from her. “Oh honey,” she said sympathetically, “Having a soulmate is something a Peri needs to be completely fulfilled. You’ll always feel like a piece of you is missing until you find them. You just have to open yourself up to the possibility. I’m not saying to hope for it, just… don’t close yourself off to it,” she explained compassionately.

“You’ve had to talk to others about this before, haven’t you,” you asked, mostly mumbling as you remembered what the books had said. Although, the books hadn’t mentioned anything about this place. “I was a lot like you once. It was a very long time ago, though. Would you believe I’m just over three hundred years old?” she chuckled, “I didn’t even find my soulmate till almost fifty years ago now. I saw a lot of other Peri find theirs. After a couple hundred years, I began to lose hope that I’d ever find mine. I even traveled to different dimensions. The moment I gave up completely, I found Beccan. Or, I should say, he found me.” Her story surprised you further, causing you to look up at her again. She didn’t look a day over twenty-five. You figured that had to be the magic of the Pari, as well as their dimension and living in the community that they did. Just then, a small, purple-colored dragon landed on the table, staring at you, causing you to jump.

“What is that?” you asked, shocked. “Huh, that doesn’t normally happen till after a Peri goes through its awakening,” Asteria remarked, slightly surprised. “What doesn’t normally happen?” you asked, your focus on the purple dragon that was the size of a large cat or even a small dog. It just kept staring at you, blinking like it was waiting for something. “Having your familiar show up and bond with you,” she replied, looking down at the little dragon. Then, her eyes widened, and she looked up at you, “Unless you’ve recently met your soulmate, and you don’t know it.” There was an odd excitement in her tone.

The thought of that worried you a bit. You’d only recently met three people, all men: the brothers and the King of Hell. That last one made you shiver, as it creeped you out quite a bit. You looked from Asteria to the little purple dragon, “Not sure how I feel about that. What… how…” you weren’t even sure how to ask your question. Asteria tilted her head a bit as she looked at you, “How do you bond with your familiar? It’s fairly easy. Just interact with it,” she practically chuckled. You weren’t sure if you enjoyed the amusement she was getting out of your situation, but you didn’t say anything. Interact with a dragon the size of a large cat. It looked harmless, at least at the moment. A sense of determination coursed through you. Then, you reached out your hand toward the little dragon. It hadn’t stopped staring at you since it had landed there. Now, it tilted its head, still blinking at you. The moment you touched its head, a warmth passed over your entire body, and the little dragon became almost animated, playful, in an excited sort of way. The way it even seemed to act like a cat, more like a kitten, made you laugh and giggle. It turned itself in a few circles, mouth open, almost like it was smiling. Then, it laid down on its back, feet up in the air, and its tail was almost wagging. Your laughter only got louder, and you rubbed its belly. “Can you hear its thoughts yet?” she asked you, tilting her head. You looked up at her, “Huh?” “Okay, so not yet. Well, as the bond increases, you’ll be able to communicate with each other, telepathically,” she explained, smiling happily. “So, what happens now?” you asked her, looking back down at the little dragon and smiling again, still rubbing its belly.

“Well, eventually you’ll wake up. You clearly exhausted yourself. Depending on how badly will depend on how long you sleep. Your little familiar there can move between this dimension and the one you’re in. So, she’ll probably hang out with you for a while. When the telepathy starts, the first thing you’ll probably hear is her name,” she explained to you. “What’s this place called?” you asked her, not looking up from the little dragon. “Our little community here is called Whispering Woods. This dimension is called Etheria. We’re only one community on this particular planet. The reason you came here is because this is where your bloodline is. When your powers do awaken, you’ll recognize your extended family,” she told you, happy to answer any and all of your questions. The little dragon was getting rather playful, then flew off. You watched it, somewhat puzzled. Just when you wondered what it was up to, it landed back on the table in front of you, something round in its mouth. It then dropped it on the table, causing you to tilt your head. The thing it dropped was mostly round and blue, and when you picked it up, it was only slightly soft. The dragon's eyes never left the small object in your hands. “What? You want to play fetch or something?” you asked it, puzzled. Your question made the little dragon jump up and down and then run in circles a couple of times, causing you to laugh again. So, you tossed the ball, but before it could hit the ground, the little dragon flew over and caught it in mid-air. It then came back to the table and dropped the ball in front of you again. “It's kinda cute,” you chuckled.

