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visd3stele · 2 months

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What if...?

requested by: @fantasyfox-101

summary:

a/n: sorry it took me SO SO SOOO LONG. i barely got a break from uni. studying drama is easy, they said. get a real job, they said. and i'm over here working 14 hrs a day.

tw: ANGST. SAD ENDING. CUSS WORDS. DEATH. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.

Blood soaked through his bright colored tunic, changing its golden yellow to a deep, autumnal copper. If Cardan was there, drunk beyond senses, he'd laugh about it. How stupid the color looks on him, how dumb the fox proved to be, stabbed by his own wife. If Valerian was there, he'd have killed the ungrateful human on spot for daring such an act of treason against His Majesty's best friend. But if Nicassia was there... oh, if the fair, beautiful, cunning Nicassia was there, she'd tend to his wound, cleaning his open flesh with cold hands of a sea creature taking pity on a dying man.

One might think pettiness alone kept Locke alive. Pettiness and a dire need of vengance. One would be absolutely correct. For months he hide in the woods, using the old tunnels of the Court of Shadows to his own benefit. Collecting secrets, intell, the upper hand. Letting revenge grow roots in his heart, spreading its ugly, thick brenches in the fox's body.

And Locke made sure to nurture it. Feed it until it filled him and his whole body became revenge. And when the time was right, Locke made sure his plan would leave everyone who wronged him in the deepest despair.

"Garret," Locke greeted the blond man before the half human could even step out of the shadows of forest. The fae made a home deep inside the ambush of trees, in a clearing so deep in the woods no one would look for it.

"Lighten up, old friend. I have a job for you."

The Ghost kept silent. Once upon a time he hoped his human nature would protect him from odd fae rules, like the secret names and the power they hold. But Locke made sure to challenge his hopes and crush them to dust. Now, the young spy was bound to serve three masters: the jester, the killer Madoc he was sold to as a dawry and the Queen he chose. All of them having conflicting goals.

"Firstly, I want you to tell me what Madoc wants from you."

The Ghost opened his mouth to protest, but before any sound could come out, Locke already spoke again. "I know he called you to him early this morning."

The half fae sighed, closing in the distance between him and his interlocutor, forcing his mouth out of the miserable smile woven in his lips.

"He wants Jude kidnapped by the Undersea. He planned it all, wants me as bait."

"Interesting. The father turns against the prodigal daughter. Very well, then, follow through with Madoc's plan. With Jude out of the way, Cardan's, that traitorous snake, a way easier target."

"You want to kill the king?" The Ghost gasped. He could do nothing but obey Madoc against his friend and queen, but he hoped – no, he counted on – Cardan, whose love for Jude was plain to see even through blinding fog, to save her. If Locke commands him to kill Cardan, then Jude has little hopes to make it out of the Undersea. A faeling would barely survive it's cruelness, much less a mortal, with frail lungs and breakable mind.

"No, Garret. You do. You were struck by a surge of affection for your dear, late king Dain and, in your righteous rage, decided to dispose of the usurpator."

"When? How? This is insane, Locke, you're going too far!"

"Hush, hush, hush, now. No need to get loud. Here, I'll let you choose. You can kill Cardan first, make sure to tell him Jude sent you and stay with his paling corpse until you're sure all life leacked out of his cold body. Or, you could have a trip to the mortal world. How you must miss it, dear you, half human. Take in the sights, breath some mortal air, visit a certain Duarte family, take a page out of Madoc's book and leave but death behind."

"What?"

"Come now, Garret, you're a smart individual. That twin bitch Taryin tried to kill me. Took our son with her in that garbage pit she called home. I want her dead. I want her to suffer. And I don't want anyone who'd try to avenge her make it out alive."

"What if someone sees me?"

Locke raised a delicate red eyeborow at him. You know the answer, it told The Ghost. And, sadly, he knew. "Kill any witness," he whispered, angry eyes making a hole in Locke's.

The foxy fae pat his cheel in mock approval. "Good boy. Off you go. I don't care about the order, as long as I have my dead bodies by the week's end."

"This week? Taryin is still pregnant with your child."

Locke shook a hand in the air. "Doesn't matter. They'll die together, isn't it what she wanted? To be just the two of them?"

The Ghost took several steps behind. Horrified doesn't begin to describe how he felt. He knew Locke, his twists and sick humor, his pride and his ego. But he never imagined such depravation in the fae's soul.

"Locke, think about it..."

"Shut up!" He cut The Ghost off. And the spy had no other choice but to obey. "You will do as I say, I had enough time to think about it. Go!"

And the poor half human made his way out of the forest where he burried his last shred of heart. Left it to rot alongside his dignity, will and sense of self, long since deceased under Locke's games.

♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤

Madoc's plan was fulfilled, much to The Ghost's dismay. Long after Jude dissapeared he stayed on the edge of the water, trying to glimpse through all the way to the Undersea palace to see his friend.

But Locke's words pulled him by the collar towards his other duties. The end of the week was coming with tomorrow's dawns and he had four people to kill, if only there wouldn't be casualties. Of course he wouldn't have that luck.

The Ghost chose the palace. Cardan might want to save Jude, but so would the Bomb and the Roach. She didn't need the king specifically. And he couldn't yet face the time he was supposed to run a blade through the woman he loved. Perhaps he never will and thus won't be able to go trhough with Locke's command. The fae law would punish him, if Locke wouldn't get to him first, but that won't matter.

Perhaps he should try it out now. See what the consequences of refusing a direct order given to his real name were. See if such thing was really possible before he left Elfhame without rulers.

"Hello, Garret." That annoying, familiar voice broke through the loudness of his mind.

"What are you doing here?"

"Enjoying the show. What's the point in hurting your enemies if they don't know it was you?"

So the two snuck inside the palace, following the underground routes to the King's rooms. Cardan just found out about Jude and to call the state he was in fury would be an understatemant.

"Cardan, my old friend, marriage doesn't agree with you." Locke mocked. And for a second the king's eyes chilled, numbed and defocused trying to understand the sight in front of him.

"You," Cardan's brows knitted together, "you're supposed to he dead."

"Oh, don't let my death pain you so. I'm alive and well. But you won't be for long." The fox's smile darkened, motioning for The Ghost to step into the dim light of broken lamps.

"Ghost? What is the meaning of this? Jude, I– I can't find her anywhere, no one knows where she is, I need you to find Bomb and Roach..."

"Cardan," The Ghost intrerupted harshly, closing his eyes tight to shield himself from the sight of the broken man in front of him. "I can't. Jude... you won't see her again, she's down in the Undersea."

Taken aback, Cardan made a go to the door. Locke stepped in his way, ready to push him and laugh just like he used to in their childhood. But the king barely noticed. "Nicassia," he kept murmuring. "She'll know what to do to get Jude back."

"You're not listening!" Locke allowed his voice to slip into a yell like he never did, brought to the surface by the slight mention of Nicassia, again being used by the same boy that broke her heart. "Your Jude is lost to the sea, Cardan. No one knows, perhaps she went willingly. Betrayed you again. Poor her, a simple human wouldn't know the sea is only loyal to itself."

As Locke spoke, Cardan's knees became weaker and weaker until they cave in and the High King of Elfhame fell to the ground before his jester. "She wouldn't. She loves me. I'd know if she died." He kept repeating. The mumblings of a fool's denying mind before it breaks for good.

And Locke laughed. "Don't worry, my king," he bowed mockingly until his forehead touched Cardan's. "You'll be reunited soon enough. None of you should have disregard and discaed me."

And with that he motioned for The Ghost to bring forth his killing arm and let it fall upon the snake king.

A gasp wiped the smile off Locke's charming face. Nicassia. He would have recognized her voice anywhere, even with one breathy sigh.

"Locke? How? What? What have you done?"

The Ghost slowly turned, dagger ready to be thrown into the unfortunate witness heart. "Wait!" Locke screamed. "Not her. Go to the human lands, finish your job. Now!"

Alone with his love, Locke tried to touch her. Hug her against his chest, away from the blood seeping into the carpets of the royal suit. But Nicassia took a stept bak. Two. Three. Until her back hit the wall of the corridor.

"I can explain..."

"I thought you were dead. They said, Cardan said, Taryin..."

"She tried. And our king didn't care. We're his oldest friends. Only friends. Yet he cares more about a daring mortal and her family. He had to pay for it. Just like the human twins and their own have to pay for what they did to me. To.us."

"Us?"

"He used you." Locke approached her swiftly, taking a strand of blue hair and twirling it between his fingers. "He used me and those human girls disrespected us. You should have been queen, Nicassia. Ruling over sea and land. He let the human steal it from you. Helped her. Turned a blind eye to my death and accepted my killer just for that Jude of his. It's not right. I want to make it right. Let me. Join me."

Nicassia locked eyes with her former lover for the first time. She saw the frenzy in their orange, but she also saw the love he had for her. Nothing changed, then. She wondered is he saw the changes in her. The forgiveness. She wanted to help Cardan and his queen, see them happy.

But now Cardan is dead and her mother will kill Jude soon. There is only one future for her. There always was.

♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎♤♠︎

Later that night The Ghost didn't return. His body laid cold in a puddle of blood. His and The Bomb's and The Roach's. The best spies in the realm saw him walking out of the palace, soaked in fresh blood. The rumor of the king's death spreaded, with Locke and Nicassia offering to take over until young Oak in the human realm can take the crown. Of course, Locke hoped The Ghost would have killed the boy too, but he knew better than to rely on soulfull fools.

The Bomb and The Roach connected the dots. Asked him about it.

"Vivienne. Her lover. Taryin," he choked out his confession. He hoped they'd kill him, but survival instincts are strong in a fighter of his calibre, even when he wishes for death.

They fought and they butchered each other, greeting their rulers together on the other side.

Locke was charming, Nicassia was loved and Oak wanted nothing to do with his birthplace anymore. So, the crown forgotten, sitting loopsided on a drunk king's head, Locke and Nicassia stepped in a new distanity of fae and mer folk alike.

#my writing #my work #my words #my fanfiction #cardan greenbriar #locke #jude duarte #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #fanfiction #nicassia

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raybyanothername · 1 year

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Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Ok as your greatest enabler, I have two requests! One - Which of these WIPs are bc of me? Two - If you repeated this with only things I've enabled how many would be gone?

Also - I am intrigued by HoG! Whats that one about?

Much to my shock (and I double checked because it was that shocking) none of them are your enabling projects. XD Just slid by, because the next like four after them are all your fault. ^^'

HoG = House of Gordon, which is my primary original writing project right now. I'm at just under 38k right now and nowhere near the end. You may recall me complaining about how I need to get through the political drama part so I can introduce my dragons? That was this one. And yeah... still in the thick of the political drama part.

It essentially revolves around the prodigal son of a magical aristocratic family coming home after his father and grandfather were murdered. Lots of magic, lots of drama, just about everyone is queer. Eventually I will get to the smutty part, but that is after dragons. So... I do be suffering here in a plot point of my own making. XD

Most of what I've written is up on my patreon and will eventually get posted on Ao3 probably, but, here's the first bit:

House of Gordon

There were strobing lights and a thumping bass when Lethe entered the club, but Salim’s eyes still locked on him the moment he stepped inside. Lethe swallowed around the lump forming in his throat as he met the gaze. He walked forward, slipping across the dance floor till he was standing beside the stage. Salim’s eyes tracked him the whole way, his sticks never missing a beat on the drums.

In the few years since Lethe had seen Salim, the man had managed to grow both taller and wider, filling out his once scrawny frame. His arms were muscular, lithe as they moved rapidly. The tshirt stretched across his chest was tight and Lethe didn’t need to use his imagination as he found a spot against the wall to wait.

Long fingers spun his drumsticks in the air as the set finished. Lethe was not at all prepared to watch the flourish. Or to see Salim’s lips twist into a smirk the second he was off the stage. He made a beeline straight for him and Lethe straightened unconsciously.

Up front, Salim was just as beautiful, maybe even more so. Sweat glistened over tan skin. Bleached hair stuck to his forehead. Full lips pulled wide as he spoke, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence, Le?” Salim’s head ducked, long lashes fluttering as he made a show of looking Lethe up and down, slowly, “And it is still very much a pleasure…”

“I’m here to take you home,” Lethe forced the words out, throat bobbing. Salim’s eyes jumped back to his face.

“My grandfather made it very clear –”

“He’s dead,” Lethe pursed his lips. Salim straightened. His shoulders tensed.

Lethe was not surprised to see his eyes narrow or hear the force in his voice, “Why are you here?” He felt the tickle in the back of his throat, the sudden tightness in his lung. Lethe knew a command when he received it, when he felt it.

Wrinkling his nose, Lethe’s answer tumbled out before he could think the words, “To bring the new lord back to Gordon.”

The color in Salim’s face drained away. A greenish tinge replaced the yellow under tones in his skin. The colorful lights dancing above them didn’t help. If anything, they made the shock blooming across his face more obvious.

“Sal?” his band mates noticed as well and they caught Salim as he stumbled backwards. Lethe’s nails dug into his palm as he reminded himself not to reach for Salim. His nostrils flared as he watched the lead singer run his hands over Salim’s back. They all had questions.

“What’s happening?” “Are you okay?”

Salim didn’t answer them. He blinked slowly, head shaking as he tried to form words. That had always been Lethe’s job, the talking bits. So he slips into Salim’s mind as he had so often before. All of his secrets opened up before him, letting him in as if no time had passed.

“There’s been a…” Lethe paused, eyes meeting Salim’s as he processed how very little his band mates really knew about the man, “…an accident. Sal’s family needs him at home.”

There’s disbelief, and suspicion, written on their faces, but they sent Salim off with only kind words.

“You didn’t even tell them your real name…” Lethe cleared his throat, eyes flicking to Salim as he stopped himself from asking the questions he wanted to. It was all irrelevant now. And Lethe didn’t have a right to ask anymore. Even if Salim didn’t bother to block Lethe from his mind.

They were alone on the sidewalk. The street was empty, the music from the club growing more distant with every step they took. A bar near Lethe’s car was noisy with sports fans, all of them groaning and swearing as the game was interrupted by a news report.

“That’s not an accident…” Salim caught sight of the report out of the corner of his eye. He turned to watch the television in the bar through their window.

Lethe followed his gaze. Even the sports fans were staring open-mouthed at the video playing across the screen. A camera panned around an aerial view of the decimated Rigby Estate. The old stone walls and stately towers nothing but rubble. Smoke was rising from the flames still licking at the edges of the perimeter.

Only the estate was targeted. Not the river. Not the village nearby. Nothing beyond the unmarked perimeter of their family’s land.

“What happened, Lethe?” Salim turned back around, leaning over the top of Lethe’s car. His eyes narrowed, lips pressing firmly together, “Was… was my father there? My grandfather?” Lethe nodded. “Why?”

“They were negotiating with Eldrin and Lord Rigby when the house was attacked. Aurora sent me to find you immediately, before the flames were under control even. I don’t know the details.” Lethe laid out what he knew, face scrunching up as he realized how little it was. “We need to get you out of the city, out of the country. If Gaul finds out you’re here, it’ll be almost impossible to cross the border.”

“My apartment isn’t far. I don’t need much,” Salim nodded and ducked into the car. They weren’t driving a minute before he suddenly shifted in his seat, “What were they negotiating. Eldrin is married to Aurora, why would –.”

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Lethe was quick to cut him off, “That’s what they were negotiating.” He risked a quick glance at Salim, hands tight on the steering wheel, “Eldrin wanted it annulled. My aunt says he was threatening to renounce his vows – invalidating all the agreements.”

“That’s…” Salim’s eyes fluttered, mouth dropping open.

“Idiotic.” Lethe supplied, head tilting to the side, “Stupid. Cruel. Insensitive.”

Salim nodded along to each adjective. Lips twitching up into a smile. They were all accurate. Lethe had never heard of someone trying to annul a marriage after nearly 20 years. Let alone one with children. Let alone to someone like Aurora.

“You saw the damage firsthand?” Salim guessed, brow quirking up. Lethe nodded. Salim clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, “What do you think? He revoke?”

“I can’t think of another way that someone penetrates the wards. Hundreds of years of Rigby witches placed protection spells and defensive wards. Nothing should’ve gotten through.”

Lethe pulled up outside Salim’s apartment. The convenience store on the bottom floor had a television by the register. It too was showing the newly created ruins. Smoke drifting up from the once grand estate. Even the manicured gardens had been turned to ash. But at least the fire was out.

They crossed the border into Torren just before the radio announced that Lord Gaelen Gordon and his only son Garrick were dead.

“There’s been no word from the House of Gordon or the Torren Royal Family about what happened at the Rigby Estate. A statement from the surviving Rigby family – those who were not at the estate at the time – have said that investigations are underway. They’ve requested privacy and respect for the investigative process.”

With a snort, Salim leaned forward to turn the radio off, “They know it wasn’t an accident either. And they don’t want anyone knowing their wards failed.”

“Of course not,” Lethe hummed, “They have two other houses near the northern borders. They’ll be scrambling to repair the wards now, if they even can.”

“So…” Salim shifted, arms stretching behind his head.

Lethe glanced his way, eyes flicking over his languid body as he leaned back in the passenger seat. Salim caught him looking, his lips quirking up.

“Like what you see, Le?” Salim shifted, voice lowering to a husky whisper as he leaned closer. His fingers ghosted over his shoulder. The touch never came. Lethe let out a breath, swallowed.

“We have more important things to worry about right now, Salim.” Lethe chanced another look. Salim was leaning against the window now, eyes focused on the scenery passing by the window.

It was a long drive up from Gaul’s border to Gordon Hall. But, Salim smiled softly at the forest when it rose up alongside them, it wasn’t long enough. The lush green plains gave way to rolling hills and rocky mountains.

Dawn was threatening the horizon as the gates of Gordon Hall swung open to allow them entry. Unlike the Rigby Estate, which had been a sprawling castle with numerous gardens, Gordon Hall was a simpler manor. A stout structure with stone on the bottom floor and wood that took it higher. The wrought-iron fence that wrapped around it encompassed only the top of the hill.

In this small valley, Gordon Hall sat alone on the only high ground for miles. From even it’s bottom floor, one could see all the way to the city a few miles off. It was built to keep the family safe. And still, the family inside its walls could see any threat that might try to sneak up on them out their kitchen window.

#ray answers #ray writes #writing #house of gordon

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bolin-san · 2 years

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The Prodigal Son

Written for Baatar Jr. Appreciation Week Day 6: Revenge/Redemption

There was something familiar about the smell that filled his senses upon entering his childhood home - chestnut with a hint of cinnamon, perhaps. Either way, it was bound to give him deja vu. The inexplicable circumstance that his mother would be so gracious as to allow him the opportunity of serving out his sentence as a war criminal within the comfort of his own home and not behind bars, surrounded by the people he once called family, was too baffling to even bother wrapping his head around.

At least he had a bed. His ex-fiancé did not have such a luxury at the current moment. No sir - she was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a maximum security cell surrounded by twenty White Lotus newbies who, more often than not, wondered why they even bothered volunteering to join such an organization in the first place. The most boring job on the planet; yet, it was the most important. They were doing their part by keeping a supposed “deranged” and “complicated” woman locked away from the rest of the society that she scarred in the wake of establishing her glorious empire. Yes, it was this same empire that Baatar was guilty of helping build from the bottom-up that led him to his ultimate downfall. He was now the shame of the Beifong family and the entire Earth Kingdom. A perpetual disgrace. His own father couldn’t even look at him anymore, turning to the side once he caught sight of the prodigal son.

It pained Baatar to look him in the eyes too. “Father...” He tries to croak out before Baatar Sr. decides to put up a hand and walk off in the opposite direction. His siblings didn’t bother showing up to the foyer to greet their eldest brother and welcome him back into their lives either. After all, how could they trust him when he locked them up in cages like animals? All he ever wanted was their approval - to not be overlooked for once - and be acknowledged for something he’d done. He was never really the favorite child, just another tool in his father’s workspace. Ever since the twins were born, there’s never really been that much room in Suyin’s heart for him.

“You’ll have to stay in one of the guest rooms,” she tells him once they reached it, pulling out a pair of keys from her pocket and to unlock the handcuffs from his wrists. “Meals are the same times as usual - I’m sure you remember - and I want you in the dining room with us. We just want to keep an eye on you, that’s all. You’re family.” Yeah, family. A family member being treated like a prisoner. I guess I had it coming to me anyway. He contemplated the idea of bargaining his way out of house arrest, or possibly lowering his sentence. Sweet-talking Su sometimes did the trick. He’d have to get her on her good side first though, after she’s had a Chardonnay or four.

You’ll have to stay in one of the guest rooms. Is she serious? Was this what he had been reduced to - a guest? In the home he’s only ever known? To be degraded at such a level was a bit astonishing. One would think that she’d offer him his old bed as a truce - maybe even a bit of a consolation, especially after how Kuvira had betrayed him. Su seemed to be a bit skeptical of his behavior still. Anyone could see that. He could tell by the way she addressed him upon picking him up from the Republic City Police Station that morning before boarding an air blimp to Zaofu later on. After all those tears she shed in the warehouse in an attempt to win his heart back, he had now assumed, it was all for show.

“What do I have to do to gain your trust back?” Baatar says straightforwardly as he massages his wrists once the handcuffs were removed.

Su raised an eyebrow and replies rather nonchalantly, “That’s up to you to decide. You’re a grown man. You can figure it out for yourself,” before turning her heel and retreating to her study, leaving her son dumbfounded. He didn’t know the first thing about redemption. As a matter of fact, he never had to prove himself to anyone in his immediate family before. I could go and work for my father again....but even he doesn’t want to see me. I helped invent nuclear power. Why should I stoop down to his level?! Sucking up his pride was going to be blatantly difficult. Engineers like him - at least the ones he knew - were rather full of themselves than most would think. It was hard to overcome their faults, especially since they thought they were so right all the time. Raava knew their vice.

Maybe Father would accept me into this life again...a new start...for the both of us. As soon as he entered his room, he showered and changed his clothes, then headed over to Baatar Sr.’s lab, where he found the older man sitting at his desk tracing blueprints of maglevs. Clearly something was on his mind. He only did nonsense like this when he was feeling troubled on the inside, and frustrated in a way. Tracing blueprints from almost fifteen years ago...what a geezer. Had he no other outlets for his pain? I get that he’s upset at me but.....*sigh* whatever....

Approaching his father now, Baatar places a hand on his shoulder and says, “Dad, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” Baatar Sr. looks up at him indifferently, trying to conjure up the exact words to say to his twenty-three year old son. Baatar Jr. waited for an answer - maybe a sign - that his father would at least have the capability to forgive.

Unfortunately, the answer he got was not what he was expecting. “I....I...I don’t know....” His father replies, stuttering, and still unable to make eye contact with him. A man of such genius and creativity, who was world-renowned for his style of architecture, couldn’t and didn’t know what to say for probably the second time in his life (the first being Suyin proposing to him). Had I really reached rock-bottom? Usually, Baatar would get commanded to grab a hammer and a wrench and some scrap metal to start putting a project together. Then again, Baatar Sr. was a different person now. He had created a mad scientist of sorts; and in such, he felt guilty of all charges. This was his legacy - an engineer and nuclear scientist turned war criminal. At this point, he wasn’t sure of any way he could recover from this life experience. It was all too much, and made him feel as if he was on the verge of a heart attack.

