#politically she's an immovable object who will not back down | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bluegarners · 3 years

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By popular demand, I have written a Part 2 for mainstay for @viceturtle. Thank you so much @newsical for being an immense help with this!!

Part 1.

This chapter was inspired by this conversation between @bigskydreaming and @fuyunoakegata

ao3

There’s a lot to be said about his stubbornness.

He thinks everyone has at least some degree of it within themselves. A refusal to move or consent to something. Sure, some don’t hesitate long. They give. They bend. They break. But the stubbornness is in that hesitation. That moment of ‘Am I really doing this? Should I be doing this? Why in the world should I do this?’. It’s about the pause, is what he’s trying to get at, that makes stubbornness so inherent to each individual.

It breathes in the form of grudges. Arguments. Games of she-said-he-said-they-said. Right or wrong. I told you so’s and I’m not sorry’s.

Jason does all of those things like it's second nature. He’s not going to pretend like he’s some saint who can understand the other side and reason with them. If he thinks he’s right, it’s not a matter of if the other person is actually right or wrong. He knows he’s right, so it doesn’t matter in the end. He knows what he knows, and if he doesn’t— whatever. Immovable object and all that.

So, yeah. There’s a lot to be said about his stubbornness.

He calls Red Robin anyway.

“He’s gone.”

“Sorry, what? I need context for this. There’s a lot of people this could apply to—”

“Dick. Dick is gone.”

“Oh. Like, just now he left?”

“I don’t know. Some guy came and took him.”

“As much as I love vague conversations, this isn’t helping me and I don’t understand why you’re calling in the first place.”

“Dick is fucking. Gone. What do you not understand about that.”

“Jesus, I don’t know, Jason. What, is he not supposed to be gone? He said he was going to leave again. He already said ‘hi’ to Damian, so I don’t see why he would stick around any longer.”

“Hm.”

“Fuck me, didn’t you know? This was all just- just some visit for him. Sure, he’ll be back eventually, but fuck knows if he’s actually—”

He hangs up. Pockets his phone. Listens as the rain continues to drench the world outside of his little apartment. His shoulders hurt. There’s a bruise on his chest. Right between his fifth and sixth ribs. He has a split lip. He put ointment on it earlier but it still stings. His knees ache. He has a distant memory of his mother complaining about her knees too. Something about the weather making them act up.

He’s twenty-three.

He’s getting old.

On the table next to him is a box of cigarettes. Low-tar. Filtered. In his right pocket, there’s a lighter he got from someone years ago. He doesn’t know. Maybe he stole it. Found it.

He pulls it out. Shakes a cigarette out of the thin box. Holds the paper wrapped nicotine between his lips, lifting the lighter and thumbing the flink strike.

Click.

He shakes the lighter. Tries again.

Click.

Gotham hasn’t had this much rain in a long time. It’s nearing October. Maybe it’s in season or whatever weather does. He doesn’t know the term.

Click.

It’s raining outside. Jason can see it. There’s raindrops on his window. He can hear it clattering against the fire-escape. Gray and black and mixes of yellow from street lamps below. Jason is inside on the comfort of his couch. Sure, it’s not the best apartment, but it doesn’t leak. The ceiling is fine and he hasn’t had any problems with it before. His face is wet though. He doesn’t know why.

Click.

The cigarette falls from his lips and lands with a thud on the stained carpet. The T.V is on. Says the storm over Gotham will last for the next few days. An unprecedented seven inches of rain predicted. The GCPD is advising everyone to stay indoors. Crime is expected to rise with the water levels.

Click.

His clothes are still soaked. He’s probably ruining his couch. He can’t remember if he took his boots off or not.

Click.

Jason sighs. His chest feels heavy, like someone is sitting on top of him. It’s just him though. Only him in his apartment. He likes having his own space. The neighbors get loud sometimes, but it’s not as if he’s a five star resident either. It’s always been like this. He is…. Alone.

Click.

Dick was gone. Came back. And now, Dick is gone again. Did he do that? Did he drive him away? Is this his fault? Jason doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t know if he doesn’t care at all, but at least the rain is nice to listen to. Yeah. The rain is really nice. Consistent. Steady.

Click.

He didn’t take off his boots.

~oOo~

One month is all it takes.

One month and Nightwing is out spotted in Bludhaven, his photo splashed across every news outlet from Gotham to Metropolis. New Jersey missed its boy in blue and cheers at his return.

Nightwing stays in Bludhaven though. Red Hood stays in Gotham. Just as it used to be. Back to normal. Yeah.

The rain stopped a week ago.

Jason misses the noise.

~oOo~

“Won’t you come?”

“No.”

“Please, Master Jason? We would love to have you here. It has been too long.”

“I can’t.”

“I thought you loved turkey. There’ll be plenty of leftovers and I know you’ve been meaning to return the tupperware from last time. It’ll be good for you to leave that apartment of yours.”

“I have better things to do than play nice and talk politics in Brucie Wayne’s mansion. I’m not coming.”

“I know you have your own quarrels with Master Dick, but—”

“It’s not about him. I don’t give a fuck about what he’s doing or what stick Bruce has up his ass this time. I am not walking into the line of fire just to save everyone else an evening of beating around the bush. I. Am. Not. Going.”

“. . . Then won’t you at least visit? I miss you. I worry about you.”

“I’m sorry, Alfred.”

“I am too, my boy.”

Click.

Jason spends Thanksgiving out in the Narrows. He’s not rich, doesn’t want to be, but he has money. Plenty he doesn’t need to spend on himself. He goes grocery shopping. Fills two, three carts worth of canned food and rotisserie chickens. Goes home, carries the bags in all at once. Organizes them.

Single. Partners. Family.

He leaves his apartment. He is not Jason Todd. He is not Red Hood. He’s just some guy out in the Narrows.

He hands out the bags. Has the decency to look the people in the eyes, knowing he was that street kid once. Seeing his mother in each dirty, beaten face he comes across. Pitying the drunken men and the addicts. They accept his offerings. It would be stupid not to. No one says thank you. He doesn’t need them to.

He goes home. His arms are sore. The bruises have completely faded.

The apartment is empty.

Click

Sometimes, there are days where he doesn’t know why.

That’s a big concept: why?

He thinks it carries too much weight. Maybe if he had survived past tenth grade, he could’ve signed up for a philosophy or debate class, maybe shed some light on that particular question, but he didn’t. Survive. So, he only has his own mind to ponder the concept. He’s read a couple books. Never fully understood the words he read though. He would’ve liked to, but he didn’t. Understand.

But it’s up to interpretation right? So, here’s where he’s at.

Jason doesn’t understand or know why sometimes, and it becomes a problem.

He doesn’t understand why he got such a bad hand for parents. Why Bruce didn’t grieve like Jason wanted him to (so desperately yearned for, screamed for, died for). Why someone thought it was a good idea for him to live out a second-still-the-same life. Why he came back so different. (Was he? Different? He doesn’t think he came back wrong but he doesn’t know a lot. Well, he does. But, if he came back wrong then that means he wasn’t right to begin with and he’s always right and if he’s wrong then—).

He doesn’t know why he punched Dick. He didn’t want to. Not really. But he did. Want to. Badly so. Wanted proof, wanted penance, wanted forgiveness, wanted retribution, wanted that sting that comes with reality and the regret of a little something called mortality. Horse drawn carriage alongside Death, patting the seat next to it.

Okay, he knows why .

He doesn’t understand why, though.

Jason doesn’t understand why he gets so angry sometimes. It doesn’t feel good, doesn’t feel right, like he’s supposed to be feeling something else but he’s just flipped upside down so there’s no point in trying to right himself. He’s always right anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

He doesn’t understand why he says things, why he opens his mouth at all when he regrets them so quickly after. He yells a lot. Raises his voice and spits mean words and cusses worse than anyone else he knows and regrets it as soon as it leaves his mouth. But he doesn’t learn. Doesn’t rethink it, doesn’t look back and remember the lesson he taught himself. You can’t be taught if you’re always right anyway, so what’s the point? Why regret it when he’s just going to do it again?

That’s a big word: why.

There are answers attached to the word. Reasons for the question being asked. Explanations and solutions and resolutions.

Jason is good at solving problems, is quick to work around it and get the job done. And a question is just a problem being asked, right? It’s verbal, that’s the only difference, so if he’s such a good problem solver, if he’s such a goddamn good thinker and understands things like philosophy and literature and great big concepts and words—

Why did he do that? Why did he say those things? Why can’t he make up his fucking mind? Why is he the way he is? Why does he just push and shove and drive away everyone and everything? Why did he come back different? Why did he come back wrong? Why didn’t Bruce love him enough to end things? Why was he worth a second chance when he screws up and regrets so much? Why do people still fucking try with him? Why can’t he get one goddamn thing right? Why is he always—

Click.

“Why didn’t you come to dinner?”

Click.

Red Hood is in Gotham. Nightwing is too. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. The air is cold and there’s ice in the wind. It’s a clear night. A quiet frost coats the rooftop and Jason can hear his brother’s footsteps.

“We missed you, you know. Here, Agent A wanted me to give you these.”

Jason turns. Dick is holding out a duffle-cooler. He stands six feet away.

“They’re just leftovers. Turkey, sweet potatoes, casserole, pie; the fixings.”

Jason doesn’t move. Neither does Dick. To anyone else, it would look like a stand-off between Nightwing and Red Hood, neutral ground tensions. They both know it’s not.

It is cold and there is ice in the wind and the rainy season is long past. When they breathe, it erupts out of them in the form of white vapor and Jason can only think of the fact that it looks like smoke. His lighter still doesn’t work. It sits in his right pocket. He wants to take it out. Hear the click.

“There’s some beer too,” Dick adds softly, voice carried away and twisted in the sharp air. “I have a bottle opener.”

Nightwing walks a few paces away to sit against an A/C unit, shielding himself from the wind. He sets the cooler down beside him, unzipping the duffle and pulling out two bottles of a brand Jason doesn’t recognize, and pats the space next to him. Horse drawn carriage.

Why is a big concept. A big word. Maybe one of the bigger questions in the repertoire.

He doesn’t know nor understand why he takes the offered seat. He just does. It feels right to do so. Jason takes the offered bottle too and opens it himself. Hands back the blade. Takes a sip.

It’s cold. It warms him.

He doesn’t understand:

“Why?”

Dick swirls the alcohol around, bubbles rising to the surface. “Why, what?”

There’s a lot of things Jason could say. Could ask. He’s had two months to think about a question that would fit the answer he’s trying so hard to get; one that would satisfy the cavern that just keeps getting wider and wider, this empty presence that digs deeper inside him. He likes to think it would be a really intelligent question, one that would stump his all knowing brother; the one with all the answers in the world and a smile to accompany it. Dick had been on this pedestal for as long as Jason can remember. Had been placed so high above himself, even now, it’s impossible for him to reach, fingers a thousand miles away from ever grazing the top.

A lot of people would tell him he’s done this to himself. That the things he decides to do, his actions, what he says to other people and what they do as a consequence; all a product of his own creation. Even the cavern inside of him, filled with stalagmites and cobwebs and so many empty boxes, perhaps he did that to himself. He— He did that. To himself.

But Jason doesn’t like being wrong. Doesn’t like the fear that invades every nerve in his body when faced with the possibility of being so far off from the mark that it comes back and strikes him in the face. He’s paid the price for being wrong, has the scars and the memories and the stories to prove it, but he’s also been right, over and over again, and it feels so good to be right.

It felt good to punch his brother.

It felt good to have a reason to do so.

The anger, the fear, the possessive guilt that clung to him in those months where Dick was dead and he was at the wheel, knowing he was going to crash and burn eventually and probably take everyone with him. He played the long game and knew the end result. Jason had fooled himself with the thought of taking Dick’s place, thinking he could climb up that enormous pedestal he had placed there himself all those years ago. Torn down and resurrected today.

He doesn’t have a question though. Not a singular, all encompassing question that would piece together every missing hole inside of him and fill the void. His mother used to tell him he talked too much, that a big mouth like his would one day get him into trouble. She also told him that he was smart and curious and kind and so much more than anything she would ever be able to give him. Jason doesn’t understand why she said so many contrary things. Wishes he could ask her, have the opportunity to finally get the answers he wanted from her when he left everything behind just for a chance to do so. He can’t though. She died. He died too.

Dick didn’t.

“Why did you leave?”

His brother stops swirling the contents of his bottle, choosing instead to release a heavy sigh that travels into the air in a thick cloud of tired gray and remorse. “I wasn’t in a good place at the time. Leaving felt like the only good thing left I could do. Batman gave me the mission and I… I took it.”

“What part of letting us all think you were dead was ‘good’? How does that translate to ‘good’ in your world?”

“I wasn’t a part of that decision,” Dick says pointedly, setting down his beer and thunking his head back to rest against the unit. “I was still comatose by the time Batman had broken the news to everyone else. I told you, Hood, I had no choice. Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was all that made sense to do.”

He pauses, a hand coming up to scrub at the sides of his face. “Robin had just… died. Protecting me. I got captured by people with faces I’ve known my entire life and couldn’t escape them. I let myself get hooked up to that- that machine and exposed my identity to the entire world. Do you have any idea what that would’ve done to you all, had I stayed? Everyone knew who Nightwing was under the mask. It would’ve— People would have figured the rest out soon enough. When Batman offered me the opportunity to at least make something right, I took it.”

Something unsettles inside Jason’s chest. Leaking, fracturing. It feels wrong. He feels- “So, what? You left because you felt bad ? Gallivanted off as soon as the opportunity was presented? Oh, I’m sure you’d love to do that again. Hey, Nightwing, tell me, are you feeling bad right now? Would you like a one-way ticket to Spain? I bet that’d make you feel much better.”

Dick frowns, head swiveling to look at Jason. “If that’s how you’d like to picture it, then fine. Yeah, I felt bad about exposing my entire family’s identities. I felt bad about letting down Batman and getting myself taken. I felt bad about dying and not being—”

“Quit fucking saying you died! You didn’t. You put on a good show, I’ll give you that, but having a model that looks just like you being buried in the ground doesn’t qualify as you dying. Get the fuck over yourself.”

A sharp crack meets his words and Jason snaps his head over to see Dick’s bottle broken against the ground, the older man having knocked it over with his hand.

Nightwing’s white lenses are staring at him and Red Hood meets his gaze unflinchingly, if only for the reason that he can’t see his brother’s eyes. There was something to be said about clear eyes in a city full of smog and endless voids, and Jason has looked enough people in the eye to know when to blink and walk away. The dark does not have a gaze to collapse within and yet there is empty white surrounding them.

“Come with me.”

Why is too big of a word.

Jason follows anyway.

He’s at the end of his rope in asking questions he knows no one will be able to answer. Knows that the answer he wants is not one anyone is willing to give, or even can give. See, Jason knows why. Has an understanding with the concept in a personal way unlike anyone else will ever have. He knows, understands, gets exactly what the question demands with all of its little fallacies and conundrums and ever so many follow ups. If he could, Jason would shake hands with it, an agreement to never speak a word of its existence ever again. But, how could he ponder the question when he himself cannot bear to fathom his own existence?

Nightwing is already scaling down a fire-escape, duffle-cooler slung over his shoulder, and Jason watches his head disappear below the roof line. He stands up, feet numb and hands feeling bitten, and side glances the broken bottle and the one he’s leaving behind. Even with the bleak, gray weather, the glass twinkles and shimmers in the ice, and, just faintly, Jason can smell the alcohol in the wind. Gotham is a city filled with muck, grease, scum, and litter. There is no difference in adding their own to the ever increasing pile, and yet Jason cannot help amend himself with the thought that at least their trash is beautiful in the cold.

He walks over to the edge of the roof, peering down to where he can see Nightwing traveling up a different, rusted ladder, ready to seek a new vantage point for wherever it is he’s decided to lead Jason. He doesn’t have his helmet on tonight, just a plain domino to hide his face, and the frost cuts against his nose and lips. A shiver runs through his body and Jason slides down into the alleyway below, keeping his brother in eye-sight. Nightwing launches a grapple, clinging to another building about 200 meters away, and Red Hood follows suit, the chill buffering inside of his jacket.

They arrive at one of those motel looking buildings, the outward appearance completely abandoned. Bruce had built this many years ago, one of the first of several safe-houses, and for all intents and purposes, it served to only attract the kinds of people that knew how to keep their mouths shut. The “general office” is where Dick walks into, a separate facility from the boarding rooms. He waits for Jason to enter, having taken a back door of four inches of solid steel, and locks it behind them once the younger has entered as well.

Dick throws the duffle onto one of the chairs inside the room, and rolls his shoulders in a circular motion, a long sigh escaping him. Somewhere, Jason can hear the heater kicking on.

He thumbs his lighter.

Click.

He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be doing, waiting by the door for Dick to make the first move. His brother says nothing though, continuing to move his joints around and rub his hands furiously together. He doesn’t even glance at Jason as he leaves the main room, entering another side door and into, what Jason assumes is, a bathroom. Left alone, Jason keeps his boots on and sits down.

Click.

He waits. Peels off his mask and winces at the pull on his skin. Rubs at his eyes and forehead. Sighs.

Click. Click.

He stares at the domino in his lap, regretting having taken it off. Dick could look him in the eye now. He didn’t— He doesn’t like that. You only look people in the eye when you want to convey something, be it emotion, honesty, or purely how much you don’t give a shit. Jason doesn’t know what it meant when he looked at all those people in the Narrows a few days ago. Doesn’t know what it meant when they looked at him. Who was he, then? He was no one. No one.

Click.

The bathroom door opens and Dick steps out wearing a thick tank top and a long pair of joggers. Just beyond the cracked doorway, Jason can see his Nightwing suit hung up against a rack. The remnants of irritated skin also pepper his brother’s face, red and splotchy.

Dick looks up and meets his gaze.

Click.

“This the part where you try to argue yourself right?”

His older brother frowns. “No, it’s not.”

Jason looks away.

Click. Click. Click.

“What’s that in your pocket?”

“Just some old lighter. It doesn’t work.”

“Ah.”

The stiff silence reverberates between them. Normally, when conversation isn’t invited, Dick would go off somewhere and find something to do; something in his head urging him to seek out an offering. It was a tactic the older man used often, something to hold or something else to focus your attention on making an otherwise shaky atmosphere comfortable. When he was still Robin, it was a ploy Jason found himself enjoying sometimes, where Nightwing would meet him on some pre-designated roof carrying hot chocolate or donuts and Jason would gripe to the older man about Bruce’s latest restriction or Batman’s newest growl. Their conversations would last well into the night and it was their secret they kept together, a fall-back to go to when things were too uncertain or days were too long.

Those memories were nice. Fond, even.

Dick does not have an offering this time.

“Did you believe I was dead?”

Jason sucks in a breath, fingers stilling against his lighter. “Yes.” Pause. “I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Jason fires back. “It was on live television for Christ’s sake, Dick! Half the world watched you die.”

“It’s not as if doctored film has never been done before, even if it was live. At some point, it cut off too. I’ve watched the video myself. My death wasn’t shown on screen.”

“There was audio. I could hear your heart stopping on the machine.”

“There was a lot of fighting going on. It was chaos.”

“Fine, I didn’t see you die and the video was shit. But Bruce told us you were dead. Batman told us you had died.”

“And Batman doesn’t lie.”

“Fuck you.”

Dick sighs, leaning back against one of the walls. “Look, I’m not trying to pick another fight with you. I don’t want to.”

“Then what. Do. You. Want,” Jason grounds out, rising from his chair. “I’m sick of this. I am so sick of not knowing what the fuck is going on with you and Bruce, with all of your little secrets and fake-deaths and—”

“It wasn’t fake,” Dick interrupts, standing his ground. “It may not have been for long, but my heart did stop. I died in that machine, Jason, and I’m upset you guys accepted that.”

“Well, what the fuck else were we supposed to do?” Jason erupts, flinging his arms wide. “Fucking poke at your body until you were alive again? Wait next to your corpse in the morgue with your suit on hand, just in case you decided to wake up?”

“You could’ve at least doubted, ” Dick hisses. Jason can hear the heater still humming. The room is cold though. Bitter. “At the very least, you guys could’ve looked into it. Bruce isn’t the perfect, untouchable beast we’ve made him into. He left a trail. A trail that would have led right to the fake body he created while I was comatose. A trail that would have shown the Batmobile needing repairs it shouldn’t have needed. A trail that would have shown the documents he forged to get me into Spyral. There were so many things, Jason! So many goddamn things that would have shown you guys I wasn’t dead!”

“If you wanted to be found so badly, why didn’t you tell us?” Jason snarls, that leaking fracture in his chest pooling into his lungs. “Why didn’t you say a single word if you were so desperate for someone to notice?”

“I already told you,” Dick says quietly. “I needed to make things right. Bruce offered a way to do it and I needed that; the space, away from everything, everyone, in my life that I knew I had failed. I don’t regret it, and I am sorry it caused so much pain, but—”

Click.

“—was it really so wrong to want someone to save me?”

The leak implodes and Jason stops breathing.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

“I know it sounds ridiculous. I should be able to handle these things, but I— there was this moment where I convinced myself that none of what was happening was real and that it was all some nightmare I was watching.”