“Dragons aren’t normally familiars, especially the smaller ones. I’ll be interested to see what happens when your powers do fully awaken and what you’ll be capable of. Some Pari are different, and we all have a different set of powers. Some are more powerful than others. Then there's what your soulmate brings out in you,” she told you, chuckling at the little dragon, “The fact that you were born a human and this little girl is your familiar is also interesting.” You sat and talked with her for at least an hour, playing fetch with the little dragon. It eventually found its way to your lap, curling up in a ball and going to sleep on you, your hand resting over its wings on its back. That’s when you heard it, a male voice, only it sounded far away, almost a whisper. You turned your head, looking around for the source. “Sounds like you might be ready to wake up soon,” Astaria told you, causing you to look at her, puzzled again. “What do you mean?” you asked. “Someone is trying to wake you,” she explained, smiling a little. Who would be in your room, you thought to yourself as you closed the door before passing out. You also felt a pull on your body, well, your dream body, and wondered if perhaps this was more of astral projection than actual dreaming. “Will I see you again?” you asked her. “I’m sure you will,” she chuckled. You got the sneaking suspicion that she knew more than she was telling you at the moment. Then, the dragon disappeared out of your lap. You looked around, wondering where it could have gotten off to. Before you could do much else, everything went black.

In the waking world, the little purple dragon had appeared on your bed, startling the brothers, who were both in your room. It gently climbed onto your stomach and sat there, staring at them as they both backed up toward the door.

“Sam, what the hell is that?” Dean asked, shocked and worried.

“It uh… it looks like an actual dragon,” he replied, more puzzled than anything.

Dean shook his head as that wasn’t what he’d meant, “No, I mean, what the hell is it doing here?” he clarified.

“I don’t know. None of the books said anything about dragons and Pari,” Sam replied, still utterly puzzled.

“How are we supposed to get close enough to wake her up now? She’s been out all day,” Dean spoke his thoughts as he stared at the little purple dragon. It wasn’t hurting you, and it didn’t seem to be aggressive.

Sam’s face contorted as he worked through his thoughts, just as puzzled as Dean, “Just walk over to her, slowly. Try not to look threatening,” he suggested.

Dean looked at his brother, “Seriously?!”

“Yeah. I mean, if what the books said were right, you’re her soulmate. You should be fine,” Sam stated, hoping he was right.

You heard none of this, as you hadn’t quite made it out of your sleep yet. Dean took a deep breath, slowly moving closer to you, his hands up in as non-threatening a way as possible. The little dragon watching him even tilted its head.

“It’s okay, little, uh… thing, I mean, dragon. I just want to wake her up,” Dean told it, trying to act calm.

When Dean got close enough to reach your shoulder, he gingerly reached down to shake you but never took his eyes off the little dragon. Although, the little dragon hadn’t taken its eyes off of him either. It just watched him somewhat curiously. Then, it hopped so that its body was facing him, causing him to jump back a little and take a deep breath.

“You sure it’s not gonna get all violent?” Dean asked his brother, not looking away from it.

Sam had to think, as he really wasn’t sure, “Pretty sure.”

“That doesn’t help,” Dean groaned.

He moved closer again, reaching out to your shoulder, gently shaking you, “Maria, wake up. It’s almost dinner time, and you’ve been asleep all day,” he told you.

You stretched, arms above your head, causing the dragon to open its mouth, almost like it was smiling, and its tail began to wag, its eyes now watching you and not Dean. He shook you again, causing you to finally open your eyes. Before you could say anything, the little dragon came over and began rubbing its head against your cheek, making you giggle, then reach out and give it gentle loves.

“What are you doing here?” you asked it, still groggy. It just made an almost purring sound against you.

“Wait? You know that thing?” Dean asked, more confused than he had been a moment ago.