His son shook his head in shame. “Look,’ he began, “I don’t know if you’ll be able to fully forgive me for what I did, but I want you to know one thing....I always looked up to you Dad....even in times of times of doubt. Besides Varrick, you’re probably one of the smartest men I know. I never stopped thinking about you and Mother, and all of those things you both taught me growing up. Eventhough I felt like I was doing right by the world, joining Kuvira and creating a unified and equal Earth Empire, I still felt an obligation to question my moral actions - if I was doing the right thing or not by creating that weapon, and building that army. Through it all, I was still devoted to Kuvira because I loved her so much, but I still wasn’t entirely sure of myself, if this was what I truly wanted. I knew my actions would have consequences to go along with it, but if I could turn back time, I don’t think I would’ve gone down that path. I was just so frustrated of you turning down my designs and inventions all the time, saying that they weren’t needed. All I ever wanted was our love and approval - yours and mother’s. I truly do think things would’ve been different if that were the case.”

As soon as he said his piece, Baatar Sr. stood up from the comfort of his chair and embraced his son with open arms. Baatar couldn’t see it, but he felt a couple of wet tears fall onto his shoulder upon feeling his father’s touch. “I love you son. I was so angry and afraid of the man you’d become that I‘ve lost sight of the fact that you were still my blood. I never looked at you the same again once you left Zaofu, and I’m sorry that things had to be this way. I would love for you to come back and work with me again, like father and son. If you want to create something, do it. I’ll stand by you every step of the way,” he declares with water falling down his cheeks. Baatar hesitated to hug his father back, but felt soothed in his warm embrace. His father had never done anything like this before, as far as he was concerned, but it felt nice for a change, knowing that someone truly cared.

“I’ll work every day, seven days a week, just to prove myself to you. I promise. I don’t ever want there to be a rift between us again, Dad. I’ll be a better man from now on. I swear.”

#baatar #Baatar sr #baatarjrweek #baatar jr #baavira #suyin beifong #TLOK Fanfic #tlok #legend of korra #kuvira #the beifongs

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writingtoforgetreality · 3 years

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Too Close To Home (Malcolm Bright x Reader)

Request: Hi! I'd like to request a Malcolm Bright x reader or OFC story. Malcolm and the reader know each other since a few years. The reader has grown up in an abusive family and also has anxiety. They spend more time together cuz of a case. When the reader gets into danger, Malcolm saves her. He guides her home afterwards. First he doesn't want to come in but then they spend the night together (smutty or not, whatever you prefer). Afterwards they experience the most peaceful sleep they've had in ages :) (by @angelicastiel), [Prodigal Son-Masterlist]

Summary: Another case you & your team got to work on. This time, though, the backstory of the killer hit a bit too close to home. Still, you wanted to get the job done & arrest the murderer. There would have been a better, less dangerous way, but you could not change your actions anymore. And maybe you got something out of it. Something you had been wanting for the longest time.

Words: 3,827

Warnings: mentions of anxiety, angst, language, probably spoilers for season 2, father figure!Gil, little kidnapping situation, talks of murder (I mean, it’s Prodigal Son), first time writing for Prodigal Son (even though I do feel kinda confident writing for it, idk…let me know what you think)

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

Being part of Gil Arroyo’s team was a dream coming true. Your years in college were spent working your ass off in order to end up in a job like that. Not only did Gil give you a place to work, he also took you under his wing. Talking about your past was something you dreaded but somehow you found yourself opening up to him. He knew about your parents & could tell when things started becoming too much for you. Throughout your time at the NYPD, you got closer with your team. Dani & JT had become your best friends. Malcolm, on the other hand, had been a different case. While the two of you sure were friendly with one another, you slowly developed a little crush on the profiler. Who were you kidding? You had the biggest crush, it was kind of embarrassing. Especially because Dani & JT teased the living hell out of you. Luckily, Gil had yet to notice. You did not want to bring private business into your job.

This case had been a tough one. Not only that but it hit too close to home for your liking. The killer you had been looking for left you a letter at the crime scene. It was a man who had been abused by his parents when he was younger. In that letter, he explained why he did what he did. Like, yeah, you came from an abusive household, too, but you were not running around, murdering a what looked like innocent man. Like, chill a bit. Gil pulled you a few feet away from the scene after you all had finished reading. This left Dani, JT & Edrisa alone with looking for more details. Malcolm was still nowhere to be found, even though all of you had tried calling him a couple of times.

“Maybe you should sit this one out.” Gil’s hand was on your shoulder, keeping you an arm’s distance away to take a look at your face. He knew right away that you were thinking about your own parents & sometimes things could be messy if private stuff got mixed up with work stuff. Again the reason why you kept your feelings for Malcolm at bay.

“Gil.” you sighed. “I’ll be fine. Besides, you guys need me.” Gil hated to admit it but you were right. The team was lost without you & nobody knew if your killer was planning another crime while you were inspecting this scene. A voice interrupted your conversation & both, you & Gil, looked at where it was coming from. Would you look at that. Malcolm, everyone. Fashionably late, as always. Why did he have to look so good though? Ugh…

“I heard there was another murder? What have we got?” Malcolm, being his usual self when it came to crime scenes, directed his questions at both of you.

“You would know if you decided to show up sooner.” Gil gave him a tight lipped smile & you could hear the sarcasm in his statement. Yeah, nobody could ever stay mad at Malcolm for a long time. Except maybe JT. But he seemed like he was just pissed off by whatever Malcolm did. That was why they were such great friends.

“The guy left us a letter, kind gesture, right? Edrisa should have it.” your arms crossed over your chest to hide how bad your hands were shaking. The action did not go unnoticed by Malcolm, though. He could tell you were uncomfortable. Your anxiety seemed even worse than usually. It was not like you ever opened up to Malcolm about your struggles. You had found it hard to talk about your feelings, even when you talked to Gil. But since Gil had become some sort of father figure to you, you found it a little easier to open up to him. The thing was that Malcolm was working even when he was not working. Which meant that he was profiling others even outside of work. It was not hard to notice your trembling hands, your bouncing legs, your struggle to keep eye contact. He could tell that your anxiety was bad. Most days, you hid it rather well, he had to give you that. A normal person would have never noticed anything wrong with your behavior. Malcolm, though, knew better & while he did not know what had happened to you in the past, he knew you were struggling nevertheless. But he could worry about you another time, for now, he had to focus on the crime scene.

As Malcolm walked over to where Edrisa was standing, you pulled at Gil’s hand, motioning him to follow you. Edrisa handed over the letter & explained briefly what they had found so far. You knew what was about to come. As did everyone else, so you quieted down & let the profiler do his job.

“Our dear murderer wrote the letter after he killed James here. The ink is too fresh & some of the letters are smudged. The printer in the office was still running when you got here, right?” this earned him a nod from Edrisa. “No fingerprints, though, he was smart enough to wear gloves. Which brings me to my assumption that he had planned this long beforehand. The bruises show that he was strangled & while we still have to wait for the autopsy, I’m almost entirely sure that he was killed because of that. I believe the stab wounds were caused after he died. The way his words were written sounds way too passionate for an accident. No, this guy, he was enjoying it. If it were an accident, he would have left the scene way sooner. But he took the time to type a letter & print it, to complete his mission by laying it right on top of our victim’s chest.” Malcolm finished & looked around to find everyone rolling their eyes except for you. Whenever he started rambling & piecing evidence together, you simply stood there mesmerized. This time was not different. His eyes met yours & he shot you a little smile which you copied.

“Anything else you wanna tell us? Like, why you’re way too excited about this entire thing?” JT spoke up. You gave him a little slap & chuckled.

“Don’t act like it’s something new.” laughing when you looked at his face.

“Okay, guys. Wrap it up here, we need to continue this at the precinct.” Gil’s authority voice came through & you all knew better than to mess with him.

Malcolm, Dani & JT were already in one of the offices when you & Gil came in. Usually, you asked Gil to take you everywhere, mostly because you got rather shaky during cases & you did not trust yourself enough to drive on your own. Gil told you he did not mind at all.

“Found anything useful?” you asked when you entered & looked over JT’s shoulder to make out what he was doing on his laptop. Malcolm stood at the front of the room, right in front of the whiteboard & was too busy sorting his thoughts to even notice you. Dani told you that they had no luck just yet & soon you found yourself helping them with research, something you were incredibly good at. Gil had left for a while but when he got back, he brought each of you a cup of coffee, knowing it was bound to be a long night without much rest. Being the stubborn person that you were, you declined his request of you calling it a night & heading back home. You were onto something & could not stop right now. Gil let the topic die down with a long sigh. The five of you spent the entire night looking for clues & connections & by the time the sun started rising, you had a plan filed out to catch the killer.

After hours of research, mostly from you, you found out that the victim had very wealthy parents. Parents who loved their kid like nothing else. Parents who would do anything for their kid. Checking his social media profiles, you could tell that he was not silent about his wealth or the love he felt for his parents. “Enough to get our killer started.” Malcolm had said. It took you a while but after checking James’ classmates, you had a suspect & after checking his social media accounts, you knew where you had to go to catch him. Sometimes, things could be so easy, so clear to see. Probably a bad idea to expect you were right with everything but you had a good feeling. Yet, you could not quite understand how someone could kill just because of envy. Just because they did not have what someone else did.

Your suspect spent almost all of his evenings in a local pub, not too far away from the precinct. It was a small pup, not a lot of people, but since it was Friday, you expected it to be filled tonight.

“Why does (Y/N) have to be bait again?” Malcolm asked after discussing the plan yet another time.

“Because she looks more like a guest of a pub like that. You would be out of place, so would Dani & JT.” Gil reasoned. He did not like the idea either but it was probably the best shot they had.

“Right, because if I make an effort I can actually look like an alcoholic. Is that what you’re saying?” despite your chuckle, you found yourself growing more & more nervous. Malcolm noticed right away, didn’t comment on it though.

“What I’m saying is that we all want this asshole locked up & I don’t want you to look like an alcoholic. I want you to go there as if you just got done with work for the day. Take a seat at the bar. We’ll be connected with you this entire time, we’ll hear your conversation. Wait a little & if he doesn’t approach you then you will. Understood?” Gil looked around the room, kept his focus on you, though, & when you nodded he told you all to head off & get this party started.

“You’re nervous.” you flinched when you heard a voice beside you. Malcolm. Of course.

“I’m not. Just preparing myself.” you did not mean to sound this harsh but he did not really pay attention to that.

“So your shaking hands are a form of preparation?” he teased but you could not focus on his way of calming you right now. Your anxious mind was killing you.

“Look, Mal, I need to go, okay? We’ll talk later.” & before he even had the chance to answer, you were sprinting off.

Ordering a strong drink at the bar in the hopes of it calming your nerves, you tried acting as if you did go out every night. In fact, you were highly uncomfortable. Crowds made your anxiety act up & pubs were usually worse. Drunk people wanting to get laid or whatever. It just was not your world. Anyway, you had better things to focus on. Your suspect had already walked up to the bar & took, much to your dismay, a seat too far away from you to start an actual conversation. Quickly informing your team, an idea popped into your head. He would start taking an interest in you if you got him to grow envious. So without overthinking, you grabbed your phone from your purse & pretended dialing someone.

“Hi mom! How are you?” as much as it hurt saying those words, you felt accomplished when you noticed the suspect’s eyes on you. “Great, as always! We still on for lunch tomorrow?...Perfect! Actually, I wanted to thank you for the purse you got me! I found the package earlier today, you are crazy. That’s way too much.” if it were not for your job at the NYPD, you would make one hell of an actor. Deep down, your heart was breaking a little more with each word you said. “Oh? I’m your favorite daughter? I’m your only daughter, mom, but thanks.” you gave a genuine, or at least you hoped it sounded genuine, laugh & continued. The man had already made his way over to you & took the empty seat next to you. You had him, not fully but almost. Just keep going, you thought to yourself. “Tell dad I miss him, too! I’ll make sure to meet up with him soon. A much needed father-daughter weekend. It has been too long…Alright, I love you too, bye.” you ended your call & placed the phone back into your purse. Gil would kill you after you finished this case. Once again you were improvising but at least it got you here, sitting next to a possible killer. Possible killer? No, you knew it was him. He made it rather obvious after that fake phone call. Thinking about what you had just said on the phone got cut short by the man beside you speaking up.

“Sounds like a nice mom.” a drink in his hand, his gaze not focused on you but on the liquid in his glass.

“Oh, she’s the best. I’m lucky to have her. Same goes for my dad.” these words hurt so bad & if you were not so focused on arresting this asshole you would have started breaking down right in the middle of this bar.

“I’m Enrico, by the way.” he held out his hand for you to shake which you did.

“(Y/N).” faking another smile at him, you were surprised that your silly plan actually seemed to work. This dude was desperate. And it made him extremely dangerous.

“(Y/N), wanna head out & catch some fresh air? This pub is filling up.” he placed money on the counter, paying for not only his but also your drink. Thanking him, you got up. When his hand grabbed yours, you slightly flinched but did not pull away. The thought of your team waiting outside with handcuffs made you breathe easier. Arriving outside did not exactly put your mind at ease. Where was your team? Just when you wanted to turn around, you felt a strong grip around your waist & a cloth being held in front of your nose & mouth. There was not even enough time to scream before you were met with darkness.

Loud voices woke you up. A gunshot. Shit, why could you not move? Where the fuck were you? Looking down at your wrists, you saw them being chained tightly to a chair. Suddenly, a person was kneeling in front of you & you were surprised to find Gil helping you out of the chains. His mouth was moving but your heartbeat was too loud to make out any other noises.

“Have you got him?” Gil rolled his eyes at your question but soon after, nodded. This could have ended badly for you & he was just happy to see you alive & breathing.

“You hurt?” this time his voice was more serious. He looked you over but besides the bruises on your wrists, you seemed fine. Shaking your head no was enough for him to drop it for now.

“That was stupid, (Y/N). We could’ve walked in there & just arrested him in that damn pub. Why did you think it was a good idea to start this whole pretending thing?”

“Could we please not do this today, Gil? I’m tired.” you felt ashamed, embarrassed that you did not handle the situation better. Usually, you were way more careful when it came to other cases. You could not even tell why you thought you needed to act out an entire scene. It felt like the right decision at the time.

“Malcolm? Come over here.” Gil decided to let you rest for tonight but he sure as hell would teach you a lesson tomorrow. He could not have another person risking everything & acting irresponsible. He already had Malcolm. No need to have another one like him.

“(Y/N)? Oh, thank God.” Malcolm came jogging over to where you & Gil were. A small smile started forming, signaling that you were fine.

“Take her home with you. She shouldn’t be alone tonight.” & with that he left you & Malcolm alone.

Two hands came into view & you let yourself be pulled up into a standing position. Malcolm still held onto you since your legs were on the verge of giving out. After a few seconds, though, you felt steady enough & thanked him for helping you. Without another word, he took your hand in his & dragged you outside to his car. Any other day, you would have blushed like crazy but your exhaustion was overpowering your crush. Malcolm opened the passenger side for you & helped you in. Then, he got around to the driver’s side. His body turned towards you & when you noticed that the car still had not been started, you found Malcolm staring at you. Your eyebrows shot up in confusion. After a long pause & a deep breath of his, Malcolm’s voice broke the silence in the car.

“That was-“

“Stupid, I know. Gil already told me.” usually, you would have sounded sarcastic but tonight, you did not have the strength to try & act like you were fine. Because if you were honest, everything that had happened got you thinking. Not that you could have died but everything that had happened with your parents. How awful they treated you. How abusive they were. Not trying to start another conversation, Malcolm started the engine & drove up to his apartment. Gil’s order, after all. Though, he had to admit that he liked the idea of you being close to him. Hell, he could have lost you today. He could have lost you & you still had no idea about his feelings for you. Simply because he was too much of a coward when push came to shove.

The car ride was silent & the tension could have been cut with a knife. Once or twice you almost started talking, wanting to explain yourself. Why you were so exhausted. It was not the first time you got close to death but it was certainly the first time where your past came catching up. Each time, though, you chickened out.

“I’m sorry.” it was you who spoke up first when you entered Malcolm’s apartment.

“What for?” Malcolm turned his focus back to you.

“I made this case unnecessarily hard for you guys. I should’ve handled it better. It’s just…this thing with this fake phone call, it was…fuck, how do I say this?” the last part you mumbled to yourself but when Malcolm spoke up again, you knew he had heard you.

“It’s okay. Gil told me about your parents. I get it, I do. I probably would’ve done the same thing & then it would’ve been you & Gil telling me I was stupid.” you chuckled lightly & Malcolm was happy that you were not mad at him for knowing about your past. He had been aware of your struggles before, now he could finally tell where they were coming from.

Strangely, you felt a weight lifted off your shoulders, now that Malcolm knew. At least you knew he would never judge you, he had his own…familial issues after all. Tears started forming in your eyes & you tried blinking them away angrily, frustrated that you were losing it now even though the situation had been dealt with.

“Come here.” Malcolm opened his arms & you gladly accepted the invitation. Throwing yourself onto him like your life depended on it. His arms wrapped strongly around you. Not in an uncomfortable way, more like in a comforting way. The two of you simply stood in the middle of his apartment, not saying anything, he let you cry it all out & in that moment, it was all you needed.

“Thank you. Sorry for messing up your shirt.” a quiet laugh escaped you. It was not much but it was a good start.

“It’s no problem, really. Here, I’ll bring you some clothes to sleep in, I’m sure you don’t wanna sleep in work clothes?” Malcolm opened one of his drawers & grabbed a basic t-shirt & some sweatpants. Not much but definitely way more comfortable than what you were wearing right now. This was not your first time being at Malcolm’s home so you helped yourself & moved into his bathroom to take a quick shower & change into his clothes. It only took you about ten minutes, you were craving sleep.

“You can take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.” Malcolm was setting up his couch to sleep on when you came out of the bathroom.

“Nope, forget it. I wont let you take that couch.” you argued.

“Hey, it’s a comfortable couch!” he defended his way too expensive piece of furniture.

“What about your restraints?”

“Don’t need them when you’re around.” Malcolm let slip without much thought. Only when you tilted your head & raised your eyebrows did he realize what he had just said. “I mean…I don’t know. I’m usually much calmer when I’m with you.” It was funny to see Malcolm trying to explain himself. He was embarrassed but you were putting a stop to it right away.

“Okay, so I guess it would help even more when you’re right next to me, am I right? Your bed is big enough, Mal.” your sweet smile was convincing enough & soon you found yourself laying on one side of the bed while Malcolm was occupying the other.

For a few minutes, neither of you moved or said anything. The silence was not uncomfortable, the situation was still new for the both of you. Yet, you knew what you wanted. What you needed. So you grabbed one of Malcolm’s hands, turned around & let his arm fall around your waist. This action caught him off guard but he relaxed into the new position quickly. While the both of you still had not confessed, this felt like a step into the right direction. You felt safe in his embrace & knew you could be your true self with him. No hiding whatsoever. That thought made you smile. Exhaustion soon took over but the last words you heard before falling into a peaceful slumber were: Sleep well, (Y/N). I’ve got you. Afterwards, he pressed a light kiss on your shoulder & fell asleep himself. Tonight, your struggles could be forgotten. At least for a few hours until morning came around. Then, you still had enough time to deal with whatever was happening between you & Malcolm. Tomorrow, you could deal with your past some more. But right now, all you wanted was to have a peaceful night & Malcolm could give you just that.

Published (03/25/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @fandom-queen67, @cons-tit-ution, @where-thesundoesntshine, @itsanemu0101, @chill-fangirl, @angelnyx, @octopus5555, @the-unknown-fan-girl (thanks for your support <3 - sorry if I tagged you mistakenly/please let me know if I did)

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infernwetrust · 3 years

Text

Eden’s Prodigal Son Part 4- Know No Better [Andy Dolan x Reader]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Summary: You weren’t sure what kept you coming back to Andy Dolan. All you knew was that you kept coming back. And it only got worse before it got better.

Warnings: swearing, little bit o’ violence , drug use, fluff, angst, mentions of pregnancy

WC: 2.0k

A/N: Unlike the previous parts, the next couple of parts for Eden’s Prodigal Son will take place in the present with a few significant flashbacks. Thank you for reading! -Juno

GIF by kissxmedeadly

It never rained much in Eden. But when it did, it poured. Andy sat on the edge of the bed in his home, suitcases packed for yet another few months in LA. Except this time, he would have nothing to look forward to upon his return. Why? Because you were completely done with Andy Dolan. And he knew that.

His ears were ringing, his heart left his chest and went back and forth between his throat and his stomach. How could he be so fucking stupid? His eyes continuously scanned over the last text message that you sent to him and it burned him every single time. How could he?

I hope you have fun with her.

How could he have fun with her? He didn't want her as much as he wanted you. Anyone with eyes could see how obsessed Andy was with you, but he was so fucking stupid. Fear of commitment maybe? Maybe that's what did it? What was suppose to be just a fling from time to time while he was in LA, turned into something more. Something he didn't want. And now he was stuck. And now he's going through the headlines that exposed him.

"Fuck!" He shouted, abruptly rising to his feet and throwing his phone against the wall with all his force. He watched as it shattered into tiny fragments and he was thankful that he reminded to back his phone up the night before. He needed a new phone anyways. For a few moments he finally felt at peace, not being able to impulse look at things.

"Everything alright, mate?" Ben questioned as he barged into the room upon hearing Andy's scream. He looked back and forth between Andy and his broken phone and he immediately knew.

"I need a few of those." Andy stated simply, referring to the bag of green pills that he had in his hand, specifically for Andy, by his request. Ben knew better to try and argue with him when he was in such a state. He obliged, opening the bag and pouring 2 onto Andy's hand. He'd never leave him with the whole bag. And like usual, this was how Andy coped. "Are we leaving now?"

"Yeah.. yeah."

*** "Are you sure you don't want to see-," Hedwig began, but you quickly gave her your answer. No. You did not want to see Andy Dolan one last time despite the intense history. You never thought that you could be this broken, but here you were. You clung to his hoodie that he had left at your place, like your life depended on it. Tears fell heavily from your eyes as you laid your head in Hedwig's lap, the two of you on the couch.

"You told me you fucking loved me!" You screamed at Andy, your fists pounding into his chest, tears steaming down your face, ruining your makeup.

"I do fucking love you, Y/N!" He grabbed your wrists in an attempt to slow you down, but you weren't having it. You managed to snatch one of your wrists from his relatively strong grip, returning a swift and sharp smack to his face.

"Love me enough to get someone else pregnant?!"

"I think I'm going to be sick." Your legs couldn't carry you to your bathroom fast enough. There were too many memories of him, everywhere. You kicked him out of your home so fast that night, he didn't have time to grab anything. You turned your sink, splashing your face with the cooling water. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

"It was a fucking mistake!" That's all he could say. Because it was. One drunk and sloppy hookup turned into an unexpected pregnancy for both Andy and his party.

"A fucking huge mistake, Andy Dolan! You have a fucking one year old and we've been together for 6 months and I find out through a news article. For fuck sakes Andy, you didn't think this one out did you?"

"I was going to tell you.." He mumbled, knowing how bad he fucked up.

"Fucking tell me?! It's been a year, Andy!" You shoved him back, watching him stumble to stay on his feet. "I gave you everything."

The tears fell faster than you could catch them and decided that trying to wash them away was a waste of your time.

I hope you have fun with her.

The last text message that you sent to Andy a week ago. He texted you several times after that, almost every day for the next week until you had to put him on do not disturb. That's the thing about Andy. And the thing about you too. He was never able to leave you alone and you the same.