The blows had stung and burned in the way only rusted metal against bone and flesh could. His left eye was bleeding and his nose had been broken long ago. After the thirtieth strike, Jason had somehow convinced himself it wasn’t real. That he wasn’t there, in that old warehouse, and that he wasn’t some child-soldier-hero being beaten to death by a maniac who laughed and giggled at his pain.

“When I woke up, I really believed that. I-I was so convinced and then Bruce showed up and gave me this mission and, god, Jason, how could I have ever said no? I had failed. Bruce told me I failed. ”

He remembers that sadistic clock in the corner. Silent up until the last ten seconds. It had its own little tick, a click, and it was the stupidest looking bomb Jason had ever seen, bright red and just any old alarm clock with a few extra wires. A nightmare. All just a nightmare and Jason had begged the universe for him to wake up. For someone, anyone, to save him. For Batman to come swooping in and rescue him from his stupid fucking mistakes but—

Click.

Dick breathes out, a shuttering exhale that rocks him to his core. “Spyral, the mission, everything after… It was my penance, I think. Bruce’s way of forgiving me for failing. There was just no other way, Jason. It was all I had left. I guess I had just hoped someone was still in my corner, even after fucking it all up, you know?”

He does. Jason does know with a clarity that haunts him every morning he wakes up and finds the events unchanged. There are cobwebs and old boxes inside his cavern, the place where his soul used to be, but he knows. He knows he came back wrong. That he came back different. That something inside of him was missing when he opened his eyes to mystic green and an emptiness that plagued him until he came back to Gotham; rage, fear, and a deep sadness taking up that empty space inside of him. He doesn’t know how many times he’s asked himself ‘why?’ only to ignore the answer given to him. Too many.

And maybe Dick has asked that same question as well. Maybe he has his own cavern deep inside of him, filled with his own fragmented cobwebs and starved crates, ghosts that continue to follow his every step, and whispers that forever ring in his ears. Perhaps the dead carry memories and questions wherever they go, and perhaps that is their sole purpose. They only stay to recount and wish and want and only breach the word “if” and “maybe”.

But they are alive now. They live. They breathe.

Jason thought death connected himself to his elder brother, but perhaps it was the voids inside of them both that bound them together. The desperation that clung to their beings, seeking approval, seeking retribution, seeking out anything that’ll make them feel whole once more after having been stripped bare and left in the throes of Death's carriage. This was the tie that bound them together. It wasn’t Bruce. It wasn’t Robin. It wasn’t death.

It was simply the missing pieces inside of them. Brothers not by blood, but by the very nature of their search for meaning. And that was all.

“Yeah,” Jason says, the molten gravity of this answer leaving him boneless. “Okay.”

Dick stares at him with the same clear eyes he’s looked at his younger brother with since day one. Something passes behind those eyes, a shift in the monumental focus that is Dick Grayson’s ever present gaze, and the heater continues to thrum in the background, just as ubiquitous as Gotham always was and always will be for them. There was a fundamental alteration inside them both, something taken from them that can’t be replaced, and Jason feels as though he is not alone anymore. There is another presence, another existence, in his life full of betrayal that shares the same scars and the same emptiness that has captured him since the day Bruce stopped hoping for him.

“Okay?” Dick repeats quietly, and Jason can hear the echo inside his chest. “Is that all?”

“No,” Jason murmurs, easing back into the chair he had left. “No, it’s not. But I… I can’t do more of this right now. I don’t want to.”

“I don’t either,” Dick sighs, the exhaustion from his own ordeals weighing down his shoulders and causing him to slide down the wall. “It’s— I never wanted to, Jason. You know that, right?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I guess- We deal with it, right?”

Jason wants to laugh. Maybe give a little less weight on his back to the warm air around them, but it sounds like a lot to do. He exhales instead, something maybe interpretable as a tired grin lifting his mouth. “Another time, then?”

Perhaps that is a statement that can’t be guaranteed nor promised. Time is scarce in their world, more so than anyone else's, but it is a scarcity they are well accustomed to. Death had departed in Its carriage, the seat left warm by their presence, but for now, they had left and that was all that really mattered. Why they left, why they need time they don’t have, why the caverns inside of them exist. All questions that have been answered before. Maybe when the sky isn’t gray, or when the rain isn’t pounding against fractured ceilings, they can begin to make amends and go from there. But the safe-house is warm.

It is warm.

“Another time.”

#dick grayson #jason todd #spyral #agent 37 #nightwing #red hood #hurt/comfort #bad things happen bingo #what have i done?#part 2 #my fic #fanfic #txt #yes there will be a part 3!! i am not leaving this unresolved- this was just another conversation i wanted them to have

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flowerflamestars · 3 years

Note

Main Issues with Feysand's leadership: it mostly consists on rather inmature, underdeveloped strategy that would in no way get a world leader very far in the real world (see: 'i schooled my face into a look of boredom'), seem content in making enemies left to right as long as they never have to step down from the pedestal that they've built, and see Illyria as a necessary evil, like wtf. In conclusion, Rhysand is a governor for Velaris, but is not fit to be the ruler of the Night Court.

Rounding caveat, because I know I’m going to get shouty: the dividing line between ToG and ACOTAR is that tog is a fantasy series with romance, and acotar is a romance series in a fantasy world. They’re not the same. I’d be totally fine with how the world building in acotar is v handywavy, because it’s still accomplishing what the books set out to do (tell a love story, hello acomaf) but- BUT, it’s not consistent. And that inconsistency wildly undermines the characters.

And god, if Rhysand as a ruler isn’t the heart of ???? spirit.

We’re not going to talk about how the plot of acotar only makes sense backwards (Hey, Rhys, why did you want to kidnap every month a powerless mortal girl???), we’re just going to talk about reputation.

So Rhys is a villain who we learn isn’t actually evil. A classic. He was made to do terrible things by Amarantha! He sacrificed himself to save his friends! Of course the High Lords hate him, they think he sided with the enemy.

That could have been the whole thing- the layers pulled back, Rhysand also a victim, a reason for the world to hate him but for Feyre to see otherwise.

OKAY BUT- then we learn? that Rhysand has been playing Evil Scary Jackass in all political situations? for his entire reign? that’s just what he does?

Round two: Rhys had to be Amarantha’s because he had to “shield the knowledge” of his friends and his capitol? city.

BUT- other people Under the Mountain, also accessible to Amarantha, know the IC??? have been acquainted with them for years? They’re not a secret. Mor was almost married out, Az and Cas are legendary, Amren is a story people tell.

And all those people are probably incentivized by the fact that, you know, they think Rhysand is an evil traitor.

Furthermore: guess who willing cooperated with Amarantha? The Court of Nightmares. Recall who, surprise in acowar, knows all about Velaris: Keir.

Round three: Sexy Evil Cosplay, wherein we learn that not only instead of just keeping it together in politics Rhys has adopted an entire secondary persona, we learn he also...uses this persona...to scare all the other highborn faeries into submission....so he? never has to talk to them?

BUT ALSO: this whole thing is undermined by, once more, Keir.

The whole game on the throne is to instill fear/ control of Keir. The whole Second Face. But Keir knows about Velaris? Keir knows exactly what Rhys stands for because Rhys and Cassian tried to rescue Morrigan from the Court of Nightmares when they were teens. Hell, Keir probably knew Rhys when Rhys was a kid.

It’s almost like eventually the person you pretend to be becomes who you are.

I think the Political Rhys vs Real Rhys started out as a plot point, but in character became this: not someone separate at all, but actually, Rhysand’s coping mechanism for making shitty choices.

See: if everyone in the Court of Nightmares bows, I’m ruling them. It doesn’t matter that women are being sold, that there’s servants and presumably totally normal people trapped in a mountain they can’t leave with people I think are monsters.

Let’s jump to Illyria.

How much easier is it, for Rhysand, half-Illyrian himself, to align wholly with the High Fae and say: no, it’s Illyria’s fault. They’re savages, they’re barbarians.

Easy as being a dick to other powerful men because it’s fun when they can’t fight back.

If the blame isn’t his, he keeps his army. He doesn’t have to fight a civil war that might swallow him whole, considering Illyria is the army he controls vs the High Fae soldiers left entirely under Keir’s rule.

If it’s Illyria’s fault he can successfully reimagine the past as he clearly needs to (someday, I’ll make a whole ass post about Rhysand’s mommy issues and how they creepily bleed into Feyre’s characterization, but one thing at a time).

If it’s Illyria’s fault, he can’t be mad about his Mother, daughter of a warrior race, offering him up for brutal, dangerous training. It’s the fault of Illyria. He doesn’t have to imagine he was learning those things, fighting in the mud, because it was the only way his mother could pass the legacy, could say, look, this is where I come from and someday you will have the power to make it better for your sister, for everyone.

He LOVED his mother. He wears the sacred tattoos, manifests wings, has Illyrian “brothers”.

But- It’s Illyria’s fault, so Rhys didn’t fail, Rhys is doing his duty by keeping them in line.

Which brings us to the war.

I’m unclear on why only the Night Court knew Hybern was coming, but let’s just accept that.

But it’s all about the Public Face, moving in the shadows, the two Rhysands. So for the months Feyre is wasting away with Tamlin, planning her wedding Rhys...doesn’t warn anyone. Doesn’t whisper to the other High Lords to shore up defenses.

He makes a plan contingent on 1)that creepy deal with Feyre that he can now both justify and doesn’t want to enforce knowing she’s his mate, and 2) long lost magical objects no one knows the location of, and that don’t belong to him.

Rhys got SO used to the All-Knowing Dickbag face, it’s like he started believing he was all knowing. He’s one of seven Lords, but he doesn’t talk to any of them, on the off chance they don’t do exactly as he says. He steals from Tarquin, a young High Lord kind enough to take a chance on him. He tricks Mor. He lies to...everyone?

And then it’s a big deal, a failure on their part, when at the FINAL HOUR AND LAST MOMENT BEFORE ALL OUT WAR, AFTER THE SECOND INVASION HAS ALREADY COMMENCED, when the High Lords don’t jump to trust Rhys.

A step back, a Feyre tangent: Feyre, younger, also deeply traumatized, falls into this hard. Rhys tells her he’s the underdog, and she believes it. He’s SO SO SO powerful he can take the voice of another High Lord, Feyre herself thinks he’s so magical the gap between him and his contemporaries is like that between humans and high fae-

But hey wait, they don’t trust him because he’s been a dick for five hundred years.

But hey wait, they came as their true selves, they don’t trust him while he’s WEARING ILLYRIAN WINGS- IT’S BECAUSE HE’S DIFFERENT-

No, it is not, but Feyre’s POV sort of wants us to think so.

And that’s where everything sort of falls apart.

The act of power has stopped being an act- it’s just their actions now. And they do not know how to stop.

Because they are in control, and they have to go on for the war. They have to keep making decisions, even if they’ve lost the thread, because they want to survive.

But they do survive.

And it turns out, even after that, they can’t put down the masks fused to their faces, because the act is the only thing keeping them together.

So the balls to the wall, We Must have the High Ground Even at Our Own Dinner Parties, The Center MUST Hold shit just keeps going: tearing down Lucien because he chose something that wasn’t their Court. Letting Illyria crumble because they don’t need the army right now. Banishing Nesta because she’ll never bow to authority.

All the weird, incestuous feeling inter IC drama.

But they’re the underdogs! the Heroes! It’s not their fault!

So they spend their time in Velaris, charmingly hanging out like they’re normal people, thinking they’re better because power is wielded on an unimaginable personal scale.

Rhys loves his people! Rhys sacrificed!

Rhys...careened from one war/disaster to the next, and then settled down to play house?

The narrative cannot decide: is Rhys really an underdog, devoted to his people? How about he helps every other city that Amarantha destroyed?

Is Rhys a Normal Guy who just wants to walk on pretty cobblestone and have a cute, happy family? Maybe, there should be a government so he isn’t solely responsible for everything?

Is Rhys the Lord of Darkness Redeemed by LOVE? Cool, let’s have him maybe he honest with Feyre exactly once, OR, at least talk about how him dying made her go off the rails and try to fix that with a bandage that isn’t baby shaped before Feyre’s 22nd birthday.

Canonically, becoming High Lord is a mystical, magical endowment. That then, for the most part, functions as some kind of mashup Monarchy/ Feudal Lordship.

If that’s what it is, why can’t we lean into that? Rhys who does want a normal happy life with Feyre, trapped by the weight of immovable magic destiny.

King Rhys, duty bound to his bloodline and his people, torn between different ways to rule.

Hell, Rhysand who really is a monster, because maybe Faeries are monstrous by human standards, who shows Feyre the beauty that lies beneath the brutality in a magic, surreal world where everyone is terrifying, but even monsters love.

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chockfullofsecrets · 3 years

Text

Critical Role: Unnecessary

(Read on AO3)

Rating: Gen

Summary: The thought stays with her the next time she visits Nicodranas, though, and she determines to make an experiment of it. Maybe without the shoulder bumping - she is here as an emissary, after all.

Allura's new mage friend in Wildemount seems a little lonely and very reckless. She takes it upon herself to investigate.

Wordcount: 2.3k

A/N: MORE WIZARDS

one more @ticklesofcolor event fill for @ticklishnonsense - i am starting to think that assigning us each other in this event is taking the shared braincells to a whole new level 😅 Prompt was “Allura, early in her friendship with Yussa, discovers he's very touch-starved and very ticklish, and takes advantage of this.”

---

The first time it happens, Allura is fairly sure that she’s just caused an intercontinental diplomatic incident.

She can hardly fault herself, though. There are certain instincts one develops when one regularly dines with adventurers and has the pleasure of being married to a halfling paladin who takes particular delight in tackling her every so often. Her arms are full of books, newly on loan from the only mage she’s found in Wildemount that doesn’t seem to be completely obsessed with politics, and she needs to bid her new friend farewell somehow. It seems perfectly logical to knock her shoulder lightly against his as she brightly thanks him for the pleasure of their meeting and turns to leave.

Apparently, this is not a logic that Arcanist Errenis shares.

The air itself seems to still as he stares at her. Stares some more. Then reaches up, cautiously, and presses his palm against one silk-covered shoulder as if he’s reaching for some unidentified magical artifact.

Allura winces. She can’t see any of the signifiers of elven disgust that Vex has mentioned to her, being uniquely suited to identify them, but to have such a reaction - “Oh - oh dear, I apologize. A rather uncouth habit I’ve picked up from my wife, I’m afraid.”

And she’s going to have quite a time confessing that particular sidestep to Kima later, but Errenis holds up the same hand to cut her off and lifts his chin, instantly settling into his usual placid composure with enough ease to lull her heartbeat back down to a reasonable rate. “No harm done, Arcanist Vysoren, merely… unnecessary.”

He blinks, slow as melted gold, and frowns lightly at her for a moment before turning away and gesturing sharply for a nearby tea set. “I trust that you can activate the circle yourself?”

She can, as well as take a hint - bemused, she casts without looking and steps backwards into the glowing circle, barely catching a last glimpse of him reaching for his shoulder again.

---

She tells her wife.

“Kima - Kima, darling, I’m glad you think this is funny, but it’s hardly helpful-”

Kima sighs a little, wiping a tear from her eye, and wraps her arms a little more securely around Allura’s waist where they’re lounging together. “Aw, Al, the poor thing’s just lonely! You antisocial wizards and your pretty little towers and your, what was it called? Oh, intellectual property-”

“I am perfectly social,” Allura says, prim, and promptly ruins it when she can’t help smiling at Kima as she laces their fingers together. “I certainly became acquainted quickly with you, didn’t I?”

“Oh?” Kima responds, catching Allura’s other hand in hers. Her eyes brighten in that unique combination of challenge and affection that Allura will never tire of seeing. “Is that how you remember it?”

Allura sniffs. “Well, if you’d like a refresher - mmm-”

And, well, it’s a little hard to remember anything after that.

---

The thought stays with her the next time she visits Nicodranas, though, and she determines to make an experiment of it. Maybe without the shoulder bumping - she is here as an emissary, after all.

Acquiring an adequate sample size becomes. Frustrating. He levitates everything, removing any chance to pat his hand in thanks when he offers her a cup of fragrant cardamom tea or to tap her knee against his as they pass a tome back and forth.

They are making progress, though, equally enthralled by the arcane, and it’s genuine excitement that does it in the end. A particularly difficult passage of an ancient spell untangles under their combined effort, bandying translated syllables back and forth with increasing urgency until they fall into blessed, triumphant silence, and she sweeps over and claps him between the shoulders in celebration. “Wonderful! You know, this might be quite useful for facilitating crop growth in arid land-”

He freezes under her touch in what seems like genuine shock. She pats him again and he lets out a little surprised huff, ears twitching confusedly even as his gaze remains pointed firmly ahead. It’s like blowing dust off a statue that hasn’t been touched for centuries.

Which, considering his introduction - I have been a practitioner of the arcane arts in seclusion for over 200 years, he’d told her, neither proud nor regretful - may be somewhat too close to the truth.

He sways back slightly towards her when she retreats to the other side of the room, shoulders rising and falling at a degree just shy of unpracticed. Interesting.

She does it again, and again, over the next few months - shoulders, back, arms, anywhere suitably innocuous, watching closely for any sign of annoyance. He is, after all, far older than her and perfectly capable of enforcing his own preferences. To say nothing of the way he tilts his head, when he’s deep in thought, in a way that seems so other that such petty mortal things as touch might be of no concern to him at all.

At one point, her hands are full of charcoal as they successfully cast another new spell and all she can do is smile at him. He glances over at her, implacable as always, but there’s a nearly imperceptible tightness as he turns away that she just barely knows him well enough to catch.

The next time, he brusquely commands her to put everything down before he casts. It’s sweet - nearly as sweet as the surprise on his face when she does so and completes the spell before he can.

---

There is, of course, increasingly apparent over time, Yussa’s irrepressible lack of instinct for danger. There have been fires. There have been many frantic castings of Dispel Magic. Allura starts to understand why his faithful goblin manservant is constantly twitching.

Today, she arrives in his study with a tired smile and sore fingers. “Yussa, I’m sorry - I’m afraid that I haven’t got a Dispel in me today, I’ve been Identifying a cache of arcane items all morning.”

“No matter.” Yussa waves off her raised eyebrow with a casual flick of his hand that serves the double purpose of summoning a tea set from thin air. “Tea?”

She accepts the cup. “Are you certain that we shouldn’t wait?”

“Unnecessary. Come.”

His study is as brilliant as always, cramped only in the sense that combined the artifacts lining his walls hold enough arcane power to reduce a rather large portion of the coast to rubble.

She’s a little jealous, honestly.

Yussa plucks a little beaker of gold dust up in one hand and a crisp sheet of paper in the other, beckoning her over with a brusque tilt of his chin that would be highly annoying from anyone else. “Now, there have been whispers of Kryn spies using a spell that renders objects immovable to cover their retreat on multiple occasions. I believe I’ve finally been able to recreate it, to some degree.”

“Oh!” Any lingering exhaustion forgotten, applications are already racing in her mind. “How interesting, please show me!”

He hands over the page and she scans the runes eagerly as he flicks his long sleeves back over his wrists and prepares to cast. “A little gold dust, and - it seems quite inelegant, at the moment, as if they are using some frame we have yet to find reference of, but-”

He gestures towards an empty box on his desk, sending gold dust and bright energy scattering. For a moment, there is only light.

And then, the spell shrinks back onto him, sinking into the fabric of his golden robes. Allura gapes - she has wondered, certainly, but to wear actual gold on a daily basis, especially when casting a spell that has it as a component-

Yussa stands very, very stiffly.

She presses her lips together as tightly as she can to hold back the surprised, giddy laughter brewing in the back of her throat. “You - the components-”

The sleeve of his robe looks slightly duller. The box, on the other hand, sparkles merrily under its powdering of gold dust.

Yussa sighs at her as she fails entirely to contain her amusement. “I seem to recall that you are lacking spell slots at the moment.”

She takes a deep breath, regaining her composure, and shakes her head. “Maybe I can go fetch someone-”

He grimaces instantly. “Absolutely not.”

Both of them spend a fruitless moment tugging at the robes, but it seems that Yussa has indeed managed to create a temporarily immovable object. He sighs again, after a minute, and lets his hands flap loosely against the stiff material. “Well, it’s only meant to last for an hour - I’m sure we have a Teleport spell stored somewhere around here, if you would call Wensforth-”

Allura bristles. “I can’t just leave you like this!”

“An hour passes quickly with meditation-”

“No, no, certainly we can do something.” She steps away and paces around him. “You know, your robes are quite, ah, voluminous - do you think you could squirm out, perhaps?”

Yussa sniffs in clear distaste. “I’m quite sure there’s no need.”

Really, she shouldn’t find his arrogance half as endearing as she does. “Oh come, Arcanist Errenis,” she teases, smiling despite herself, “surely you can do better than that, for a friend.” She crouches in front of him, heedless of her dress trailing onto the floor, and tries to gauge the possibility herself from what she can see through the open front of his robes - his legs, dressed in equally fine trousers, shift indignantly as she does. “Here, just bend your knees a little-”

She prods lightly at the back of one of them, hoping to spur him into action, and Yussa jumps. “Arcanist Vysoren-” he begins, and - there, almost unrecognizable for its novelty, a thread of nervousness creeps into his voice.