Another giggle escaped your lips as you scooped up the little dragon and sat up in your bed, “Yeah. I met her in my dream. She’s uh, my familiar,” you explained as the little dragon sat proudly in your lap, looking back and forth at the brothers.

“I need a drink,” Dean grumbled.

“None of the books said anything about a familiar,” Sam stated, staring at the dragon.

“It’s a long story,” you chuckled, “Is there any chance for some coffee, and I’ll tell you about it?”

“Uh, sure,” Sam answered, still fairly confused.

Since your door was open, the moment you went to stand up, the little dragon hopped off your lap and flew out of your room. Both brothers ducked out of the way, even if Dean was nowhere near your door. You couldn’t help but laugh a little. Your stay with them was about to get even more interesting than it already had been.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 16

Tag List: @djs8891

Link to the series Master List

A/N: If you'd like to be tagged in future chapters, leave me a comment, and I'll make sure to tag you.

#spn #spn fanfic #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural oc #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester x oc #dean winchester x femaleoc #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x reader #dean x you #dean x reader #sam winchester fanfiction #soulmates

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rachelbethhines · 9 months

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60 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary Marathon - C. Baker 2nd Review

A Fix With Sontarans - Mini Episode

Now this is more like it.

A Fix With the Sontarans is a cute special that aired right after the The Two Doctors.

A young fan at the time basically won the chance to participate in a mini episode of the show and meet the Sixth Doctor.

What really makes the story work however is the return of Tegan.

While trying to get rid of some Sontarans, who is implied to have boarded the Tardis during the last story, the Doctor accidentally teleports Tegan aboard, and it is glorious.

Tegan and Six are a perfect pair. They're like two exs taking the mickey out of each other every chance they get. Unlike Peri, (who I must stress, I do like) Tegan doesn't take Six's shit. She confidently fires back when he tries to talk over her.

Contrariwise, Six won't let himself be steamed rolled over by Tegan's brashness. Unlike Five who seemed to cower under her anger, Six just dismisses her grouchy complaints.

That is until things get serious and they have to work together to protect the child that accidentally gets teleported up next.

Apparently, in the Doctor Who universe, Gareth Jenkins is a prodigy. He can keep up with the Doctor's technobabble and helps him fly the Tardis.

Not only that, but according to the Sontarans, he will be the one to stop their invasion of Earth come the year 2021, and if they can kill him now then they can prevent that future.

Now we did get a Sontaran invasion in the year 2021 in the show. There was no mention of Gareth Jenkins in Flux at all, however, and I think "super-fan" Chibnall missed a trick.

I mean, all it needed was a brief in-joke about the Doctor contacting an old friend off screen to handle some technical mumbo jumbo, but oh well. I guess that's what fanfiction and short trips are for.

Now I suppose I should mention the two different versions that exist of this short.

The original aired version involved a different show called Jim'll Fix It. The host of that series interrupts the story at the end and breaks the forth wall entirely. To make matters worse, said host would later be accused of multiple sexual abuse scandals years later.

For these reasons, the DVD version features an alternate ending where the host is edited out completely and instead the heroes spy an army of Sontaran spaceships outside the Tardis.

This effectively removes the forth wall elements, which is a plus, but it also ends things on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved.. so eehhh...

Also I haven't a clue where Peri is supposed to be during all this... Maybe she went traveling with Two and Jamie for a bit... or is just taking a nap in her room or something.

Anyways, I recommend checking this short out when you can, just for the Six and Tegan match up.