Y/N please talk to me. I miss you. I love you... please. It was a mistake. I fucked up. I know. I should of told you, but I was scared. I'm not even ready to be a fucking father. This was before we even got together and I know a lot of things were said and were done, but we're all human, yeah? Please just talk to me, Y/N. I don't want lose you over this. I know it's a pretty big deal, but I'm not hiding anything else. I promise. I'm sorry...

He tried to call you a few times as well, but God knows why he would try to do that. Eventually he just started calling to hear your voicemail, anything, that could keep him closer to you. You caught yourself going through your camera roll one too many times, reliving all the memories.

You should of known. Andy was way too popular, way too good-looking to just settle down. You should of known. Right? Maybe you should of just stayed friends, but like a fool you fell for it. And fell for it. And fell for it. And now it's killing you.

"Y/N..." Hedwig's soft voice spoke from behind the door as you walked out of your bathroom, a sobbing mess. "Can I come in?" God bless her, huh? What would you do without your dear Hedwig? She was always in the middle of you and Andy. She was there for every small moment, every big moment, every argument. She was your rock and you were hers. You opened the door for her, still not able to control all of your sobbing.

In the distance you could hear small chatter. You forgot that tonight you had invited every one over for yet another small get together. But, you didn't know that you would be like this when the time came.

"C' mere." She spoke, engulfing you into her arms, letting you cry it out.

"I love him." You sobbed. "So fucking much."

"I know." Hedwig held you tighter. "He'll regret it. Andy. He's... fuck.." She knew what she wanted to say and although it was true, she could never bad mouth another friend. Burying your face in the crook of her neck, you screamed, letting some amount of stress leave your body for the night.

"I'm so-,"

"No. You're not. You're in love. It's okay to be in love. This is your first heart break. And it won't be your last, especially dealing with Andy Dolan, but the two of you just need some serious time apart." Hedwig cupped both sides of your face in her hand, making you look at her. She pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead before pulling you back into a hug. "He'll realize how much of a gem he let slip through his fingers. But you have us. And I know we're no Andy, but we love you just as much."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

*** "Jesus Christ, mate." Ben growled, aggravated with Andy's intoxication as they traveled through airport security. "The no-fly list suits you well right about now, doesn't it?"

"Fuck off, yeah?" Andy chuckled, running his hands through his hair as he clumsily put his things in a bin to go through the scanner, nearly knocking the stack next to him over. Ben sighed, furrowing his eyebrows and he got his things together as well. This was the first time airport security scanned two people in the body scanner at once, Ben having to physically hold Andy in the position they requested. Embarrassed, they couldn't leave the area fast enough to start walking towards their gate.

"You fucking listen to me. And you listen to me good, aye." Ben spoke, abruptly dragging Andy into a nearby family bathroom, locking the door behind him. He slammed Andy up against the bathroom wall, spraying the water bottle he was carrying in his hand all over his face. "Wake the fuck up, okay?" He slapped him around a few times, Andy not sober enough to even attempt to fight back. And even if he wanted to, he deserved this. "Wake the fuck up, Andy Dolan." Andy choked slightly on the water that managed to get into his mouth, spitting it back up and coughing.

"Fu-,"

"Fuck off. I know, hm?" Ben opened another water bottle, spraying it on him as well. "You want to know the one thing you're good at? Driving people the fuck away.." Ben held Andy by his now soaking shirt, glaring into his eyes that screamed nothing but pain, regret, anger, and sadness. "Everything you have now, Dolan. I HELPED YOU GET. It's not just about you okay, dick head? As your agent this is MY life too and you are on track to fucking ruin it."

Andy was silent and in a daze. The bathroom was spinning and he swore he was looking at Ben 4 times, but all the words were registering. Ben was right for the most part. Andy was good at driving people away. People that weren't you, but now look, it is you. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes and he could feel his throat swell with sorrow.

"Your public image matters. Remember that. And for fuck sakes, mate. You don't fucking need her." Ben continued. "You're a fucking superstar. You can have any one you want. Mad at you because you got some irrelevant broad pregnant and the two of you weren't even together?"

"Stop.." Andy growled.

"No. I'm not going to fucking stop. She's done nothing, but distract you. That's all she has ever always done. I'm sure she's had her fair share while you were away. Did you ever think about that? She just got lucky to not get knocked up by the next bloke, huh? People make mistakes. You need to get over it. And she needs to get over it. You have a fucking full career ahead of you."

He let Andy go, rummaging through his bag for a new shirt for him to match the current style of his outfit. When he got re-dressed, his administered eye drops for the now teary-eyed man whose eyes were covered in red streaks. When the opportunity presented itself, they finally made their way to their gate, no conversation between the two of them until they would land in LA.

*** "We should get married y'know." You suggested to Andy, snatching his attention away from the joint that he was rolling.

"I'm sorry.." He chuckled. "But what? We should what? Y/N we're 16."

"Hear me out first, silly." You giggled at your idea.

"Okay, crazy. I'm listening."

"We only get married if we can't find the one. Someone has to be responsible for me when I die. And and. There are some pretty good benefits to being married." Andy glanced back and forth between you and his joint before he busted out laughing. "You're laughing, but it's such a good idea!"

"You really are crazy, you know that?" He handed you the joint and the lighter, always letting you have the first pull now that the two of you started smoking together. "But of course, Y/N. As long as we don't find the one. I will marry you so that someone will be responsible for us when we die. And for the benefits."

"I knew you'd understand."

But you are the one.

Taglist: @jimmason @angelicmichael @9layerdevilfoodcake @ferndolan @dorklydefined @littledemondani @king-with-no-crovvn @chicaluna2410 @waitinvain

#andy dolan #andy dolan x reader #andy dolan imagine #eden #eden’s prodigal son #cody fern

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onecanonlife · 3 years

Text

careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 7,998

Chapter Warnings: swearing, blood, violence, injury, threatened death, sui.cidal ideation, mind control, manipulation, victim blaming

Chapter Summary: In which Wilbur makes a desperate choice.

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

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Chapter Twenty: dark into the heat

No. No, no, no, he needs to ignore it. He knows better than to listen, knows better than—

He can feel it. He can feel it poking around in his mind. He can feel it again. And it knows he can feel it. It knows, and it’s smug about it. It’s smug because it knows he hates the sensation, feels violated by it, and it likes that, likes the power it has over him. His stomach lurches, and he staggers. Purpled watches him, advancing slowly.

But no. No, he can’t give in, can’t let it distract him. He can’t.

“What’s it offering you?” he gasps out. He tries to stand straighter, but the world around him wavers and ripples, and not just in the heat. He can feel it, feel it still, though it has not yet spoken again. It is going to. It is going to, going to speak to him with honeyed words and dripping promises, going to coax and persuade and worm its way inside, and knowing that it’s coming doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

Only time will tell whether it makes it easier to resist.

Purpled shrugs, still approaching. Once he attacks again, he’s done for. He can’t fight off Purpled on a good day, much less now.

“Money,” Purpled says. “I mean, what else? It’s a job.”

And the way he says it is as if—

“It’s not controlling you,” he says, and wonders how he didn’t realize it before. Purpled looks completely unchanged. No part of him has faded to white or deepened to red, and his voice holds none of the fanatic edge that the Egg’s followers possess. “It’s just paying you.”

“I don’t like the thought of being mind controlled,” Purpled agrees. “But I do like being paid. So, like I said, sorry. But I’ve taken the job.”

“I’ll double whatever they’re paying you to switch sides,” he says. “Or not even switch sides, if you don’t want. Just stay out of it. Don’t attack me and mine. Leave.”

Purpled tilts his head. He’s listening. Good. His grip on his sword does not relax, but he pauses in his approach.

“How do I know you’re good for it?” he asks.

“I’m good for it because my brother is Technoblade,” he says. “You know, the Blood God? Nigh on impossible to defeat in combat, one of the richest people on the server? He honors the agreements he makes, and I, as his brother, can make one for him. You’ll get your money.”

“So the money’s not even yours,” Purpled says. “But—Technoblade, you say? And you just want me to stay out of it?” He pauses. “Triple it and you’ve got a deal.”

“Done.”

And just like that, Purpled nods. There may be some measure of relief in his face; Wilbur isn’t sure. But perhaps Purpled was never all that comfortable taking orders from the thing, money or no. But Purpled nods, and Purpled moves toward the exit, and Jack, at least, notices, and shouts, “Traitor!” Some of the vines spring to life, attempting to stop him from leaving. But Purpled slices through them easily enough, with a practiced and steady hand, and then he’s vanishing up the corridor.

He didn’t expect it to be that easy.

(but at the end of the day, mercenary or not, isn’t Purpled still a child, too? a teenager caught up in forces beyond his control, just trying to make it through to another day? perhaps he was looking for an out all along, and if that is the case, he is more than happy to give him one, and not just for his own sake)

You have always been clever, the Egg says, always been quick with your words and quick to spin a deal in your favor, quick to have them all dancing to your tune, so very quick to use whatever power you have, so very quick, but you know better than to thank yourself for it, know better than to believe that it lends you superiority, and you know better than to believe that this is a victory at all, know better than to believe you have accomplished anything. What is your plan, Wilbur Soot? What blow do you seek to strike against me?

He shakes his head. It’s digging deeper, like a swarm of stinging hornets crawling in his skull. He takes a few clumsy steps forward, begging his blurry vision to resolve. It doesn’t, not quite, but he can see well enough to know what’s happening, to see that Jack and Niki are concentrated on their attack, that Tubbo is vicious in his counters and Tommy is halfhearted, and Fundy—where is Fundy—?

There, a few feet away, crouched on the ground, hands on his ears. The whites of his eyes are visible, and he rocks back and forth slightly. “Shut up,” he says, barely audible, “shut up, no, no, I’m not listening to you, leave me alone—”

He sees red for a different reason.

“Stop it,” he rasps. “Stop it. Leave him be, leave them all be.”

They are with me because I give them everything they want, everything they dream, and if your little wonder, your little champion joins my ranks then it is because you have failed him, because you cannot give him the love he deserves, and that is no one’s fault but yours, ash child, the Egg says, and he nearly doubles over with the force of it, with the truth of it.

(no, no, not truth, not truth, because here before you is a true monster the true villain the true enemy and it lies and manipulates as part of its nature and you can feel its claws in you and you should not think that just because it agrees with your own warped perception of yourself that it is right because you are just beginning to learn that perhaps you are not right yourself not right about yourself and remember what Phil told you, about healing and deserving)

But then, the Egg keeps on, isn’t that better to think about, isn’t that nicer than to imagine his blood spilling across my roots, for I am hungry and I will be fed, and if not with your boy’s blood then with that of someone else but is it not better to imagine him becoming one with me and mine, for is it not better to offer him up to me than to lose him?

(no)

“I’d lose him either way,” he says. “Don’t fuck with me, I’d lose—I’d be losing him just as surely.”

And perhaps he’s already lost him. Perhaps his son no longer wants a father at all. But even if that is the case, he will be damned before he allows the Egg to take him. So he lurches forward again. Draws his bow from his inventory. Fires off a shot. He’s not even thinking about it, really, but he fires off a shot, and he aims it for Jack Manifold

(and he can’t remember the last time he saw Jack Manifold, but he vaguely thinks that he may have taken one of his lives as well, maybe, in the heat and the rush of things, and he can’t remember whether it was a mistake or on purpose but neither matters right now)

and it flies wide. He doesn’t see where it lands. He nocks another arrow to the string. His hands shake. Niki drives Tubbo back with a ferocious flurry of attacks, and Jack is on Tommy, and if he doesn’t do something about this, there will be blood spilled here. Blood watering the roots.

You know you could stop this, the Egg says, you know that it is within your power, for I have offered you everything, everything you desire, and I shall give you fire and I shall give you rest and I shall give you your brother’s safety assured and he will not be harmed by me and mine and we shall look after him, for now and for always, he shall be mine as all creatures must be or perish but he shall be safe, and you can rest knowing you have done everything and have everything you want in the end, and it can all be yours and you know this.

“Shut up,” he says. “Shut up.” Just a few more steps. Why does he feel so far from them when he’s only a few steps away? Just a few more steps and he can join the battle, can drive them back and away from those he’s sworn to protect,

(but these were his countrymen and he swore to protect them too and now look at them all children in a war that spiraled out of their control and never ended the soldiers never coming home because there was no home to return to and so the soldiers keep on marching on and they cannot learn to put their weapons down because there is no place to let them rest and no assurance of safety and the war continues whether seen or unseen and the soldiers keep on marching on)

and he can draw his sword even though his swordplay has never been his strongest suit.

Except, no, he needs to use the sword for something else, needs to—the Egg has to be the priority, because if he destroys the Egg, then this will all come to a close, and—

Then you have a choice to make, child of flames and of destruction, the Egg says, and it sounds terribly, horribly amused, and he can’t help but clutch the side of his head as it seems to laugh at him, awful and grating, like his skull has fractured and the shards are being driven into his brain. You have a choice to make, and shall you try to save the ones you hold dear and shall your efforts be fruitless, or shall you raise your hand against me, shall you defy that which you know you seek, that which you know you love, shall you raise a hand against me and fail again, shall you call yourself child of failure and lay your impotency bare.

And then, the Egg stops.

I see, it says. You have a sword.

He inhales sharply.

(it’s in your head and it knows it knows it knows your mind is its for the taking and now it knows)

Niki draws back from Tubbo, face twisting. Tubbo comes to stand beside Tommy again, protectiveness screaming in every line of his stance. Even Jack pauses, and Fundy looks up at him, tears in his eyes, shoulders shaking.

Tommy is staring at him, on his face a dawning dismay.

A sword blessed by the universe and granted by the shell of what was once a god, the Egg says, and suddenly, Wilbur can feel—something else. Something through the Egg, something else looking at him, aware of him. Something that feels like the Egg, but isn’t quite, and he thinks—it’s Dream. Dream is watching, though Dream is blocks away, fighting a battle of his own. A sword meant to destroy the void stuff, the darkness, the corruption, a sword you believe will avail you.

It speaks, and the whole room can hear it. Its voice reverberates in more minds than just his.

You are a thing of dust and ash and soot, and the name you chose for yourself was a prophesy, the Egg says, and you may pretend to have the strength to raise your steel high and drive it against me, you may pretend, but I know you better than you know yourself and I know that even if you had the strength, you would fail, because you have a choice to make and there is only one correct path, only one way out for you, only one way, and you will see it, and you will take it, and what use will your sword be, then?

“You talk a big game for something that the universe itself has sided against,” he says, rather proud of himself for stringing such a coherent sentence together, even while he desperately searches for what the Egg means, what it’s talking about. Because this is a trap, he knows. Likely intended for him. But what the Egg means by a choice, he has no clue, unless it means the choice it’s been trying to get him to make all along, but—

And then, as one, Niki and Jack move. Jack dives for Tubbo, catching him off guard, and there is a terrible snap as Tubbo hits the ground, and Tubbo screams. Tommy shouts, and Wilbur curses, trying to aim for Jack, but there’s too much movement, too much that could go wrong if he misses, because Jack has got Tubbo pinned down, still screaming, each scream interspersed with curses, and Jack doesn’t look like his weight could possible keep Tubbo there, but somehow, all his struggles accomplish nothing. And even as he and Tommy both move forward to help, and even as Fundy seems to be shaking himself out of his stupor, Niki launches herself forward and puts her blade to Tommy’s throat.

And everything goes still.

A choice, the Egg repeats. And Wilbur understands.

“I want to kill him now,” Niki says, her eyes locked on the Egg. And then she scowls, whatever the Egg tells her not for the ears of anyone else, but while she presses the blade further against Tommy’s bare throat, drawing a thin line of blood, she does not cut down. “A choice, then,” she repeats, shifting her gaze to him, and her expression is something like anger and something like defeat. “I wonder if you even know how to make the right one.”

“Let me go,” Tubbo is saying, between sobs. Something is surely broken, but Wilbur can’t get a good enough look to see what. And moving closer may very well spell Tommy’s demise. “Fuck you, let me go, let him go.”

“Just, fuck, just settle down, would you?” Jack demands. “This’ll all be over soon.”

Niki is still watching him.

You have no control here, no power, and here is the choice.

“Wilbur,” Tommy says. His voice trembles. He swallows, and the action pushes his skin just slightly closer to the blade’s edge. More blood trickles down. “Wilbur, you—what is it asking you?”

But he says it like someone who already knows.

(and his brother has a sword to his throat and still seems more concerned for him than for himself and it breaks his heart just as it always does again and again and again)

You may strike your blow, you may take your shot, and no one here will impede your path, and if that is your choice then so be it, the Egg says, but know that should that be, your brother will fall and his blood will sustain me, and behind you his life will fade away even as you toss him aside to strike at me, but it does not have to be this way, void seeker. It does not have to be this way, and you can make the right choice, and the peace you want will be yours, and your brother will live.

He draws in a breath. The beginnings of a plan hatch in his mind. Desperate, crazy—but then, what up to this point hasn’t been? He’s out of options, has let himself be outplayed, and he can’t even let himself think about this too hard, or else it will pluck the idea straight from his mind and it will all be for naught. But he has to try.

There really is only one choice to make.

Tommy’s expression changes.

“No,” he says, “no, no, no, whatever you’re thinking, don’t you fucking do it, don’t you—it’ll be alright, it’ll be alright, I swear, just kill the thing, just kill it, don’t, don’t worry about me, don’t” —He takes in a shuddering, gasping breath, and when he continues, he’s no longer talking to Wilbur— “don’t hurt them, please, you can have me, you can, but don’t hurt them, you can’t, and, and Tubbo, Tubbo, it’s gonna be okay, ‘cause, ‘cause you’re still yourself without me too, and it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be, just, please, Wil, please don’t—”

“Tommy,” he says, and Tommy falls silent. Tubbo does too. They’re all looking at him, and he can’t look at any of their faces for too long, Tubbo’s scrunched up in pain and anger and Fundy’s open wide, almost childlike in his—disbelief, perhaps. He can’t look at their faces, because that makes it hurt worse.

The Egg doesn’t say anything. Nothing he can hear, at least. But it’s waiting. And it feels victorious.

“Tommy,” he says again, “Tubbo. Fundy.”

He breathes in. And out.

“Sometimes things are never meant to be,” he says, and he doesn’t know where the words are coming from, but he lets them flow. “Sometimes things are destined to end even from the very beginning.”

“Wilbur, please—”

“But not this. Not us.” He pauses. “Do you trust me?”

Tommy’s face crumples. He doesn’t respond. Fundy takes in a long, shaky breath, and for a moment, that’s all he can hear. No one really answers him, and he supposes that in the end, that’s an answer in and of itself.

But that’s alright.

He turns to the Egg.

“Our deal,” he says. “The one you offered me. I want it extended. I want everyone in this room alive and safe.”

Everyone in this room. That includes Niki. That includes Jack. Because they were his countrymen, and he owes them this much. Owes them his best effort, even when his best effort once meant their destruction.

(because they were once his countrymen and they were once his friends, and what a picture they make now, and what a picture they made then, back in the summer heat with the walls high and proud around them, as they messed with a camera in their military uniforms, smiling and laughing and free, and it is easy for him to forget that L’Manberg was something beautiful once but it was, it was, it was, and they were beautiful too, and the world was laid at their feet, and they took that photo and he wonders where all the copies went, whether any still exist or whether they all went up in flames, and they were six then and they are six now, the same six, and how bitter and twisted they have all become, how far from that hazy memory of peace they all are)

(and how fitting, perhaps, that it should be the six of them here and only these six, here where it all will come to a close one way or the other, ending just as it began on that sunny summer’s day)

“Wilbur, stop—”

It is nothing to me, the Egg says, and he can feel it, still, can feel it pressing in around him, ready to swamp him, ready to pull him under, and he can hear the whispers, too, just the same as they have always been, whispering fire, whispering death, and he can feel himself begin to lean into them already, can feel himself tempted, can feel his own longing.

And he can still feel, beyond the Egg, Dream watching. Waiting. Considering.

“Fine, then,” he says, and traps his last apology under his tongue. “A deal.”

And he lets the static claim him.

It rushes in around him, and the red dives in eagerly, filling out all the corners of his mind, all the spaces and all the cracks, and he remembers this, remembers this sensation from before, remembers how the Egg coaxed him, persistent and careful, and this is not quite like that, because then, it was like a siren singing a victim to a willing drowning, and now, it as if the entire ocean has opened over his head, a red sea.

There you are, and it is a homecoming, isn’t it, the Egg croons, and his breath stutters in his chest, and I know what you want, I know you long for the fire’s murmurs and the explosion that you once caused and the end of your symphony, forever unfinished, and you were wrested back to this world so cruelly and without your permission, and you do not want to be here, you long for the darkness and the rest of the void, you wish for it with every fiber of your being and you only need listen to me and you can have it.

Yes. He’s having a hard time remembering why he spent so much effort on resisting. Why he resisted the drumbeats that now ring out in his head, a rhythm of war, of blood and of fire, a rhythm that will send him to sleep, if he lets it, and he wants to let it, because the Egg says it is so, and he has let it in, has let it take him over, and the Egg is right. The Egg is right.

(the Egg says it is so, and the Egg must be right, feels right, right like nothing he has ever felt before, but so then why does he)

Come forward, then, and let me grant to you what is yours, the Egg commands, and his feet step forward, once, twice, three times, taking him closer. Behind him, someone is sobbing.

“Wil,” someone whispers, and it sounds like his son. He doesn’t turn around.

Your mind is laid bare to me, and all that you are is mine, the Egg says. I can read your plan, and you thought you could fool me, could take yourself close with none the wiser and break free of my guidance, break free of me and strike before harm could befall your brother, but you cannot be free, because you do not want to be free, because I am giving you everything you want. Did you think you could do as you did before and claw yourself away from me using thoughts of your brother? There is nothing there to use, for I have assured his safety, and you know that.

He does know that. He’s pretty sure that was indeed his plan,

(was it?)

but why shouldn’t the Egg know it now? The Egg is going to give him everything, is going to give him what he could have had before if he was not taken from the room as he was, and now that he is with it again, beating in his mind, a consistent pounding pulse, he feels that jubilation fill him, a hot, heady joy, settling sickly sweet in his gut.

This is right. This is how it was always going to happen. This was meant to be. And the Egg is right; it will be a homecoming, in more ways than one. The void awaits him, and with the Egg curling around him, almost smothering him, he remembers how badly he wants to answer the void’s call, how badly he wants to be dead again, because he made himself an ending and never asked for the story to restart, and it’s unfair that more has been demanded of him.

You played your part, and they were fools to think that you could ever be anything better than what you were, the Egg whispers. You have not changed from the bitter thing you became, and they could not have expected more from you, should not have thought that this would end in any other way, because the void hums like a siren and you want to go, and I will take you there, and you will bleed out before me and feel peace at last and nothing more will be wanted of you. Drop your totem.

Ah, yes, his totem. The one that Techno gave him. He summons it from his inventory, feels its weight against his palm, cold and solid. Its emerald eyes gleam up at him. And then, he goes to drop it, as the Egg says. Somehow, he ends up tossing it over his shoulder instead, rather hard. He’s not sure where it lands. He doesn’t look.

Dream watches. Dream feels—smug. He ignores him. The Egg is what matters.

People are still talking to him. Crying, maybe, but it’s all fallen away, become white noise. There is him, and the Egg, and what the Egg will give him, as long as he does exactly as it commands him. It is as a god, and he is as its vassal, and that is what he’s always striven for.