Allura tends more towards caution than mischief in most cases - a necessity, with the company she keeps - but she’s already grinning as she leans back a little to catch his eye. “Oh, this will be quite simple after all, I think.”

Yussa’s ears twitch up in clear, startled embarrassment as his legs attempt to press themselves to the back of his robes. “Arcanist Vysoren, I would thank you to - mmM-” She reaches for him again, sending one hand to wriggle behind the vulnerable joint and the other to scratch gently across his kneecap, and watches happily as his entire leg buckles under the attack. “Ah - haaah-”

The tremulous gasp that wrenches from him as she takes hold of his other knee to repeat the process is music to her ears - clearly, what her experiment has been needing all this time is a more direct approach. “This will be a little faster if you help,” she tells him, and crowds her fingertips up into the tender dip of flesh before he has a chance to respond.

“Vysoren-” Yussa tries, as tersely as he can with a frantic whine climbing up behind his words, and promptly cuts himself off as his other knee gives out. His robes are, in fact, made more for their drapery than their fit, and as what could graciously be called standing dissolves into ticklish squirming he’s slowly but surely sliding out of them and onto the floor. “Ihi - I can handle this from here, don’t-”

“Don’t what?” she responds innocently. The bottom of his silken shirt, neatly tucked into his waistband and glimmering even in the dim light, sinks into view. She elects to confirm its luxurious quality by prodding along the softness of his belly until he sputters and curses and drops another few inches, his indoor slippers sliding uselessly against the tiled floor. “You’ll have to offer an alternative solution - we’re a bit limited, at the moment.”

He’s laughing outright now, high and stilted and quite a bit more ticklish than she expected he might be. The way she’s kneading at his sides certainly isn’t helping. “Ahaaaaha - the damned - unnecessary - eheeh! -”

“Unnecessary,” she says, raising her voice enough that he can hopefully hear her through all the layers of fabric he’s trapped in, “would be insisting on testing a spell without taking any of the proper precautions beforehand. This, I fear, is entirely necessary, Yussa.”

And fun, besides, but there’s no need to tell him that. Besides, it seems that he shares the sentiment somewhat - she hasn’t been kicked in the face yet, and he’s hardly trying to get away from her hands, for all his grumbling. She wonders, absently, if he might allow her to do this again, the same way he’s slowly becoming accustomed to her casual friendly overtures.

He’s far too ticklish to let her wonder for long, though - it’s hardly a moment more before he squirms his way entirely free, tumbling nearly into her lap and grabbing desperately at her hands with his own elegant fingers. His face is flushed with laughter, hair falling into his eyes, and he looks like an entirely different person as he flops tiredly away from her and curls up on the floor.

It’s enough to send Allura straight back into her own startled amusement - she reaches for him, unable to help herself, and smooths a hand over his back. “Alright, alright,” she soothes, “you’re free, no harm done-”

Yussa grumbles something under his breath and twists to butt his head up against her hand instead. Allura nearly freezes in shock - and so does he, realizing, eyes wide just under the heel of her palm.

They stare. Yussa’s jaw works for a moment. “Your hand,” he says, glacially slow, “is on my head.”

“You put it there - oh, fuck it,” Allura decides, and leans forwards to drag her friend in a proper hug. “That could have been much worse, you fool. ”

Yussa stiffens and then relaxes all at once into the hug, bonelessly dropping his head onto her shoulder - he’s breathing unevenly, still, the aftereffects of laughter working their way through. “This is unnecessary, too,” he murmurs. “But I offer you my thanks, regardless.”

Chin resting atop his head, Allura smiles and plans a slight revision to her experiment.

#critical role #tickling #allura vysoren #yussa errenis #chocfic #i hear that allura is in campaign 1 and so i apologize in advance for whatever i got wrong but. wizards good.

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iatethepomegranate · 3 years

Text

Just a fic about Caleb buying a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, and coping with that kind of change and newfound stability (and becoming Professor Widogast). Angst and fluff are at war in this fic.

Content warnings: lots of grief, Caleb's backstory, referenced child abuse

Chapter summary: The Nein goes shopping and Caleb is tired. The market offers up an expected memory, and the chance to hold a little piece of childhood in his hands.

Notes: Title is from Nine by Sleeping At Last.

****

Chapter 4: I let the scale tip and feel all of it, it's uncomfortable but right

Jester and Caduceus were a force to be reckoned with at the marketplace. They had already convinced Caleb to let them buy him a set of curtains for his side of the house. Thick fabric to block out most light and definitely any nosy neighbours. They were a soft yellow-green patterned with watercolour chamomile flowers, which they had figured out were native to the Zemni Fields behind Caleb’s back.

“These are so pretty Cay-leb,” Jester said, gently sliding them into the bag of holding with Fjord’s help as they stepped out of the shop. “We’ll put these up as soon as we get back, okay? Yasha promised she’ll help us.”

Yasha was a little way off with Kingsley, her arm over his shoulders as they looked at swords at a nearby market stall. Caduceus dragged everyone off to stock up on kitchen necessities and more seeds for Yasha’s garden. And a ton of baking supplies, because Yasha had begged Caduceus to teach her, even though everyone knew no one had to beg Caduceus for that kind of thing.

Essek, disguised as a half-elf with soft brown hair and eyes, held himself a little awkwardly here in the heart of the Dwendalian Empire, but he defiantly refused to complain. He had little input on Empire goods, aside from wine, about which Beauregard happily bickered with him. Caleb was happy enough to let the others direct him, even if he theoretically knew the markets better than they did.

He trusted them. And he was so tired.

So he quietly followed the Nein around the market and let them make decisions for him with minimal input. He must have looked wrecked, because Essek, despite his disguise and clear nervousness, held his hand to anchor him.

Fjord, Jester and Kingsley bought him a ton of high quality paper and ink for the study, with Essek’s subtle guidance. Caduceus picked out basic kitchen staples for Caleb that would keep him fed even if he didn't have much time to cook, in the event he couldn’t eat with Beau and Yasha. Veth found some orange-amber cushions that complemented the curtains. Yasha found an orange-white checkered tablecloth that she declared matched his hair and therefore was a necessity for the house. She and Beau bought two, one for each side.

Caleb, in a lucid moment, found a soft blue rug for Beau and Yasha’s bedroom and bought it for them, despite their objections. It was only fair he gave them something back after everything they were doing for him. He would have to work out the logistics of installing a real-world sex mirror later as a proper gift. He’d ask Essek to help, and Essek would do it, but he would hate every second of it. The one sex joke he had ever made in front of the Nein was 50% deflection. And jokes were very different from installing a sex mirror for someone.

Jester would be up for it. A little bit of gold dust would be enough for Caleb to hold it in place with Immovable Object while they secured it.

Caleb was pulled from his calculations about dimensions and weight for a ceiling mirror when Veth tugged on his hand. “Hey, Cay. There’s an old lady selling homemade quilts. Rexxentrum is very cold, and you are going to catch a chill if we don’t get you something better than that one shitty blanket. Come on.”

She led him over, catching up with the rest of the Nein. Jester was chatting with an old Zemian woman sitting behind the table behind piles of bright quilts. The stitching sparked an old, old memory in Caleb, and he found himself stepping closer before he had consciously thought about it.

“Ja, I make the trip up from Blumenthal every few months,” the old woman said in a thick Zemnian accent, much thicker than Caleb’s after all his time travelling.

Caleb froze for half a second, easing himself through the shock of that information. “Ah, hallo, grandmother. It is good to meet someone from home.” This conversation would be easier in Zemnian. Common lacked the polite Sie form that Caleb would typically have used for respect. But he wasn’t sure he could handle having this conversation in Zemnian, so it was probably for the best.

The woman smiled up at him, her lips wobbly with age. “Hallo, young man.”

Caleb’s knees ached a little, just to remind him some parts of him really were not young at all.

She held out a wrinkled hand for him to shake. “Call me Lisbeth.”

Caleb had a strange moment of indecision regarding his name, trying to remember if he had known this woman as a child but coming up empty; Blumenthal was just large enough that it was possible not to know everyone, and she may have even moved there after he was gone. “Ah, Caleb Widogast.” He shook her hand. “I grew up in Blumenthal. This stitching is…” Why was he just saying everything that came to his mind?

“Very traditional, ja.”

“Ja, my mother used to make quilts like these...” His was probably ash now.

He was dimly aware that the Nein were watching him, and that Veth had done an extremely visible double-take.

Lisbeth searched Caleb’s face for one terrifying moment, and he was convinced that maybe she did know him after all. But then, whatever she saw made her soften, and she reached beneath the table. “I like to save my best work for those who will appreciate it. Here.” She laid a thicker quilt on top of the others. “I made one like this for my grandson. He wears it like a cape around the house.”

The stitching was a little more intricate, and the squares were detailed with minimalist animal shapes. Mostly cats. Una had taken Caleb’s cat obsession to heart; the quilt she had made him had been similar. Painfully so.

Caleb traced the stitching of an orange cat, his vision blurring. Essek squeezed his hand. Caleb blinked until he could see again. Even with the disguise turning purple eyes to brown, these were definitely Essek’s eyes staring up at him with a familiar look of both affection and concern.

“We’ll take it,” said Veth. Veth, who had already bought Caleb a house, and cushions. This was… no.

“Veth.”

“Caleb.”

He sighed. “A word, please.” He took her hand, leading her a little away from the group. “Veth, this is too much.”

Veth’s eyes were wet. “No. No, it’s not. I saw how much this means to you. Caleb, you just talked about your childhood and your mother to a total stranger. That’s not…” She sighed. “I saw your face when she pulled out that quilt.”

“I cannot let you…” Caleb could barely speak. “Veth.” He swallowed. “You bought me a house. You are still buying things for me. This is… I can’t take this.”

“Why not?” There was an edge to her voice, but it was a genuine question. “I thought we were over this. Why is this the line?”

Caleb did not know where he found the strength to stay on his feet when all he wanted to do was fall in a heap. He stared at the dirt.

“Cay, look at me. Please.” Veth couldn’t reach his face, but she absolutely could conjure her mage hand to lift Caleb’s chin until he met her eyes. “Will having this make you happy? Or does it hurt too much? I won’t force you to take something that hurts you, but if this is because you don’t think you deserve it…”

“I don’t know, Veth.”

They had spent a long time alone together, relying on each other to survive. If anyone could read him, it was her. She stared at him for a few moments, eyes moving as if his face were a real book.

“I don’t think you would’ve struck up a conversation with a random Zemnian lady if this was the bad kind of pain,” she said. She rolled her shoulders back. “That settles it: you’re getting the quilt. I’ll get the Nein to chip in if that makes you feel less weird about it.”

It kind of did. And Caleb didn’t have it in him to argue anymore. “Ja, okay.”

Veth pulled him down so she could kiss his cheek and led him back to the stall. “All right, everyone give me your money.”

It was probably a sign of how bad Caleb looked that nobody questioned her. But when Essek reached for his pocket, Caleb reached out to stop him.

“No,” he said. “Not you.”

Essek frowned deeply with the half-elf’s face, but the expressions were undeniably him. “Caleb.”

“No. You need that money. Do not put me through this.”

Essek’s face softened. “All right.”

The rest of the Nein, even Kingsley who still barely knew Caleb from a bar of soap, coughed up enough coins to pay for the quilt. Lisbeth, a little teary herself, offered a discount, which they refused. Jester and Veth gave her extra gold that Caleb couldn’t count through his brain fog. Okay, he was very much not coping if he couldn’t even count things.

Veth was too small to pick up the quilt without dragging it on the floor, even after Lisbeth had gently folded it, so Yasha accepted it from Lisbeth and handed it to Caleb. Old muscle memory took over, and he buried his face in the soft fabric.

“Danke schön,” he said quietly.

Lisbeth smiled at him again, but it was sad. “You should come by the market and say hello before I go back home in a few weeks.”

“I will.” It would hurt a lot, but Caleb meant it.

“Take care, Schatz.”

No one had called him that in a long time. It hurt. It hurt so much.

Grief was funny like that sometimes. You think you’re getting on with things, doing okay, and then there will be a scent on the wind, an old term of endearment, stitching identical to your mother’s… and you break.

Caleb squeezed the quilt and barely held himself together as the Nein led him back home. Whatever shopping they had left to do… they had wordlessly agreed to leave it for another day.

****

Back home, Caleb asked to be alone for a bit. That meant Essek was allowed. They laid the quilt out on Caleb’s bed, Essek’s disguise abandoned. Caleb stopped fighting the tears, letting the sobs come as he smoothed out the edges, fingers catching on a stitched golden retriever puppy.

Essek pressed his palm between Caleb’s shoulder blades. “Sit. Please.”

Caleb lowered himself slowly, wholly convinced he would collapse if he wasn’t careful, and settled on the edge of the bed. Essek pushed him onto his back and curled up next to him, guiding Caleb’s head to settle against his chest. Limbs tangled together.

No more words were said for a while. Caleb drifted asleep at some point, waking with a headache. Essek left briefly to fetch him a cup of water. Caleb stretched and his back cracked a little bit. He felt hollowed out, but in a good way. The way you felt after a good, well-deserved cry.

Essek returned in a few minutes, wiping his own eyes on his sleeve, and made Caleb drink the whole cup. “You should eat something.”

“Soon.” Caleb still felt a bit queasy from the tears.

Essek tucked himself into Caleb’s side, arm around his waist. He squeezed, just a little, and kissed Caleb’s collarbone. Caleb pulled him in close and kissed the top of his head.

“Danke.” The word was not enough to express the depths of Caleb’s gratitude that Essek had lain here with him through his grief, that he had taken such a risk to stay at Caleb’s side in the market to begin with. Under better circumstances, Caleb would have been furious with Essek for that, but they both knew Caleb had needed him today.

Caleb slowly rubbed his palm across the surface of the quilt behind Essek’s back. It felt exactly the same as the one he’d had when he was little, which Una had repaired again and again over the years because he was so attached to it. She had made it last until he was seventeen. Until the night he had destroyed everything because of a false memory, primed by faux-patriotic indoctrination and horrific abuse. Caleb would never fully shake off the guilt. Not entirely. Whatever Trent had put in his head, it had been Caleb’s hands that set the fire. But it was getting easier to accept that Trent had engineered the situation very carefully, so that Caleb did not feel like he had another choice.

He was glad Veth had convinced him to accept the quilt. One more piece of his past reclaimed. One more piece that could become a comfort instead of a knife in his ribs.

Caleb felt better. The two of them slowly stretched out their limbs, rolled aching joints, and headed to Beau and Yasha’s side of the house. There was a scent of baking in the air. Not apple tarts--Caleb probably would have broken again if it had been, no matter how happy the memory. He could smell spices.

They stepped down the stairs into the living area. Beauregard was grumbling over some Cobalt Soul report, while Kingsley, notably bored, lazily slapped her leg with his tail over and over. Fjord listened to Beauregard’s complaints with a constructed look of sympathy. Veth was openly ignoring her, head in her spellbook once again. Yasha, Caduceus and Jester were notably absent.

“Oh!” Fjord was very quick to find an excuse to stop listening to her. “There you are. The others are baking biscuits that none of us can pronounce.”

Beauregard rolled her eyes. “I’m telling you I said it right.”

“Caleb, help us out,” said Kingsley. “They’re some kind of spiced biscuit dusted with sugar while they’re still hot. Normally for special occasions.”

“This is a special occasion,” Veth told him. “It’s got the same number of syllables as fluffernutter. I think.”

Caleb suspected he knew what they meant. “Ah. Pfeffernüsse.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Told you I was right,” Beauregard muttered.

“They’re very good,” said Caleb.

“I think the first batch is almost done,” said Veth. “You should be our taste tester.”

Caleb crouched beside her on his way to the kitchen, pointing at the book. “Veth, that rune is upside down.”

“Fuck!”

He found the spell she was copying out in his own spellbook and set it beside her. “Here. It’s easier with more than one source. I’ll be back to help you in a moment.”

Caleb then stepped into the kitchen, with Essek on his tail. Yasha had a pair of soft pink oven mitts on, pulling a tray from their dark metal oven. Jester held a bag of confectioner’s sugar, bouncing in anticipation while Caduceus tried half-heartedly to close the bag before she spilled it everywhere.

“You’re just in time, Mr Caleb,” Caduceus said, giving up. “The lady selling baking supplies at the market gave us the recipe. I am not going to try pronouncing it again.”

“Pfeffernüsse,” Caleb supplied again.

“Yeah, no.”

Jester snickered. “He kept trying to say it while you were upstairs. It was very cute.”

By now, Yasha had set the tray down and put another in the oven. “Caleb, Caleb, come here! Look!”

Caleb stepped to her side and gazed down at the cookie tray. They were a little less round than the pfeffernüsse Caleb was used to, but recognisable. Jester came over and sprinkled the sugar over them with far more grace than anyone had expected.

Once cooled a bit, they brought the biscuits out to the living area. They were soft like Caleb remembered, and the spice blend was excellent. “These are perfect,” he said. “Thank you.”

Yasha looked genuinely touched, and swept him into a huge hug.

“May I help you next time?” asked Essek. “I have never baked before.”

“Of course,” Yasha said. “Caduceus is going to teach us to make bread soon.” She held up her hands in a slow-motion shrug. “Goes well with soup?” Her voice went up at the end, making it sound like a question.

Kingsley, who had absolutely not paid any attention to the conversation, shoved an entire biscuit in his mouth, his eyes widening to a ludicrous degree. “What the fuck? This is the best thing I have ever tasted.”

“We are famous for our baked goods,” said Caleb.

“You’d think Zemnians would be a happier bunch if this is the shit they eat,” Beauregard said, her mouth covered in sugar.

“Depression baking is a cultural pastime,” Caleb said.

“Bro, what the fuck?”

“Do you think Astrid and Eadwulf eat these things?” asked Jester.

“Probably,” said Caleb. “We used to.” That reminded him; he needed to message Astrid and arrange a time to discuss the job offer. “Ah, one moment.” He pulled out the copper wire, sticking to Common for the sake of his companions. “Astrid, it’s Bren. The Professors delivered the offer. Do you have time to talk? I am a little nervous about it. Time and place?”

Astrid replied in Zemnian, “Do you remember Trent’s old office? I’m there now. Come when you are ready.”

Caleb re-upped the spell. “I will be there in half an hour,” he replied in Zemnian.

Still in Zemnian, Astrid replied one last time, “I look forward to it.”

Beauregard was the only one who could understand the Zemnian half of what Caleb had said. “Caleb, I don’t wanna be patronising, but are you feeling up to that?”

“I want to get it over with,” Caleb replied. He clarified for the rest of the group, “I am going to see Astrid soon, to talk about the job.”

“I’ll pack some cookies,” said Jester, grabbing the plate and rushing into the kitchen. Yasha chased after her before she could break anything.

“Do you want an escort?” asked Fjord.

“Nein. I’ll be all right.”

“You will call if you need us?” Fjord’s voice was firm; it wasn’t a question.

“Ja, of course.”

****

Caleb was out the door in a few minutes, carrying a cloth bundle of six Pfeffernüsse, all that had been left of the first batch. It was four in the afternoon, the air having chilled a little but it was still pleasant. Caleb didn’t mind the cold too much, as long as he wasn’t trapped in it.

Walking into the Shimmer Ward was less frightening than it used to be. There would always be a lingering hint of anxiety, but he had it well in hand. There were crownsguard stationed at the Academy gates; they silently let him pass into the manicured gardens of the campus.

Coming here as a teenager had been a dream come true, which had quickly become a nightmare. Maybe coming back here to teach would let him reclaim those memories, turn them into something useful. He headed to the nearest tower, where he knew most staff kept an office. Trent had rarely been in his, but Caleb recalled that Astrid had been teaching here, so it made sense she would make better use of it.

The tall marble archways and huge windows had not changed one bit since the last time Caleb had been here, not long before he murdered his parents. Maybe coming here was a bad idea, especially after the day he’d had. Or maybe he needed to get this over with. If he got emotional about being here, at least he could claim it was because he was tired.

Muscle memory carried Caleb to Trent’s old office. He felt nauseous. He knocked on the door. It swung open, seemingly of its own accord.

Astrid was seated behind the massive, heavy mahogany desk. Caleb knew from personal experience how sharp the corners could be. He was going to be sick.

Astrid set aside her pen, capping the inkwell front of her. “Hallo, Bren.”

Caleb swallowed before he spoke. “Astrid.”

Astrid continued in Zemnian, so Caleb decided to match her. “Sit down,” she said , gesturing to one of the three chairs. They looked spindly and delicate, but Caleb knew for a fact how sturdy they were. And how much force it took to break out of any bindings tying one’s arm to the arms of the chair.

Caleb took a deep breath through his nose, picking up the spices of the Pfeffernüsse. It helped. He placed the bundle on the desk. Astrid’s desk.

“Jester, Yasha and Caduceus are experimenting with Zemnian baking,” he said quietly, letting himself fall into a chair. “They’re good.”