#doctor who #classic who #sixth doctor #colin baker #tegan

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periwinkleowski · 2 months

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hi tumblr user pippin-squeaks. i heard that you were talking shit so i figured i'd see what all your squeaking was about.

conclusion: CRY HARDER.

sue me if i don't check every single blog that shows up on my dashboard when i'm mindlessly scrolling tumblr dot com. i don't interact with = it doesn't happen on purpose. this is a mostly SFW blog, it's not a big deal.

dead dove do not eat is literally a warning to people like you who get grossed out by darkfic and don't want to see it. it means DON'T LIKE, DON'T INTERACT. BLOCK LIBERALLY. idk why you'd go out of your way to expose yourself to b.s. that clearly disturbs you, but like. if you have a Thing for that i guess i can't stop you or anyone else, but you don't need to victimize yourself for being a lameass who can't keep their nose out of other people's business. i'm not out here forcing dark content down anyone's throat, so you don't need to be forcing your moral superiority complex down mine.

if you're going to be juvenile and report me for minding my own business, i guess that's up to you. my blog isn't going to be taken down because of bad-faith dishonest reports from petty, nosy people, and i'm not going to get pressed about it even if your little sabotage agenda does work. accounts can be remade, i'm not out here because i want followers, yadda yadda yadda i already talk to my friends on private platforms so it's not an issue.

point is: gross of you to start a witch hunt when i've done no damage whatsoever. stop looking at stuff you hate and maybe your "peri-noia" will be magically cured (nice pun btw, nerd).

thanks for my first callout post, i'm hoping for death threats next. i have a whole checklist for nosy antics that i'm excited to get going with.

#pippin-squeaks #peri-noia #periwinkleowski #tower of babble #drama alert!!!#antis being antis

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x-is-bored · 2 months

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I've neen thinking a lot about Steven Universe lately, so if you don't want to see any of that just keep on scrolling (This drags on for quite a while)

So what I'm about to type is mostly about Lapis and Peridot and their whole dynamic because I saw something that I can not stop thinking about. I was scrolling through TikTok (a horrible mistake I now realize) and I saw a Lapis and Peridot edit, and it wasn't bad, but the description of the video really got me thinking. It said that they (the original poster) couldn't believe that The Crystal Gems would leave Peridot in "an isolated area" with Lapis, who "hated her guts just a few seconds ago and then abruptly became all blushy" and that their relationship wasn't healthy because there was a "Power Dynamic" and Peridot apparently respects gems that have a higher authority then her on Homeworld (the example they used was the episode with Amethyst during Peri's big character arc). Now, for what ever reason, I have not been able to stop thinking about this and coming up with rebuttals to it in my head, so I thought why not let the internet hear these thoughts of mine.

Peridot is in an isolated area and can not leave

No??????? We are shown time and time again that the barn is very easily accesible to The Crystal Gems (Ex: Steven warping to the barn to stop Lapis from breaking Peridot's tablet when she thinks Steven is trapped inside of it) and we are also shown that Peridot is fully capable of using the warps (Ex: Beta). According to Peridot's Twitter she is fully aware of what a car is (Presumabley because she was hit by one). Now this seems like a very odd and random detail to bring up, until you realize there is likely no roads for miles at the barn, so she was in a situation where she was on a road away from the barn. Also, in the episode Too Short to Ride, the first shot is Peridot in Steven's house, without Lapis, So the idea that Peridot is trapped with our favorite water themed gem is just flat out wrong. Peridot also has full agency over her life and where she chooses live, if she wants to not be around Lapis she has the full ability to do so, but she doesn't, she wants to live with her in the barn. The show has told us multiple times now that she is very quick to assume that something is "a weapon" or out to get her in some way so if she feels safe, it's 90% likely that she is. Also the gems aren't stupid, if they feel like something will go wrong or that there is a problem they'll try their best to help both Lapis and Peridot in their whole Barnmate situation.