You love to be useful, the Egg agrees, will abase yourself to anyone to earn your worthiness to live.

(Phil’s voice, steady, sure, and loved: you don’t need to do anything to be worthy of love, you don’t need to do anything to deserve to take care of yourself)

And I know you, the Egg continues, better than you have known yourself. You wanted the fire, wanted to see it all burn around you, and the glee that filled you when you pressed that button was like none you had ever felt.

(no, that’s wrong)

And that same glee again, when you had your father run your sword through your chest, and how eager you were to die, and how eager you are now, how eager, how eager, and you are the same creature you were then, at your core.

(wrong, something about what it’s saying is wrong because these are thoughts he’s had himself so very often but)

A few steps more, and he’s standing next to the Egg. Close enough to touch it. He almost wants to, but doesn’t, something holding him back.

His head pounds. Throbs. Each breath comes as a struggle, though why he’s trying so hard, he doesn’t know.

And you are mine, the Egg croons, my creature now, and I can do with you as I will, but I will give you what you seek so desperately, can you feel it?

He can. He can feel it, the red, soothing as it always has been, and every inch of him cries out for it, cries out for what he

(but does he?)

wants.

And you shall have it, the Egg says. You shall have it.

They’re all calling to him. All of them, but Tommy most of all, calling his name, begging him to stop. He doesn’t turn, even now. Part of him wants to, but when he thinks about it, the Egg pulses in his mind, burning him, expressing displeasure, and he won’t go against what the Egg wants, not when it is about to gift him everything, not when it understands him so well. So he does not turn, and—distantly, he thinks that this was the idea. To use Tommy to pull himself out again, just as he did before. But it won’t work this time, because Tommy is going to be safe. The Egg has sworn that he will be unharmed.

You never had a hope of resisting me, the Egg says, as I know you as no one else does, and I know what you want, and you shall have it now.

Vines creep around his ankles, slide around his legs, his arms. And one rests around his neck, lightly, but he can feel the thorns. They’re a caress, an embrace,

(but you know what an embrace is like and this is not that you know that this is not that because en embrace is Phil’s wings or Tommy’s face in your shoulder or Techno gripping your shoulders and pulling you in and you know better you know better)

a promise.

(but something isn’t right and your mind stirs and there is disquiet hesitation that even the red cannot drown out)

You wanted fire and to let it all burn down around you, and you wanted it all to end, and if you cannot have the fire again, your fire you so love, if you cannot dance victorious on the wreckage then you will have the dark.

The vines tighten. And through the red, Wilbur realizes what’s wrong.

(because here is a secret you keep locked away: you love the fire not for what it is, but for what it granted you, for the ending so desired, but the fear has never left you, the fear instilled in your veins the first time your country went up in a blaze and your people fell around you and it was no game, and here is the second secret: you fear the fire, and at the last, you decided you deserved to die afraid)

(it all comes down to deserving)

It’s difficult to think. Difficult to wade through the red haze, but this—this is important, because the Egg is going—is going to give him what he wants, so why does it—it’s supposed to understand him, so why—

(it all comes down to deserving, and what he thinks he deserves, and the Egg is in his head, and what is the Egg drawing from if not his own thoughts, but the thing about his thoughts is that they might be)

“That’s not what I wanted,” he whispers. “It’s not what I want.”

The Egg presses in further, and he can feel it in his head, pulling at his thoughts, at his emotions, telling him that he is wrong, that this is what he wants, but he stands his ground, because—his head’s a mess, but he—he doesn’t—

(Phil’s voice again, careful and sad and gentle and kind, because for all his father’s faults he has never doubted that he loves him, and Phil’s voice says, remember that you do deserve better things, and there’s an implication in there that Phil thinks that what he believes he deserves is wrong, and he hasn’t really had time to think that over, but)

The vine tightens around his throat. The thorns dig into his skin. Not breaking it, not yet.

“You’re offering me what I think I deserve,” he says, and it’s like coming up for air, if only for a moment, and finding that the sky is still blue. For a second, he exists outside of himself, outside of the hooks the Egg has dug into him, and he can experience its presence for the horror that it is. And then the red takes him again, and he’s drowning, suffocating, his lungs full of syrup, and the Egg is unhappy, and part of him wants to grovel and apologize and do anything to be sure that he receives his due, and the Egg speaks again and rakes its voice across his body, and he shudders violently.

Then what is it that you think you want? it asks, and it is angry and it is patronizing, and it is pushing up against him, twisting him, forcing him to agree with it, to believe its words, and half of him does and the other half comes up for air again, bobbing in the open ocean, sharks circling, and that gives him just enough room to consider the question, to truly consider it.

What does he want?

(freedom, once, freedom and choice and a place to call his, a place where he and his loved ones would be safe, and he built the walls as both practicality and symbol, and he wanted to protect, wanted to lead, wanted a land that was good and a land that was free)

If he could have anything, anything at all, what would he—

You want rest, the Egg hisses, and you know it, know that you are the villain and you deserve death, and you want rest and you want peace, to be released from this world that is cruel and corrupt and full of darkness, to be released from your responsibilities, you want rest and I will give it to you—

Yes, perhaps, but

(Tommy smiles at him with sunlight in his hair and in his eyes and Tubbo grins sharp and sure and Fundy is with him and no longer regards him with hatred and Techno has a book in his hand and his voices are quiet and Phil stares on and his posture is straight and not bent with guilt and with pain)

(and he is with them, and he has so far to go, but he is happy)

(and if he puts all of himself aside, puts aside his self-loathing and his fears, puts aside all the harm he knows he has done and all of the punishment he knows he still deserves, then that is what he’s always wanted, isn’t it? his family with him, the days stretching on, and here is a realization, breaking like the dawn itself: he hasn’t ever thought that he deserves to be happy, but he wants it, he wants it, he wants it, just as he wants to be a better man, he wants to be happy again, he wants, even if he doesn’t deserve he wants)

he has always wanted rest. Since coming back, he has wanted rest. But he is still here.

He decided to be better, and perhaps he’s not doing a very good job of it in any sense of the word, but he decided, and he’s sticking to it, and that is what he wants. More than death, he wants another chance.

He wants to stay. Not only for other people, but for himself, too. He wants to stay, and he wants to stay more than he wants to die.

Admitting as much lifts a weight from his chest, one that he hadn’t known was there at all.

Then I shall give you that, as well, the Egg says, and for the first time, he hears it: desperation. Slowly, surely, the red begins to clear, leaving him with shaking limbs and a headache that makes it difficult to focus, but the Egg’s voice is no longer so welcoming, the red no longer so appealing, and he hurts, and he hears Tommy’s broken protests, Tubbo’s sobs, Fundy’s whimpering, he can hear them, and they tug at his heartstrings where only a moment before, he ignored them, so sure of his course as he was, so sure of his course as it made him.

He’s pulled himself out. He pulled himself out, and he did it himself, with shaking, bloody fingers, and he hasn’t climbed back over the top of the cliff yet, but he’s hanging on. He’s hanging on. He’s stopped his fall.

(and he doesn’t know what healing is doesn’t know what it is to be better but perhaps here, now, he can admit to himself that being better includes being better to himself, too, and he has never allowed himself to think as much before but perhaps it is truth, and perhaps he can let himself hope, and what a time it is to finally come to this conclusion but something of truth rings in it and he knows that this is right)

They will be happy, the Egg says, and they will be alive, and I will keep them safe, and you will be happy as well, and you will have what you desire.

The words are like hands, pulling on him. But he can recognize as much. Recognize the sensation, slimy and insidious, of something else trying to change his thoughts, trying to reach in and change him. The ground beneath his feet feels more stable now, his footing found at last. He almost let himself slip. Almost, but he’s found footholds, handholds, and he did it himself, and that feels important.

“You and Dream are the same,” he murmurs, and he can feel it paying attention, feel it wanting to know what he’s about to say. And beyond it, somewhere further away, he thinks he can still sense Dream looking, too, Dream watching him, listening to them. “You’re always so eager to talk. So certain that you’re right. But you’re too prideful, and that’s the end of you.” He summons his best glare. Plants his feet. Playing his hand like this is not wise, but somehow, he knows that the Egg will let him finish, will let him get to the end of his speech before trying anything. It wants to know. Even now, it is prideful, sure it can contain him, that he will not be able to harm it. “Even knowing what my plan was, you let me get close. You assumed you could overwhelm me. You thought I’d be yours. And for a minute, you did. I was. But do you want to know what your biggest mistake was?”

The vine around his neck tightens.

“Even when you knew you were losing me, you still let me talk,” he finishes, and in one movement, drops the sword into his hand

(and he can hear the universe again, can hear it humming, vibrating against his skin, and he burns with it)

and slices through the vine before it can strangle him. In the next second, he drives it forward, putting all his weight behind it, and shoves it into the Egg.

It slides in like a knife through butter, and several things happen at once.

Behind him: chaos. Chaos that he can only hear and not see, but several people shout, and then Jack Manifold cries out, and there is another clash of metal, and then Tommy shouts, not in pain but rather a loud, wordless denial, and there is a great cracking sound, like the air tearing itself apart, and the golden flash reflects off even the Egg’s surface, and the room crackles like ozone, like a bend in reality, and it is the activation of a totem, and he can only hope that it will be enough.

And the Egg screams.

It is like a thousand voices crying out in a thousand discordant notes, like several hundred orchestras all out of tune in different ways, like a shriek of violins and a moan of tubas and the drums stutter and falter and tap out infinitely different rhythms until it’s all a clanging, howling mess of static and white noise and still, something screaming, something old and powerful and terrible in its death throes.

He screams too, he thinks. He can’t hear himself anymore. Can barely feel himself, though he tries to tighten his fingers on the hilt of the sword.

At the edge of his perception, the universe encroaches. Humming, humming, and for a second, they harmonize with him, and in that second, the universe says,

(you did well, and now look, look upon your adversary and know what they are, know the darkness and the corruption and the rot and the sickness)

And he does look, and he sees

(the Egg indeed is not an Egg and for this second, for this one moment in time and out of time, he sees it for what it is, something incomprehensible, something existing against all the laws of the world, all things natural, a blight, a bug, a twist in the code that makes up all things, a virus, and even despite that, it was not done growing, not done gathering strength, and one more sacrifice would have done it, glutted as it was on Dream’s shared power and the blood of the Blood God, one more meal would have done it, and he was close to being that meal, inches away from dying and giving it what it needed to hatch, and perhaps it would have kept its promise, perhaps it would have allowed his loved ones to live, but it would have been no life, no life at all, under the control of a thing that at its core sought to devour worlds)

But the universe says,

(but it is well, it is well, for your strength was enough and you are stronger than you know, and you are worthy and you have come to the beginnings of understanding, and you realize now that you are deserving of the world, that you deserve to live, and you want to live and to make yourself better, and you are deserving of time, and we are with you, and you are not alone, and you have freedom now to make it all right)

A million stars twinkle in his vision, and then, he comes back to himself. There is no more screaming. No more whispering. His head is quiet.

He still holds the sword. But the Egg itself is shriveling, blackening, twisting, collapsing in on itself, and as he watches, it and all its vines become husks, dark and small. He draws the sword out, and the area around it crumbles to dust.

It seems so small. So small, so impotent. But it is a corpse now, he supposes, so that is only right. Relief floods him.

It’s over. At last, it is over. The Egg is gone.

The sword no longer shimmers, no longer shines. The runes are only shapes, now, not glowing, not humming. It has served its purpose; it’s just a sword, now, like any other sword, and he’s tired of holding swords. He never was much good with them anyway. So he puts it back in his inventory, and turns

(and as he does, he catches a glimpse of something in the husk, in the shriveled shell, something impossibly blue, but that can wait)

around, and in that motion, his heart stops beating.

Only for a moment before it starts up again, but its rhythm is stuttering, weak, too quick and too slow by turns. He wonders if that’s something he should be concerned about. He feels no pain, though his body seems rather numb, now that he’s thinking about it. What’s important now, though, is the scene in front of him, because they’re all alive. All of them, alive. Tommy is hugging Tubbo, tightly, like he thinks he’ll disappear, and Tubbo himself glitters with gold, shimmering all around him. He had to use the totem, then.

He tries not to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t thrown it behind him. He’s pretty sure that he was trying to give them a failsafe, even under the Egg’s thrall as he was, but he can’t be sure. Can’t trust his memories of only a few minutes ago, probably.

Niki and Jack are both on the ground, surrounded with dust from the crumbling vines. Their eyes are closed, but their chests rise and fall. They’ll be fine, then, and relief mixes with sorrow; they’re not under the Egg’s control any longer, but he knows better than to think that means all is fixed. Fundy has staggered to his feet, is hovering by Tommy and Tubbo, face still tear-stained.

But he’s fine. He’s okay. They’re all okay.

He lets out a breath, and takes a step forward. It’s more difficult than it should be. Pain flares in his—flares everywhere, actually, his abdomen and chest and limbs, and his head is still killing him, though that much, at least, doesn’t surprise him. But then, it dies down, replaced by the numbness again.

Tommy pulls back from Tubbo. “You ever do something like that again, I’m killing you myself, Tubbo, fuck,” he says, and Tubbo laughs, a little tearfully. And then, Tommy rounds on him. “And you, what the fuck did you think you were doing? How stupid are you?”

“A bit stupid,” he agrees. The words come out slurred. He frowns, and so does Tommy. Or at least, he thinks that he frowns. He can’t feel his face. Tommy is definitely frowning, though, and then Tommy is walking toward him, or stumbling, more like, and then all three of them are.

“Are you good?” Tommy asks. “You’re making weird faces.”

“That was a good throw, with the totem,” Tubbo says, almost at the same time. Where Tommy stands right in front of him, Tubbo goes around to stand at his side, looking him up and down with narrowed eyes, narrowed eyes that flicker with golden light. He’ll crash once the magic burns itself out, though it shouldn’t be nearly as bad as what Techno went through. He keeps rolling his shoulder, flexing his arm, as if shaking out a wound that is no longer there. “Saved my skin, there. But man, that was a risky play.”

“I can’t believe it worked,” Fundy says quietly. “I thought the Egg could read thoughts. I mean, I felt it in my head, man. It was awful. But how come it didn’t know you were pretending?”

“Pretty sure he wasn’t pretending,” Tommy says, and—he wishes he didn’t say that, because now still doesn’t feel like the time to talk to Fundy about any of this, even though he probably should, at one point, because if he’s going to be a better father, he ought to start by telling him things that he wants to know, despite the part of him that still screams to shelter him, screams that he’s not ready to learn about such terrible things, but—he’s grown. Fundy is grown. He needs to work on keeping that in mind.

“I just can’t believe it’s over,” Tommy continues. “Just like that? After the days we’ve had? Feels anti-climatic—”

“Anti-climactic,” Tubbo supplies.

“Oh, piss off. Anti-whatever, it feels all sudden, doesn’t it? Though I suppose there’s still Dream.” Tommy’s face darkens. “Guess we need to go see about everyone else.”

“Uh, Wilbur?” Fundy breaks in, hesitant, but not angry. Not too upset. Perhaps concerned? Is Fundy concerned for him? “Your, um, your nose is bleeding.”

Tommy and Tubbo go silent, and he blinks. Is it? He can’t feel it, can’t feel any blood dripping down, but he can’t seem to move his arm to check. He can’t seem to move anything, actually, and when he opens his mouth, intending to say something—though what, he has no idea—he finds his airway obstructed by something. He coughs, and their faces all go very alarmed.

“Oh, shit, he’s bleeding from his mouth,” Tubbo says, and at the same time, Tommy steps in closer, right up against him, and grabs his shoulders, peering into his face.

“Wil?” he says, and Wilbur would try to respond, he really would, but Tommy’s touch has chased away the numbness, starting at the points of contact and radiating outward and in its wake is—is too much, too much to think about, too much to describe, too much to handle, and he’s been stabbed and he’s been shot and none of that felt anything like this, because this feels like lava’s been poured down his throat and he’s burning alive from this inside out, and his lungs are having severe difficulty inhaling, and his chest is tight and he can’t feel his heartbeat so he thinks that maybe—

“Get him on the ground, get him down, get him down, oh, fuck—”

The world tips, and he’s lying down. The ceiling above is red, and dust drifts into his eyes. Dust from the vine husks, breaking apart as he watches them, crumbling into nothingness. It’s like watching ash fall. Like watching soot fall.

His chest constricts further, and he gasps for air. Air that doesn’t come. Air that doesn’t come, because, because—

They’re all talking over each other. He can barely follow the conversation. Dimly, he realizes that he’s quite panicked, though that fact itself has taken a backseat to the fact that he can’t breathe properly. Can’t breathe properly, because—

He thinks he might be dying, actually. He’d forgotten, how the Egg strikes back at those who strike it. He’d forgotten. He wonders if the universe did, too.

The vines aren’t burning, so there’s no ash falling. Not really. But there would be a twisted kind of poetry in it if they were, if it was flakes of soot tumbling down. Soot falling.

Soot falling.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #tubbo #fundy #purpled #nihachu #jack manifold #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #*jazz hands*

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sunnypogue · 4 years

Text

hockey!jj: the origin story (feat. hockey!rafe)

rafe isn’t the only obx boy that plays hockey.

a couple weeks ago, @oopmyheartwent-obx & i created hockey!jj - loosely based on rat king/elite shit-talker, travis konecny.

this is his origin story.

(major, MAJOR shout out to my lady @oopmyheartwent-obx for compiling all of our insane notes, creating a google doc & carrying the team on her back for this lil headcanon - we’ll be posting additional hockey!jj/coho!rafe stuff to both blogs, so keep an eye out for a masterlist in the near future!)

warnings: cursing, fighting.

It started when JJ was nine

John B had come sprinting home to the chateau, an hour after he normally got home from school, two hockey sticks tucked under his arm

“Look what I found! Lost and found!”

The boys immediately took to the street, swinging them around like maniacs, trying to hit an old tennis ball as far as they could

JJ had a particularly hard shot - he nailed a car, denting the door

Needless to say, he was hooked.

JJ became a bit notorious for terrorizing the streets of the outer banks, playing street hockey from sunup to sun down, recruiting anyone and everyone to play

Most of the kids on the cut didn’t get hockey, considering it a kook sport & opting to spend their summers surfing instead

Why play a game on ice when they lived on the beach?

So JJ found himself (begrudgingly) playing with kooks, taking solace in the fact that he was significantly better than most of them

Blatantly ignoring the fact that most of them were more focused on lacrosse anyway

And that’s how Ward Cameron found him

Rafe also played hockey, had been playing for several years in a travel league, and he was pretty good despite constantly carrying the weight of his dad’s expectations

Rafe and JJ rarely crossed paths - Rafe was vocally “above street hockey,” opting to travel to the mainland for his reserved ice time (along with his regular team practices)

JJ was better though - it was like hockey came naturally to him, and Ward saw the opportunity to capitalize on his skill

JJ was wary at first - because what the fuck did Ward Cameron want to do with a 10 year old pogue like himself?

But then Ward promised him an opportunity to play actual ice hockey - and how could JJ say no?

An escape from his shitty home life and the opportunity to finally play with some talent sounded like heaven to young JJ

Ward took JJ under his wing

Signed him up for the local team, bought him skates, new gear, and made sure he was able to be at every practice

Made sure he had the tutors and the resources necessary to clean up his grades for future college possibilities

JJ was immediately recognized as “raw talent” - he lasted on the peewee squad for exactly one week, before being moved up to the travel bantam team, making him the lone 10 year old on a U14 team

Which also meant he was teammates with Rafe

Carpool buddies!

Rafe simultaneously loved and hated it. It took some of the pressure off of him as his dad’s attention shifted

But he also craved his dad’s attention and approval - which he was no longer getting with JJ in the picture

Conversation at the Cameron dinner table often consisted of “JJ’s latest achievement on the ice,” with Ward rattling off stats like a rinkside reporter.

“He’s leading the team in points, despite missing two games - I think the next kid is like, 13 points behind him.”

Rafe would roll his eyes, stabbing at whatever vegetable was left on his plate, “I’m the next kid, dad.”

He wanted to make the point that he was a defender and JJ was a forward, but he knew his dad wouldn’t care.

He was right.

Ward would wave a dismissive hand, continuing his praise for JJ

“Kid’s so chippy, makes up for his huge size disadvantage”

This one especially hurt Rafe, who was one of the biggest guys on the team

“I’ve never seen anything like his playmaking ability, no one else on the team even comes close to his vision”

Ward essentially became JJ’s foster-hockey dad, convinced this scrawny kid from the cut would Make It Big

JJ never had to pay a dime - travel & league fees completely covered, the latest gear waiting for him in the Cameron’s foyer before practice (after JJ would bike 8 miles from the cut before sunrise to make it on time for carpool)

When recruits started knocking? Ward was advocating for JJ (a sophomore), meeting with coaches from UND, Wisconsin, BU, BC - the big ones.

Ward helped him put together highlight footage - “It’s like a portfolio, son, so they can see what you can really do.”

Fielding calls from NTDP (which JJ was wary about, because...leaving the outer banks? In the middle of high school? - terrifying.)

Meanwhile, Rafe (a senior) was attempting to lock down his SINGULAR offer from Huntsville, and trying (but failing) to swallow any jealousy/animosity he had towards JJ and his dad.

Of course, JJ and Rafe’s teammates were Very Aware of the weird dynamic the OBX boys had - they would occasionally chirp JJ for his “sugar daddy,” chirp Rafe about playing with his “stepbrother”

Rafe & JJ would go along with it, internalizing any frustration, offering up some half assed comebacks in response

They both wanted out of the outer banks, if keeping their heads down and getting along was the way to do it - so be it.

But you know - boys.

One practice - late June, days before Rafe was supposed to head down to Huntsville to report for summer conditioning - one of their teammates made a particularly nasty comment

Spouting something about Rafe leaving, meaning Ward was finally able to put all of his time into his actual prodigal son: JJ.

Rafe saw red - he was on top of the guy in a matter of seconds, shoving him to the ice as he tried to rip his helmet off

All the years of frustration, of feeling second best in his own dad’s eyes, surged forward, and Rafe couldn’t stop it

JJ was the first to the scrap, trying to pull Rafe off of their teammate before any real physical damage could be done, yelling at him to “calm the fuck down!”

Rafe knew getting the reputation of the hothead who’d fight his teammates looked bad to the coaches, but he didn’t want to hear it - especially from JJ, who’d essentially ruined his life

Rafe shook him off - “Don’t fucking touch me, you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me, still playing street hockey with your dirty pogue friends on the cut.”

JJ flew back, face bright red from Rafe’s sharp comment - he fired back before he could think - “Whatever, you fucking loser. Have fun slumming it in Huntsville.”

Rafe glanced up, gritting his teeth as he chucked his glove in JJ’s direction, before skating towards him and shoving him over with his stick. He towered over JJ, sweaty hair dangling onto his forehead as he hissed - “Keep trying to pretend to be someone you’re not - we all know you don’t belong here.”

Rafe threw his other glove at him, nailing JJ in the chest, before standing up straight, slicking his hair back with one hand -

“Fucking leech.”

#jj maybank #rafe cameron #outer banks #obx #outer banks fic #jj maybank fic #rafe cameron fic #drew starkey #rudy pankow #outer banks imagine #coho!rafe #hockey!jj #hockey!rafe #obx fic

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missluthorwillseeyounow · 4 years

Text

Part II Wed By Candlelight (The Portrait of the Secret Bride)

Supercorp The Corpse Bride AU

Kara’s dreams that night are turbulent. She could attribute it to the fact that she’d had to endure dinner with Mon-El’s mother, but it’s far worse than any nightmare even Rhea could induce.