Astrid raised an eyebrow, gently picking at the piece of twine holding the bundle closed. She lifted a biscuit from the cloth. “They smell right.”

“They taste right, too.”

Astrid split the biscuit in half, handing the larger part to Caleb. He wasn’t sure if it was affection or distrust. She waited for him to take the first bite but also quickly followed suit, so maybe a bit of both. Understandable.

“These are good,” she said, finishing the biscuit and rubbing a thumb across her sugared lips. Slowly. It had to be deliberate. “You look tired.”

“Long day.”

“How is the house?”

“Good. Different. I am...” He laughed, just a bit, thinking over the last couple days. “A little out of practice. I don’t know if you knew… I was homeless for a while. It felt safer.”

Astrid did not look surprised. “I know.” She exhaled through her nose, visibly rousing herself. “You wanted to talk about the job offer?”

“Alphira would have made a terrible Volstrucker.”

Astrid cracked a small smile. “She told me about your meeting today. I apologise for her clumsiness. You took it more gracefully than I would have.”

“I doubt it.” Caleb didn’t tell her about his breakdown behind the shop. “A shame the smut shop is gone.”

“Evidently their business fell apart without your patronage.” Astrid gave an extremely put-upon sigh. “Wulf found another place. Get him to give you directions.”

“Kingsley is curious.”

“Yes, I am sure that is your only motivation.” Astrid cleared her throat and visibly put her mind back on task. “Bettina needs a replacement. The Archmages are falling over themselves to sing your praises. They are, in some ways, full of shit. Hiring you will terrify them. I think you will like that.” She glanced at the now-closed door and lowered her voice. “Headmaster Zivan Margolin is a weak link to Trent, but a link nonetheless. Your presence will make his life very difficult.”

Caleb matched her volume. “Whoever decided the Headmaster of Soltryce Academy should be the same person as the Archmage of Conscription is…” He sighed, unable to put into words how much the deck had been stacked against him, Astrid, Wulf and every other child pulled into the Volstrucker program. And how much it upset him. “What the fuck.”

“Margolin is busy pretending he loves you,” said Astrid. “He’s become a little bold in his claims that he saw your potential from the beginning. The Martinet is growing uncomfortable with the implication and will throw him to the sharks to save his own skin. One word to the right people…”

Caleb knew Beauregard would carry the message to Yudala Fon in a heartbeat. “We need to be careful. Take it slow. We have disrupted the Volstrucker pipeline for the moment. We cannot afford to stumble now.”

Astrid leaned back in her seat, looking very much like a cat who had just eaten a bird it had been chasing for miles. She raised her voice to a normal volume. “So, you will take the job?”

“I might.”

“Bettina told me your demands,” said Astrid. “We’ll put them before the Archmages. See what we can do. If nothing else, making the demands will prove a point no matter what they do about them.”

“Astrid, I am serious. I want them fulfilled.”

“I know. Bettina has suggestions about the ethics lessons. I agree you should teach it as part of the Transmutation classes, at least for now. Would we have listened when we were students?”

“I think that depends on who it came from. And whether Trent had gotten to us yet.”

“I agree. I think you will make a more compelling speaker than anyone else we could find.” She smirked a little. “You were always charismatic, and you have the lived experience to make an impact.” She took another biscuit, chewing thoughtfully, eyes tracing through the air as if she was reading calculations. “You said you were nervous.”

Admitting that in the Sending had been an impulse decision, born out of an emotional day. He didn’t regret it. Outside the Nein, Astrid probably understood best that Caleb had always been an anxious person, even if he had handled it much more gracefully in his youth. When he eternally swung between deep insecurity and excessive arrogance owed to his skills, and the fact he had known very well how charming he could be. Anyway, Astrid and Wulf knew his old insecurities well. Now he had new ones, and Astrid was trying to be on his side as much as she could.

So Caleb voiced something he wasn’t sure he would ever tell anyone else. “I have always wanted to teach. You know that. But. It’s a lot of responsibility. Maybe Trent is still in my head a bit, but I am afraid. He said that I am not the only ‘one of us’ in the Assembly who went through similar trauma. What if I… turn out no better than he did?”

“He also said you were defined by your trauma, if I recall.” Astrid’s face had shuttered a bit the instant Caleb invoked Trent. “He likes to find our pressure points and push until we break. You know that.” She took a third biscuit and shoved it into his hand. “He saw what he wanted to see, and he wanted his vision of you to be what the rest of us saw as well. I… made an error. I misunderstood your ambitions. As did The Martinet.”

“What did Ludinus think I wanted?”

“Power. Like most others in the Assembly. Revenge. Like most Volstrucker who have thought deeply enough about what Trent put us through.”

“He would have been right. Once.”

“I know. The first time you came to me, you were still very angry.”

“I never stopped. My goals changed. I… learned better, I suppose.” Caleb owed so much to the Nein, especially his talks with Caduceus that helped clarify what he did and didn’t want in the end.

“I didn’t. You know I would’ve killed him if you hadn’t stopped me.”

“I wouldn’t have resented you if you had.”

“You were right to stop me. It was more satisfying to shame him in public and have him tossed in a dark cell with a silencing collar glued to his neck forever.”

“And his hands glued together for just as long.”

Astrid’s eyes softened a bit. “One of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life.” Her gaze lingered on him, just a second longer than either of them could dismiss as casual. “How’s your beacon thief?”

“He’s fine.” Caleb wasn’t sure he could handle talking about his current partner with Astrid of all people.

“Have you seen him recently?”

“I am not telling you that.”

“I won’t turn him in. It would not go well for me.” Astrid rested her chin in her hands, searching his face. “Are you two happy?”

“Yes.” Caleb did not offer further details, and Astrid did not pry.

“You deserve it.” She smiled down at the bundle of biscuits. “Tell your friends thank you for the Pfeffernüsse. Will you take the job?”

“I will.”

“Good. For what it’s worth, I think you will be a good professor. You and I both know how important that will be.”

Caleb matched her sad smile. “No more children on the pyre.”

“No more.”

Caleb felt better. He could do this. It would take more than one person to make change, but he could do his part. Astrid had her ambitions, but he knew her in a way very few people did. There were conversations to be had between them, more damage to stitch up.

But it had been a long, emotional day. There would be more days. More time to pull the vulnerable from the flames, to stand between them and the remaining elements of this government who would use, abuse and discard them.

And, he hoped, time to care for those had already been hurt.

#caleb widogast #shadowgast #critical role #fanfiction #my fics #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic

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noobsomeexagerjunk · 3 years

Text

we wake with the intent to find enlightenment

Eret was what any sensible Minecraft server would call a "player of games," descending from the first slayers of the Dragon that dreamed hard enough to achieve the highest level. He was the epitome of what the voices whispered in their little poem.

Well, he was supposed to be.

In a sudden new development of powers, Eret converses and looks back on conversations to finally figure himself out, to finally wake up.

(read on AO3)

chapter 1: and all those sparkles in my eyes still remain

When you talk with enough people, you are forced to think.

When you think hard enough, you are forced to change.

Eret did not mean to trim away (or make disappear, based on his witness) all the leaves from the trees in his castle garden with a flick of his hand, but he just did.

He neared one bald trunk and touched the branches. It was odd how clean the cut was.

He reckoned that something about his person changed that caused the phenomenon to happen.

That kind of change had not happened since he was still growing up when he was as young as the few children on the server, most of whom he loved fervently.

The first time he knew he was different from the other children, human or otherwise, was the white of his eyes, which were aglow perpetually and unnatural enough to make people, who didn’t have the family eyes, unnerved around him. At some point, people began to flee at the sight of him.

Perhaps it’s the legend that one relative of his that he had made for himself— yeah, that’s right.

That said relative had remarkable power and chose to make himself a nightmare amongst servers, which was a feat no one in his immediate family, with their own powers, chose to do. None of them had that kind of audacity.

Neither did he, who then just decided to chop down the naked trees, planting new ones in their place.

The mystery of the kin who had Eret’s blood could make monsters, villains, but also heroes, leaders, gods even! They’re the epitome of dreaming, of what man should be in the sandboxes that Minecraft offered. Eret, by blood, descended from those who lived fully through uncovering the hidden truths from that so-called poem, the poem a server would whisper to those who, when the dragon of that server’s End is slain, actually save the End in question.

Eret’s power gave him a particular knowledge when he first stepped into the Dream SMP, a knowledge that framed him as an alien god trapped in the fragile clay that was the average Dream SMP mortal. It’s knowledge of the End but knowing the art of respect (and in that knowledge, not breaking the rules concerning its restriction).

Despite all that, Eret was left still trying to figure whatever the fuck he was. She was? They were?

Eret was, as far as he knew, something .

Wilbur said he was a traitor.

Dream said he was a king.

Everyone else said he was a puppet.

He made himself a historian.

He was something. Some...things?

Eret knew that he and he alone dictated his identity. He did not know whether he was happy with what he gathered, with what he made, with what he was.

Blinking back into reality, Eret dropped his enchanted netherite axe, leaves now restored. He hadn’t even begun cutting down the trunks!

“Okay, this is getting weird,” He remarked, picking up his axe and placing it back in his inventory.

He then walked back into the quarters of his castle, heading into that hidden boudoir where he did his more private and intimate matters concerning his person.

Armor off, then after some consideration, robe off as well.

In his regality and decoration, Eret always felt most like himself wearing gray shirts and blue jeans. It was bland, (as one drunk Wilbur Soot once whispered to him playfully, during one of those nights before everything went wrong,) but it was comfortable.

The mirror of the boudoir was massive, reaching the room’s high ceilings, making Eret’s figure so small from within the room’s walls.

Eret picked up his crown from off his head and took a good look at it. The marks of enchantment on the golden material resembled blood splatter, the pretty, intricately-carved jewels covered in beautifully contrasting impurities.

Now, the SMP’s other known leaders, or at least those most fascinated by its powers? They were intriguing to Eret, many of them possessing skills he wished he himself had. In their crafts and games, it was odd how Eret never could hold his own against them.

Eret’s craft was a museum. Unlike symphonies, it had the right to remain forever unfinished. It depended on housing so many stories—there were too many stories left unsalvageable.

Eret’s game was the game of Jacks. As bad as he was at the game, it was the game he can’t help but choose to play. The ball is bouncy just as his crown is heavy, the bones in hands as little as the friends he actually had.

The (let’s be real here,) crown of thorns—the Crown which was currently in Eret’s possession—both allured and terrified, like a bomb waiting to be used, waiting to blow up.

Bombs made Eret remember a conversation with Tubbo and Captain Puffy on a visit to Snowchester.

“Independent?” Eret picked up the Declaration of Independence on the podium, reading the haphazard handwriting of the founder of Snowchester.

“Have you come to contest it, your majesty?” Tubbo approached from behind him with a snarking tone; pulling with him on a lead was a bay horse that Puffy was riding on.

“Well, no, as nothing of any harm is,” The nukes, ”um, well-“

“Yes, we are peaceful, aren’t we?” Tubbo maintained his tone.

“Besides the nukes, Tubbo?” Puffy interjected.

“It’s a deterrent!” The teen repeated, “Like I said earlier, Eret. I’ve got them decommissioned and we don’t want any trouble.”

“Yeah, I can see how you’d come to that kind of protection,” Eret remembered Doomsday, “though I would request—actually no, recommend you communicate with me if you are going to use them at any point.”

“For what?”

“The help would be needed. You never know.” Eret was reminded of an equally alien red. Tubbo had mentioned seeing some growths on his land during their earlier conversation.

“I never do know, don’t I?”

Eret chuckled lightly, “Well, Tub-”

Tubbo suddenly smacked the ewe off the horse, much to her dismay.

“Tubbo! That hurt!”

“Thank you for getting off my horse,” Tubbo said, absurdly and frankly.

“Are you alright, Puffy?” Eret quickly went to pick her up, only for Puffy to be standing when he was at a reasonable distance from her.

“I’m good, I’m good.”

Puffy was quite a character. Her request of resignation was something he happily allowed, as her disillusionment with the server certainly coincided with his. He made no public spectacle of it (though to be fair, he never made a spectacle of his knight table, to begin with,) but had a meal with Puffy for it.

This was the price of an unannounced excursion. You leave for a month to make sense of all the chaos you’ve had to endure healthily only to come back to an even worse Dream SMP.

You have come back negligent. Wasn’t the break supposed to make you a better ruler?

Eret remembered welcoming Puffy when she first arrived, disheveled and a bit of a klutz, though nonetheless friendly.

Of course, who wouldn’t be a mess joining the Greater SMP, most especially after a historical act of political terrorism?

Eret quickly repressed the thought of Wilbur, though the dead fellow’s charisma seemed to leak out of Puffy’s excitability. She acted much like him, much like he was before Eret had hurt him: quick to founding family, being a shoulder to cry on, quick to burn when necessary, being a paragon of hope against tyranny and towards peace.

Captain Puffy had long wooly locks, brown and highlighted with a prismatic shade of white. She hid her eyes behind glasses like his, enigmatic like himself, surely? This ewe walked into the server with a friendly, warm wool onesie of many colors, reflected in her horns and hooves.

Eret’s shock was reasonable when she came to their little arranged meal together in a brand new costume.

She looked so much like Wilbur, as attractive as him, even. This was the man who had the ambition to fight tyranny through a division Eret thought at the time as dangerous.

The reminder can no longer be avoided.

In some way, Eret felt he was correct about the effect of L’Manburg, of it being a further cause of division in a server that didn’t need to create factions but to simply negotiate with words—to coexist and be passive and not be so Goddamn stubborn.

Dream and Wilbur, in their disagreements, agreed they were both unbelievably stubborn. Too mortal, too measly, two mere men...Eret found it awful how they fashioned themselves as immovable objects. He, for one, belonged to a race of men far more powerful than that of the two, and yet they had the audacity! What are simple server owners and the children of angels to dreamers? To the descendants of those who had taken the universe’s whims to heart? To the same brood that begotten the nightmare known as Herobrine?

Eret was something, but that something was not Herobrine, that’s for sure.

Wilbur could only handle so much. L’Manburg could only handle so much.

The stains of betrayal still prod and cry at Eret before his very eyes.

Nevermind. Eret wasn’t as sure, now that he thought harder about it.

He huffed to himself. He was being fickle.

Captain Puffy was quite fickle. She bent and broke like him, if her resignation as a knight was of any indication. She mothers a god but is so ever mortal and yet is so humble. People and happiness mattered to her, and that was why Eret loved her.

The tricorn hat and the long coat, worn out by what seemed to be the waters of storms instead of the fires of war, were an ashen color, black like obsidian, and were punctuated with gold pads, embroidery, and buttons.

She wore glasses like his, in that through certain angles, semi-hid eyes of enchanted prismarine. As we know, Eret’s glasses hid a blinding, mythical pair of whites.

“That’s quite the look there,” Eret remarked at the sight of her, almost tempted to blush.

“Yeah,” Puffy failed to hide her hesitance, “I, um, thought I needed a wardrobe change.”

“You didn’t have to dress up for this, you know?”

“I know, I know,” Puffy put a lock behind her ear, “This is just—how do I put this? Um, a necessity.”

He was about to jokingly question whether she was going to war, but then stopped himself in realization.

“I see. Come,” He gestured to her to follow him towards the table and food he set up before her arrival.

#dream smp #dream smp fanfiction #we wake with the intent to find enlightenment #eret #captainpuffy #tubbo #wilbur soot #/roleplay

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fae-fucker · 3 years

Text

Review: Death Wind by Tara Grayce

Essie should be planning her happily ever after, not planning a war. Although they once were enemies, the humans of Escarland and the elves of Tarenhiel have allied to fight the trolls from the far north. But alliances are tricky things even in the best of times, and with Farrendel, the elves’ foremost warrior and Essie’s husband, captured by the trolls, the circumstances appear dire indeed. But Essie won’t give up, and she will make her two peoples work together to fight this war if it’s the last thing she does. One way or another, she will get Farrendel back, no matter what it takes.

Gonna be honest, didn't expect much given my lukewarm reaction to the previous two books, but this one? This one actually held my attention for genuine reasons rather than just being a light read. Because the plot involves a lot of conflict (arguably the biggest conflict possible, war), the pacing is steady, and two of the three POV characters are mostly suffering and/or being tortured, there's actually tension for once. It's a welcome change, and proves that the author is very much capable of writing it but just chooses not to in favor of boring and conflict-free family interactions.

With Melantha introduced as a POV character, we're offered a pretty buckwild concept for this series: a character that makes mistakes and has to live with the consequences. I actually found myself liking Melantha, not because I thought she was a compelling character (she wasn't) or because I felt bad for her (I didn't), but because she had what Essie didn't: flaws. There's even a point in the book where Melantha thinks about how much she dislikes Essie because Essie is so sugary perfect and everything Melantha wishes she could be, and I think it's supposed to show us how bitter and insecure Melantha is? Except she's 100% correct, Essie is literally too perfect to be a real person and I just sat there going "yeah, you're right, and don't feel bad for being shitty because literally nobody can actually be like Essie."

However, Melantha suffers from Stupid Bitch Syndrome, which doesn't exactly make for a good protagonist/POV character. She's not intended to be dumb, the book expects us to think she was simply misguided and bitter and not, like, a complete idiot who should've known better. But her instant remorse feels less like character development and more like her suddenly realizing she’s actually a huge idiot who fell for the enemy’s nonsense, which she is. She's supposed to be an older elf, a grown woman, yet she makes such an obvious mistake and immediately regrets it and folds like a wet blanket the moment shit hits the fan. It's honestly a bit pathetic. The only reason I preferred her over Essie was because she introduced some much-needed depth to the character roster, but that depth was still about the size of a teacup, compared to Farrendel's thimble and Essie's singular water molecule. Her relationship with the troll prince was actually ... interesting? It was all mostly unspoken, which I think made it stronger than the overly telegraphed thing Essie and Farrendel have going on, and I’m sure it’ll be flattened out and become boring in the next book, so enjoy this potential before it’s wasted.

Farrendel spends the entire book being tortured and thinking about how he's being tortured. I can't blame him, but it doesn't make for good reading. I honestly think his POV could've been left out altogether and it wouldn't have changed much. Melantha is already there with him letting the reader know he’s suffering, we don’t need two POVs telling us the same thing. Oh uh, except for the part where he ... puts his magic in a soul-bond pocket. I'd mark this as spoilers but it's literally on the cover. I guess if his POV was removed then we'd never know how Essie learned to blast his power in battle at that one convenient moment, but it barely affects the plot afterward so um, yeah. I'm having a hard time justifying his POV at all. I'm still not over that part btw, how Farrendel just ... makes a "mental fist" (no, really), grabs his magic in one and his soul bond with Essie in the other and just puts them together like he's connecting two cables to an adapter. And he knew to do this ... how? It's not like we've seen him experiment with his magic before, in fact he's been shown to hate it and only use it when necessary, but apparently this tortured and exhausted man has the presence of mind to try something as vague and theoretical as ... putting his magic in a soul pocket. He spends a few pages going “I wonder if I can do this” and then it works on the first try. He does consider whether it’ll hurt Essie and decides not to try it, but as I said, he does it soon after anyway so like ... I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny or show how little of a shit he gives about Essie, but that’s sort of the implication and I thought it was funny as hell.

Anyway, the magic pocket is about as much worldbuilding/lore as we get from this series entry, aside from the trolls having their own political intricacies and tensions, which I’m assuming the next book will expand upon. The writing itself in this book was pretty bad at times. The repetition of certain words and names was really glaring in some parts and felt amateurish. Take a shot every time the word “magic” appears and you’ll be in the grave before the book ends. Prince Rharreth and King Charvod are almost always referred to with their full titles and names for some reason? A few editing rounds would’ve helped this a lot, methinks.

The plot is mostly moved along in Essie’s POV, which is slightly less insufferable than usual because she’s the one observing the movement of the two armies and there are actually action scenes in there that, while don’t exactly made me worried about her (there’s no way this perfect idiot will ever die), still provided some tension. But it’s honestly not much, the “war” lasted two entire weeks (and that’s including the strategy, logistics, and mobilizing) and with how fast the armies travel and how little resistance they face (and how Deus Ex Farrendel-d the final battle was, the guy is apparently full of godlike destructive power despite being starved and tortured, go off king), it all felt very unrealistic and easy. Like, we have two armies marching in the middle of a mountain chain during magical snow storms, all while being regularly assaulted by the defending army, and they still get there no problem, without a single mention of soldiers struggling not to die of exposure. Aight. I guess these elves and humans are just very resistant to the cold, for some reason.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason it goes over so fast in-universe is because the author wanted Farrendel to be horribly tortured throughout his captivity, but also knew that if that lasts too long, the damage will be too severe to easily resolve in the next book. But instead of easing off the hardcore torture, because then we’d lose out on that drama and those High Stakes, she decided to speed up the whole war thing, because hey, who cares about that, anyway? We just want Farrendel back, right? Riiiight? Better hurry up guys! Don’t want Farrendel to be too tortured to fix with some strawberry-flavored medicine and vague counseling in the next book!

