HAVE THE HEART OF A GIANT

Ev. Older than I'd like, queerer than you think. Multi muse, multi ship indie rp blog. semi selective / mun and muses 21+ / PST

[heartofagiant]

Of course I loved her.

I have always loved Alex. Of course I have. It was Alex who said hi to me first. I was new and Alex was always so bold. So it was her first, but we were us maybe from the first moment. certainly by the time we sat next to each other at lunch that day and then every day after.

It was me who gave Alex chicken pox and I know that doesn’t sound like love but when you love people you share things. We shared that. The long days isolated from everyone else. It suited us,  our own little itchy world in my parents basement surrounded by stacks of magazines and the classic movies that were the only entertainment my parents stooped to keep on hand for their solitary child.  Alex told me once she thought I resorted to writing out of sheer boredom.

It was me who shared that too. Maybe not much better than chickenpox. Alex read my first halting attempts at fairytales and my angst-ridden teen poetry. Then, later, my first novel and she still always gets the first finished draft of whatever I’m working on. She always has something droll to say about it, but she reads it all. Every time.

It was Alex who first bloodied a man’s nose for me. It’s happened so often they all blur together. Men are terrible and Alex is Alex. I do remember that first time he was just a high school bully who backed down. There were times they weren’t. We’ve shared enough ice packs and bruised egos, been in enough fights for and with each other to know where to be gentle.

So when it was Alex who told me she was in love with me and then kissed me in my car outside her house, like she couldn’t keep it back anymore, like a gasp for air in oncoming tides... I kissed her back, took her face in my hands and disengaged gently. Told her how much I loved her. That there was a boy, Sean, in senior year with us I was going to prom with. I don’t know if it was gentle enough. She still winced and things were strained for a while. But when prom did finally come around I ditched Sean long enough to find Alex with a flask out on the bleachers by the football field. We drank and made each other laugh. So, as it turns out, we shared that too.

And graduation. And college and two whirlwind nights in Italy when Alex flew out to surprise me the year I studied abroad. And then finally the same city again where we could see each other every day. Which we did. For a while.

She got married. And it was me, because it’s me and we’re us, who drove her to that first date. It happened a lot that way in those days. Alex and I stealing time together between her shifts and my writing and all our separate social events and travel and all the life that we didn’t share anymore by grabbing the fifteen minutes between things...plus the length of the car ride. Just snippets here and there. Not enough, but something. Something.

I liked her when I finally met her, weeks later when it was clear she’d be around for a while. I liked her. She was funny and warm and thoughtful. Impossible to hate. Later...I’d try. But for now we became fast friends and the occasional twinge at sharing mine and Alex’s world with someone else passed quickly and nearly went away.

I didn’t understand until I was standing in front of Alex in a dressing room the day of her wedding that something came loose inside me I’d never be able to name. Or take back. That had maybe always been coming. Or grown over time. Or that I just didn’t recognize as always being true like the supreme idiot I sometimes I am. It doesn’t matter. What matters is this: Somewhere between high school and her wedding day I’d fallen in love with my best friend. Too late. A day, and a lifetime shared, too late.

I thought it would fade, go back to where ever it had been lurking inside me all these years. But it didn’t. I went away then. Hid at home. Behind my work. Avoided Alex and everyone else in the world. What else do you do when a friend who had been in love with you gets married and you figure out you’re in love with her too? When she’s married. And her wife is funny and warm and thoughtful...and a friend of yours now too.

It was her...who came and found me. Knocking on my door with two cups of coffee and that gentle smile. Impossible to hate. She came to tell me she knew I was busy, but that she missed me. She never mentioned Alex. But it hung there between us I think. I never asked. Not once. And she never said. But I think maybe she knew.

And life carried on. The years passed. I dated here and there. The two of you were happy. To the end, you were happy. And I was there. I know that doesn’t sound much like love but Alex, you have to know by now...you share things with people you love. She shared you. 

Of course I loved her.