She dreams of her lady’s brother, returning home the prodigal son. But she knows of the atrocities Lex Luthor is said to have committed, of the wife and child he had left dead in his wake -- and Kara doesn’t want him anywhere near her lady. She can see the war Lena wages between her good judgment and her good heart, can see her vacillating between her love for her brother and her own instincts.

But Kara, who has no such attachment to him, sees how he brings nothing but discord and chaos into their lives. And she’s right.

Over dinner, he announces his plan to restore the Luthor name and fortune -- by promising Lena in marriage to his new business associate, a man named Morgan Edge.

It’s the first time she’s ever seen her lady truly angry. Lena’s fury emanates from her lithe frame in cold waves as she stands from the dinner table, straight-backed and proud, facing Lex with glacial eyes that burn with pent-up rage, before she throws her glass of wine in his face.

The second they’re locked in her room, Lena grasps Kara’s arms with desperate fingers. “We need to leave.”

“Lena--”

“I can’t stay here, Kara. Not like this. Not when he intends to shackle me to a man like Morgan Edge. I met him once, and that was enough. He’s a despicable cockroach of a man. I cannot stay here and marry him, Kara. I will not.”

Kara hears the steel in her lady’s voice, and loves her for it. She opens her arms and Lena melts into her, lips touching her throat, soft words murmured against her skin. “I won’t marry anyone but you.”

Kara huffs a small laugh against Lena’s hair. “Somehow I don’t think the Bishop will approve of that.”

“I don’t care. Hang the Bishop.” Lena smiles when Kara laughs again. She pulls away slightly, just enough for Kara to see the brilliant clarity in her eyes. “And hang the Luthors. Let them rot in this miserable place. We’ll leave them here. You and I can go somewhere we can be together.”

Kara’s heart pounds like a drum, and she takes one of Lena’s hands in hers. “You’d leave your family to be with me?”

“In a heartbeat.”

Joy bubbles up in Kara’s chest, almost dispelling the heaviness that had settled there since hearing of Lex’s plans. “We could go to Kandor. My cousin lives there with his wife, they might have a place for us.”

Lena rests her temple against Kara’s, her lips brushing softly against her hair. “As long as I’m with you.”

Kara sighs, and the two of them stay that way for a long moment. It feels as if they are standing at a precipice, with the threat of Lena’s family surrounding them and the terrifying exhilaration of the unknown before them, freedom just within reach.

“I’ll leave for Kandor at dawn, to make sure Kal can make a place for us.” Kara brings Lena’s hand up to her lips, pressing a kiss to her fingers in lieu of a ring. “I will come back for you, I promise.”

And Kara somehow, somehow, knows that this is the last night she will spend with Lena.

The dream shifts, and Kara finds herself in the dark of night, the wind whipping across her face. The horse she is riding on snorts in exertion as she urges the animal as fast as it can go.

There’s a fierce desperation in the way she grips the reins. She doesn’t know where she’s going, all she knows is that it’s a matter of life and death that she get there in time.

There’s a wound on her side that burns, but she just presses on it and keeps riding. Bruises have bloomed over her knuckles. Blood dripping from her eyebrow and an accompanying wave of dizziness tells her that she also has a head wound, but she grits her teeth and forces herself to stay on her seat. Nothing is more important than getting to her destination.

“Kara, we have to stop.” A man appears in her field of vision, riding alongside her. Something in her recognizes him as Kal, her cousin. “You’re bleeding too much.”

“No!” She protests violently, her voice breaking in the whipping wind “If Lex’s men found us, that means Lex knows that Lena and I were planning to run away. He’s going after her, Kal. We have to get to her first!”

She leans forward, urging her horse faster still.

Only, she never gets to her destination, because the dream shifts again, and this time, instead of a mount, Kara finds herself sitting at a desk, in a small, unfamiliar room.

Beside her, Kal’s son, Jon is sleeping peacefully in his cradle. On the table, at her elbow, is a solitary candle, its flickering flame casting a familiar thin light on Kara’s bowed form.

“Lena.” Her voice is little more than a whispered sob. The candlelight brings back too many bittersweet memories that make Kara’s heart ache and crumble, as if it’s dying a living death inside the cavity of her chest. “Lena…”

Kara swallows back a sob and wipes away the tears that blur her vision. She’s worked with less light before, she reminds herself, as she bends over the small locket, painstakingly recording every detail she can remember. She works ceaselessly and without the need for sleep, as if it were possible to bring her lady back to life with each brush stroke.

She knows -- She knows it’s impossible to bring her back. She knows it’s impossible to capture the warmth of her smile or the soft steel of her voice in a miniature portrait, she knows, but each brush stroke feels like a penance, a way to keep her alive.

When she’s finished, Kara seals it within the necklace. A secret only she knows.

This time, Kara all but forces herself awake.

She scrambles out of bed, nearly waking Mon-El in her haste. The floor is cold under her bare feet, but she doesn’t care. She scurries out of the room and down to the foyer where she’d left her coat.

Her hand plunges into the coat pocket and she triumphantly fishes out the antique necklace her mother had left her.

The exact same necklace in her dream.

Quickly, she retrieves a knife from the kitchen and pries it open as carefully as she can. It’s a painstaking process, trying not to damage a two hundred year old piece of jewelry, but finally, Kara’s efforts pay off.

The necklace opens to reveal the portrait Kara had seen in her dream -- a faithful likeness of Lena Luthor in miniature.

For the first time, it occurs to Kara that this is the only time she’s seen Lena outside of her dreams and their encounters. This solitary portrait is proof that Lena had lived. That she had been loved.

Kara’s breath leaves her in a rush, as she slowly realizes what this is.

A lover’s final gift, her penance, handed down her family for generations, from one bride to another, with the secret bride who never was inside.

She doesn’t quite know how she feels. It’s a lot to process, and it’s truthfully been a mad whirlwind of the past few days that barely seems real. She looks down at the locket in her hand. Lena’s face smiles up at her, the painting so devotedly true to her likeness, it almost feels like she’s alive.

Well, Kara thinks. If she’s doing this, she might as well go all in. They say every bride goes crazy before the wedding, after all.

Before she can talk herself out of it, Kara grabs her coat and shoves her feet into her boots. She spares a few seconds to root around for a flashlight in the hallway closet before setting out the door.

The air is chilly as she hurries along the familiar overgrown path. Somehow it’s less tranquil and more scary walking along the trail in the middle of the night, with the wind rustling through the trees and insects chirping. The serenity she’d felt before is gone in the oppressive darkness. In the night, everything seems much more ominous, formless shadows flitting around her, the night sounds loud in her ears. The leaves crunching under her feet feel more ominous than comforting now, and Kara finds herself jumping at every sound.

She draws her coat tighter around herself as she nears the graveyard, her flashlight illuminating a narrow beam of light that plays menacingly over the tombstones.

“Lena? Are you there?”

Kara’s voice is a tentative whisper, and she feels stupid. It’s cold, it’s the middle of the night, and she’s in a graveyard, looking for a ghost. Her steps falter, and she sighs, rubbing her arms to stave off the cold. Maybe it’s time to go home.

She turns to leave, but a familiar voice wisps in the wind behind her, making her shiver.

“You came.”

Kara whirls around to see Lena’s pale form behind her. The eerie silver radiance of her skin in the darkness makes her look otherworldly. But the dark red stains on the white of her red seem unnervingly real. Like Kara could touch the mortal wound on her abdomen and still feel the pulsing of blood within.

It reminds Kara of why she’s here.

Her fingers close around the locket around her neck, and she steps forward, closer to Lena. “I did. I… I think I can help you, Lena. I think I know what happened all those years ago.”

“What?” Lena’s voice is thin and hesitant, as though she can scarcely believe Kara’s words. “How--?”

“I see it. In my head, in my dreams every night. I see you and Kara. I’ve seen the love you had for each other, and I’ve seen -- so many things, but I need your help. I don’t have the whole story, there’s a side of it that’s missing, and it’s you.”

“I - I don’t understand, Kara.”

“What do you remember from the night you died?”

“I - I don’t… I don’t remember. So much of it is a fog in my mind...” Lena turns away from Kara, her hands flying to her temples. “It’s been so long. I’ve been waiting so long…”

Kara clutches the locket around her neck. “You have to remember. Please, Lena, remember. Because I have pieces of the puzzle, but you have the key to it. Try, please…. Look, you said you were waiting for Kara. But were you alone?”

“I… I think so. I’ve been alone for so long…”

“What about that night? That night you died?” Kara presses on, her hands coming up, wanting to take Lena’s arms, but she knows that there’s no body there to touch, so she lowers her hand. “You said the place where you were waiting wasn’t a graveyard then. What was it?”

“I - no, it wasn’t, I --” Lena’s voice is becoming higher, panicked and confused. Her beautiful face is lost and frightened. “I don’t know!”

Kara knows she’s pushing too far, and her instinct to comfort and soothe comes to the fore. She reaches out to touch Lena, and before she can remember that Lena is dead -- has been dead for two hundred years -- her hand comes up to touch her shoulder.

She touches nothing, but for a second -- less than a heartbeat -- her fingers meet resistance at the curve of Lena’s shoulder when there should only be empty air.

In that instant, everything changes. A shock comes through the end of Kara’s fingertips, and all at once everything turns white.

As the light blinds her, Kara hears voices in her ear. “Lex is watching, and the trip to Kandor is five days long. I can’t risk you leaving until I know there’s a safe place for us there. I promise you, Lena, I will come back for you.”

An unfamiliar voice. This time, a woman’s. “Lex has informed me that Morgan Edge is arriving tomorrow. This wedding must proceed smoothly, Lena. This is what you and I have been working for your whole life. What have I always told you? Everything I do, I do for you and our family…. We are so close, my dear. Everything we have lost will be restored to us. The Luthor name shall be revered once more, and we can become a family again.”

When the blinding light fades, Kara finds herself in the same old room in Luthor Manor where she and Lena slept. Except the sanctity of the tiny dark room has been violated by another.

Lena is dressed in immaculate white lace, flowers at her breast and in her hair. She looks beautiful and terrible at the same time.

Lex has her by the arm, his face a cold snarl above her as he holds up one of the wine glasses from the dinner table. His hand is wrapped around Lena’s forearm, and Kara rushes forward to rip him off of her, but there’s no use. Her hand passes through Lex, and he continues to sneer menacingly at Lena.

“You’ve never been poisoned before, have you, little sister? Well, I have. Arsenic has a very mild odor.” He holds up the glass to her face before throwing it across the room. Lena stiffens, but she doesn’t flinch. “Usually, one would never recognize it, but I know because my bitch of a wife put it in my drink the night she left me, sneaking off like a frightened little rat, just like you were planning to.”

Lex bares his teeth. “You women, you’re all fools. None more than you, baby sister. You couldn’t even think of a different plan.”

“I did.”

Lena’s free hand subtly disappears within the folds of her dress. As Kara watches, she silently withdraws a knife hidden within her dress and swiftly stabs it into Lex’s side. Lex yells in pain and his eyes widen as Lena twists the handle and pulls the knife out for good measure.

Lex groans as Lena pushes him off of her and leaves him lying on the ground. She gives him one last look, her eyes full of pain and cold anger. “Good bye, Lex.”

Without another backwards glance, Lena draws her cloak around her shoulders and all but flies to the stables. Her horse is there, ready and saddled, and she rides swiftly away from Luthor Manor.

Kara recognizes the path she takes. It’s the same path she’s taken away from the Inze house, the one that leads to the graveyard, and at once, her stomach is filled with dread. She wants to scream at Lena to take a different road, but Lena can’t hear her.

The dread worsens into full panic when she hears hoof beats growing louder and louder near them. She sees the same terror in Lena’s eyes when another horse cuts her path, and the mare she’s riding on rears up in fright.

“Lena!” Kara screams as Lena is thrown off the horse, her head hitting the ground hard. But Lena can’t hear her. She moans feebly on the ground, the back of her head covered in blood. She hangs onto her consciousness, and Kara watches fearfully as Lena tries valiantly to get up.

Behind her, Lex dismounts from his horse, his entire right side blooming red with blood from Lena’s knife. He advances toward her, hand on his side, and Lena stumbles, pulling herself away from him on her arms.

Kara frantically tries what she can to help, even though she knows it’s useless. Her hands can’t pull Lena up or beat Lex away as he drops onto one knee beside her struggling form. A glint of a blade is the only warning Kara gets before the blade Lena had used to stab Lex drives into her body now, and all of Lena’s breath comes out in a choked scream.

“You couldn’t just do what I asked, could you, Lena? Everything would have been perfect, little sister. Our fortunes restored, the Luthor name once again redeemed and exalted, and you would have been set for life.” Lex hisses in her face, flecks of his blood spitting from his mouth to her cheek. “But you had to go and spread your legs for some servant girl like a filthy whore!”

Lena closes her eyes, tears trickling down her face, and Lex laughs mirthlessly at her, voice lowering to a dangerous mutter.

“And where is she now, Lena? Where is your faithful Kara? She never came back for you, did she? You’re about to die, little sister. You’re going to bleed out in this godforsaken road, and she’s not here. You’re all alone.”

Kara screams at him, beats her ineffectual fists at him as he struggles to his feet, away from Lena, dropping her body on the side of the road. Kara drops to her knees beside her fading form, frantically trying to place her hands on her abdomen, as if she could close the wound herself. “Lena…. Lena….”

Her hands can do nothing. Unlike before, there is no resistance when she tries to touch Lena, her hands simply grasp thin air, even though the jagged wound on Lena’s stomach is terrifyingly real. Lena chokes on blood and air, and she can’t see Kara’s pleading face as she mouths her last word.

“Kara…”

All at once, the light blinds Kara again, and she’s wrenched away from Lena. She screams and tries to reach out, but to no avail.

When the light fades, she finds herself in the woods again, this time astride a horse, with Kal by her side.

She spies the limping form of Lex Luthor between the trees, blood trailing behind him, and she feels white-hot rage surge through her veins. She dismounts from her horse and lunges at him, dragging his broken body forward.

“Kara!” Kal’s voice tries to stop her, but Kara is beyond all reason.

She fists her hands into his bloodied collar and shakes him. “Where’s Lena??”

Vaguely, Kara realizes that she’s no longer seeing Lena’s memories, but Kara’s. The realization is lost when Lex laughs, and she wants to tear the smile from his face.

“You're too late.” Lex sneers, blood and spittle flying from his mouth, his face contorted in a terrible smile. “She’s dead.”

Kara finally screams her rage in his face. “You’re lying!! Where is she??!”

Lex doesn’t answer, just laughs and laughs. She wants to kill him, she could so easily finish the job, but she has to find Lena first.

She leaves Lex with Kal, and follows the trail of blood, her stomach turning and her heart pounding in her throat. From a distance, Kara can see where the trail ends, to a pool of blood and a lifeless figure dressed in white.

She screams. And screams.

It feels never-ending.

Everything shifts again, and Kara weeps against it, wanting this to end.

It doesn’t.

When everything rights itself again, Kara is standing in front of the old Luthor Manor. It’s in terrible condition, the west wing has caved in. Its shutters are broken and its windows empty. Like the family it served, it is dead now.

“There’s nothing left here, Kara.” Kal tells her “We should go. There’s nothing for you here.”

Kara shakes her head, resolute. “Not yet. I have a promise to keep.”

Their room is in disrepair. The bed they shared their love on is lifeless and broken, just like her lady. Kara grips the dusty sheets, tears slipping silently down her face. She would howl her grief out if she could. If she could, she would scream and yell and rage for the woman she loved and lost.

But she can’t. Her grief is too far beyond that.

So instead she drops the sheets and bends down to retrieve her oils and paints from their hiding spot in the floor. Nothing else in this room is retrievable, but this -- the last gift Lena gave to her -- is sacred.

That night, with great effort, she lifts the brush again. She can’t paint Lena’s face anymore. It hurts too much. That wound will never heal, but she can seal it within the necklace and place it above her heart.

Instead, Kara paints everything and anything else. She lets the brushes guide her, instead of her guiding them.

For a long time, she paints only in blacks of night and reds of blood and browns of earth covering the dead. She paints in slashes and heavy strokes that demand the weight of grief.

Sometimes the brush becomes too heavy in her hand, and she yearns to put it down, but Kara made a promise, and she is the only one left to keep it for -- herself, and the memory of a dead girl -- so she persists.

And then one day, baby Jon comes toddling into her room, burbling nonsensically around the fist in his mouth.

He waddles unsteadily toward her, tripping into her dress. She catches him with a small oof! And he laughs as a streak of paint smears his cheek. His hand splatters into her paints and he smears them over Kara too, making her chuckle.

They make a little game out of it, smearing paint all over each other, and Kara opens the brighter colors that catch his eye. Soon, both Kara and baby are smeared with greens and yellows and blues and pinks. She opens the colors that had been Lena’s favorites, and she lets Jon smear them onto her face.

She’s just teaching the baby how to mix paints to get orange when Lois catches them red-handed in the middle of their mess.

But instead of scolding them, Lois sees the first smile Kara has cracked in months and she shakes her head at both of them, chuckling, and marches them both off to get a bath.

And so Kara heals.

Slowly, and in small steps forward and many falls backward. But she learns to live again. She learns to build her life around the cavern in her heart.

Lois gives one of her paintings to her sister Lucy as a gift, and it hangs in Lucy’s sitting room for a while, until one of her guests, an illustrious and irrepressible widow named Lady Grant, sees the painting and offers to purchase it from Lucy on the spot.

Lady Grant proceeds to commission an entire series of paintings from Kara, and Kara rapidly acquires more patrons who marvel at her paintings, and praise her on the depth and emotion behind her work.

“One cannot help but be moved by them, by you, Kara.” Lady Grant tells her once in a rare moment of candid compassion.

Through it all, she never forgets her promise.

When, years later, she stands underneath an arch of white flowers -- plumerias, her lady's favorite -- Lois asks what her “something borrowed” is for the wedding, Kara doesn’t answer her.

Instead, Kara silently answers the woman in the portrait, sitting hidden in the necklace above her heart.

“My heart. It will never be owned by another, merely borrowed. He may become my husband, but my heart will always, always belong to you, Lena.”

______________

“Kara… Kara, wake up.”

Kara opens her eyes to see Lena’s face hovering over hers. The ground is cold and hard underneath her, sprinkled lightly with dew. Kara blinks rapidly a few times. It’s morning now, still early if the light is anything to go by, and the first rays of the sun are just brightening the horizon.

“Kara…” Lena’s eyes are relieved as she sits up, but her voice still holds a touch of concern. Her fingers hover lightly over Kara’s shoulder, touching but not quite touching. “Are you alright?”

“Do you… Do you remember now?”

Lena looks away from her, her eyes downcast and pained. Her voice breaks on a single word “Yes, I remember. I died on this road, and Kara, she never came. I was alone.”

“No.” Kara surges forward, ducking her head to get Lena to meet her eyes. “She came back for you. She… she may have been too late, but she came back. She never forgot you, Lena, not for the rest of her life. And she never forgot her promise.”

Lena finally meets her gaze, her eyes full of sorrow and hope long held back.

“Come with me. Let me show you.”

The path feels long and full of the things Kara knows now, but she and Lena walk through it side by side. Kara wishes she could hold Lena’s hand, but she settles for letting her fingers brush the outline of Lena’s.

She takes Lena back to her ancestral home, and opens the doors for her. The morning sun is just high enough now for the light to filter beautifully through the vast windows, painting the rooms with warmth.

“She made this home for you, Lena.” Kara turns to the other woman, who finally steps through the threshold with a look of wonder in her eyes. “All those years ago, Kara promised you she would build you a house filled with light and warmth, and she did. She built it from the ruins of the house where you first shared your love, and she’s kept it for you all these years.... All the women in my family -- every daughter that passed through these halls, every bride that said their vows here, all the way down to my Mother who was married here and left this place to me -- every single one has kept it.... And it was all for you.”

Kara takes the locket on her chest and opens it to show Lena the portrait her Kara made of her. “She kept you in her heart until she was ready to give you to her daughter at her wedding day. She was never able to be with you, but don’t you see...? Every time this necklace passed from one bride in this family to the next, she gave you her vows and she kept you alive.”

A strange sense of peace washes through Kara as she leads Lena through the halls of her family’s home. Lena’s home.

Lena touches the walls of the house, the flowers adorning the staircase, with reverent hands. There are tears on her face, but she is smiling as steps into the light filtering through the windows. She closes her eyes and turns her face to the light, as if she can feel its warmth. Kara stands next to her, feeling her heart fill at the sight of Lena in the home she was promised.

“Your brother cursed you with his last words when he made you believe she would never come back. That you were all alone. He kept you bound to your sadness for so long, but Lena…. your Kara loved you so much that her love for you spanned generations. You don’t have to let his words keep you bound. You can choose to be free.”

Lena’s eyes open slowly, and as Kara watches, her face becomes radiant, awash with blinding love and emotion.

“I…… I see her. I see Kara.” Lena’s reverent voice breaks into a breathless sob. “She says she’s been waiting for me.”

Lena turns back to her one last time, tears of joy shining in her eyes, and Kara knows she will never see her again. “Thank you.”

For a long moment, Lena glows so brightly that the light blinds Kara’s eyes. By the time her eyes open, the light is gone.

And so is Lena.

Kara stands quietly in the middle of the room and takes a long inhale. The melancholia of the past few days is gone. Even the anxiety of the last few weeks seems to have fallen off her shoulders. Instead, she just feels a lightness in her whole body, and a clarity of thought she hasn’t known in a long time.

“Kara?” Alex’s voice comes from behind her, concerned, and Kara turns slowly to face her. “Are you okay?”

Kara huffs a small laugh and beams at her. “Yeah, I really am.”

Alex moves to stand beside her. She’s still in her pajamas, and there’s a quiet sort of hesitation in the way she approaches Kara, all sisterly concern.

Kara smiles warmly at her and offers her hand. Alex takes it and they both look out the vast windows.

“I can’t go through with this wedding, Alex.”

Her sister turns toward her, studying her with a protective eye. When all she sees on Kara’s face is contentment and a tranquil sense of calm, Alex nods. “I know.”

“You do?”

“I could kinda tell.” Alex shrugs and gives her a knowing look. “You’re my sister, I know you. I was just waiting for you to tell me.”

“Does Eliza know?”

“Knowing her, she probably does.”

“Well, then.” Kara inhales long and deep. “I guess the only one left to tell is Mon-El.”

“Why am I not surprised that your groom is the last to know that he’s not gonna be a groom after all?”

________

By SorrowsFlower

This was so fucking hard to write (I actually had most of it written up but it was hard to join them all up together, but it JUST WOULD NOT LEAVE ME ALONE). There is an epilogue of sorts to this, but I think y’all can probably see it coming, so I might as well not write it lol.

#supercorp #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #katie mcgrath #melissa benoist #the corpse bride #supercorp au #fanfic #my writing

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needcake · 3 years

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whumptober2021, day 10/alt. prompt 13: tragedy

This is Part II

Part I is here

Both can be read separately.

The palace was quiet when he arrived. Quiet and dark.

He went first to his room. Took off his robe, his cowl, his gloves. His shoes alone carried half of the Maghreb desert in them.