So yeah, the plot moves on speedily, but at what cost? Mainly depth. Again. And once again, Essie suffers the most from being a bland caricature of a person and dragging the whole thing down. The author’s GR bio says she writes “spunky and tough” leading ladies, and I guess having no other things in your brain except sparkly kitten gifs is a certain kind of toughness in an “immovable object” sort of way, but “spunk” implies a of counter-culture edge that sweet widdle Essie simply does not have.

There was one small section where Essie felt bad over how the human and elven warriors were going to die, how many mothers and sisters and daughters would suffer just so she didn’t have to, but then we don’t find out the death count, the casualties are never even mentioned, and Essie moves on from this without even a single thought questioning the morality of a monarchy or her own position of power. Now, I get that that’s not the focus of this series, but it just adds to how Essie’s worries are always surface-level and never justified by the plot, how she never has to do any introspection and is never allowed to not always be annoyingly positive. Whenever she even begins to think something negative, she instantly, almost compulsively changes trajectory and just decides not to worry about it, and then it never comes up again anyway. This would’ve been like, an interesting take on toxic positivity and how Essie represses her own emotions, but no, the book never goes there, she’s just that perfect and wee and optimistic, even during a war and when her husband’s being tortured to near-death. It’s kind of insulting to read, honestly.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing that annoyed me. Even when she loses Farrendel, she takes it surprisingly well and focuses mostly on keeping a positive attitude for his sake, so he doesn’t feel her sadness through their “heart bond.” I never really felt her loss, her love for him, when she so easily could just decide not to feel bad “for his sake.” I want her to feel bad, I want her to miss him and to ache at his absence and to fear for what they’re doing to him. But no. That would just upset him more and hurt him more. So Essie doesn’t get to experience any negative feelings because it might upset her husband. Essie doesn’t get angry and determined to fight, she just keeps being her cheery little Stepford Wife self because being nice will keep everyone’s spirits up and make them hope and fight harder to preserve that hope!! :)

It just comes off as really flat and moralistic yet dishonest at the same time, because nobody would fucking react like this IRL. Essie might be a good person in-universe, but she drags the entire series down just by being perfect, cheery, and never, ever challenged or even allowed to challenge anything herself. Essie isn’t allowed to have any negative feelings because it might affect her husband, and yet we’re supposed to find this empowering somehow? We’re supposed to believe she’s spunky and confident and a sweet little firecracker of a redhead?

Eugh.

At least Melantha is an idiot, I guess. One whole female character gets to have a flaw, and she’s the almost-villain who needs to be fixed with love.

Idk man. The sexism in this series is like a constant undercurrent that grows stronger with each installment as our “understanding” of this world expands. All of Essie’s brothers, including the king, are at the front lines because they are manly men “have to” be there, while the women who aren’t Essie or Jalissa stay behind to be mothers and caretakers. It’s never expanded upon and just sort of accepted as part of both human and elven society and the narrative treats it like this obvious thing that even Essie doesn’t really bother noting how unfair and/or weird it is. There’s not even a single comment on it. Essie is in the war not because she can fight but because Farrendel needs her, and Jalissa is there because ... Um. Because ... she. Uh. She needs to be there when they confront Melantha? She’s Farrendel’s sister? Idk. Jalissa’s main point in this series so far seems to be the ship tease between her and Edmund that feels awkward and one-sided as fuck.

So yeah. The pacing and plot flowed along really well, but the characters and the writing and worldbuilding are all just really undercooked, which, at three books into the series, feels more glaring than ever.

But hey, at least it was a quick read!

#book review #elven alliance #death wind

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laughingpinecone · 3 years

Text

ToT letter 2021

I am laughingpineapple on AO3

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Art likes: characters doing something, even something very simple, illustrating a moment rather than abstractly posing. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s). Or dressing them up for some outlandish AU!

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings

All requests are for both fic and art!

Death Crown: Death, trick

(I haven't played the DLC yet so, alas, no demons, or no spoilers for the demons, at least) I am absolutely charmed by the overall mood of this game and would like to see something more in that vein! Anything! Got more sacred (or unholy?) geometrical architecture for Death to interact with, maybe in greater detail than just wrecking it? What else feels like a contemporary take on a Bosch painting? Can Death get lost?

Ghost Trick: Jowd, Cabanela, trick, treat

Anything focused on Cabanela being an unstoppable force (confident, untiring, sparkling, stubborn, dexterous, loyal to the bitter end, legs) and/or Jowd being an immovable object (sarcastic, strong, depressed, self-deprecating but knowing he's hot stuff, also stubborn, clever but an emotional dumbass, round). Figuring out stuff? Something in the new timeline is linked to the old timeline? Coat? Dancing? Scarves? Halloween costumes?

I like Cabanela/Jowd and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd and Cabanela/Alma in scenarios where Jowd isn't around and Alma/Jowd in general (REALLY like all these, okay. like this is the one request where I'd love the most self-indulgent shippy takes as well), and dig Lynne/Memry. Yomiel/fianSissel and Emma/JM also cool!

Hylics: any, trick, treat

(I have only played the first game so far so please no overt spoilers for Hylics 2. Feel free to include stuff from it but... stealthily, I guess?) This is an "anything that feels somewhat like canon, please" sort of request! Love the mood, love the cast, love the little added details in their menu screen. Those can be prompts? Or the oddball stats? How do ToT's trick and treat freeforms apply to Hylics' overall... hylicsness, what would those guys think constitutes a "creepy" moment or a "fluffy" one?

Not into ships for this one, however I WILL say that Dedusmuln has all the proverbial curves in the right places. mostly their face.

Kentucky Route Zero: Weaver

Math, debt, the liminal state of almost being a ghost, seeing the world with a strange clarity... just anything Weaver, please! How'd she make her way to the town? What was it like for her to be working on Xanadu for a time? What about the community broadcast! Does she have an opinion on Carrington's oeuvre? You know... things... stuff. Weaver things. and stuff.

I love the whole cast and Weaver... wove... her story through most of them so feel free to bring in whomever. Not interested in ships here though.

Paradise Killer: Lady Love Dies, trick

A post-canon glimpse of life on '''''perfect''''' 25? That's not QUITE enough class consciousness to make the whole thing work, you guys. What does 'normal' life feel like to LD now? After following Henry's case and talking to Shinji so much, can she see that it's doomed to fail again, and then what? What IS Island 25 like, anyway? (what comes after Island 25, even?)

I liked the choice of canon romances - if it has to be just one I'd prefer it to be Crimson, but I'd also be interested in seeing what a V or triad with Doom Jazz would look like. They're all so chill about stuff

Pyre: Volfred, trick, treat

Pragmatic idealist, charismatic and bad at people, pacifist, activist, physiologically incapable of shutting up for a hot second, what's there not to love... I am very into either of the following: C. Volfred Sandalwood has a fantastic day; C. Volfred Sandalwood has a terrible no good day. Everything is great! Pre-exile antiestablishmentarian antics, maybe with Bertrude? Political gambits? The very physical dangers of the Downside which may or may not catch a scholar by surprise (who saves him?)? Tree problems? Meeting Oralech for the first time and Volfred thinks he himself is hot stuff but out of the two, Oralech is clearly the VIP? Feeling like he should live up to Lu Sclorian's legacy but he feels much closer to other Scribes (and what does Lu have to say about it, one way or another?)? The thrilling intimacy of Reading? The thrilling intimacy of lowercase reading also, maybe reading old manuscripts found in the Downside?

I very much ship him with Tariq and/or Oralech. The only canon ship I like is Hedwyn/Fikani. I also like Soliam/Gol, Bertrude/Pamitha and Celeste/Jodariel. Love all the Nightwings + Dalbert (+Deluge...?); love to dunk on Manley, Brighton and Lendel (I don't enjoy flat-out bashing, more like... I enjoy the way they are portrayed as horrible gremlins in canon and if they turn up in fic I'm not interested in more positive portrayals)

Signs of the Sojourner: Rhea, Elias, trick, treat

Once again pretty much an "anything in the style of canon" request. I love this setting, its themes and all the little lives that fill it. I am interested in a wide range of postcanon scenarios and love the whole cast - does Rhea come back to $town any number of years down the line and find $character? How'd their storyline end up in the medium-long term? What the hell is up with the Stranger (seriously, three runs and I never managed to speak with them, I have no idea)? What's life like for Elias back home, or in a new home if they can't keep the store, or if Rhea landed the Oscar ending or whatever (just, please, not dead Rhea. I love that ending but can't stand to consider what it'd do to Elias)? Or does he join the caravan just once? Who did Rhea grow to really like and can't wait to see every time? Any ghost stories or creepy encounters on the caravan's route? Does Thunder help?

I'm neutral on ships here - good with Rhea&Elias, good with background Rhea/Elias but I wouldn't like a romantic focus.

Totally Normal Wizard Apprentice: apprentice, wizard, master, trick, treat

(conflict of interest disclaimer, I illustrated this but didn't write nor nominate it) What awaits the apprentice outside the wizard's tower? It sounds like a pretty wild moon out there, I loved all the worldbuilding hints of the bigger setting. Does the wizard keep track of the apprentice, with her telescope or otherwise, and how does she take care of her ruined parlor? Was this all some sort of 5d chess on the master's part, and if so to what end? And what kind of otherworldly patience does this man possess, anyway, to handle the apprentice on a daily basis?

Twin Peaks: Margaret, Diane, Lucy, Tammy, trick, treat

(bass-boosted ethereal whooshing) For tricks, I would like to see any of these characters face the woods, the mystery of the woods, and/or a new symbol of your liking. Or: Margaret in the city, Diane and the moon, Lucy and the color blue, Tammy incognito.

For treats, a happy meeting. I love the whole cast and I'm always thrilled by gonzo "&" pairings, bring in whomever! Coffee and pie? The Bookhouse Boys? A kinder aspect of the woods?

Fandom-specific notes: love s3, love the books too. I like Lucy/Andy, Margaret/Sam fwiw, and rarepairs Tammy/Cynthia and Diane/Constance. Please no Fireman's-house-is-the-white-lodge, no Twin Perfect, no Judy-was-destroyed (nor is destroyable).

Arcade Spirits: Percy, Teo, treat

More than anything, I love the sense of group and camaraderie among the arcade's staff and regulars, and I'd love to see some more of it. I picked Percy and Teo 'cause they're my faves but anyone you may want to add, up to and including Sue, is very very welcome. Is there any aspect of gaming that feels like it could be adapted to this strange world of contemporary arcades? Cosplay shenanigans for everyone courtesy of Ashley? Any other activity that could show how Percy and/or Teo get along with the others, like they were all forming little groups during the beach chapter? It's such a feel-good canon, any feel-good situation would be great!

My Ari is with Percy but I'm not really interested in shipping here. All sorts of friendships though!

#letter

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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

Text

More Than Words (TwentyThree)

Peter arrives back in his own timeline and Jean Grey makes an appearance.

Please heed posted TW within the chapter as the doctors/May discuss what they think happened to Peter and how to help him heal. We know that nothing bad happened to Peter, but they don’t, so there is discussion of a few TW worthy issues, I’ll mark with in the fic as needed.

Also hey, I’ve been in love with Jean Grey since the first XMen (2000) so you’ll have to excuse my blatant Thirsting via the Omega nurses

MTW MASTERLIST HERE

*****************

Present Day

Fourteen days, eight hours, fifty seven minutes, thirty seven seconds after Peter accidentally activated Cable’s time travel device and disappeared into the past, the Omega reappeared in the emergency room of Haven Mercy Hospital wrapped in nothing but a blanket, a ring on his finger and a note with his name and contact information for one May Parker folded into his hand.

No one knew how he arrived or where he’d had come from, but one look at the bruises marring the Omegas hips and thighs, at the ravaged bite marks on his neck, at the way his ribs sat too visible beneath his skin and the nurses screamed for doctors, for a bed, for a room and for the police.

A week later, May Parker had answered no less than a thousand questions from a handful of different police officers and detectives, had told them over and over with tears in her eyes and panic wrecking her scent that no, she didn’t know where her nephew had gone for a few weeks, no, she didn’t know why he’d been bruised and hurt, no, she didn’t have any reason to think someone would have hurt him.

After the questions came the assumptions, and May had to sit and wonder if Peter had been kidnapped and hurt, if some Alpha out there was stalking around trying to find him, if her baby was still in danger even though she was sitting right there.

After the questions and assumptions came the doctors, one right behind another with their white coats and clipboards, trailing in and out of the room taking notes and running tests and glancing at and then purposefully away from May as if somehow any of this could possibly her fault.

Peter might not be her child, but he was her child all the same and after a week of non stop questions, assumptions that got worse every day and doctors that couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to even pretend they cared, the Alpha female was ready to take a swing at the next person that was even remotely obnoxious.

“He woke up last night?” Today was yet another new doctor, someone May had never seen or talked to and someone who didn’t seem to care one whit about the boy lying unconscious in the white sheets. He didn’t look up from the chart long enough to greet May or offer her a conciliatory smile, and she had to work hard not to snarl over the doctor’s apathetic tone and bored expression.

“Yes.” May grit her teeth and tried for some semblance of politeness. “Yes, right around midnight. But we had to--”

“--sedate him.” the doctor interrupted. “Yes, I can see that here on his charts. The Omega woke up hysterical?”

“His name is Peter.” the Alpha’s eyes blipped red in annoyance. “And yes. Peter woke up screaming and trying to hit someone or maybe to hit something. He was calling out for an Alpha, begging someone to stop and said that it--”

May swallowed back the threat of tears. “--he said that it hurt. That it burned and that it hurt. The nurses gave him a sedative, but I don’t even know if Peter was actually awake at all. I think it might have been a nightmare.”

“Mm-hmm.” the Beta put the chart down and moved up the bed to check on Peter’s bruises, flicking the blankets aside and opening the hospital gown to peer at the Omegas waist and hips. “Has the hospital psychiatrist been by to speak with you yet?”

“No, no psychiatrist has been by to-- don’t do that!” May said sharply, and the doctor only raised his eyebrows in question. “Don’t just poke and prod at my nephew! He’s not a piece of meat, he’s a person! And Peter is an Omega! You shouldn’t be touching him without permission at all, much less grabbing at him like that!

“I’m hardly grabbing at him Mrs. Parker.” A bland smile and barely leashed irritation. “I’m a doctor and a professional and it’s my job to check a patients bruises. To be quite honest with you, I don’t need your permission to inspect the Omega, and since it’s real difficult to ask permission from unconscious bodies, I’m going to assume he’ll want me doing this, and just move on alright?”

The sixth floor of Haven Mercy was usually quiet, little to no activity from mostly unconscious or still heavily sedated patients, and only a few visitors at a time. Most days, there wasn’t anything going on at all so the nurses did their paperwork in between rounds and chat quietly to a background of bland easy-listening music.

This morning, the normally peaceful floor was wrecked with the sound of an Alpha’s roar and startled curses from the Beta doctor as he tripped over his own feet bolting away from the room and towards the elevator.

“Doctor Asswipe strikes again.” One of the nurses muttered, and her coworker muffled a laugh. “Dunno what the hospital was thinking assigning him to Mrs. Parker’s case. The guy makes me want to get feral, can you imagine what he does to a stressed out Alpha?”

“I think it’s good for him to be scared every once in a while.” The other Omega decided. “Doctors think they can be terrible just because they have a little bit of training, it’s not the worst thing for them to be forcefully reminded that they actually work for the patients and not the other way around.”

“I’m sure May Parker feels the same way.” the first one stood to her feet and trilled comfortingly at the female Alpha currently barreling her way towards the nurses station. “Mrs. Parker. Don’t take it too personally, hm? That particular doctor has the bedside manner of a jackass and the looks to go along with it. I’ll be sure to register a complaint and have him removed from your nephew’s rotation.”

May Parker wasn’t as old fashioned as some of the older Alphas that clung to outdated notions about Omegas being inferior or overly delicate, but she still made an effort to temper her tone and blink the red from her eyes so she wouldn’t frighten the nurses. “I would appreciate that, thank you.”

“Anything specific, ma’am?”

“He uh--” May breathed out a laugh and it wasn’t a good one at all. “He said something about touching unconscious Omegas and just assuming they wanted it, and I’m sure I’m over reacting but I was pretty close to breaking his neck anyway. After everything they’ve told me about how Peter was hurt, the thought of someone putting their hands on my baby when he can’t even protest...”

She shook her head and tried for calm again. “Before I scared the crap out of him, he mentioned something about a psychiatrist? Is there one scheduled to speak with us today?”

“Yes ma’am.” the nurse said promptly. “Should be here any minute now and I’ll send them right in.”

“Thank you.” May turned on her heel and strode away, and once the door had shut behind her, one of the Omega’s whispered, “Everyone knows that poor kid went through something horrible. What the hell was the doctor thinking, saying something like that.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t thinking.” The other nurse was already documenting the complaint. “But that’s a shitty thing to say about anyone, much less an Omega we’re pretty sure has been--”

“Don’t even say it.” the Omega interrupted. “We won’t know anything for sure until Mr. Parker wakes up, and we shouldn’t say that sorta of thing out loud anyway. That child needs positive thoughts and healing prayer, not speculation over what he went through and why he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah.” the complaint went into a file along with a few others from May about the quality of care her nephew was or wasn’t receiving. “You’re absolutely right about-- oh hello Doctor Grey!”

The Omega nurse stopped mid motion and handed the file to the psychiatrist instead, smiling up at the lady Alpha. “How are you today?”

“Talking people through tragedies may be one of my greatest strengths, but it’s also my least favorite part of this job, so it seems rude to say I’m doing well, doesn’t it?” Jean answered mildly. “How are you today, loves?”

“Oh I’m--” predictably, the Omega blushed and even though the other nurse elbowed her teasingly, neither one managed to do anything other than smile at the intimidating woman for a moment.

Doctor Jean Grey was astonishingly smart and intensely beautiful, all iron clad will and steel determination and even today with her long hair pinned back and green eyes tempered to look kindly at the nurses, she still seemed... fierce.

She was an unstoppable force when it came to fighting for the rights of her patients, an immovable object when she decided something was wrong and the staff at Haven Mercy were never sure if they loved the unorthodox doctor, of if they jumped to do her bidding because the Alpha was so intense.

Either way- when Jean Grey spoke, even the other Alphas hurried to listen, and when she chose to smile and flirt a little there wasn’t an Omega in existence who didn’t want to be the sole recipient of that soul searching gaze.

“Ah, another complaint about Haven’s worst doctor.” Jean tapped at the most recent page in Peter’s file, licked at the points where her fangs used to be and pursed her lips. “Should I dump him in the river for you, darlings? Save us all the Human Resources complaints and the board members doing absolutely nothing when the women complain he’s damn near assaulting us with every breath he takes?”

“Our lips would be sealed, Dr. Grey.” one Omega answered immediately, and the other one stammered, “What--whatever you’d like, Doctor.”

Fully aware of her affect on the Omegas, Jean sent them both a wink. “I’d bring you along as accomplices, but I don’t think my mate would approve of me bringing home such beautiful Omegas. Let me do the killing, loves.”

Modern Omegas would never admit to being turned on at the thought of Alphas being vicious and bloody and fanged, but that core deep knowing was there all the same and Jean hid a smile into the folder when one of the nurses squeaked in alarm.

“We um--” the other tried for a semblance of professionalism while her coworker just gave right up and sat down to fan herself. “We’re surprised to see you on call today Dr. Grey. Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

“Yes, and Scott wasn’t happy about me leaving him there on the beach.” the Alpha marked a few things in Peter’s file. “But an old friend called in a favor so I packed up and came home. Wish he would have given me a few more details about Mr. Parker, but I suppose I’ll work with what I have. If I send prescriptions from the room, you’ll get them started right away for me?”

“Of course, Dr. Grey.”

“Yes ma’am, Dr. Grey.”

Jean turned on her heel and strode away towards Peter’s room, and one Omega sighed, “Do you ever feel like she’s reading your mind?”

“All the time.” the other nurse confirmed. “Makes me want to think dirty things just to see if I could get her to blush.”

“She doesn’t blush.” the first one countered. “Nothing affects her. One time I heard her go toe to toe with the Director because he changed her schedule around with no notice and I swear her eyes went yellow and then black.”

“Black?!”

“Yeah, which begs the question, what sort of person can call in a favor and make Dr. Grey cut her vacation short?”

“Someone scarier than her?” her co worker suggested, and after a few seconds of staring at each other, the two Omegas collapsed into laughter.

As if there was anyone out there scarier than Jean Grey.

***************

“Good morning Mrs. Parker, I am Doctor Jean Grey.” The Alpha paused at the door to Peter’s room and waited for May to stand and motion her in. “I am a fully licensed physician as well as a currently practicing psychiatrist and I also hold a doctorate in psychology. I don’t work here in Haven Mercy full time but frequent the campus often to treat my own clients, and the staff knows me well. If you need further credentials I am happy to provide them but for now, why don’t we sit and talk for a while?”

“I suppose that would be alright.” Even after days of little sleep and hours upon hours of worried vigil, May’s eyes were sharp as they tracked over Jean’s clothing, lingering at the buttons of her suit jacket, then dropping to the toes of her overly expensive shoes. “Tell me though, why does my unconscious nephew need a psychiatrist, a psychologist and another doctor?”