[swallowedabug]

[justqueeerious-deactivated20220]

the way she sits. the nose rub. couldnt get any gayer than this

[supercorrps]

[edmundo-diaz]

[izzymalec]

[gothknight]

@heartofagiant

[heartofagiant]

gothknight‌:

“See – “ Jac inclined her head, tipping in Rhys direction, hands shoved in her pockets “you’re Galahad, Nancy Drew.” Rhys’s quest was noble and fearless, able to lose able to charge in head first, able to find the truth or demand it. Jac envied it. She wasn’t a noble crusader. Jac was a coward. She held her head up and back straight and pretended to be tall but it was only so she’d have something big enough to hide behind. Rhys Baines didn’t seem like she knew how to hide even if she was hidden by default. “But I’m not going anywhere. We made it this far didn’t we? Plus, you think I’m nice which sounds like a boring reputation to have.” Jac tried to brush that off as the reason but the reason was that maybe doing something good was more incentive than she’d like and maybe hanging around Rhys and her pointed eyebrows and pointed words sounded like even more fun. It suddenly became hard not to say that she’d take a black eye or getting her jaw wired shut if they were going to do it together. That was probably not a thought normal people had. They’d met five minutes ago or something. "What I’m saying is I’ll take a punch if I have to. Or a few.  Or a milkshake or – hat’s the easy stuff. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

There was a moment, just the tiniest split second, where Rhys nearly took a step back, caught off guard. Unprepared didn’t even begin to describe how unsettling the warm glow loosening the base of her spine was. Just for a second, she almost stuttered out a ‘thank you’ or a ‘why’ or something that was bound to prompt a conversation about things she definitely didn’t want to look too closely at or try to explain. Rhys was used to wary distance, to the sussurus of whispers that followed in her wake. She was used to some semblance of dark safety in the way people stayed away. Rhys Baines did not stutter or suffer warm glows to loosen a regal spine. 

Rhys swallowed, hard, pasted a wicked grin on her face, and did her best to wipe away any sense that she wasn’t entirely prepared for anything the world might throw at her. Even if it came in the shape of tall, shining girls who worried about her getting hurt. “You are nice, Jac Griffin. So you let me do the talking in there, okay?” Rhys slipped her arm into Jac’s and shoved her way through the door all in one motion. She didn’t think about how none of that was in any of her scenarios, just marched the pair of them through the raucous mass of jocks crowding the house, managing to nearly clear a walk way for them with a well-raised eyebrow and that odd, dark aura she always dropped over herself in crowds. She tuned out the murmurs that followed in their wake as people recognized her, and ignored the sudden thought of what speculation might follow this dramatic entrance with the small town hero at her side. 

She focused instead on the work to do here. Good work to be done. That’s what mattered. She beelined for the living room to their right where she could see a mass of soccer players holding court from one of the couches with various hangers-on sitting on the floor and other chairs around. She stepped right into the crowd, carefully angling to command all the attention she could. “Check your drinks, girls,” she declared without disclaimer or fanfare, loud enough for the whole room to hear. She pulled the bag of pills from her purse and threw it straight into Jeremey’s face. “Found these in your locker, Captain Rapist. How many of these girls aren’t going to remember what happened to them tomorrow?” 

[heartofagiant]

gothknight‌:

Reluctantly, Jac conceded. Conceded to Rhys calling her a hero, to their negotiation of who got to patch and rescue who, and to the huffy and now frantic paramedic trying to get them to the hospital. She didn’t bother arguing about their first assignment, about how bad Jac had been at saving at Rhys, about who had done the patching. But she swallowed it down. They didn’t need to bring it up. It always earned a lecture Jac wanted to avoid anyway. They took the ambulance ride, even found Trevor waiting with concerned eyes and a talking to on his lips which Jac relentlessly mocked him for. He won, sitting and forcing her to actually use the oxygen the hospital was supplying while they took Rhys to get her leg looked at. She sat in silence, while they unwrapped her hands all over again, put the actual stitches in her shoulder that it probably needed, prodded at the burns, called in a specialist to prod at them again, and eventually cleared her to go. Trevor waited every minute of it, either because he was scared to hover around Rhys or because they weren’t letting him to X-Rays and MRIs with her. Jac didn’t bother asking which of the two it was. He left, when the doctor finally dismissed them. With a firm “one week” and a point of his finger. “I don’t want to see your face until Monday. You make sure Agent Baines knows that too.” Jac nodded. She hated the idea of taking a full work week off, probably sitting out a case or two but an actual week with Rhys was a strange upside she wasn’t used to. If they didn’t both go stir crazy. She’d still have to deliver that news to Rhys, but hoped it would be the worst of their news for the day as she headed with  heavy limgs to the room the nurse told her they were patching up Rhys in. Jac rapped her knuckles against the door frame, eye rolling when the bandages there produced no sound and she remembered they were nursing injuries. “Agent Baines, I’m supposed to let you know Trevor doesn’t want to see our faces for a week. Which means you better be getting out of here too so we can take advantage of all seven of those days away from any other people.” She let the door shut behind her and shrugged her shoulders under the too big suit jacket she was wearing. “He also gave me his blazer and told me to stop embarrassing him so I don’t want to see his face for at least a week either.”