He fished his armillary sphere from his bag, polished it back to its brand-new shine with his sleeve and went back out to the corridor to try and find his family.

The journey back had made him weary. All he truly wanted was to sleep and a bath. Maybe some real food and not the morsels of meat and bread he ate on his way over from Baghdad.

He knocked on Al-Andalus’ door first. Found it locked when he tested.

Maybe they had gone on a trip. He didn’t have time to send any messages that he would be coming; he couldn’t exactly expect a welcoming party.

He went to Umayyad’s room next. His door was open, and when he pushed it ajar he had to blink at the light until his eyes readjusted. All the windows were open and there was a big fire cackling in the hearth.

“Look who decided to come back. The prodigal son returns,” his brother’s voice came, and from the shadows of the room he stepped forward with a scroll in his hands that he tossed into the fire with no emotion showing in his eyes.

Al-Gharb came closer, watched him take another scroll from Umayyad’s personal library and throw it into the fire.

“Stop. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

He threw another scroll into the fire and moved onto the manuscripts. Al-Gharb frowned at him.

“Umayyad is going to be mad at you if he finds you here destroying his library.”

Al-Andalus’ laugh was loud and empty, and it sent shudders down Al-Gharb’s spine.

“Umayyad is dead,” he said. “He died last year.” He tossed a thick volume of civil law into the fire. “But of course you didn’t know that.”

He could only stare at him. Couldn’t think of anything to say or do.

Dead. Umayyad was dead.

“I sent you a letter to tell you about it, did you even read it?” Another manuscript tossed into the fire. Another, and another, and another. “Did you even read any of the letters I sent asking you to come home?”

He remembered Al-Andalus’ letters piling and piling and piling in his bedside table. Al-Gharb’s attentions turned elsewhere.

“Did you know he lost so much weight?” Al-Andalus asked, barely concealed anger tied to every word. “That I had to watch him wither away, that goddamn cough of his.”

Another tome tossed into the fire, another and another and another.

“You weren’t here.” Al-Gharb closed his fingers around his shiny brand-new armillary sphere. “You’re never here when I need you.”

The last book was tossed into the fire and it roared in the hearth, the smell of burnt paper and leather filling up the room.

Al-Andalus bumped hard into his shoulder as he passed him on his way to the door. “Welcome home,” he spat, words soaked in venom, closing the door behind him and leaving Al-Gharb alone in a room that smelled of burnt memories.

He held his shiny golden armillary sphere in his hand and found he had no more salt to cry.

#whumptober2021 #no.10 #tragedy #altprompt #hetalia #fic #major character death #trauma #port can't catch a break #I promise when this month is over I'll post a masterlist with everything in historical order #bear with me #a wild fic appears #hws portugal #hws oc castile

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writerlola24 · 3 years

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!!!!SPOILERS INCLUDED (2x02)!!!!!!

Prodigal Son 2x03 predictions/comments

-Martin escaping...I feel like this may push Malcolm over the edge. Already he’s been dangling by a thread with his sanity, but I feel like this will be a tipping point. He’s always relied on Martin being locked up/chained up/tethered so he can’t get to Malcolm (physically at least). He’s also built his own “safe zone” with his house, aside from serial killers seeiming to find it...so if Martin finds him at home I think that would be a wall that would break. But I feel like the ACTUAL escape will happen at the end of the episode so we won’t see the fallout until 2x04.

-bullying angst... I’m not surprised Malcolm was bullied in school (having a serial killer father) but I AM surprised that his mother wouldn’t notice him missing in a closet for 3 days. Like where was she or Ainsley? Or janitorial staff for the school? It’ll be interesting to see more of Malcolms past because we know he’s got allllll the hurt. I feel like each piece adds to the puzzle that created him as a person to what he is now. HOWEVER I want to see the impact of being thrown back into that environment. I love the writers and their plot, but they really don’t address current trauma. Like Malcolms kidnapped and boom, he’s back and “ok” but not “ok” and no one seems to really be doing much to help him (anymore at least). I know that’s a example from a while ago but there are plenty more (mother slapping him, lack of trust at precinct, being the target for every “killer of the week”....

- Gil and Jessica... I feel like Jessica all dressed up is her going on a date with Gil and I bet that’ll lead to more relationship drama between them. I’m thinking along the lines of Jessica throwing money around for an expensive night out and Gil trying to show her that he is capable of taking her out without her assistance (I’m envisioning Endicotts discussion with him in season 1).

-Ainsley.... If anything I think she will have a few scenes where she’s acting stranger, maybe remembering parts of what she did. I feel like a potential major scene will be that either she will be the one Martin finds at the house or no one will be there. I’m thinking she will be there though because he will reveal things about what she did to Endicott to manipulate her to find Malcolm (assuming he doesn’t know where his son lives, which I don’t think he does)

-JT... he will either take a “leave of absence” or try to quit. After last episode I’m getting those vibes which will lead to Dani scenes of talking him into coming back. Or Malcolm talking to him..I’m thinking Dani though.

-Dani... with the Brightwell crumbs I’m thinking there will either be a few more next episode or none at all. I’m thinking it’ll be split more so it’s Gil and Malcolm dealing with the case and Dani helping JT.

-Edrisa... I know it’s far fetched, but I am HOPING there is a touching moment between Malcolm and Edrisa next episode bonding over past school troubles. I feel like in this case Edrisa may be the only one to have even an idea of what Malcolm went through with bullying. She’s been spotty with her appearances in the show, but I’m hoping this upcoming one will open a new side to their relationship.

-Malcolm... we know there’s going to be angst. I am confused though by some clips in the trailer because it looks like he visits Martin again...idk. I feel like he will try to give Martin the cold shoulder and that’s when Martin will snap and make his escape. And I feel like Malcolm will snap at a teammate this upcoming episode (honestly surprised it didn’t happen last episode the way everyone was acting towards him..) but I’m envisioning this case hitting close to home + father drama + work drama will make for an epic breakdown or fight of sorts.

#malcolm bright #prodigal son #dani powell #edrisa tanaka #jt tarmel #jessica whitly #ainsley whitly #martin whitly #gil arroyo

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set-phasers-to-whump · 3 years

Text

gunpoint

prompt: gunpoint (alt no.9)

whumpee: malcolm bright

fandom: prodigal son

hey hi hello! back with some malcolm whump :) hope you enjoy! i wrote this as pre-brightwell but you can read them however you like :)

Malcolm stands outside the suspect’s apartment building, debating over whether or not he should text someone to let them know where he is. On one hand, if he gets into trouble, they’ll know where to find him, but on the other hand, if he tells them what he’s doing they might come and stop him from doing it.

It’s quite the dilemma, one which is solved by a text arriving from Dani: what are u doing tonight?

You can’t tell anyone

Do I really want to know?

I’m at Paulsen’s apartment building

His phone rings, and he answers it quickly to avoid the noise attracting attention.

“You’re at the suspect’s apartment?”

“I’m not inside yet.” He steps into the building behind a man that’s just come in, and asks him to hold the elevator as he hurries across the lobby. “Now I am,” he tells Dani, pressing the button for the fifteenth floor.

“You’re in - Malcolm,” Dani says. “You’re inside?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t do anything too stupid. I’m coming. Give me ten minutes.”

“You really don’t have to -”

She hangs up before he can finish his sentence. The elevator reaches the fifteenth floor, doors sweeping open with a ding.

Malcolm steps out, taking a look around. This is the floor below where their suspect lives, but he’d gotten a weird feeling when they’d first come here to check the place out - apart from being the home of the suspect, the building had also been home to two of the three people who had been killed in the past five days. When they’d come asking about the murders, their suspect had been casual, unbothered, and entirely too welcoming given that two of his neighbors had just been brutally murdered.

They’d done more digging on the man, and Malcolm had completed a profile, and all evidence pointed to him having done it. But it wasn’t enough, Malcolm knew - he could tell that there was something they weren’t seeing, something missing, and he was willing to bet it was in this apartment building.

Hence why he’s here now, walking up and down the halls of the fifteenth floor, looking for something that he has no idea how to find.

Maybe something like a utility closet? he wonders, approaching a wooden door with a sign proclaiming it off-limits to tenants. It’s older than the rest of the doors on the floor, and it creaks ominously when Malcolm opens it.

There’s nothing there. A bucket. A circuit board. A water heater. A vent in the ceiling.

This seems like a room that should be kept locked, he thinks, turning on his phone’s flashlight and peering behind the water heater. A simple sign isn’t enough to keep everyone out, and he doubts building management wants people to have access to the floor’s electricity.

He heads back to the door to examine its doorknob, which does have a keyhole, as well as a chain lock on the inside. The keyhole is fairly scraped up with regular use, but the chain lock looks new. Malcolm wonders who might have a key, and who might have the motivation to install a secondary, interior, lock.

He pulls the door shut and turns back to the room, thoughts shifting away from who has access to this place? to who wants access to this place? He can’t imagine a utility person would need a chain lock, and thinks there must be a reason for it to have been installed.

Malcolm looks around, and his eyes land on the ceiling vent. It’s an average size, too small to fit a person through, but the right size for fitting smaller things through - murder weapons, for example. Among thousands of other things. But it’s an idea, anyway, so Malcolm grabs a small stepladder and places it beneath the vent, shining his flashlight up at it to get a better look.

It seems to open into the floor of a room above him, but from what Malcolm can see through the metal, it’s not another closet. In fact, he thinks, it might be an apartment. He does some mental gymnastics and works out that it’s perfectly possible for the apartment above him to belong to their suspect.

He turns on his phone to call Dani back and tell her his thoughts.

“I’m almost in the parking lot,” she says, before he has a chance to say anything. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m in a utility closet on the fifteenth floor,” Malcolm replies, “and I think I might have found something.”

“What kind of something?”

“Uhh...it might be nothing. But there’s this vent in here, and I think it might open into Paulsen’s apartment.”

“...And?”

“That’s all I’ve got,” Malcolm admits. “Maybe you can come have a look for yourself, see what you think.”

“I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

Malcolm figures it’s best to stay where he is and wait for Dani to come. While he waits, he busies himself with again looking up through the vent, standing on his tiptoes on the ladder to get a better view.

The door to the closet opens with a loud, startling squeak, and Malcolm nearly falls off the ladder. “Dani,” he says, stepping down and turning around. “You scared me.”

His eyes fall on the person in the doorway - who is definitely not Dani.

“You’re...not Dani.”

Their suspect, Paulsen, smiles. “No, I am not,” he agrees, stepping into the room and pulling the door shut behind him. He slides the chain lock closed and switches off the lights.

“Give me your phone,” he instructs Malcolm, holding out a hand in the light of the phone’s flashlight.

“Why?”

Paulsen draws a gun from his jacket, turns off the safety, and aims it at Malcolm’s chest. “Because if you don’t, I’ll shoot you.”

Malcolm complies, handing over the phone. Paulsen turns off its flashlight, then throws it to the ground, smashing it under his foot.

“Guess I have to get a new phone now,” Malcolm complains, not terribly anxious about the whole having-a-gun-pointed-at-him thing. “I might have to see about buying a stronger one, though.”

“Shut up,” Paulsen fairly growls, stepping closer to Malcolm, until Malcolm can physically feel him standing there. He imagines the gun, aimed straight at him in the dark.

“What’s the plan here?” Malcolm whispers. “Are you really going to kill me?”

The cold metal barrel of the gun presses against his forehead. “Shut. Up.”

He shuts up. He doesn’t want to get shot. Especially not in the head.

“Now listen to me,” Paulsen says, and he’s close enough that Malcolm can feel his breath on his face. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Are you here alone?”

Malcolm nods, forehead scraping against the gun.

“Good. You’re going to leave this closet. I’ll be right behind you, so don’t think about trying anything dumb, okay?”

Malcolm nods again, swallowing hard. He can’t decide whether he wishes Dani would show up now or not.

“We’re going to walk out of here, nice and easy, down the hall, to the elevator, through the lobby. Got that?”

He nods a third time, hand starting to shake. He balls it into a fist.

“Then we are going to get into my car. I’ll drive, but this gun isn’t going to go away. You even think about running, and I’ll shoot you. Is all that clear?”

Another nod. He really doesn’t want to get into a car with this guy, but he very much believes what he’s saying. Plus, it might be a good way to understand him a little more, add information to his profile for his inevitable arrest. Which will come, Malcolm knows. Hopefully it comes before he gets shot.

They step out into the hallway, Malcolm first, the gun pressed into his back, digging into the skin with every step he takes. He feels his breath start to catch in his throat, feels his hands start to shake more, and tries desperately to stop the feeling of fear coursing through him. He’ll be fine. He’ll get out of this.

They round a corner, the elevators in sight. Just then, one of them opens, and Paulsen drags Malcolm back around the corner, pressing the gun to the back of his head. Malcolm gets the message well enough and keeps his mouth shut.

Footsteps draw near, and Paulsen curses under his breath. Malcolm’s heart is pounding now, and he has this terrible feeling that something really bad is about to happen.

Paulsen pulls him backwards as the steps get closer, backing them down the hall, putting the gun again to Malcolm’s back, and kind of leaning against him, casually, as if to disguise the presence of the gun.

The person rounds the corner, and even in the dim light, Malcolm can tell it’s Dani. She’s looking at her phone, muttering to herself, but she looks up about when she’s about halfway to Malcolm, and he sees her eyes widen in surprise.

“Bright?”

The gun presses harder still into his back. “Hey, Dani, what’s up?” he calls out, aiming for casual but failing spectacularly.

“What’s going on?”

“Who is that?” Paulsen hisses into Malcolm’s ear.

“Colleague,” Malcolm replies, eyes trained on Dani, who is watching their conversation with a look of understanding on her face.

“Make her leave,” Paulsen instructs, and Malcolm imagines his finger tightening on the trigger.

“Do you think you could maybe turn around?” he asks, trying to ignore the slight shaking of his own voice. “Just leave. Get back to the elevator, down to the lobby…”

Dani shakes her head minutely. “That’s not gonna happen,” she says, her words not directed at Malcolm. “Let him go.”

“No,” Paulsen replies, and his voice is strong, unafraid. Malcolm doesn’t like that. It’s in line with his profile of the man, which he is at this moment really wishing he’d been wrong about. The guy is ruthless, but collected, meticulous...Malcolm has a feeling that he might very well be dying tonight.

He doesn’t want to die tonight. He really doesn’t. He has to do something.

He pushes himself forwards, feeling the metal of the gun leave his back, and runs, shouting at Dani to run, too. He sees her draw her gun, hears a shot, and another, feels something hit his shoulder, sending him spinning off balance. He hits the ground with the terrible realization that he doesn’t know whose gun had gone off. Who might be hurt.

He lies there in horrible uncertainty for a couple terrible seconds, his head spinning. His shoulder feels like he’s been punched, but he knows he’s been shot. And maybe Dani has been shot, too…

He stumbles to his feet, overcome for a moment with dizziness. When his vision clears, he sees Dani on the floor, kneeling over Paulsen, cuffing him. He’s bleeding from his leg, where, evidently, Dani had shot him.

Malcolm watches silently as Dani wrestles the man to his feet and drags him along, phone to her ear, no doubt talking to Gil. She walks up to Malcolm, who instinctively backs away at the close presence of Paulsen.

“You okay?” she asks, and Malcolm can only nod. He’s not, though. He’s been shot, and he’s pretty sure it’s not serious, but he’s been shot, and for a long time he’d thought that he was going to be shot, and there had been the cold, unforgiving metal of the gun pressed to his skin to remind him of that fact, and he imagines the feeling is going to stick with him for quite some time, and his hands are shaking again and he can smell the metallic scent of his own blood, and he is overall definitely not okay. But he follows Dani and Paulsen into the elevator anyway, pressing a trembling hand to the wound on his shoulder, which, he can feel, is fortunately only a graze.

“Buses should be here any minute,” Dani says, as the group of three leave the building. “You gonna be okay til then?”

Malcolm nods again, sitting down heavily on the building’s concrete stoop. He watches Dani drag Paulsen along to stand on the curb, glad he’s farther away now. She looks down the street anxiously, and he sees her relax when the red and blue lights of police cars approach.

Malcolm feels himself relax at their presence, too, sinking his body further into the cold concrete. It’s going to be fine, he reminds himself, watching Dani hand over Paulsen to another officer. He knows it’s going to be fine.

His body doesn’t seem to care about what his brain knows, though. He’s still shaking, not just his hands, now, but the rest of him, too. He’s breathing too heavily, and he can’t stop feeling a gun pressing into his back, is hyperaware of the blood slowly dripping down his shoulder despite his hand trying to hold it back.

Dani sinks down on the step next to him and touches a hand to his arm. He startles, jerking away from her and hating himself for it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says reassuringly. “Paulsen’s in custody and the ambulances are less than a minute out.”

He can’t bring himself to nod this time. He feels a shaky breath catch in his throat, and before he can stop himself there are tears pooling in his eyes.

He sniffs and tries to make them go away, but it’s no use. His vision blurs up, swirling together the colors of the flashing lights around him.

“Can I touch you?” Dani asks, and he finds he would actually really like that now, so he does nod this time, and then her arm is around him, very gentle and mindful of the gunshot wound on his left shoulder. Her hand touches his back, right where the gun had been, but feeling nothing at all like the gun had.

“You’re shaking,” she points out, and carefully tugs him closer. “You cold?”

He shrugs with his right shoulder. “Not really. Just some lingering terror, I guess. Stupid.”

“Hey,” Dani says, her voice serious. “It’s not stupid to be scared. He had you at gunpoint, Malcolm. He shot you.”

“Ambulance’s here,” an officer Malcolm isn’t familiar with interrupts their conversation. “So’s Lieutenant Arroyo.”

With that information, Dani stands up, grabbing Malcolm’s right bicep and gently hauling him to his feet so he doesn’t have to let go of his shoulder. He lets her guide him to the ambulance, tears still clouding his vision. He sinks down onto a stretcher and sees Dani mouth meet you at the hospital. He nods in acknowledgement as two paramedics hover over him, asking him questions he has no idea how to answer.

“Just get moving,” he hears a wonderfully familiar voice say. “I’ll give you as much information as I’ve got, but let’s not waste time here.”

“Yes, sir,” says one of the paramedics, and with that, the ambulance doors shut and the engine starts.

“Gil,” Malcolm says, locking eyes with him from across the ambulance.

“Hey, kid,” Gil says, with a tight smile. “How you doing?”

“Not so good,” Malcolm replies, honestly. “Hurts.” In all honesty, it doesn't hurt that much, but saying it hurts is easier than explaining that he’s still scared, despite the fact that the threat has been completely removed, despite the fact that he knows he’s safe.

“I know,” Gil says, reaching out a hand and grabbing Malcolm’s bloody one. “But it’s going to be okay.”

“I know.”

“Everything is going to be okay, you understand?”

“I know.”

“Good. But don’t you think you’re off the hook for this either. We will be having a talk as soon as we get you fixed up.”

“Okay.”

They arrive at the hospital a moment later, and Malcolm’s hand frantically reaches for Gil’s when he’s pulled away.

“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he hears Gil promise, as Malcolm is pushed through a set of doors. “We’ll be right here.”

They’ll be there for him...Gil, Dani, probably Ainsley, and his mother, maybe JT, Edrisa...the thought is enough to make Malcolm almost smile. Maybe he really is going to be okay.

thanks so much for reading this!!! i have done a lot of other writing today so this might not be like. the best. but i did have a fun time writing it! hope you liked it!

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday20 #gunpoint #prodigal son #malcolm bright #at gunpoint #shot #fear #my writing #i say things

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hansoulo · 4 years

Text

partial to the cavatina pt. 4 - (consumable)

Pairing: Javier Peña/f!Reader (sorry broskies)

Warnings: cursing? allusions to spicy times, mentions of drinking, mild spoilers for beginning of season 3

Word Count: 1.18k

Gif Credit: x by @pvscvls - lmk if you want it taken down!

A/N: i sat down to outline and then this happened. longer chapter as promised will come soon lol

masterlist playlist

You did everything right, Peña. But now you’re all alone. Everything. Alone. Carrillo was long dead. Murphy was gone. And now Martinez was gone, too. Javier didn’t want to call you, to fuck you up with his problems. You deserved more than that. Than him.

He was trying to get better, he really was - for you as much as himself. But old habits die hard and the taste of smoke was familiar.

So he drank.

----------

“Javi?” Your voice carried over through the telephone, crumbling static. He didn’t really know why he picked up the phone, head still sloshing a leftover ache from the whiskey that never got put back in the cabinet. He just wanted to hear your voice, imagine what you looked like on the other end of the line. You hadn’t been able to see each other much the past few weeks, stolen kisses in doorways and quiet evenings in your apartment doing little to sate his longing.

It was strange, the way you appeared. Crept up on him as some beautiful, musical thing that he didn’t want to scare away with his footsteps the weight of concrete. It’d only been a month but he found himself making room for you, the little cracks left on his skin filled back in by a golden ichor that tasted like syrup and whistled when it rolled down his cheek.

You never really said you were dating. Were you dating? He’d like to think so. He wasn’t seeing anyone else, that was for damn sure.

“Javi, are we still on for dinner?”

Dinner. Shit.

He wiped a hand over his face, trying to smooth out the hitch in his words. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s been a long day.” He could almost see you on the back of his closed eyelids, sitting cross-legged on that tacky chintz armchair in your living room, one slow finger tracing the curl of your telephone cord. You had mentioned something about wanting him to meet your friends, other teachers at the school (one of whom was your roommate) who had no doubt heard every detail of your budding relationship. It was sweet, though. He liked that you had friends.

“Oh,” you breathed, trying not to sound disappointed. “Are you alright?”

Javier nodded instinctively before he realized you couldn’t see. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. Just tired.”

You snorted - a loud, unladylike sound that made his lips quirk up just a bit. “For someone who’s supposed to be DEA you aren’t very good at lying.” God, he would do anything for you. Did you know that? Did you know how the songs you played looped in his head for hours? How he tried to memorize every single one of your eyelashes when you smiled? How when he was around you, sometimes he couldn’t breathe? Did you know that?

He heard shuffling on the other end of the line. “I’ll tell them to go without us,” you said, nothing vitriolic tainting your voice. Work was never really a topic of conversation between the two of you. His work, anyways. It took up enough of his life without you having to be involved. You never pressed him about it. “Come over if you want, okay?”

The couch creaked as Javier sat up. “Okay.”

---------

“Ah, and the prodigal son returns!” you called out with a laugh as your apartment door opened, not looking up from your tiny kitchen stove. An apron was tied around your waist, some ridiculous, polka-dotted thing that looked straight out of the 50s. You turned when the lock clicked, watching as he slipped off his shoes. He made the mistake of not doing that the first time he came here and he didn’t hear the end of it for hours. No shoes on in the Palace.

The Palace, he remembered with a snort. Your name for the apartment was somehow the least strange thing about it. Loose papers covered your coffee, stacked high with books and baubles and tiny market trinkets. Every available surface was covered in gauzy scarves or knit blankets, absolutely none of them matching but still managing to feel right - even next to the weird decorative wall hangings in languages he’d never even heard of. And of course, the sheet music.

Javier wasn’t entirely sure what system of organization you had - if you had one at all. He was pretty sure you used coffee mugs as paperweights, but you seemed to always find what you needed so he didn’t say anything. It was a nice contrast to his own apartment, barely lived-in and sterile. Just a place to keep his socks and shoes before he left again. He could tell you loved your place, though. You made it a home.