“A valid question.” Jean’s smile was tight and a little forced as she mentally cursed the cranky Alpha who had set her onto the Parker’s trail. She had been on vacation, damn it. “As a psychiatrist and physician I can prescribe medications to help keep yourself and your nephew as mentally and physically balanced as possible during this ordeal, and as a psychologist I am ready and willing to offer therapy as you come to terms with all the possible outcomes of the situation. I specialize in these...delicate cases, so you can be confident working with me.”

“Myself and my nephew.” May straightened in her chair and cocked a knowing eyebrow at the other Alpha. “So you aren’t here just for Peter, you’re here to prescribe medication in case I can’t handle whatever has happened. Is this because of how I yelled at that other doctor?”

“I am here because we cannot help the people we love until we ourselves are stable.” Jean countered smoothly. “You cannot save others if you are drowning. And as far as the other doctor is concerned, if you’d like I’ll call him back to the room and we can yell at him together.”

Her smile was sharp and bordering on wicked, and May finally smiled a little in return, shoulders relaxing a touch when she realized the doctor was there with only good intentions.

“You said you specialize in these cases?” she prompted. “You’ve helped others through this sort of trauma?”

“I’ve never worked on a situation like this specifically. “ Jean clarified carefully, “But I work every day assisting adolescents and young adults as they transition through life changing events. I am the resident doctor at a private school in Westchester if you’d like to call my employer Charles and ask about me.”

“No.” May waved away the offer and slumped back a little, pulling her sweater tight around her body and folding her arms. “You can be sure I’ll research you after you leave but for now if you can help…” she waved her hand again. “Please.”

{{TW: Because Omegas are the ‘female’ gender, the doctors are approaching Peter’s case/condition like IRL would approach a woman who disappeared without a trace for weeks at a time and reappeared with specific bruising/trauma to her body. We know Peter wasn’t assaulted in any way, but the doctors do not so this part talks about healing from a s*xual assault in an ABOverse specific way. Nothing explicit, but it deserves a warning anyway}}

Jean gave another one of those tight smiles and sat down across from May with pen and paper at the ready. “Now then, Mrs. Parker. I want you to know I’m going to suggest some terrible things in the next few minutes I’ll be making assumptions as to Peter’s mental and emotional trauma based on the physical findings in his chart and it won’t be easy.”

“Nothing about this is easy.” May muttered. “But you won’t be able to tell me anything I haven’t already thought about. I’ve been sitting here for a week with all the worst case scenarios tumbling around in my head, and all of them seem perfectly, terribly plausible.”

“Mm.” Jean clicked her tongue comfortingly. “I understand this has been awful, but it’s important to remember that the police, the doctors and I could all be wrong about this, okay? The moment Peter opens his eyes and can talk to us, we could find out that we were way off base and none of this will even matter. But right now it’s very important that we plan for the worst, so we are prepared to help Peter through it.”

The other Alpha made a distressed but agreeable noise, so the Doctor began- “First thing, I’ll be writing you a prescription for an additional suppressant. Any strong emotions can bleed through a blocker, but grief and fear are always the strongest. If you’re going to stay in the hospital with your nephew, we can’t have anxious Alpha scent making it difficult for anyone else to work.”

“That’s probably not the worst idea.” May closed her eyes in a moment of weariness. “Thank you.”

“We have to be stable before we can help those we love.” Jean repeated firmly, but not unkindly. “I’ll have the nurses down the way fill this for you immediately, it’s actually one I take myself since I have to keep my scent at complete neutral for all my clients. It works quickly, efficiently, and once you’ve settled it leaves you system within twenty four hours.”

“That’s what’s off about you.” May realized, tipping her head back and breathing in deep to try and find Jean beneath the smell of antiseptic. “You scent of nothing real, just a bland sort of chemical. Do all psychiatrists mask their scent so much?”

“The smart ones do.” Doctor Grey deflected. It wouldn’t do any good to tell Mrs. Parker that she took seven different pills whenever she traveled outside of Westchester to mask the odor of mutant in her blood. It was alot of effort just to blend in enough to not raise any alarms and it was exhausting.

“The smart ones do.” she said again, then cleared her throat. “I’m going to briefly with review the most obvious physical evidence on Peter and then move towards talking about ways we can help once he wakes up. If at any time you feel as if you can’t continue, tell me to stop and we’ll pick it up another time.”

May indicated that she understood, and Jean tapped at her notebook a few times before say quietly, “I’m sure the police explained to you what it means for an Omega to be bruised like Peter is, hips and thighs and especially with the extensive damage over his bonding spot.”

“Yes.” May’s knuckles went white as she clenched her fists. “Yes they explained it to me, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not go through it all again.”

Jean dipped her head in sympathy and gestured briefly to the bed. “While an attack of that nature could need it's own round of therapy and medication, I’m more concerned that I cannot actually scent your nephew, Mrs. Parker. Could you tell me what Peter usually scents like?”

“Honeysuckle and lavender.” May answered promptly. “Ever since he presented. It’s usually faint since Peter is diligent about his suppressants but it’s always noticeable even under the blockers.”

“Such a sweet scent would be very distinctive, yes.” the Doctor made a note on her pad. “Now when a patient is unconscious, doctors won’t administer suppressants and blockers since a person’s scent is the first marker of an intolerance to medication or a change in their condition and we need to be able to read it. Did you know that?”

“I assumed they weren’t giving him suppressants yes, but I thought his lack of scent was because he was unconscious.” May’s stomach twisted with dread and she whispered, “Oh no. It’s something awful, isn’t it? Something I haven’t thought about yet?”

“Medically speaking, there isn’t actually a reason for someone’s scent to blank out.” Jean wet her lips, kept her tone measured. “From an emotional standpoint, there is only one reason, and since your bonding mark is bronzed instead of silver, I’m sure you know that particular reason well.”

The Alpha’s fingers went to her mating bite, brow furrowed as she felt along the muted mark. “...My mark changed from silver to bronze ten years ago after my mate passed away. But that doesn’t have anything to do with Peter, he doesn’t have a mark at all. Why--”

May’s heart about dropped out of her chest, her throat closing up with fear. “My scent blanked for most of a year while I worked through my mate sickness. The bites on Peter’s neck and he doesn’t have a scent-- you think he bonded with someone? With-- with whoever did this to him? You think the Alpha that hurt him forced--”

“Based on the physical evidence alone, we need to assume Peter is bonded to whoever he spent the past two weeks with.” Jean watched closely as the other Alpha nearly folded in half with a sob of grief. “His mark isn’t silver so there was no mating heat and yes, that usually implies a forced or trauma bond.”

“No.” May gagged like she might throw up, covered her mouth with both hands to try and muffle a wail. “No no no.”

“If an Omega’s psyche is damaged to the point of a mental break, they will try and bond with the closest Alpha that is even remotely stable.” the Doctor stated slowly, calmly, keeping her voice level as May’s scent spiked with fury again before bleeding into sheer pain. “And in the worst cases, even abuse can seem like stability.”

“A mate bond is a mate bond no matter how it's forged.” she leaned over and pressed a tissue into May’s hands. “And even though two weeks doesn’t seem like much time at all when things are good, when things are bad two weeks could be a lifetime. No matter what Peter’s gone through, it’s very important we don’t rush his healing. He will need time and maybe even space, he might be angry or because a trauma bond is the worst form of Stockholm’s Syndrome, he might be devastated. We just don’t know yet.”

“... Peter never even had a serious partner.” May shredded the tissue between her fingers. “He-- he never paid attention to anyone in a romantic light, I can’t think he’d willingly bond with anyone he hasn’t known forever and that means- it means--”

“I could be wrong.” Jean was quick to say. “Mrs. Parker, please. I could be wrong but there is also a chance I am correct and if that’s the case we need to take the appropriate steps to help Peter come through this as best he can. It’d be better to have everything ready and him wake up to say we’re wrong, than to assume the best and be unprepared for whatever Peter needs.”

She allowed the other Alpha a moment to steady and then asked, “As you well know, familial bonds and mate bonds are two different parts of our biologies, so is there a familiar Alpha presence in Peter’s life besides yourself? One he’s shared a heat with, maybe?”

“Um--” May breathed out shakily. “Three of his closest friends are Alphas. I know he’s shared at least one heat with each of them. Harry and Johnny, then Gwen.”

“That’s good.” Jean made another note on her pad. “It will be healthy for Peter to have an Alpha close by that could be a potential romantic partner. Not that he is any state to have a relationship, but just the thought, do you understand? Familiar Alphas, only good memories, and previous heats shared? If this is indeed a trauma or forced bond, it's good for Peter to have a constant reminder that stable, healthy relationships are not only possible but also within his reach. Any Omegas within his friend group?”

“Mary Jane.” came the unsteady answer. “MJ and Peter have been friends the longest, worked through their earliest heats together before either was old enough for an Alpha. She texts me at least once an hour to check on him. The others do too. They’re all worried about him.” ”

“I think Mary Jane would be a good choice for a first visitor.” Jean decided. “Having a close Omega friend could go a long way towards his emotional healing, especially since his first reaction to an Alpha might be fear, no matter who the Alpha is.”

May grimaced and the Doctor added in a softer tone, “I know you are his family, Mrs. Parker, but there’s no controlling the consequences of something like this. We just have to try and stay one step ahead of what could happen. When Peter wakes up I’ll give him an in depth evaluation and hopefully--”

She sighed. “-- hopefully everything I’m assuming is just flat out wrong. Until then I’ll recommend light sedation continue until the worst of the bruising fades so if there’s immediate memory issues he isn’t sent into a panic at being so obviously hurt.”

“Right. Um-- of course.” May nodded jerkily, clearly overwhelmed and very close to tears all over again. “I just um-- I just--”

“Mrs. Parker.” Jean put a comforting hand on May’s knee. “I am the best at what I do. I’ve helped kids and families find their footing through some truly awful situations and I promise you, I will do everything in my power to help your nephew.”

“...alright.” The Alpha made a half hearted attempt to smooth her hair and wipe at her face as Jean moved to gather her things. “Could I ask you how you heard about Peter if you work in Westchester? You said your own clients come here for treatment, but if there is an on staff psychiatrist here at Haven Mercy, why did they call you specifically?”

“Oh.” Doctor Grey paused at the door, wondering exactly how to explain a psychic impression of ‘help’, a fleeting picture of Peter shoved into her mind at some ungodly hour, the too strong scent of burning like time had literally whirled around her and the lingering, nagging feeling to call Haven Mercy and ask about a young man who might have ended up there under.. unusual… circumstances.

“I received a tip from a friend in the hospital.” she finally said, refusing to acknowledge the friend had been here for no more than the split second it had taken to deposit the Omega unseen in the emergency room. “He knows I work special cases involving youth so he--” hijacked my brain. “-- called me.”

“Well if you see him any time soon, thank him for me.” May moved to sit at Peter’s side again, resting her fingers against his thready pulse. “And thank you for coming to speak with me, this was a lot less irritating than talking with that asshole from earlier.”

“Oh and Doctor?” Jean turned back one more time when May called for her. “Is there-- is there any reason besides trauma or being forced that Peter would be mate sick? Any reason at all?”

“...do you believe in soulmates, Mrs. Parker?” Jean asked softly. “Scent matches and soul bonding and knowing your mate the moment you see them?”

“I--” May gaped at her. “Soulmates? People don’t even scent match anymore. Soulmates?”

“It’s the only other reason.” the Doctor tapped at her own silvered bite mark and decided to call her own mate immediately. She needed to hear his voice after being so close to so much heartbreak. “Send for me if you need anything at all, Mrs. Parker.”

May didn’t answer and Jean let herself out without another word, stopped at the nurses station long enough to drop off a prescription for stronger suppressants and one for a sleeping pill, then hurried out the door.

And not for the first time, Doctor Jean Grey M.D., PhD., Licensed Therapist and all around bad ass wished she could reach through time and smack the hell out of one metal armed cyborg.

She had jumped at the chance to see inside someone who had somehow ran into Cable and survived but since it was too dangerous to poke about in an unconscious mind, she’d have to wait until Peter woke up again.

But now that Jean had seen the bruises and scars, she didn’t know if she could handle looking deep and knowing what Peter had gone through.

Cable being involved or not, curiosity or not, some things weren’t meant for prying eyes.

Cable, what the hell have you gotten me into?

***************

“‘I say,’ cried John, ‘the kennel!’ and he dashed across to look into it. ‘Perhaps Nana is inside it’ Wendy said, but John whistled, ‘Hullo! There’s a man inside it!’” Mary Jane paused in her reading out loud to take a drink of water then went right back to the book. This was her third time through Peter Pan since she’d come to the hospital last night, and she had every intention of reading Peter’s favorite story over and over until he woke up.

“‘It’s Father!’ exclaimed Wendy. ‘Well let me see Father.’ Michael begged eagerly and he took a good look. ‘Oh, he is not so big as the pirate I killed’. He said with such frank disappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was asleep; it would have been sad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael say.”

“Wendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in the--” the pretty Omega stopped again when Peter’s heart monitor ticked up in speed. “--in the dog house. ‘Surely,’ said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, ‘he used not to sleep in the kennel?’”

The monitor ticked up another notch, then settled.

“‘John,’ Wendy said falteringly, ‘perhaps we don't remember the old life as well as we thought we did.’ A chill fell upon them; and serve them right. ‘It is very careless of mother,” said that young scoundrel John, ‘not to be here--”

“--whem’we com’back.” Faint and raspy and for a moment Mary Jane thought she’d imagined it. “‘Twas then Ms. Darlin’--”

“--began playing again!” MJ tossed the book aside and grabbed onto Peter’s hand, vision blurring with tears when sleepy, hazy brown eyes blinked back at her. “Pete? Oh my god, are you awake?”

“...MJ?”

“It’s me.” She trilled encouragingly, gratefully, when Peter managed to focus on her. “Heya Tiger. We’ve been real worried about you. Welcome home.”

“I’m--” Peter tried to look around the room, grimaced away from the wires and cords and the IV on his arm. “I’m home? Where-- how--”

“Well, I guess you’re not quite home, this is still the hospital.” Mary Jane’s smile stretched forced and anxious as she tried to hide a little bit of panic. “But you’re safe. You’re safe, Pete. Back with us and we’re gonna get you all better, okay? I’m going to call a nurse for you and then I’ll call May and I want to-- I mean, the guys will want to see you right away and Gwen’s been foaming at the mouth because the nurses won’t let anyone back here except me and May and--”

“Wait-- but--.”

“--sorry sorry, I’m rambling.” The Omega wiped carelessly at her face then just leaned down and kissed Peter square on the mouth, combing through his hair and trying hard not to cry right on him. “I’m rambling, but I’m so so happy you’re awake. We were so worried and you finally opened your eyes and--”

“MJ.” Peter grabbed at her wrist, cursing under his breath when his fingers shook over just that simple motion. “Stop. Please. Just tell me something.”

“Anything.” MJ kept touching him, playing with his hair and budging close to nose at his cheek and Peter hated how much he hated what should have been comfort from his oldest friend. “What do you need? What i it? Bathroom? Pain medication? May?”

“How--” He wet his lips and pushed the words past the migraine, past the numbness in his limbs, past the clamoring in his head that should have been relief at being home but was tipping quickly into terror. “How long was I gone?”

“Two weeks.” Mary Jane said haltingly. “You were gone two whole weeks and you’ve been laying here in the hospital another week and a half. We thought we lost you, Pete. Didn’t know if you’d ever come home.”

“I was only gone two weeks?” A tear trickled from the corner of Peter’s eye and fell onto the thin hospital pillow. “It was only two weeks? That’s all I was--” he reached trembling fingers up to feel at his bonding spot, touching gingerly over the fading bruises and the darker puncture marks that had darkened to nearly black on his skin. “--Two weeks? That��s it? And I-- I’m back?”

“What do you mean, that’s it?” MJ whispered. “Are you-- should I call May? Or the doctor or--”

“I’m back again?” Peter made a noise like his very heart was being torn in two, doubled up in the bed and cried out in agony, one arm wrapped around his stomach as if he were trying to keep himself from splitting apart, and the other pressed hard over the scarred bite marks. “How-- I don’t understand-- I need-- where’s my Alpha? My Alpha! I don’t want to be here, don’t want to be back, I want to go home!”

“Pete?!”

“I want to go home!”

The nurses came running down the hall with a sedative when Peter started screaming, and Mary Jane watched with tears pouring down her face and her hand over her mouth as her best friend thrashed on the bed, pulled at his IV’s and shouted for some one named Cable, someone named Wade, shouted that he wanted to go home.

“It’s not fair.” The Omega was sobbing as the sedation hit his veins and stunned him lax. “It’s not fair-- not fair-- I wanna go home. Don’t wanna be back. Home--please--”

I want to go home.

****************

“Peter Parker, I’m Doctor Jean Grey.” Jean sat down next to Peter’s bed and stared deep into his blank eyes. “I understand you had a hard time when you woke up the other day. Would you like to talk about it?”

Two days since being forcefully sedated, Peter had been awake almost the entire time, unable to close his eyes and unable to sleep. Visitors weren’t allowed until he was cleared by the psychiatrist, so he’d spent long hours alone staring at a spot in the wall and rubbing his thumb over the fang marks at his throat. Peter’s dark eyes were unsettlingly flat, his voice pitched low and monotone and even though he’d obediently taken bites of whatever food was brought around, it was obvious even at a glance that he was still underweight.

Still underweight and still too quiet and Jean waited a full two minutes for the Omega to speak before prompting again “Would you like to talk about what happened when you woke up, Peter?”

“No.” Peter’s gaze flickered just briefly, if the Alpha would have blinked she would have missed the twitch. “M’fine now. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“You’re fully off your sedation now?”

“Yes.”

“And how are your nightmares?”

“Don’t have nightmares.” Peter flickered again, his absent scent and unnaturally stiff posture making the tiny motion seem almost alien. “Just memories.”

“Right. Memories.” Jean set her notepad away and held out her hand. “Could I touch you, Peter? Would you take my hand?”

She’d gone back and forth for days about peering into the Omega’s mind like this. On one hand, reading his mind and memories was the only way to know just how much Peter had been through and how to help him. On the other hand, considering how the Omega had screamed both times he’d woken up, Jean didn’t know if she wanted to see what he’d been through.

But the urge to help overrode any hesitancy, and the Alpha curled her fingers coaxingly. “Right here, would you take my hand for a moment?”

“...you smell like him.” Peter didn’t make any move to take Jean’s hand, and his head lolled back alarmingly limp against the pillows as he repeated, “You smell like him. I probably wouldn’t have recognized it before, but I do now. Seems so obvious now that I know what I’m looking for. Probably won’t smell it again though, there’s hardly any of you left. Maybe none of you. I bet you’re halfway to ancient, just don’t age. Healing factor.”

“I smell like him.” Jean withdrew her hand slowly, something uncomfortable settling low in her stomach as the Omega rambled in broken sentences about her scent and healing factors. “Can you explain what that means? Who do I smell like?”

“Like Bruce.” Peter closed his eyes and sighed like it was the last breath left in his body. “You smell like Bruce. Off. Muted. Mutant but you’ve suspended your-- your energy. Or something. I can’t really feel you like I could Logan. It’s probably extra suppressants. Or one of your powers, cloaking yourself. Eddie couldn't do that, couldn't cloak himself, couldn’t even pretend to be anything like normal. But you can. You can pretend. You can hide.”

“I can hide?” Jean was starting to feel like a broken record, echoing everything the Omega said. “Why would I be hidden, Peter? And who is Bruce?”

“You’re old enough to know who Bruce is.” Peter said listlessly. “I’m old enough to know who Bruce is but only through science books. You’re probably old enough to remember when he went missing. The explosion and all the gamma radiation and the government shutting it down.”

“You’re talking about Bruce Banner.” the Alpha pieced together. “The scientist who was killed when his lab exploded in 1977. Your Aunt said you studied physics for a while before giving it up to be a reporter, isn’t that right?”

“He didn’t die, he just disappeared. Was taken somewhere else.” Peter’s head dipped to the side and Jean found herself pinned by a suddenly aware gaze, the Omega’s eyes boring into hers. “But you know that. I’m sure you keep tabs on your own like that.”

On your own.

It moved past unsettling and right towards frightening when the Omega kept stating facts about things he should have no way of knowing, kept talking about healing factors and recalling truths that humans weren’t allowed to know anymore. Peter wasn’t even asking questions, just talking in a detached sort of voice like it was all normal.

Nothing about this was remotely normal.

“Give me your hand, Omega.” Jean laced the sentence with a touch of Alpha, just a little persuasion to make Peter comply. “Right now. Let me see you.”

And Peter-- Peter almost smiled like he already knew what Jean wanted, his wrist too thin and bones too delicate as he offered up his hand and despite her mounting worry, Jean held onto his palm carefully carefully before closing her eyes and pushing forward into the Omega’s being--

--and a moment later she was placing his hand carefully carefully back on the bed and recoiling in shock, bending over to cough and clear her throat as a tidal wave of sorrow crashed drowning against the back of her mind, echoes of the misery and mate sickness flooding Peter’s soul.