Rhys hated hospitals with that deep and abiding passion that can only come from spending far too much time in them. She was also miserable in hospitals and knew she was miserable to be around. So while one whiny, childlike half of her wished Jac was nearby to hold her hand through it all, the adult, reasonable part of her was relieved she was too busy getting her own treatment to witness how snippy and pouty Rhys always found herself in hospitals. She breathed deep as they ushered her from x-ray to MRI, from room to room. She managed the whole ordeal with only one small snap at the MRI technician, who’d taken it like a champ (no doubt used to frightened patients worried about lying in an enclosed tube for extended periods of time). Finally settled in a room where the doctor came to explain what they’d found and do a few final rounds of taps and prods to her back, hip, and knee, Rhys nodded absently as he explained that she’d wrenched her hip but done no lasting damage. There was a small flicker of unfamiliar pleasure at the prescription for as much bed rest as she could manage (at least two days) and she wondered how Jac was faring...surely she’d need at least a little rest of her own, right? As if summoned by the thought there was a muffled thump on the door and Jac appeared through it. 

Rhys immediately raised her hand, rubbing at her mouth to cover the bubbling laugh at the edges of her lips on seeing Jac swimming in a far too large blazer. God, she hoped she managed just look thoughtful. “Well,” she finally got her laughter under control, “it looks good on you. Love a good ‘wearing my dad’s suit’ look on a woman.” Rhys turned questioning eyes to the doctor who was finishing jotting down a few notes on her chart. “Well, doc, you heard the lady. I better be getting out of here. She’s scrappy, you don’t want to fight with her.” He cleared his throat, nodded a little, lackluster and apparently entirely missing any kind of sense of humor. “Go ahead. Rest, remember, as much time off your leg as you can manage.” He handed her a scrip for some sort of ultra-grade pain killer and muscle relaxant and  didn’t even bother to say goodbye as he tucked her chart away and slid past Jac out the door. “God, I hate hospitals.” Rhys muttered as he watched him go. Then her eyes returned to Jac, unable to stop the curling edges at her mouth at the still ridiculous vision of her in Trevor’s suit. “Doctors are the worst. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Rhys eased off the table, sighing heavily before reluctantly taking up the cane the doctor’d left for her, leaning on it carefully to test her leg out with a few steps across the room. “I’ve got a prescription for massive painkillers I probably won’t take and at least two days bed rest. Care to keep me company?” 

[heartofagiant]

gothknight‌:

That word kept coming up. Galahad. Hero. Hometown hero. Jac rolled her eyes with a tiny quiet scoff and followed Rhys out of the locker room, gym bag slung over one shoulder. There was no way this would end well, and Rhys Baines didn’t seem like the type to back down. Someone had to be there to try and mediate. But even as they made their way to the party Jac made her mind up in her head. She’d take Rhys’s side if sides became an issue. She was right after all, righteous and loud and bossy but right. It was the very reason Jac avoided parties like this, the boys on the soccer team. Too much trouble. The neared the door step and Jac hesitated, hands in her sweat pants pockets now that her bag was in Rhys’s car. “Rhys look –” her voice came out quiet and Jac cleared her throat before she tried again. “Hey they’re … drunk already. For sure. And they feel safe in their numbers. They’re going to protect each other. This is an .. honorable mission and you’re right. You are, Rhys. But that doesn’t mean you’ll win. Unwinnable games kind of freak me out because I don’t know what to do in them. Which isn’t the point but – I have your back. I’ll let you do whatever Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars thing you’re going to do and I’ll be … Galahad .. if that’s what you want. But please just – if it’s too much, if I say we have to go, please listen. I don’t even think Galahad could take a room full of drunk jock boys. And I like your face like it is. Drinking milk shakes will be way less fun with our jaws wired shut.”