“What do you think?” you gestured to the apron with a dramatic spin, the wooden spoon in your hand coming dangerously close to his nose. Javier reached to stop you before you hit him in the face, a calloused thumb pressing into the flesh of your palm.

He looked down, trying to conceal a grimace when he noticed the bright yellow ruffles. “It’s…”

“Absolutely atrocious, right?” you said, gleeful. “I love it!”

Trying to change the subject, Javier stepped closer and looked to the pot on the stove. “What are you making?”

“Mac n’ cheese,” you answered, smiling when his hands came to rest at your waist. He nosed his face into the curve of your jaw, mouthing an open kiss to the skin below your ear. You smelled like cinnamon. “Hey,” you tapped him with the end of the spoon, attempting to be stern. “You’re not supposed to distract the cook.”

“Really, now?” he asked, his hands wandering lower.

“It’s very serious business Javi.” He hummed in agreement, his lips still pressed to your neck. “Grounds for expulsion, one could say.”

“Expulsion?” Javier laughed when you yelped as he pulled your back into his chest. “What, am I your student?”

“Oh yes,” you snorted, mocking half-hooded eyelids and dropping your voice an octave. “And you’ve been very ba-”

Your words were cut off by a squeak when he bit the shell of your ear, chuckling warm chocolate in a way that made your stomach flutter. “You’re horrible at roleplaying,” you pouted as his fingertips dragged across the sides of your ribs. “I was supposed to seduce you with my scholarly discipline.”

“You’re wearing a bright pink apron and pajama pants.”

“And I happen to look very chic, thank you. If you want my food, you’ll have to learn some respe-” His lips met yours, deep and melting soft as the spoon clattered to the floor. Your fingers came to thread through the hair at the nape of his neck, everything forgotten except for the way he tasted like whiskey and something else heady, overpowering and enveloping until you grew lightheaded.

“Am I forgiven?” he mumbled against your lips. You cocked your head, faking consideration.

“Maybe, if you kiss me again, I’ll think about it.”

His voice vibrated against your back, soft and low. “I’ll have to do that then, won’t I?”

You smiled. “Yes, yes you will.”

permanent: @ah-callie @itzagoodthing @spookypym @opheliaelysia @watsonwise @damndamer0n @amarvelousmandalorian @bunnyart-blog @agirllovespasta @pascalispedro @pascalplease @coffeencontemplation @chelsfic @lesqui @javierpenaspinkshirt @symbiont13 @glowingpena @squidlywiddly87 @1zashreena1 @hiscyarika @lostingoogletranslate @keeper0fthestars @bobafvtt @halfwaythereroyal @starwarsiscooliguess @huliabitch @frietiemeloen

partial to the cavatina: @longitud-de-onda @way-too-addicted-to-anime @fleurdemiel145

#are the tags gonna work? no #am i still gonna hope they work? yeah #javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier peña fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #narcos #narcos fanfiction

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variousarts1234 · 3 years

Text

The Origins of SCP 049

Exactly what it says on the tin. I hope you all enjoy.

He was my first assignment- SCP 049, the deranged, non-human witch doctor who had slaughtered three of my coworkers. I didn’t know whether to be terrified or grateful. As frightening a beast as he was, this was, after all, just an interview- that had to be better than being assigned care of the more animalistic creatures that our facility held. Once I saw the several inches of bullet-proof glass we’d be separated by and the radios we’d be communicating through, I relaxed more completely.

It was a few minutes before he was brought in- a sentient plague doctor getup housing a lifeless skeleton with no soft tissues of which to speak. It sat in the chair provided for him in the padded room, and its gloved hand poked at the microphone.

“Hello?”

I read off my prepared speech. “Hello. SCP 049, it’s time for the games to end. You’re an intelligent person, and we can all tell that, and yet you continue to provide us with only the vaguest of answers. Simply put, give us clear, coherent answers to our questions, and we will grant you a live human to study for each hour of useful information you give us.” Whether this was true or not was classified, and honestly, given the number of people slaughtered for the foundation’s experiments as-was, it would hardly surprise me if it were. I would probably never know myself.

The creature cocked its head. “How do I know that this isn’t a pack of lies?”

“You don’t,” I answered, “but you have nothing to lose. And if we can’t win you over with favours, we’ll have to begin with punishments.”

The doctor leaned back in his chair, apparently relaxed as he pondered this.

“Fine. I’ll answer all the tedious questions you’ve always asked. And we shall begin with my beginnings.”

---

“A Pacific Island is where my story begins- although I’ll warn you that it jumps around quite a bit at first. I was born from the wife of a great medicine man, who was raising me to replace him when he died. Then one day, European travellers came and shipped me off in a crate.

“Thankfully, I escaped them once they unloaded my crate on the mainland. They chased after me, yes, but I ran to a forest and lost them by running through thick trees. They were too big to chase after me, you see. And I came upon a coven of witches. I was with them for six years, learning magic under them, before they kicked me out for atrocities against God.”

“What were you banished for?” I asked.

The creature appeared to ponder that. “I don’t know. I was doing all sorts of things that sat outside their rules, see? I don’t know what they found, but it probably wasn’t a third of what I’d been hiding. Anyhow, they allowed me to pack up my things, and soon I, at the age of fifteen, was wandering through the nearby town, possessing nothing but what I could carry on my back. I took a job under a priest in exchange for food and a place to sleep. Part of the priest’s job was to heal, and so I learned a few things under him. That’s the only good I have to say about him. I knew more than him, and he was set in his ways. People died because he wouldn’t let me use my witchcraft and Islander techniques. So, I studied at a seminary, and became a priest myself. The same night I came home, he named me his successor, and that very same night, I drove a knife through his heart. It had had to be done.

“My church became well-known for its healing prowess. Peasants came with their demonic possessions, and I could cure them without trephination but with only a bath in lavender water. Knights came with their infected wounds, and I could purge the poisons with potions made of metallic salts ground fine and mixed into milk. And I went on like that for several years.

“Then, one day, the king of Astbury- the kingdom of which I inhabited- came to me with his teenage son- a prodigal squire who would have one day made a fine knight- who had been stabbed in the leg. The flesh around the wound was going necrotic, and so many other healers had told him that it required amputation if the boy were to live. These healers were right, of course, but I told them otherwise. I knew that it was my chance to move up in the world, and I planned on seizing it. I took their son into a private room, let him sleep, and poisoned him- just badly enough that he would be out dead for the night. Then, I measured him, and killed a beggar of the same length of leg. By morning, the body was burned, the prince had a new leg in place of the old, and I had the king’s eternal gratitude. They believed that I had healed his leg, and being that they were offering me to stay at the palace, I saw no need to correct them.

“The king had only intended to thank me with a feast, but I convinced him to allow me one other opportunity to show my healing prowess. You see, his wife’s moon blood had stopped flowing a few years ago, and the king would have welcomed more children. I promised him that I would have her overflowing with fertility within the month, and if I didn’t, they could leave me with nothing but the clothes on my back. At first the cures I administered to her were nothing but placebos- my only plan was to live the high life for a while, have the king finance my research, and then go back to the humble life of a healer priest. What I wasn’t expecting was to actually find the cure. The queen’s moon blood retuned, and the king thanked me with a permanent position in his castle, a massive room in the basement for study, and a cut of the money I made from my healing abilities.

“What followed was the greatest period in my life! By day, there were people from all over the kingdom and from lands beyond, coming to me for cures for everything from leprosy to demonic possession to the effects of age- all new challenges to be met, conquered, and rewarded with tearful gratitude, newfound knowledge, and ample coin. By night, I ate the finest of food, drank the finest of wine, and slept on the finest silk. And I studied. My dungeon room gradually became full of experimental devices, potion reagents, and my test subjects. Yes, the king gave me whatever I wanted- including plenty of animals and the odd prisoner to experiment on. Life... was good.

“It went on like that for several decades before I reached the inevitable problem of age. Yes, up until then, there was only so much that even I could do to keep it at bay. But I had a plan, see- and one day, when I could feel the rain in my bones and was struggling to walk, even with my cane, I decided: it was time to put my greatest invention to the test.

“I had begun planning for this day years ago, including the training up of a successor. Her name was Eva. No last name- she had been a slave brought over from another realm, and had I not seen promise in her, she would have been a test subject in one of my experiments. I had treated her well, and had promised her that once I became immortal, she’d be next, and that once she was transformed, we’d both be seen as Gods and no one would see her as a slave anymore. How I wanted that. She was not yet grown, and I cared for her like a daughter.

“The process itself- well, you’ve seen a part of it, my fellow researcher, though I had constructed a machine to turn one’s innards out in just the right pattern, and now I have to do it by hand. Eva’s job was merely to start up the machine, and care for me while I was in my frail, in-between, mindless state. It’s a ten-year process, as I’m sure you’ve deducted by now.

“Wait, stop!” I called. There were several seconds of silence as I attempted to absorb what he’d said. “Those researchers you- you cured- you were-”

“Oh no, they’re dead, now. Those creatures needed proper care to become immortal, and you locked them up separate from me. Unless... the researchers of this foundation have been treating them.”

“Yes, we are,” I answered nervously. It would probably be easier to extract information from the doctor if he thought highly of our competence.

“Marvelous! On with the story, then.”

“After the machine had cleaved open my skull and rib cage, and my organs had been hung in the right places of my body, I was completely braindead for quite some time. I knew this would happen, as I’d done it to several animals in the past, and it had worked on both hound and hog. Eva kept me fed, kept my organs clean and properly positioned, polished my bones, and set me to bleed out at the proper time. I remember a period- perhaps of a few days- where I could recognize her again. She looked so much bigger and more womanly than I remembered. And then, the second stage began. A chitin that resembled a cape, immune to canons, poison, acid, age, and anything else one could name, began to grow over my organs, changing their shape and structure. I remembered nothing for several years. And then I emerged.

“My dungeon was not being kept. The herbs were dead. The animals- those who were not immortal, were mere bones in their cages. I was so angry... so angry at Eva for letting it happen... I stormed out of the basement, looking for her. I found one of the king’s advisors and demanded her location. He... he hugged me, and told me that she was dead, and so was the king. That nearly a fifth of the kingdom was dead of a horrific necrotic disease...

“I couldn’t believe it... I went for a walk around the village square, and felt how empty it was when it was once so full of life... People did not come to me in hope and awe, but in desperation. And there was nothing I could do against the disease that they called the Black Plague.

“I had caused it. My cure, the one that I had applied to myself, also causes the skin to blister and blacken before it sloughs off, leaving only the organs to be packed into chitin. Clearly, I had offended God, and this was my punishment.

“I went to a church to help the plague victims- it was all that I could think to do. The high life in the palace- the life that I’d done this to prolong- no longer appealed to me.”

“Wait,” I interjected, “the black plague wasn’t your fault. We know now that it was carried by the fleas on rats from trading ships. It had nothing to do with you.”

The abomination shook its head. “You’re wrong. People will always find explanations for what they cannot explain. I know more forms of black magic... and their unintended consequences... when I see them.”

“Very well. Carry on.”

“As I was saying. I spent a few months experimenting on the dying. I even found a cure eventually. It made no difference- people died faster than I could cure them. I remember curing a mother of five once, only to see her catch it again and collapse dead while waiting in line to receive a second treatment.

“I confessed to the priest my suspicions that I might have caused the plague, and he told me that he appreciated me, but something had to be done to appease God and stop this disease.

“He, and several other villagers, nailed me to a tree at dawn. The priest gave a speech that he condemned my actions, and wished to cleanse the world of them. That he hoped that God would receive the message, and cease their punishment. And then he set the tree on fire.

“Flames licked me, but I did not burn. I pretended to merely be an empty shell, and eventually, once the tree was burned and I was laying on the ash-covered ground with nails still in my hands, they left me. I wandered the woods for days, knowing that I was no longer welcome in the village. I grew hungry but could not starve. Wolves gnawed on me at night, but could not pierce my skin. Eventually I made my way to a pier, and snuck onto a ship. I landed in the New World.

“I have lived almost everywhere in the world in my centuries, and everywhere I go, a pestilence is sure to follow. Smallpox, Spanish Flu, Malaria, Zika Virus... in making myself immortal, I have opened a Pandora’s Box... but it was worth it, for it made me realize the ultimate truth. Pestilence is inherent to man. The cure is in leaving behind human form. And so, I stopped feeling guilty, and I began to make it my life’s purpose to convince others to take the cure. Without it... the pestilence will rot you from the inside out. Every one of you. It is inevitable.

“My time at the foundation, though, has shaken that belief somewhat. You have so little of the pestilence here. I wonder what your secret is. I see some people around here with no pestilence at all! Though, you seem to be sporting an average amount of it.”

It was at this point of the interview that I took off my sweater. The doctor stared at my arms as though they were obscene. “What?” I asked.

“Pestilence,” he said. “It has just multiplied upon your body.”

That’s when it hit me. The people who had handled him had been exclusively wearing haz-mat suits or other heavy protective equipment. The researcher he’d transformed was the first one we’d allowed, due to the abomination’s seeming civility, to enter without protective equipment. And that had been what had set him off. The mere idea was insane, but then, so was he.

“You take away our flesh to make us immortal. And so to you, our flesh is the pestilence that will be the death of us all.”

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onecanonlife · 3 years

Text

careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 7,618

Chapter Warnings: swearing, referenced past suic.ide, description of past injury, scars, discussion of c!Wilbur’s overall terrible mental health

Chapter Summary: In which Phil and Wilbur finally sit down and have a talk. They both have things to say that the other needs to hear.

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Eighteen: quiet now

They do come up with a plan. A simple one, as far as plans go, but that means less moving parts, less things to go wrong. Sometimes a simpler plan is better. And considering the effort it takes to get them all there, to get them all on the same page, he’ll accept it. But night has fallen by the time they figure it all out,

(and by that time his throat is hoarse and his hands are shaking so he shoves them into his pockets and Tommy keeps shooting him looks and Phil is doing the same and Techno is kind of hovering a bit but he ignores them because he’s fine and he keeps his shoulders straight his shoulders straight set and straight so that no one looks at him and sees his exhaustion the way he’s crumbling and he tells himself that he’s not and that he’s alright that this is nothing but he’s not sure he believes himself anymore and that in itself is terrifying because if he’s not alright then he has to confront the dark confront what he does not want to confront so he tells himself he’s alright but the walls are cracking they’re cracking)

so they’ll set it all in motion in the morning. For now, they retire to bed. Almost all of them; Eret says she’ll keep watch by the gates. Once, he wouldn’t have trusted her word. He’s not sure that he does, even now. But he doesn’t object, and neither does anyone else, so.

It’s night. He should sleep. He is even aware that he needs to sleep, that he’s been dealing with a pounding headache ever since just after the last time he let Schlatt materialize, that every so often his vision swims for no apparent reason. He needs to sleep, because he’s no use to anyone like this, not if he can’t wield a weapon, whether physical or verbal, and he used all the rest of his energy on getting through the rest of the meetings. The collaboration. The planning. The day, plain and simple.

He knows when he’s running on fumes.

Eret gave him a room. She gave everyone a room. Because she has a bloody enormous castle, with rooms to spare. So he’s lying in an unfamiliar bed, staring at the ceiling, watching the moonlight slowly creep in as the clouds outside finally clear, and he can’t sleep. Exhaustion grips him with a thousand clinging hands, and he can’t sleep. He knows exactly where everyone is, knows that Tommy and Tubbo are sharing the room next to him, that Techno and Phil are on this same hall, and he even made sure to locate Fundy despite—everything.

Everyone is safe, in this moment, at least. But he can’t sleep, can’t give his body the rest it’s demanding of him. His mind is contorting in on itself, itching, buzzing, like a swarm of bees that can’t find the home hive. And his thoughts, as have been their wont lately, slip away before he can examine them properly.

(or perhaps he’s letting them go, has been letting them go all along, because he does not want to look at them, does not want to understand, because he wants to achieve that nebulous concept of being better but if he looks at himself too closely then he will have to acknowledge that being better doesn’t only have the meaning he’s assigned to the phrase, doesn’t just mean being better to others but also to)

He can’t sleep. So he gets up. Steadies himself against the bed’s banister until the world stops spinning. And then goes out into the hall. The stone is lit with flickering torches, and the soft crackling of the fire is the only sound. He slips out quietly, footsteps light on the carpet, and just walks. To the end of the hallway, glancing back just once, and—

Schlatt is at the other end. Staring at him. He stares back.

And then the ghost shakes his head and vanishes. The glimmer of blue is still there, still present as a shimmer if he doesn’t look at the spot directly, but the message is clear. Schlatt doesn’t want to talk.

He doesn’t particularly want to talk, either. Not after the mess that today has been. He regrets laying out all of his cards in front of Schlatt in the way that he did. The fact that Schlatt now knows how to make himself solid only adds to that. He’s not fond of the sensation, of his strength leaving him in a rush, pulled away from him without his consent.

(and his heart constricting in his chest)

The ground tilts a bit. He places his hands against the wall, and the dizziness passes. He keeps going. Keeps stalking through the halls.

He’s done this before. He felt like the castle’s passages were haunted, then, a few days ago. He still feels the same. Especially now, at night, when the whole castle is still. When he might as well be the only person alive.

(if he is that)

Except then, he rounds a corner and nearly runs over Ranboo. Or rather, doesn’t run him over, exactly, because Ranboo is exceedingly tall, and he somehow seems even taller now. But it’s him, his skin divided in black and white, wearing that suit he always seems to have on. Wilbur remembers to avert his eyes before meeting his gaze, but not before catching the fact that Ranboo’s are glowing purple. Which is different from usual. Definitely different from usual.

“Wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up,” he says, backing up a step. He fixes his gaze past Ranboo’s shoulder and tries to observe him surreptitiously.

Ranboo is holding a block of dirt. Grass intact. Interesting.

And then, Ranboo chirps at him. An enderman sort of warble, distorted and yet, somehow, gentle.

“Um,” he says. “Are you—is this the sleepwalking thing again?”

Immediately afterward, he realizes the stupidity of asking a sleepwalking person whether or not they’re sleepwalking. But the eyes are new, for sure; in the Egg’s chamber, when he was sleepwalking before, his eyes were just like they’d been previously, one red and one green, just glazed over.

His eyes now aren’t glazed at all, are bright and alert. But purple.

Ranboo vwoops.

“Alright, you know what, good for you,” he says. “I’m just going to keep walking. Maybe you should get some rest later or something.”

It’s not any of his concern what Ranboo’s doing. As long as he’s staying in the castle, he can sleepwalk and be an enderman to his heart’s content. It’s none of his business, and if he really feels the need, he’ll go get Phil. Since Phil seems to be halfway to adopting him in any case. Let Phil deal with it.

So he moves to walk around Ranboo. Except Ranboo mirrors him, and suddenly, the grass block is being shoved against his chest. Lightly, but enough to stop him in his tracks.

“Um,” he says again. Not up to his usual standards of eloquence, but Ranboo likely won’t remember this later if he actually is sleepwalking, so it’s fine. “You want me to take it? Is that it?”

Ranboo vwoops, still holding the block out at him, so he reaches for it, curling his fingers into the dirt. Ranboo releases the block as soon as he does, and the dirt immediately starts to come loose, to lose its shape, and a good bit of the grass starts to fall off. But Ranboo nods in satisfaction, letting out another warble, so he keeps hold of it as best he can. At least until Ranboo has passed by him, evidently content with whatever he thinks he’s accomplished. Wilbur turns to stare at his retreating back until he’s vanished around the corner.

And then he looks down at his hands. At the block, which barely resembles a block anymore. Mostly just a lump of dirt.

“Right,” he mutters, letting it slide through his fingers. Some of it clings to his skin, and he wrinkles his nose, brushing his hands against his coat.

He’s not sure what that was. But alright.

He finds his way out into the open air, eventually, climbing up and up until he gets to the roof of the castle. The sky above is lit with stars, and if he tilts his head and closes his eyes, he can hear them. Humming, always humming. Or perhaps he’s imagining it, his brain filling in a sound he can’t truly hear but that he knows is present. He’s not sure it makes a difference either way. It’s still a comfort. A small one, but a comfort nonetheless.

He’s considering whether to try to sleep up here instead when he sees that Phil is here too. A little off to the side, a dark silhouette staring out over the SMP, sitting on a stone bench. Why Eret put a bench on the roof, he has no idea; or perhaps Phil made it himself. He wouldn’t be surprised.

He should probably leave him be. And yet, he doesn’t want to go back inside, and—

Phil really ought to be resting too.

So he crosses the rooftop, slowly, almost reluctantly as he picks his way across the stone. He hesitates before sitting next to Phil on the bench, leaving a bit of space between them. This close, he can see the bags under Phil’s eyes better than ever, as well as the way his cloak twitches as the wings underneath move.

“Any particular reason why you’re up?” he asks. Phil doesn’t act surprised at his appearance; he knew he was there, then. Heard his approach, most likely, or perhaps just sensed his presence. Hundreds of years have made Phil a difficult man to catch off guard.

(though you did it once, in a different way, in that room, you caught him off guard and broke him in the catching)

Phil snorts. “Nightmare,” he says, clipped, though Wilbur is somewhat surprised to have gotten even that admission out of him. “I should be asking the same of you. You need to get some fucking sleep, Wilbur.”

“I’m well aware,” he says. “I’ve been trying. Thought a walk might clear my head.” He hesitates, not sure that he should push any further, not sure that he wants to, that Phil would welcome it. But then, he’s never been one to let such a small detail as whether his prying is welcome stop him. “Can I ask what about?” he asks, and is satisfied with that. If Phil wants him to fuck off, then he’ll tell him so.

But Phil is silent for a moment.

“You, usually,” he says.

“Oh,” Wilbur replies.

He didn’t expect that. But he feels like he should have.

Phil shifts, then, his clothing rustling as he turns to half face him.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he says. “It’s not your fault. You get as old as I am and you pick up a few recurring nightmares. Persistent little fucks, but it’s not anything to be worried about.”

But this one is bad enough to cost you sleep on the eve of battle, and I know you know better than to let that happen, so it must be bad, he doesn’t say. But this one is about me, he doesn’t say. But there is still an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, one that doesn’t let up no matter how deeply he breathes. So he doesn’t look at Phil, but he says, “Tell me about it?” and immediately curses the weakness of his voice. He almost sounds scared, which is not what he was aiming for. Inviting, maybe. He wants to know.

(he doesn’t, actually, but he feels like he should, so it’s the same thing in the end)

Phil sighs.

“We’re on a cliff, you and I,” he says, sounding tired. “There’s an ocean below us, far down. Neither of us speak. You throw a sword down at my feet, and I—I do it. Just like I did. And then, you smile at me and fall backward. Off the cliff.” He looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers. “I jump after you. And then I remember that I can’t fly.”

Wilbur swallows.

(he has no trouble conflating himself with a nightmare, no trouble at all, but it becomes more difficult when the nightmare is not him but rather losing him and he should have expected as much from Phil because Phil for all his long years has never been good at letting go at giving up on something that cannot be saved but he still doesn’t know what to do with this what to say)

“I thought falling from a cliff was a Theseus thing,” he manages.

Phil chuckles dryly. “Techno does like his myths,” he says, “but life’s not so cut and dry as those are. Not everything has a perfect parallel. We’re not storybook characters.”

It’s not a pointed comment. But his mind still cringes away from the words.

“But stories come from somewhere,” he says softly. It’s not a plea, because he doesn’t have anything to plead, but if that’s so, then he doesn’t know why his voice is lined with desperation, all of a sudden, why his heart is thumping against his ribcage. “Even in real life, we all have roles to play.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing, Wil?” Phil asks. “Playing a role?”