The Omega was hurting, heart sick and bone weary, torn too soon from his mate and ripped through body rending time, sat back in the present day and abandoned as if he were supposed to be able to cope.

It was brutal, all consuming and painful, noisy and wretched, a million bits of happiness-- smiles and teasing, fangs and kisses, horses and chickens, journals and questions-- all overshadowed by the gray of separation and anxiety, the sort of despair that sat black on top of shoulders and weighted heavy blue beneath every single breath.

Peter was suffering.

The Omega was suffering and the scope of it took Jean’s breath away.

“Sweet Omega.” she managed after another moment, and Peter’s smile wavered at the edges as the Alpha bent to push their foreheads together. “Such a sad Omega, so much hurt for such a sweet Omega, I am sorry. So so sorry, love. I had no idea. I had no idea--”

“S’funny how all you Alphas talk alike around Omegas.” Peter turned his head away to break the contact. “The second you know some thing is wrong it’s all ‘sweet Omega’ and ‘such a sad Omega’. Even my Auntie talks like that to me now and she never used to. Or maybe she always did and I never noticed. I went away for a little bit and now I feel like I’m noticing everything.”

“Peter.” Jean sat back in her seat and cleared her throat a few times before she could talk. “How-- how long were you gone?”

“Two weeks.” the Omega plucked at the bed sheets, smoothed out the cords of all the various monitors, the motions unconscious and maybe a touch compulsive. “Two weeks. Then unconscious for six days. Sedated. Unconscious for another four days. Sedated. Awake for two days now. “

“I mean, how long were you gone when you met Bruce.” she clarified quietly. “And--and your mate. How long were you gone?”

“One hundred and four days.”

“One hundred and--”

“One hundred and four days.” Peter nodded, then went right back to rearranging the cords, straightening the blankets. “Is that-- I mean, do I have to stay here one hundred and four days to even it out? I was there a hundred and four days, I can be here a hundred and four days and then I can go home again. Then I’ll go home again.”

“....Peter--”

“Do you know who Cable is?” Peter whispered, broken and sharp. “Will you ask him if one hundred and four days is enough and then he can take me back? Is that enough time to stay away and get healthy and then I can go home again? Will you ask him?”

“...will you ask him?”

***************

“You don’t have to hover at the doorway, I’m fine.” Another few days, and Peter’s smile almost looked real when he motioned his friends into the room. “Stop being crazy and come here and see me. Give me a hug.”

“Pretty Omega.” Harry was the first to get to Peter’s bed and he wasted no time wrapping both arms around the Omega’s slim frame and hauling him up into a bone crushing embrace. “Been so worried about you Pete. Missed you. You doing okay?”

“He’d be better if you stopped trying to suffocate him! Move and let me see him!” Gwen shoved Harry out of the way and snatched Peter up into an equally tight hug. “Are they feeding you okay in here? Need me to sneak in some pizza? Where’d your cute tummy go! You’re so skinny!”

“Call it a tummy again and I’ll bite you.” Peter said flatly and it must have sounded convincingly enough like his old self, because both the Alphas laughed. “C’mere, MJ.”

“Heya Tiger.” The other Omega still got a little teary eyed every time she came in the room, but she controlled it enough to kiss Peter gently hello and nuzzle at his cheek with a sweet purr. “You look better, finally got some color back huh? Are they making you get up and exercise every day?”

“May’s been dragging me around whether I want to be moving or not.” Peter informed her, and Harry interjected, “That’s good, Pete. Lay around too long and you get all weak and useless. Ask Gwen, her office got moved next to the elevator--”

“-- and I haven’t taken the stairs in weeks!” the pretty Alpha finished proudly. “I haven’t climbed a single step in like twenty days! Not to my apartment, not to my work, and you know I took the elevator up here! Dunno if i could climb a step if my life depended on it actually. I’ve gotta waaaaay too used to being elevated around places.”

They all laughed again and Peter settled back into his pillows with a fixed smile and purposefully agreeable expression. Being with his friends was easy-- Gwen could keep up a conversation with a rock if she needed to, Harry was full of stories about the company and whatever weird mad scientist stuff his dad was doing and Mary Jane was pure and perfect and never once stopped checking on Peter to fix his pillows or grab him a water or--

“Where’s Johnny?” Peter suddenly asked, and the Alphas fell silent, MJ hesitating a little before replying, “He um-- he was busy, Pete. Couldn’t make it up this time. I’m sure he’ll be by soon though. Don’t worry, he’s half out of his mind wanting to see you again.”

She was lying, and Peter didn’t know why. Did Johnny not want to see him? Was it too weird to be in the hospital? Was he freaked out because Peter’d had to be sedated and was talking with a psychiatrist?

Where the hell was Johnny?

He pushed the thought away though, because he could only concentrate on one thing at a time these days. He could work at pretending to be okay only if he wasn’t thinking about anyone else, he could eat his food as long as he didn’t also need to talk to a Doctor, he could shower by himself as long as his mind stayed firmly on the task and didn’t wander beneath the white noise of the water.

So no, he couldn’t think about all the reasons why Johnny wasn’t here with everyone else, not if he wanted to keep them convinced he was okay.

Besides, Johnny would come the next time, right? He had to come, otherwise Peter would have to stop smiling and sit and think about how that meeting with Cable had not only led to soulmates and heartbreak, but had also ended up costing him a best friend.

Nope. Couldn’t think about that.

Johnny would come next time around.

But Johnny didn’t come next time, or the time after that, and when the hospital finally released Peter into May’s care and Jean had given him both a subscription for sleeping pills and her number at the school in Westchester in case he ever needed help coping, Peter had all but forgotten why it had been so important in the first place.

He was tired of pretending to be okay, tired of sitting on his hands so he wouldn’t touch his bonding spot in front of anyone, tired of smiling until his face hurt just so he didn’t break down and fall to pieces, tired of reaching for his ring and remembering that the nurses had put it in a bag along with the blanket he’d arrived in, and that was just as well because how would he explain a ring to everyone?

Peter wanted to be home but not this home, not the apartment May unlocked and urged him into. He wanted to sleep but he didn’t want to sleep without his Alpha and he didn’t know if he could sleep without his Alpha, so the moment the Omega sat down on his bed he opened the bottle of sleeping pills and shook a few out into his hand.

“Just the one, sweetheart.” May set a glass of water down on the end table and watched until Peter put the pills back. “Just one since you’re still a little underweight, okay? You’ll sleep for most of a week if you take too big a dose and we need to keep you on a schedule.”

“Sure.” Peter lay back onto his pillows and settled his expression into something approaching compliant. “That’s fine. It’s fine. The apartment is fine.”

“This is home, Peter.” the Alpha said quietly. “Not the apartment. Your apartment. Home. Or if it doesn’t feel right you can always come home with me, move back in for a while and--”

“--No, I meant my apartment.” A forced smile and faux reassuring nod. “That’s what I meant. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

May watched with watery eyes as Peter rolled to the other side and hid his face in the pillows, turning his back on her and effectively shutting May out of whatever he was feeling.

Doctor Grey had been adamant that Peter hadn’t been hurt like-- like that, she’d promised over and over that his pain was more of a broken heart and less about any physical trauma but May still had a hundred different questions.

Who could have stolen and then broken Peter’s heart in the span of two weeks? Her nephew, who had never showed any interest in relationships showing up unconscious and bruised, how could that not be trauma? Why was the Doctor suddenly so sure? Why had Peter clutched at that plastic bag with a ratty blanket inside like it was the only thing real in his life?

May had a hundred different questions but for now she settled for having Peter home and safe again. The Omega was far from whole, but at least he was safe.

“I’ll be out on the couch if you need anything.” she said into the dark room and Peter mumbled back, “Just gonna sleep, Auntie. M’okay, you don’t have to stay. It’s fine.”

“I’ll be out on the couch.” she said again, firmer this time, and Peter whispered, “Okay. Thank you.”

After the door had mostly shut and he could hear May moving around in the kitchen, Peter rolled back over and scrambled for the plastic bag that held the blanket from the cabin and his ring. He wrapped the blanket around himself as many times as he could and inhaled deep the already fading scent of his Alpha, of them.

And with his ring back on his finger, slipping loose from weight loss and seeming dull in the low light, the Omega opened the medicine bottle again and shook another few pills into his palm.

He just wanted to sleep, just wanted to dream about his Alpha and maybe if he dreamed enough, if he slept enough, he’d wake up next to Wade again and everything about the past few weeks would just be some horrible nightmare.

Just a nightmare.

That’s all it was.

He just needed to sleep enough to wake up in the right place again.

I want to go home.

***************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHAPTER!

***************

@ships-galore @ceealaina @izziebladez @cwar1864 @hausoffro @lookuplaughing @tonystarkisanangel @multishippinglife @girlnic @iam93percentstardust @water-colouredmemories @paranormalmoonlight5 @igotloki @moosette05 @wayward-student-philosopher @kaz-brekkers-gloves @atomicfandombomb @ricecakeandhoney @ardatlily @fawnandgays @bluedreamdino @bibbarnes @blackstar1602 @hi-inevitable-im-deadpool @scientifically-lesbian-jesus @the-pagely-gun-slinger @oshuncheyenne @the-dragonwolf-den @pumpkin-spidey @sozvuchiy @cappunico @tired-dragons01 @chiby-chan @ahumoki0 @kanizsacollage @tulipsnbigcats @hiddenaurora @notchronicle24 @marvels-gurl @iridescent-idiot @badndbourgeoisie @eversomniator @local1dreamer @loveisblindwade @ssssssssssssssssssssslytherin @theunwantedomega

#ncts fics #spideypool #peter parker #wade wilson #time travel au #soulmate au #jean grey #may parker #gwen stacy #mary jane watson #harry osborn #nathan summers

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meikuree · 4 years

Note

Ficlet request: YumiLena. Ymir wants to use their laptop on the couch, but Yelena always occupies the space in their lap.

omg you’ve alerted me to the possibilities that this pairing could have in fic! i was initially like “oh no, they have not interacted in canon, how write?” but it was fun to think about how they’d interact and their dynamics. this got away from me at ~900 words, and i set this in a modern/university AU. i call it “immovable object means unstoppable force”. thanks for requesting and hope you enjoy. (i’m also sorry this took so long -- my capacity/inspiration to write has been very unreliable)

One hour and twenty minutes into her open book exam, Ymir had landed in the worst situation of her life.

“Fuck you,” she spat at an unspecific space she imagined the WiFi to be emanating from, as she hurriedly packed up her laptop and notebooks into a slouching black bag. Why now, of all times? She really did not need this to be happening. It was just her luck that the gods or some other fucked-up mechanism of fate had deemed today to be the day for her WiFi to fail spectacularly. As it stood, she didn’t have time to deliberate the merits of waiting for IT to fix the problem. They were about as effective and helpful as a legless chair. She had to get out to the nearest place with a working internet connection, and fast.

“Quickquickquickquick…” Ymir muttered frantically, as she flew out of her room after slipping on her flats haphazardly. No time to lock the door or think about security. She wasn’t one to reproach herself at this point for not saving her notes offline or, more crucially, putting in an attempt at memorising some of the information in her brain. Only one place could save her now, and she concentrated all energy upon reaching it.

Her shoulders heaved reflexively in relief as she sprinted to the doorway of the student common room. There was usually reliable WiFi, and it was the dead of the still afternoon, so there likely wouldn’t be anyone on the sole comfortable seat available—

Except there was someone there. Someone long, draping their entire length across the couch like a nonchalant cat and— were they in a dress shirt? In this heat? Not that it mattered to Ymir.

She nearly barked at the person to get out right then and there. There was only room for one panicking student in this place, and it was her.

“Why are you here?” her voice rose, as she strode over in three rapid steps to the couch and glared at the Long Annoying Person, who still had their head down looking at a lined notebook. “I’m sorry, but I need the couch. Now. It’s an emergency. Scoot over.” Hopefully it was clear in her tone that her request wasn't up for negotiation.

“I'm sorry, I didn't see you there,” the person finally lifted her head leisurely to look at her from under her blonde fringe, and Ymir realised with a dawning chill that she recognised who she was: some awkward history she wanted to forget from a poorly-calculated decision to take a political science class two semesters back. “Who are you, by the way?”

Ymir didn't have time for the bullshit. “Can we skip all the niceties? Yelena, I need the couch. I'm in the middle of a god-forsaken ecology exam. Don’t pretend you don't know me.”

Yelena smirked. Ymir had to take her hat off to her: she looked condescending even when she was in a good mood. Even Ymir had to admit that she was starting to be intimidated by how unruffled she was being in response to Ymir’s obvious distress.

“I sympathise with your struggles, Ymir, but I need to be here to write my history essay.”

Ymir scoffed, even as small hints of nervousness entered her voice. “That's an essay! That you're handwriting and not doing under timed conditions, from the looks of it! I need the WiFi here and this couch for a timed final exam, christ.” She punctuated her words with gesticulations for greater emphasis. “Priorities, Yelena.”

“Why don't you head to the computer rooms in Hadley Block? Don't you need a table and not just a couch?” Yelena said, composed and cool. There was still a distinct and abject lack of moving being done, to Ymir.

Ymir ignored her second question, which was admittedly sensible. “It’s ten minutes away, and that's if I sprint. Nobody wants to take their exams as a sweaty mess, if you haven't realised.”

“Then I'm sure you’ll appreciate what I say when I tell you that this is the only place I can focus.”

The next words came out of Ymir’s mouth without thinking. “Please have some decency for the first time in your life to move over. Please. I'm not going to back down just because you're hot.”

Yelena blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“What?”

“You said--”

Ymir jumped in immediately. “I said it’s hot and you're not doing me a favour!” A near save.

“Sure.”

“You're going to move?” Ymir’s eyes lit up.

“No, I said sure, as in, sure Jan. I’m being sarcastic.”

Ymir deflated again. “And deliberately cruel too. God, fuck you.”

“Do that, then.”

It was Ymir’s turn to blink. Was she flirting? Or just egging her on?

And then she had an epiphany.

“Look,” she began, now confident, “I’ll be done with this exam in one hour. Why don't you give me your number so I can text you when I'm done. Or you could, y'know, share the couch with me like a civilised person.”

Yelena smirked again. “I was wondering when you’d learn how to compromise.”

“Fuck off. So, what's your answer?”

“That sounds brilliant, Ymir. I've been waiting for you to offer your number since you blew me off after that Political Realism class. And now I can declare victory.”

Ymir almost slumped to the ground in despair with her head in the hands then. Yelena was going to be an incorrigible force to reckon with. Albeit a good-looking one, which was even worse. But she could ponder the ramifications of what she had just gotten herself into after her exam.

#ymir #yelena #ymir snk #yelena snk #snk #aot #ymir/yelena #yumilena #meikuree writes #ask #for those wondering: the epiphany ymir had was that yelena had plotted to be in the common room #precisely because ymir would be there and want to use the couch #the implication is that she might have been involved in the wifi outage somehow #basically she wanted to... annoy ymir into talking to her #also ive tried to fix the weird formatting in this ask so many times and ive given up now #meikuree answers

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bakugotrashpanda · 4 years

Text

Wind

Word Count: 670

Your floor pitches in to help when a storm keeps you awake.

Wind buffeted the dorm, howling to get through the immovable object. Window panes rattled and all you could do was hide under your covers. The storm was far from over, but every minute you had to spend awake was agonizing.

Something crashed against your window and you screamed. Tearing your covers off, you tumbled out of bed and fell against the wall. Pain shot through your shoulder and you cried out. Outside, pounding feet made their way to your room and your door burst open. Momo, Tsu, Sato, Sero, and Todoroki rushed in. Your floormates rushed in, ready to fight. Tears streamed down your face.

Momo and Tsu saw you and immediately crouched down next to you. The guys relaxed their stances and sleepily looked around.

“I’m s-sorry,” you bawled, “I-I was trying to sleep but the weather kept getting worse and, and-”

“Shh,” Momo soothed and pulled you into a hug. She and Tsu stroked your back while you attempted to control your breathing. She looked at your classmates who were all on edge from the wind and suggested, “Since we are all up, want to hang out in my room? My bed is big enough that we can all relax on it and I can make something to put up against the window. Sero, if you join us then maybe you could tape it in place for me?”

“I can do that!” Sero smiled.

“I was up baking, I have a cake that’s cooling. Even though it doesn’t have icing on it, I can bring it over.” Sato offered.

“That would be lovely!” Momo clapped her hands. “I have some tea that we can make-” The lights flickered before plunging your room into darkness. Collectively, the six of you seemed to hold your breath, waiting to see if the power would come back on.

“I can take care of the tea,” Todoroki said.

“The power’s out, how are you going to make tea?” Sero yawned, still waking up.

“I can heat water using my quirk,” Todoroki explained and walked out of your room.

“I’ll go too and help carry the mugs up,” Tsu said and followed Todoroki.

“Excellent,” Momo smiled before turning to you, “Let’s get you back to my room.” You, Sero, and Momo walked back. Momo made what appeared to be tumbling mats and propped them against her window. Sero taped them to the wall and you sat on the edge of Momo’s bed, feeling out of place.

“Is there anything I can do?” you asked in a small voice. Sero and Momo shook their heads.

“We got this, Y/N,” Sero assured you.

“You can pick a spot on the bed to get comfy,” Momo said, “You must be exhausted.” You nodded and crawled across the bed to lean against the headboard.

“Man, Yaoyorozu, this bed is super cushy,” Sero said. He tested the edge of the bed before hopping on and picking a spot for himself. Sato arrived with a bundt cake and moments later, Tsu and Todoroki came back with six cups of tea. The atmosphere lightened up and everyone spent the night talking and telling stories. When you woke in the morning, you saw the massive cuddle puddle everything had turned into; Tsu was using your legs as a pillow, you were resting against Momo, Sato was a big spoon around all of you, Sero had a hand flung across Momo and his legs were resting on Todoroki. Todoroki was awake in the middle of the bed and looked at you to see how you were going to untangle yourself so he could copy you. Gently you extracted yourself from the gigantic bed and helped Todoroki out.

“Thanks,” he whispered, “I didn’t want to wake anyone,”

“Just how long have you been up?” you laughed lightly as the two of you walked out of Momo’s room. Light poured in from windows in the hallway and you could vaguely see the destruction the storm had caused.

Todoroki blushed and looked away. “That’s not important.”

A/N: I lowkey was laughing at the idea of Todoroki being too polite to move from his spot because he didn’t want to wake anyone else up.

#bnha imagines #todoroki #momo #tsu #sero #sato #shoto todoroki #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #writing #.#2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge

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dishonoredrpg · 4 years

Photo

Congratulations, REY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE HERMIT with the faceclaim of LUCY BOYNTON. History loves a revolutionary, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this sentiment will extend to Marceline. I could feel her desperation to be part of something bigger than herself -- maybe even larger than her father’s ambitions -- they practically leapt right off the page. I felt for her in her loss, ached for her in her need for revenge, empathized with the pain and appreciated her determination to change things for the better. The Hermit has the potential to be small-scale, but you’ve taken her far beyond that, and I cannot wait to see what Marceline does on the dashboard!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OOC

NAME: Rey PRONOUNS: She/Her AGE: 25+ TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: PST. Because I am currently working from home, I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, I am a 7. I try to log on at least once a day. ANYTHING ELSE?: Just how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!

IN CHARACTER

SKELETON: The Hermit NAME: Marceline Ash Pelagius FACECLAIM: 1. Lucy Boyton 2. Lindsey Morgan AGE: 22

DETAILS: I’ve chosen the Hermit because she reminds me so much of the French republican youths that got involved after the French Revolution (as most famously depicted in Les Misérables) and I’d love to dig into the historical parallels. Like Enjorlas, Marceline is born into wealth, but she sheds herself of this reputation and becomes a bleeding heart for the revolution. (Also like Enjorlas, she’s a “charming young (wo)man who is also capable of being terrible.”)

Revolutions rarely begin with noble aims, even if the outcome might not suggest so. For Marceline, revolution begins with vengeance. Her attempts to get closer to the Fool and the guards of the city in order to avenge her father’s death opens her eyes to the social and political inequalities of the kingdom. What was once simply about revenge is now about so much more. She’s a woman who knows she wants to kill a king, but her reasons for deciding to do so only keep growing with time. Before long, she begins to assume her father’s radical political beliefs: tear down the monarchy and replace it with a republic. I find myself drawn to dedicated characters with unyielding drives - especially ones whose moral compass seems so set but will in actuality change at the shift of a tide in order justify their end goals.

Marceline is very much a person to be reckoned with. Her fight becomes a fight against her own grief, her unknown magic and the monolith of monarchy. Each of these seem to be an immovable object, but she is the unstoppable force that beats against them. The Hermit tarot card can signify someone who is taking too much time for self reflection or too little. In the case of Marceline, she is someone who thinks she knows herself well enough to simply act; she is so set on her path that true self-reflection is something she doesn’t spend enough time on.

BACKGROUND:

You know this is not a rebellion, you know it’s a revolution.