2. Lapis hated Peridot's guts a few seconds ago and is now all blushy

Now admittedly, yes it does appear like that with absolutley zero context of who Lapis is as a character. This is the kind of opinion someone would have if they turned on their TV while this episode was airing, watched the bit where Peridot is trying to win Lapis' affection, went to the bathroom after Lapis broke Peri's tape recorder and came back after Steven talked with Lapis. The reason Lapis asks Peridot "Are you okay?" isn't because she's some unstable gem that is constantlly flip-flopping between love and hate, she's trying to do what Steven asked her to do, get to know the Peridot that Steven knows, not the one Lapis met. ALSO she has an absolutley justifiable reason to "hate her guts". Lapis has spent thousands of years trapped in a mirror being used as some kind of informant, and then left alone and discarded, not able to move or do anything, the only thing she could do was watch the stars move. And when she's finally free and tries to fly back to her Homeworld she is taken captive AGAIN and used as an informant AGAIN. And after their plan goes awry, the other gem who kidnapped her fuses with her to harm the one person she actually cares about on this lousy gem-forsaken planet. And so, in a moment of deep panic and hurt she traps both her and her captor at the bottom of the ocean because she feels like if she doesn't, Steven will get hurt. And after months and months of back and forth in a horrifically damagingand draining power struggle, she's finally free and ready to live a life on Earth with Steven, and then all of a sudden your current best friend (the child) says that you're going to be living with one of the two gems who dragged you back to the planet you so desperatley tried to escape from? I'd be pretty peeved too. Lapis is a very emotional gem, she blushes at Peridot's smile because A: It's adorable, and B: She just realized that she asked if Peridot was okay and is embarassed that Peridot knows that she, in some level, for Steven's sake, is starting to care about Peridot. She isn't some unstable danger to everyone around her who's an irredeemable monster, she's a deeply traumatized PTSD ridden being who has made mistakes before, but is trying her best to find a little comfort in the life she's choosing to live.

3. Peridot has high respect for gems that are deemed higher then her by Homeworld standards and is in an unhealthy power dynamic with Lapis

The specific quote from the description is as follows "I swear, people forget the power dynamic these two have, Lapis is a high ranking gem, and we know how Peridot gets around people she deem as higher ranking (cough cough amethyst)". I have been trying to be as kind as possible while dissecting this description, if I let my emotions get in the way of the genuine facts this essay will become an all caps angry ramble session. But this is the stupidest thing I have ever read. Sure, in the episode Too Far (the episode the original poster is referring to with the Amethyst comment) and through most of her arc, Peridot is shown to have preexisting prejudices about gems and their values. And we do know for a fact that back on Homeworld Peridot's were deemed lower then Lapis Lazuli's, but this person is implying that the reason that Peridot is trying to impress Amethyst is because she's "Higher Ranking" back on Homeworld, when that simply isn't the case. She's trying to become Amethyst's friend, she thinks she's cool and has a genuine apprectiation for her. All too often I see people state that Peridot "is afraid of Lapis" when she isn't, she's trying her best to be considerate to her friend and Barnmate. During the time period when "Barnmates" takes place, Peridot has nearly fully wrapped up her character arc. She no longer has respect for someone just because of how highly they may be ranked on some stupid arbitrary ranking system, and there is one episode that perfectly demonstrates that fact. Season Two, Episode 24, "Message Recieved". In this episode Peridot has a direct line to Yellow Diamond, one of the four three Dictators of the planet and society she comes from, quite literally the top of the top. And when Peridot is directly speaking to her she gets into an argument with Yellow over the fate of the Earth, this all bubbles up to this exchange. Yellow Diamond: "What do you know about the Earth!?" Peridot: "Apparently more than you, you CLOD!" This one insult marks the completion of Peridot's character arc, she would never have even thought about saying this to Jasper when they first got to the Earth (who, by the way wasn't even higher ranking then her on their specific mission, she was an escort to Peridot). Now she's yelling at the Luminous Yellow Diamond and calling her a clod. Peridot could not care less about how high a gem may be ranked back on Homeworld. The statement from the description suggests that Peridot's whole arc never even happened, she's just a nice little green triangle who is constantly walking around eggshells when talking to literally anyone. Peridot is not trapped in some unhealthy relationship with a gem she can't escape from. She has a new found lease on life and wants to be friends with someone who she deems to be underestimating and assuming the worst of her. Lapis isn't some terrible abusive monster who is tricking the crystal gems into leaving her alone with Peridot. She now has no need to be scared and is ready to attempt a genuine connection with someone else, they've both done bad things in the past, but they're ready to move past those things to become better.

In conclusion, they are silly, great, and lovable. The end.

#Steven Universe #Peridot #Lapis Lazuli #Hoooo boy #That was much longer than I thought it would be

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