His breath catches, snags in his lungs, like his chest is full of thorns.

(you do not like to be seen do not like to be perceived not like this not in a way that lays out the heart of you your core beliefs those are for you and you alone and you guard them so no one else knows and they receive only what you choose to present and so you do not like this at all do not like to be known beyond what you have explicitly chosen to share)

(you have always been a showman)

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, but it’s stiff, too stiff, and Phil is too perceptive a man to be fooled by it.

“I’ve noticed what you’re doing,” Phil says. “You’re running yourself ragged trying to pull everyone together. To direct them. And I know you’re a leader, Wil, I really do, and you’re damn good at it, too, but you can’t possibly believe that wearing yourself out like this is healthy.”

He shuts his eyes. “It’s not like that,” he says. “I’m just doing what needs to be done.”

“It needs to be done. But not necessarily by you, mate. A lot of the people here are more than capable of taking on some of the responsibility. Your brothers included. Also, you didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t hear you ask one,” he snaps, sudden irritation welling up. “It’s not a matter of health, Phil! It’s a matter of what’s important, and what’s important right now is dealing with all of this bullshit. That has to come first.”

Phil sits up straighter. His hands grip his knees, and his eyebrows draw together.

“You come first,” Phil says. “You always come first. Your health is important, and you—you can’t take care of anyone else before you take care of yourself. Wil, how long have you—”

He cuts off, but Wilbur knows what he was about to ask. How long have you thought like this? Or something like that, anyway. This is another thing that he should have expected from Phil, this persistent concern for him. It’s unnecessary, since he

(decided long ago that his health could fall on his list of priorities so long as he was effective, so long as he was getting things done, and he did get things done, in his country, in his exile, he got things done and that was what mattered because he himself has always been so much less important than the things he could create and the things he could do for others)

has matters well in hand, but he doubts Phil would understand if he tried to explain it.

(easier to tell himself that than to admit that he can’t explain it at all, that no explanation he could give would hold up to a moment’s scrutiny, that Phil will see right through it to the real underlying cause, and Phil has already perceived far too much)

“Right, health is important,” he says, placating. “I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t. Though, honestly, you’re one to talk. Did you think I didn’t see the state your wings are in? When’s the last time you bothered to preen them?”

It’s a low blow, and he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Phil flinches, his face setting in a harder expression. More closed off, and he really should have known better, shouldn’t he? Should’ve known better than to bring it up like that, because Phil’s wings used to be his pride and joy, and now they’re ruined and it’s his fault to boot, and he can admit that he was looking for a sore spot to hit, but that wound is far worse than a sore spot.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.” He looks away, unable to meet Phil’s eyes, and finds himself looking up again. To the stars.

“It’s alright.” Phil laughs humorlessly. “I can’t say that you’re wrong.” He sighs, posture relaxing slightly. “I caught that, by the way. I know when you’re trying to distract me.” He tilts his head upward, staring at the stars just like Wilbur is, his hat sliding further back on his head. “I’m not trying to lecture you. I just want to understand. Why can’t you let yourself rest, Wil?”

That is a far more complicated question than he knows. That is a question that has its roots in months long past, in a drug van and an idea and a revolution and a nation, in his drive to get recognition and his determination that his country would succeed,

(because if it was not a success then it would be a failure and he too would be a failure)

in sleepless nights spent screaming into his pillow and days pasting on a smile and a confident stride. And then, in relinquishing his power when the people called for it, when he lost, conceding gracefully even as his stomach dropped into his boots, and getting an arrow in his back for his troubles, he and his brother chased like dogs from the home they built. And then, in the ravine, every shadow a threat, every person out to get him, every whisper a lie, every moment settling the despair more deeply into his bones.

But perhaps Phil knows that. Or some of it at least. He doesn’t know how much Phil has guessed. But Phil knows enough to know that the him that he encountered in that room was a far cry from the him that he portrayed in his letters, before he stopped sending them at all, before he could no longer bring himself to pick up the pen, before the thought of lying to his father again left him feeling physically ill, and the idea of telling him the truth was worse.

Phil knows enough to know that something went wrong.

Perhaps a bit of honesty wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps trying to get him to understand wouldn’t hurt. At least, not more than it already does, no more than he already has.

“It’s because I know what I’m like, Phil,” he says softly. “I know what I’m like.”

The stars twinkle at him.

“Okay,” Phil says. Patient. “What does that mean?”

He considers it. Considers everything.

“You know the legacy I left on this server, right?” he says. “You know what I left behind when I died.”

Phil turns his head, looks at him. His expression is slightly pained.

“I sort of destroyed the legacy you left,” he says, and it takes him a second to realize what he’s talking about.

“Not that L’Manberg,” he says. “That L’Manberg wasn’t mine. I suppose it was Tubbo’s more than anything, but it’s hard to say, I think. I can’t really speak on it. Ghostbur—saw things differently than how I would have.” He stops for Phil’s reaction to that, but aside from a slight narrowing of his eyes, there is nothing. “I mean the original. L’Manberg. My L’Manberg.”

Phil sucks in a sharp breath at his choice of words.

“No, Wil,” he says. “No, I didn’t really get to see it.”

“That’s the point,” he says. He closes his eyes, searching for the right words. The stars are pinprick lights dancing on his eyelids. “I destroyed it. I destroyed it all, Phil. I waffled back and forth a lot, for weeks, deciding whether I was going to do it or not. And then I did. I pushed that button, Phil. I made the decision. I destroyed it. I destroyed people’s homes. I betrayed all of my friends. And the thing about that is, even if I regret hurting them, now, I still don’t regret the action itself. I don’t regret destroying it, Phil. It needed to go.” I needed to go.

“Why is that, Wil?” Phil asks quietly.

“It wasn’t good anymore,” he answers easily. This, at least, he knows. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t mine anymore, either, but mainly it was that it wasn’t good. It became—it became corrupt. Bad. And it was never going to be good again, so it had to stop. It had to end. It all had to end. But that’s not my point right now. My point is that that was my legacy, right? L’Manberg? And I destroyed that, but what’s most important is the pain I caused. That was my legacy. That pain. That was what I left behind me. And even before that, even before everything, when I started it in the first place, I brought war to the server, Phil. Suffering, conflict. And the war was a game at first. We were all friends at the start. But then I decided that it wasn’t a game. I declared independence, and I meant it. So in the end, all of the problems on this server can be traced back to me. Something I did, or something I said.” He leans his head forward again, gazing out at the horizon rather than the night sky. “It all comes back to me. I’ve never been good for this server.”

He pauses, waiting for Phil’s reply. None comes, and he glances over; Phil is staring at him, face white as a sheet.

“I haven’t answered your question yet,” he says. “But you need to—you need to understand all of that so you understand why I feel—” He breaks off. His tongue feels clumsy, and his mind suddenly blanks. He’s not even sure that any of what he’s just said makes sense, and if it doesn’t make sense, then he can’t continue, because if he’s really going to do this, really going to put this all out there for Phil to hear, then he needs it to make sense, needs to be sure that he actually understands.

“Why you feel what?” Phil asks. Still quiet.

He takes in a breath. Tries to gather his thoughts. The exhaustion isn’t helping. It’s like wading through mud.

“I know what I’m like,” he repeats. It makes a good springboard. “So I know that I sure as hell don’t deserve to be back here, even if it had been what I wanted. But I am, so I need to do something that’s worth that. I need to pull myself together and get us all out of this. For Tommy’s sake, if for no one else, and for Tubbo, and—and Fundy, and everyone who doesn’t deserve to be pulled into this mess. Another mess. If I have the ability to help, then I have a responsibility to do that. I can’t just—push it off to someone else, Phil. That’s not how it works.”

“Why not?” Phil asks.

“Because then I’m not worth it, then, am I?” he erupts. Why isn’t Phil getting this? “Phil, we’re all measured by the things we create. By the things we’re able to do, our accomplishments. If I can’t do anything that’s worth something, then what the fuck am I here for? Because it’s not because I asked, Phil. I got what I deserved in the end, and that was supposed to be all. I wanted it to be all, Phil, I wanted—”

He cuts off, horror mounting in him. This was a mistake. He never should have said anything at all, never should have started in on this. He should have dodged the questions, the probing comments, until Phil finally got tired and left it alone.

He should have gone back inside.

But Phil still hasn’t spoken, so he presses on, trying to wrap it up in a way that’s understandable.

“In the end, it all comes down to the fact that I have experience with this kind of stuff,” he says. “Someone needs to step up, and I can. So I need to. That’s all it is.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I probably should’ve just skipped to that part.”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t,” Phil says, and there’s a tremor in his voice that he can’t place the reason for. “I’m glad you—I’m glad you told me this. But—Wil, okay, first off, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, and it doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand it,” he mutters. He really ought to go back inside. But the night air is so fresh and clear, smelling of humidity and petrichor, and the thought of returning to that empty, dark room only to stare at the ceiling until morning makes something in him shrivel up and die inside. If he’s not going to be able to sleep, then he’d rather be awake out here than in there.

“Wil,” Phil says, insistent, and suddenly, Phil’s hands are on his shoulders, turning him toward him with a light but firm touch. He blinks. “Do you not take care of yourself because you think you don’t deserve it?” Something in Phil’s voice folds like wet paper, just as fragile, just as flimsy.

He opens his mouth to respond, and no words come.

(there is is, the crux of the matter, the core of it all, because he is a person built of pretty words and self-loathing, and long before he directed any anger at the world around him, he pointed it inward, lashed at himself until only scars remained, and he called that just, called that right)

He’s not sure how Phil jumped to that conclusion from all of that. But—he’s trying to deny it, trying to refute the point, but the words just won’t form.

“Oh, Wilbur,” Phil says, sounding a bit wrecked, and then, the hands on his shoulders move to his arms, gently pulling him forward and into Phil’s embrace. Phil’s arms circle him lightly, his hands rubbing patterns into his back, and then, his wings rise from under his cloak, swooping forward and closing around him in a motion that is all-too familiar from his childhood, in a motion indicating that even now, Phil is trying to comfort him, trying to protect him with all that he is. It’s a hug that means warmth and safety and love, and Wilbur begins to tremble, because—

He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t. He doesn’t understand what he did to deserve it.

“You don’t need to do anything to be worthy of love,” Phil murmurs. “You don’t need to do anything to deserve to take care of yourself. And—you’re wrong about your legacy. It’s not just pain and suffering. You’ve done so many good things for so many people, and they remember that, even if you can’t. I see it every day. You were missed, Wil. So fucking missed, by so many more people than just me.”

And that can’t be true. That can’t possibly be true, because he remembers his ending certainty, his declaration that everyone would thank Phil for killing him, that everyone wanted him to do it, and he was so sure of himself, then, because he was the traitor, he was the villain, and villains get what they deserve. And perhaps he wasn’t entirely right, not in Tommy’s case, at any rate, because Tommy wanted him back, at least, but everyone else should have wanted him dead.

But no one has. No one has thus far, at least. No one has tried to do anything to him aside from a few pointed comments. No one has tried to lock him up or kill him. No one has tried, even when they should, they definitely should, because he was hated by the end—wasn’t he?

(no. except for by one, and you have never judged yourself fairly)

So, what does that mean, then? What does it mean that he understands far less than he thought he did? What does it mean that he is struggling for control, falling back into old patterns because it’s all he knows, struggling and falling and failing? He thought he knew, thought he understood well how it all ties together, how to measure his own worth by what he can do, but here is Phil saying that that’s not right at all, and what is he supposed to do with that?

He has vowed to be better. Has been trying to be better. Has he been getting that wrong, too?

Or perhaps he isn’t wrong. Perhaps Phil is. He would like to believe that Phil is. It would be so much easier if Phil is. But here, now, held with arms and wings both, the contact chasing all of the day’s chill away, he’s not sure that he can arrive at that conclusion. Not sure he can let himself deny it, deny this.

But if he is wrong about this, he is wrong about so much, and that—that is terrifying.

“I’ve been trying to be better. I’ve been trying so hard,” he gasps out. “Phil—Phil, I don’t think I know what I’m doing. I don’t think I know how.”

“That’s okay,” Phil says. “That’s okay, you don’t have to. You just have to try. That’s all anyone wants. And it’s a process, not a one-and-done thing. It’s okay to not know.” Phil pauses. One hand moves from his back and goes up to card through his hair. Wilbur lets out a sigh. “But part of that is being better toward yourself. You deserve that just by virtue of existing. You don’t have to do anything or make anything. You deserve better things.”

(his own voice: you deserve good things and you can have them. but that was to Tommy, for Tommy, and it surely can’t apply to him, surely, because he is different, is not good like Tommy is, because he may be trying not to be the villain anymore but he was one once and he is not good and even before then he was not good enough so surely he cannot turn that around on himself surely he cannot)

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” he admits.

“That’s alright, too,” Phil says. “We can work on it, okay? We’ll all work on it together. Just, remember that you do deserve better things. No matter what your brain is telling you. Your brain is fucking wrong, okay? In this, it’s so fucking wrong. You deserve to be—to be fucking kind to yourself.” He pauses for a moment, and when he continues, his voice is full of trepidation. “Wil, you are—I mean, you do—you do want to—”

He seems to be struggling to phrase it, but Wilbur knows exactly what he’s asking.

“I don’t know about want,” he says. He’s been honest thus far; may as well continue. “I—I didn’t tell you about the time with the Egg, before you got here. It got in my head good. Really good. And it offered me—rest. I tried to give in to it. If other people weren’t there, I would have.”

Phil’s grip on him tightens.

“But I’ve decided I’m staying,” he continues. “I’ve decided. For the sake of—I mean, some of you people seem to care about me, for some godforsaken reason. And I don’t want to hurt you. So I’m staying here. Alive. I’m going to keep trying.”

“Okay,” Phil whispers. “Okay, that’s a good start.”

If that is a start, then what is the end goal? But he’s too worn out to ask. Exhausted in so many more ways than one.

But his mind is quieter. No longer buzzing. Like a storm has finally passed over, leaving destruction in its wake, but also calm.

He finally brings his arms up and embraces Phil in turn, leaning his weight against his chest. The moment he lets himself, all his muscles go limp, his body finally succumbing to the break he so sorely needs.

“You’re a sappy old man, do you know that?” he mumbles.

“I’m your father,” Phil says. “Comes with the territory.”

He hums, pushing his face against Phil’s robes. He’s clutching at his back, but the cloak has shifted, now that Phil’s moved his wings to wrap around him, so if he inches his hands up a bit, they’ll hit the wings’ base. So he does, slowly, cautiously, and then just lets his hands rest there, against the feathers. Phil stiffens.

“Let me preen them,” he says.

Phil takes a second to answer.

“Didn’t we just have a conversation about not taking on as much responsibility?” he says, and just as Phil can pick out when he’s trying to dodge a topic, he can tell right away that the question is an avoidance.

“This is completely different,” he says. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t. But—” He moves back so he can stare Phil in the face, taking a moment to chew on his next words. “I want to. Please.”

He’s not sure why this is suddenly so important to him. It’s probably something about how the state of these wings is his fault in the first place, about how Phil wrecked them in an effort to protect him, about how he turned around and begged him to kill him a moment later, with no regard for what Phil had just sacrificed. It’s probably something about how Phil is talking self-acceptance at him and yet obviously has not been taking care of himself, not in this aspect, at least, and he hates it, hates to see this disregard for things that he once held so dear, hates to see it and know that the blame lies with him. It’s probably something about how being held like this takes him back to when he was younger, and he always loved running his hands through his father’s feathers when he was still a child, straightening them and cleaning them and taking pride in the fact that he was helping, that he was a part of something, part of a family at last after so long on his own.

It’s probably all of that at once.

Something in Phil seems to deflate. His shoulders slump, which is not exactly the reaction Wilbur was hoping for.

And then—

“Alright,” Phil whispers. He leans back from the hug, stretching out his wings so that Wilbur can get a good look at them. So he does look, and he struggles to keep his face neutral; he’d hoped, somehow, that his glimpse of them in the Egg’s chamber, ragged and bleeding from the thorns, was exaggerated in his memory, that they’re not actually in as terrible a way as he remembers. But as Phil allows him to stare, his heart sinks.

Even in the dim light of the stars, he can see that the wings are a mess. And his stomach rolls as his eyes land on bare, scarred patches of skin, on exposed bone. A few places are still bandaged from the damage the Egg did, though potions have done much in the way of healing those particular wounds.

And only those, it seems.

(the Angel of Death will fly no more)

But there are still plenty of feathers, feathers that Phil obviously hasn’t been looking after, feathers that fall every which way, sticking out at odd angles. There are a few spots that Phil has evidently straightened himself, but not many. Some appear to be overlapping strangely, poking into the skin in a way that cannot be comfortable.

He looks back to Phil’s face. Phil’s expression is odd, some combination of resignation and defiance, as if halfway daring him to comment.

So Wilbur doesn’t. Just scoots forward slightly and runs his hand across some of the offered feathers.

And then gets to work.

Even in his tired state, the motions are familiar, far too familiar to mess up. Straighten the feathers, pick out dirt and other detritus that’s been caught in and beneath them. His hands are more hesitant than they ever have been, struggling with what to do as they near the more obviously injured places, but he does know how to do this. He has done it so many times before.

(and if Phil is allowing him this now, when he obviously has not allowed anyone near his wings in a long time, even Techno, even the son whose side he remained by, then perhaps it is a good sign, and perhaps he can take it as a sign of hope, as a sign that things can be better are getting better no matter the hurts that have yet to heal)

“Do they hurt?” he can’t help but ask, voice low.

Phil hesitates a beat too long. “Not usually,” he says, and Wilbur knows it for a lie.

There’s a lot of feathers loose. A lot of feathers coming out at a mere touch. And Wilbur knows how this works, knows that if the feather is already falling out then it needs to be removed, but it still concerns him, just how many there are, just how many now litter the ground, stirring in the wind.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask if it hurts right now. But another glance at Phil’s face forestalls him. His eyes have drifted shut, the lines around his eyes and on his forehead smoothing out, and the tension has bled from his frame.

(a memory: you have lived in this house scarce weeks and you barely trust these two at all but this boy who will become your brother has sat you down with the man who will become your father and is telling you, determinedly, seriously, resolutely, that if you’re going to stick around then you need to know how to do this, and Philza is laughing at the both of you and you are nervous, because you have never had a home before and you want to keep this one, but Technoblade shows you how to card through the feathers, and Phil chirps at you every now and then, soft and encouraging, and it feels a bit like a home, you think, if you’ll let yourself have it)

For a moment, he lets his hand hover over bone. It’s so very wrong, so very disturbing. Bones should not be extended out of flesh in the way that these are. His stomach flips again.

“This is my fault,” he murmurs. The words slip out.

“It was my choice,” Phil says, opening his eyes. “I’d do it again.” It’s a steady declaration this time, no indication of a lie.

(and he almost wishes that there were, because he has never known what to do with unwavering protection, protection that he does not deserve—but then, Phil has told him that his sense of what he deserves might not be right at all, and he doesn’t know what to do with that either)

(because the protection offered is without a doubt resolute, unquestioning, unconditional, and in that moment, as the explosions went off and Phil shielded him with no hesitation even though he could not have known that a life lost to them would have been his last because he did not tell him did not tell him anything at all)

(you try not to remember that Phil must have waited for you to respawn and try not to imagine the look on his face when your body remained and somebody had to tell him had to tell him that this is a three-life server and the life he took was the last the last the last the finale the ending an ending he surely did not intend to grant and you cannot let yourself imagine the moment he found out you cannot)

He doesn’t have an answer to that. None that Phil would accept, at any rate. So he doesn’t answer at all, just keeps dragging his fingers through his father’s feathers, neatening them, cleaning them where he can, and there’s only so much he’s going to be able to to like this, here and now, but it’s a start. Judging by the way Phil’s eyes are drooping again, he feels more comfortable than before. And really, that was the goal, wasn’t it? To do something? Anything?

(anything to ease the weight to lift the burden and Phil has a point, perhaps, about responsibility and taking on too much but this is not a responsibility is not work this is taking care of family and if Phil is allowing you this then perhaps you ought to consider accepting help in return perhaps letting your loved ones in would not be such a bad idea perhaps you can put a little more of yourself on display and trust them to smooth out the rough edges perhaps perhaps)

Eventually, he runs out of feathers to preen, to fix. There is nothing he can do about the scars, the bones, but he has done what he can, and perhaps that means something, even if not everything.

“We should go back inside,” Phil murmurs. His words slur slightly; he’s listing to the side a bit, obviously just on the edge of sleep. It makes Wilbur glad to know that some things don’t change.

“Probably,” he says. “I’d like to stay out for a few minutes longer. The stars look nice tonight.”

Phil yawns, and halfway through, the noise transforms into a warbling chirp.

“I s’ppose we can do that,” he agrees, and in the next instant, Phil is wrapping his wings around him again, pulling him closer, and he doesn’t fight it. He lets himself lean into Phil’s side, warm and secure. Overhead, the stars spin. And hum. They always hum, even if he can’t quite hear the notes, and for the moment, he feels right with his place in the universe.

He falls asleep like that, finally. His dreams are full of music and feathers and distant birdsong.

--------------------

He wakes up to the clanging of a bell.

“Oh, fuck,” Phil is saying, and the weight of his wings disappears in a split second. Wilbur almost topples over as Phil lurches to his feet, catching himself just in time, bracing himself against the bench and squinting against the morning sun. It is morning; that’s probably the best night’s sleep he’s gotten in the past few days, the beginning insomnia notwithstanding. His weariness is not quite gone, but it’s far less prevalent than it has been.

It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the light. The first thing he sees are the red vines crawling over the sides of the castle, inching toward the roof.

“Shit, fuck,” Phil is still saying, “the enchantments are gone, we need to move—”

The bell clangs twice, then thrice more, and then falls silent. Eret said they had a bell, didn’t they? That they would ring it if something happened, to wake everyone up?

“Fuck,” Phil says, suddenly hushed. “Wil.”

He rises, coming to stand by Phil’s side, peering out toward the gates, the wall, the place where the enchanted boundaries are supposed to be set. The castle itself doesn’t yet seem to be overrun, but the walls are covered in the foliage, and if he watches them carefully, he can see them growing in real time, unfurling toward them like bloody banners.

Dream stands just inside the gates. Behind him, there are others: Bad, Ant, Ponk, Punz, the four they knew to expect for sure, along with a woman he doesn’t recognize, white flowers strewn in her hair and wrapped around her arms. In front of them, Eret stands with their sword held out, and Sapnap staggers to stand beside them, obviously just woken up. Hopefully the others are on the move, too.

But what draws Wilbur’s attention is Ranboo. Standing next to Dream, slouched. Eyes no longer purple, but vacant, staring, dull. Dream has a possessive hand on his shoulder. Ranboo himself isn’t moving.

(betrayed betrayed betrayed even if history does not repeat it rhymes echoes and rhymes and he should’ve known better than to trust should’ve known better than to think that no one would stab him in the back because that’s just what people do)

“I hope you took advantage of the time we gave you to prepare,” Dream says. “We thought it’d be only fair. But it’s checkmate now.”

And the smile on his mask seems to grow.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #philza #ranboo #dreamwastaken #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #i am currently Not At Home so i was worried i wouldn't be able to post #but here i am!! i did it!! :D #we really are in the endgame now

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