You are born of a noble house, the only child, last of your name. Your mother is revered in court as the Keeper of Coins. She has a mind for finances and business, though you inherit the steel of her spine and the cut of her jib more than anything else. If you trace her lineage far back enough you’ll see that before nobility came piracy and maybe that’s why she’s always been so good with gold. She’s a smart woman with a sharp eye that upholds her family’s reputation by being someone that can sniff out a poor deal or a tampered book with ease. She’s never really sailed the seas, but you can see that she misses it. And thus, so do you. Most of your lullabies are sea shanties and you take your first steps along the banks of Tyr’s Tear. You cannot remember a time when you didn’t know how to swim. Your mother, for some hidden reason, knows how to fight and she is the one to teach you how to use a sword. ‘A cutlass’ she clarifies the first time you call it something else. ‘There’s language used correctly and then there’s language used beautifully.’

Meanwhile, your father is hopelessly bound to the land. More specifically, he is hopelessly bound to his books. He is an academic that is fortunate enough to be born into nobility. His father lived a long life as a trusted advisor to Octavius Valmont. A former educator at the Bard’s College, the birth of you brings about a new chapter to your father's life causing him to leave the college and spend most of his days in Tyrholm writing, reading, and discussing matters of political science. How he wooed your mother you’ll never know, but because of them you’ll never doubt what love is. If you had to guess though, your father enchanted your mother because no one used language more beautifully than him.

Your father has a secret though. When you are four years old, you learn that you’ve inherited it. The two of you are Inferi magi.

The fastest way to someone’s heart is through conspiracy and you and your father are bound by this secret you share. He’s spent his whole life hiding this, and he teaches you to do the same. You hate being anything other than outspoken, anything other than untruthful about what you think and who you are, and the only anchor is you know how much he hates it too. The two of you hold tight to something the world hates and work to make it a gift more than a curse. This is what connects you to your father. Inferi magic is destructive, but your father shows you that sometimes that is the way of life. He tells you about the pine-trees that depend on heat to crack open their seeds. He talks about entire forests that are born from the ash of forest fires. Sometimes, in order to make something stronger, you must burn it down; sometimes, in order to make something last forever, you must destroy it. You know the story of the wolves and the snakes, he’s told you it over and over again to lull you to sleep, but he tells you it again now. Political structures - you are five so you say ‘what’ and he replaces the phrase ‘political structures’ with the words ‘Kingdoms, like Tyrholm’ and you say ‘oh, okay’ - Kingdoms, like Tyrholm, get better, continue surviving, by being torn down and rebuilt. Just like the wolves and the snakes.

‘Let me teach you little one, how revolutions begin.’ He tells you instead of bedtime stories.

Your father believes in revolution, in a way that is before his time. He wants to dismantle the monarchy and in its stead assemble a republic government. His political ideology stands stark amongst the beliefs of this world and you are young enough to be enraptured by the optimism of it. Your mother, far better at playing society’s game than your father is, tells him not to speak so loudly about such things when you are not in your home.

And it is a nice home. For all of your father’s gripes against King, it seems the current system has given you and your family everything you need. You have all the flourishes that come with wealth: a respectable reputation, a lavish upbringing, a thorough education. You’re a lady and the dresses and the etiquette and the social gatherings don’t let you forget it. In many ways you are like your father, you debate and you discuss and think deeply on things with little regard to how that reflects on your station in life. Your mother is the opposite. She teaches you how to lie and survive within the status quo.

You are ten when your father begins writing pamphlets - ‘purely educational,’ he defends - about what a republic is. At least once a month he meets with a handful of like-minded people who are interested in discussing such things and their conversations often go late into the night. They sit tucked away and hidden in the back of a low-lit tavern - and you know these things because you are wily enough to try and follow him one night. Your father catches you and drags you back to the manor by the scruff of your neck like some stray kitten. Your mother is furious - at the both of you.

You are sent to bed without any supper and your father sleeps in the library that evening.

So goes your life. You become your mother’s apprentice as the Keeper of Coins and she makes it worth your while by teaching you to spar in the evenings. Your footwork improves more quickly than your mathematics, but you’re not too bad at either. Your life as a lady blooms. More lessons, more competitions. You find love, a first love, so you don’t understand that there can be different kinds, and even sour kinds. All you’ve ever witnessed is the warmth between your parents, even in their bickering, and so the most naive parts of you believe this to be true of all love.

This routine is almost enough to make you forget about the plights of the kingdom and that you live in a gilded cage.

Your father gets bolder in his commitment to a radical political movement. You’re 15 when you start staying up late to help him proofread the pamphlet he writes. The two of you start taking camping trips to the Volkun Forest, so that you may discuss such things freely amongst the trees. Out here, if the wrong word slips out or if a little bit of magic pushes through your fingertips, there is no one to pass judgment. Out here is freedom.

You take these trips and your father returns, only to lock himself in his study for the next three days. Sometimes you’ll press your ear to the door when the house is quiet and hear nothing more than the quick and furious scratching of a quill across parchment. Not too long after there will be fresh sheets of radical ideas floating through the city.

When you are 17, the fabric of your world is ripped apart at the seams. Your father’s ideas are labeled as treason and the King’s Guard ambushes you in the middle of the Volkun forest. They run your father through with a broadsword more times than necessary to kill him and he is left in a bloody, bloody heap. You manage to survive by playing dead. It’s a decision you replay over and over and over again. The anger over it lingers for years. You should have leaped to your feet and fought, and instead - you chose a coward’s route.

You dig a grave for your father using only your hands and still, somehow, you manage the return home.

The rage in your mother’s eyes when you tell her complements your deep sorrow. She dries your tears and you dry hers, but both of you agree that no one else will see you cry. Your magic burns in you that night, so hot and unknown that you throw yourself into the river to temper the flames that lick your blood. Your lack of training has never been more apparent than now. At such times you’d ask your father what was happening to you and even if he told you that he didn’t know, the shared loneliness made it bearable. He is not here now, and you must weather this alone.

Your mother doesn’t speak for 13 days. At first you think she will never speak again, you have heard of those that die of heartbreak, but you soon realize that she is scheming.

“I know what we will do.” She says on the thirteenth day and you nearly drop the sword you are polishing.

A plan forms. Together, the two of you plot. How do you kill the men that struck down your father? How do you kill a king? It’s decided that you will join the guard. You abandon your engagement. Like that, you abandon your life. Your reputation is ruined and your mother barely scrapes by.

You move out of the familial manor, out of safety for your mother. She’ll still write you letters and you will still visit to sleep in your childhood bedroom, but the two of you agree to keep these instances to once in a blue moon. You move to Lowtown. You know that one of the men you want six-feet under is the Captain of the Guard.

When you first ask to enlist, they think you are pranking them, trying to pull the wool over their eyes because some noble has dared you. When you don’t leave though, that’s when they grow from disbelief to skepticism. ‘Why?’ You are asked. ‘Because I dream of a better world.’ Of course you’re met with laughter. You, however, refuse to lie. You stay steadfast in your plot. You wait for their amusement to die down before challenging the man nearest to you to a spar - if he wins you’ll leave and never bother them again.

That evening, you bring your cutlass and you win your way into the Guard.

After all is said and done you hear a stray spectating guard say to another, ‘She fights like a pirate.’

No one can stop you once you are a woman decided. You spend the next few years putting your head down and doing the work. You become the youngest lieutenant the Guard has ever seen. You are not intimidated by this, you swallow it easily with the knowledge that you are here with a higher calling. The truth has a tendency to make things harsh and unwelcoming, and yet it is the very thing that makes the men here listen to you. They look at you and see someone unwavering in their honesty, merciless with their virtue. It earns you a level of respect that most lieutenants spend their whole lives scrounging for. The world may not be fair, but you intend to make it so. That is seen and that is respected. They listen to you, but more importantly, they trust you. You make it clear that you’ll take an arrow for any of them, parry whatever blow comes their way. When a man is struck down in the field, you’re one of the first to volunteer to tell their family. They start letting you do this by default, your stoic demeanor and steady nature prove to be the exact temperament needed to weather a storm of their family’s sadness. Every time you do this - every time you confront a freshly widowed bride, a newly motherless son - you promise to take care of them. You won’t let their death be in vain, you say. You find yourself caring for all these families as much as you care for your mother. In this way your family grows, and it no longer feels like you are last of your name.

All of this goes without mention of the elephant in the room. Your job puts you in painful proximity to the Fool, one of the men that killed your father. However, these days it seems you’re on the same team in more ways than one. Together you lead the Guard, together you declare you’ll fight in the same revolution. You seek forgiveness within yourself, but your heart finds it hard to go back on a judgment once it has passed. You know that striking him down would be a poor move on your part tactically, that it would scatter the men, that it would lead to a different kind of revolt. You don’t want to tear your new household in two just. So you take his name to that list of names you intend to make your way through and shift it to the bottom. That night you begin a new list, one of additional grievances to call upon that specifically the Fool is responsible for and you decide that you will savor and remember these grievances when the day of his death finally comes.

You’re intense, you ache for revenge, you age for revolution. Those that would think less of you for the latter are nowhere nearby; they’re far off in some ivory tower. Those that surround you are bolstered by it. Each breath is spent on the growing rebellion, each action is dedicated to felling an empire and an unjust king. You are a flame that keeps your friends warm, you are a fire that chases your foes into action.

Living amongst the Guard has taken you out of luxury, out of a life of nobility, and placed you in the thick of a growing revolt. Each citizen of Lowtown comes with their own history, of a life earned through hard work and skill, and you realize that a monarchy is bullshit. Power to the people, you think.

It’s difficult to remember the girl who existed before your father died. But try and you remember. You’ve still got your family crest, it reminds you of the sea. A mutt wanders onto your path one patrol of the Volkun forest and you swear it looks part wolf. You take him in. Two weeks from now he’ll chase after a snake on your hunting trail and even you will say “Oh come on” at the heavy handed metaphor life has thrown your way. In these ways, the world continues to remind you of who you are.

And then, only on quiet lonely nights do you let your mind wander, galloping through the memories back to the day your father was butchered before you. You clawed your way back to the city, clawed your way back to your mother. You’ve defied death once and so hell nor heaven scares you anymore. Buried deep within all your noble intentions is an undeniable truth: you have your revolution, you have your decided aims for a republic, but you would put it all on the line, just to get back at the men who killed your father. You pray to the wolves and snakes you will become a better person.

You are not a revolter, you tell yourself, you are a revolutionary.

PLOT IDEAS:

Marceline doesn’t believe in kings. As the revolution grows, there are plenty that want to replace this king with a new one. Who will take Septimus’ place? The Emperor, the Chariot, the World? None. Marceline thinks that’s just trading out one cage for another. As mentioned: down with the monarchy, up with a republic! Marceline believes in the ideals of a republic, the same ideals her father believed in, and she wants to work to stoke that fire in the same way he did. It might be a moment before she returns to distributing pamphlets or standing on soapboxes, but natural rights and equality for all citizens of Tyrholm is something that she is determined to fight for. She will try to convince every revolter she comes by of her radical ideas and even when they turn her away, she’ll find a way to stay. She’s always been a woman bad at understanding the word no. I’d like her to try and convince as many people as she can and I think this has the potential to be an interesting plot. Not everyone is going to agree with her and I’m sure it’ll cook up a new batch of allies and enemies. Her father wrote and distributed pamphlets against the king and in favor of a whole new political structure, and Marceline would like to get this radical political movement going again through these handouts. However, Marceline is not the same wordsmith her father was. She’ll do it, if she has to, but I would love for her to find that person to help her write a new round of Enlightenment principles with. In general though, Marceline will be at the forefront for a push for a republic. It’s an ideology that she’s willing to die for. In the long run maybe this even causes a schism in the revolution between those that want another king and those who want something else entirely. TEMPERANCE: Marceline breaks off the engagement, returns the ring that is given to her, leaves without a word. Marceline knows she loves the revolution more, but still her love for Temperance lingers. From where she’s standing, it seems as if her former fiancee has had no trouble moving on and so Marceline is doing her best to drown herself in work and other people. If she could pick one person to convert in favor of her ideal vision for the future, it would be her. But the more Marceline stays with the Guard, the more she sees that Temperance is blind to her own privilege. She wishes Temperance could see things her way. If Marceline ever had to pick between the revolution or Temperance, she would do her best to try and save both. Marceline has left the life of nobility behind, but I would love to see the life of nobility try and drag her back in through her undeniable love for this for this woman. THE FOOL: Until a new republic is built, Marceline still has to live in this monarchy, and there is plenty to do here. There’s her own vendetta, for Marceline will do anything that’s necessary to track down and kill the men that killed her father. Fool kills Dad. Hermit kills Fool. That easy, right? Wrong! Things are already messy as is because both she and the Fool are revolters and thus technically on the same side in more ways than one. Because of this, Marceline needs to find cleverer ways to retaliate against him. Their relationship is a complex one as she is always quick to undermine him, but still sees him as her co-partner in leading the Guard. For a girl who believes in keeping a judgement once it is passed, I want to push the boundaries of her decided vendetta. As she lies in wait, I imagine Marceline trying to be close to anyone that the Fool knows. I’d also love her feelings for him to grow and for her to have to wake up every morning and have to conscientiously decide that she wants to kill this man. I want the Fool to make her change as a person so that by the end of this she’s either consumed by hate for this man or consumed by love - no in between. THE MOON: The Moon is possibly the only friend Marceline has outside of the Guard. Every time Marceline ventures Volkun forest, she brings back something new for her botanist friend. There’s a comfort she feels with this one - one she hasn’t felt since her father was around. Something tells her it’s magic, but Marceline knows the dangers of asking about such things. Still, she will do everything to maintain a friendship with the Moon, as she is one of the few people around whom she is utterly at peace. I see them growing close because of the revolution, and I can see them growing even closer if they ever choose to tell each other about their magic. Ever since the death of her father, Marceline has completely turned away from the magical side of herself, but that does not mean the magical side of her does not exist. I see her magic being a grab bag of abilities that she has absolutely no control over. (And per admin discussion, I have some ideas on this.) She feels utterly lost, but Marceline does everything she can to avoid letting anyone know about this side of her. (She always tells the truth, except in this instance.) There’s probably less than a handful of people that know and while I would like this number to slowly grow, I imagine the Moon would be the first. Ultimately, I would like Marceline to come to terms with her magic and see how it influences her thoughts on the war and the revolution. Eventually she’s going to come to understand that her magic might be able to help her take down the king. She might even like to try and travel to Hypatos sometime to seek out mentors. Maybe this is somewhere she and the Moon journey together. Marceline is willing to train up anyone who wants to learn how to fight, be they part of the Guard or not. If you’re part of the revolution, or even if you take no particular side, she thinks you have a right to be able to defend yourself. Just expect to eventually get an earful about some radical political ideologies. Marceline hates pirates and bandits. She cannot stand either of them, especially when they terrorize her Guard. She wants to make a statement to show that the Guard won’t turn a blind eye to being messed with. She’s willing to offer both groups a shot at joining them against the king, but if they refuse, she won’t hesitate to go against them for the men they’ve harmed. In the meantime, any pirates or bandits should steer clear of her as she won’t go easy on them. Marceline sees every single guard as a member of her family and when a guard dies she makes a commitment to look out for that guard’s family. I don’t want this to be easy for her. I’d love to try and throw her up against her own moral compass while trying to stay true to a promise she’s made.

CHARACTER DEATH: Totally cool with you killing my character. My character’s dog however, needs to live forever.

WRITING SAMPLE

There are those that shared his beliefs that come knocking at their door to share their condolences. Marceline and her mother had vowed not to show their tears to the public so Marceline’s mother greets the guests with solemn eyes and a quiet nod of thanks. Marceline doesn’t even make it out of her room. Her father’s death is still too fresh, too heavy on her heart and it’s difficult to be confronted with the fact that someone the world keeps turning.

Marceline is coming up on three days without sleep. Her throat is sore, her eyes are raw, and they are both nothing compared to the dead thing in her chest. She tries to sleep, but etched onto the underside of her eyelids are the faces of four men that she will never forget. She knows grief is nonlinear, but she wishes it would leave for a while and return later when she feels a little stronger. Finally, utterly exhausted, her body gives up on her and she falls into a restless sleep.

There’s a full tangerine moon in the sky and Marceline wakes up in delirious pain. She finds herself on the floor, covers still tangled around her legs. She’s rolled off her own bed. She is still herself though - and that’s what matters. She can see through the haze of pain her hands, her fingernails, the bits of dirt underneath them.

What is this pain? It’s her magic, she thinks, or maybe it’s her grief. She’s buried this part of herself so often, that she forgets about it until it makes itself known. It pulses in her blood with such unpleasantness that she cries out for her father before remembering he is too far to hear her.

She doesn’t want to do any of this without him.

The pain licks up and down her spine. She can feel this Inferi magic coursing through her blood, taking her immense sadness and twisting it. This is in no ways normal, but each time she’s had to face it she’s always had her father.

Marceline kicks with trembling legs at the covers still wrapped like mummy bandages around her body. She crawls to the chair at her desk and grips at the chair leg with her sweaty hand. The wood begins to glow red - at least she thinks it does - and she knows she is going to set it on fire if she doesn’t move it. She grabs higher, pulls herself up, grabs the curved back of the chair until her feet are flat against the wood floor.

Marceline takes a shaky step, then another, and then she stumbles with the inertia of pain out the door of her bedroom. She nearly collapses as soon as she reaches the bannister of the stair. Her torso hits the wood and the impact blows another wave of fire all through her, knees crippling - she catches herself before she hits the ground but the world spins around her.

She is going to die. She is going to die. She is going to die.

And whatever it is inside her is going to kill and destroy everything in this house. How did she ever think she was going to survive in this word three days without her father?

She must though, she must.

Another wave of pain throws her to the floor. She curls into herself; her sadness magnifies and triples tenfold. Like a wave it washes over her, and then recedes. Here, she will die here -

And then Marceline gets up.

Only this time, it is her magic rising from inside her. It surges through her, hardening the muscles in her legs. She slaps a bloody hand on the counter and straightens up. She breathes hard: in and out, in and out, in and out. As her eyes close, she hears - she swears - the steady beating of wings, as it reminds her swelling heart to keep beating.

She crunches her way out of the hallway, down the stairs, and then out into the garden where the moon hangs low. It is watching her, she feels it. Its light pours over her bloody form with every step she takes. At first she steps slowly, she eases her toes into the cool grass. But then faster, steps more steady, and then even faster, until she is running away from her family’s manor, towards the river, as though she could flee from her sadness.

But she is fleeing towards the moon.

Her magic gives her strength and gives her pain. It roars in her chest now, harmonizing with her grief. She hates it, she hates it so much, hates how it makes her hide, hates how it’s always been a mirror of her emotions.

She remembers her father and how he could look at a burning thing and see the growth that will come after. She’s never going to see him again and there are precisely four men to blame. She can’t stop her tears as she splashes to the banks of the river and falls to her knees inside the reflection of the full moon, which dances on the surface of the water. Her hands press into the sand. She fists the rocks and shells. She is probably going to die. And she should fight it still, but her magic is the only part of her father that is still left.

She doesn’t want him to be gone, and it’s the last thought she has before it feels like she goes up in flames.

Marceline falls forward into the river.

The next morning, she wakes to the sound of the water, as it kisses at her toes and her ankles. Slowly, Marceline blinks her eyes open to the sunlight appearing over the river. The pain is over. Her body felt peaceful and brand new. Three days of mourning and now - rebirth. She feels like she’s just shed her own exoskeleton. She’s done it all on her own too.

A raven picks at the hem of her blouse and forces her to sit up to shoo it away. Tyrholm is still here. She is still here. She breathes in like she needs to remember what it is like to have her lungs expand. Both her magic and her grief, she thinks, are strange, strange things.

EXTRA

A few extra headcanons: While growing up Marcline’s mother would temporarily stay in Noble quarters at Castle Tyrholm. Marceline and her father lived in the Pelagius manor in Hightown. After her husband’s death, Marceline’s mother moved out of the Noble quarters and returned to the manor. Her mother is still Keeper of Coin for the king. Marceline lives in Lowtown but makes sure to visit her mother in Hightown at least once a month. She writes letters often. One does not simply become the youngest lieutenant of the Guard without being a skilled swordsman. Thanks to her noble upbringing, she’s had access to top tier mentors and tutors. What Marceline lacks in size and sheer strength, she makes up in swiftness and cunning. In fact, Marceline’s noble upbringing has left her with a handful of random skills that she is never sure she will use again. She’ll spend most of her evenings these days in the Barracks playing cards or drinking with the Guard. They are her pack. Marceline is slowly starting to pick up where her father left off with his pamphlets. Marceline has a mutt that is probably part wolf... no one really knows. But his name is Little Wolf. He’s her hunting dog (and possibly her best friend.) He follows her around plenty while she is on patrol. He loves members of the Guard and hates the aristocracy.

A few stray musings: Look, I’m not saying she wants to inspire the French Revolution of this world. But... yes okay that’s exactly what she wants. Big Enjorlas from ‘Les Mis’ vibes. Mixed in with some Hamilton. There’s a touch of Isabella from Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ thrown in there as well. “So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane.” Most likely to yell “Wake Up Sheeple!!” in the middle of a crowded ball. Bisexual AF.

#accepted #accepted: the hermit

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