Rhys half expected Jac to back out, paused at the sound of her name, the hesitation in Jac’s step, ready with a nod and barebones acknowledgment to let her off the hook..no harm no foul, she was better at alone anyway. The idea of Jac being there made her nervous in ways she’d spent the car ride trying to ignore in favor of sketching out scenarios for how she’d handle the party, the players. 

None of her scenarios prepared her for what amounted to Jac standing by her in the face of what was, admittedly, a nigh unwinnable situation...and definitely none of them factored in any world where Jac might worry about her. Or her face. “I-” Rhys stopped walking, nearly to the steps leading to the door, unprepared and at a bit of a loss as to how to respond. She hated being unprepared. “Jac,” Rhys set a hand on her arm, rejiggered her let-her-off-the-hook scenario on the fly, “you don’t have to do this. You’re...sweet. And...everything people say about you, I guess. Which is honestly kind of surprising. Also not the point though- look, I’ve been living unwinnable for a long time. Fighting fights I’ll almost certainly lose. I’m actually weirdly good at it by now. Losing. There’s an art to it, believe it or not. You don’t...you don’t have to worry about me or my face.” Rhys grinned a little, trying to loosen the way her ribcage seemed to tighten. “You make a handsome Galahad and as much as I’d love to have that shining knight standing next to me...you really don’t have to.” Rhys quirked an eyebrow. “I promise I’ll even get milkshakes with you after my jaw heals.” 

[heartofagiant]

gothknight:

Jac hadn’t meant to make it scene. She hadn’t meant for it to be too big but maybe it was. She was never good at knowing when things were big and Rhys – Rhys was big. Her emotions and her love and her words. Jac sat in them, focused on them, let Rhys pull them close and together and make it so much more intimate than Jac had been. Part of her wished she’d delivered that confession better, with more fanfare or something that Rhys would have like – deserved. But it was there now, sitting between them comfortable and at home in an a way Jac hadn’t expected. And she swelled under Rhys’s words, smiled back, tucked a strand of hair behind Rhys’s ear with her unbandaged fingers. “Okay,” she nodded. “But .. you have to know too that if you come after me – I will save you. Every time. Whatever it takes. That’s.. the only well I’ll let you call me a hero.” The poor paramedic was hovering, with oxygen masks and more bandages. “I can’t clear you,” he insisted handing a mask to each of them. “We have to take you back to the hospital. I didn’t know you were FBI. Your boss just called. He was scary. Please get in the ambulance.” Jac nearly belly laughed, hanging her head and shaking it. “Looks like we might at least get another day off.”

Rhys grinned, pressed her hands briefly against the sides of Jac’s head, just long enough to brush her thumbs warmly along her cheekbones once, loving and fleeting because they weren’t alone, and she was satisfied with the moment she’d made for them, to appreciate the words and each other at a time that seemed important. “See? Hero. Pain in my ass. But a hero. As long as you let me be there to patch you up afterward, we’ll call it even.” Hero. There was some edge to that Rhys couldn’t name, some shadow that settled in her abdomen. Before she could parse it or deal with it the paramedic was speaking and Rhys shook her head. “God damn it, Trevor,” she mumbled, annoyed and affectionate and still half-distracted trying to identify the thing in her that shied at the idea of Jac the Hero. “Come on. I can command many things, but have never been able to strike the Fear of God out of mens hearts after Trevor gets to them. No matter how hard I try.” With that she reached up to haul herself up into the ambulance, eyes purposefully turned away from the paramedics solicitous hands, despite the way her leg nearly buckled under her at the strain. “Let’s go get doctored,” Rhys tossed a wink Jac’s direction, she may not be able to command the situation anymore, but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t find a way to control it. “Then maybe we can play doctor afterward if Trevor gives us some decent time off.” 

[heartofagiant]

gothknight:

It was impossible to be worried about Rhys when she was so bossy, impossible to ever take the lead in circumstances like this where any passer by always immediately hung to Rhys’s orders. It was something about her, commanding and maternal and sharp features. People stopped and they listened. Jac was usually grateful for it until moments like this. She sighed, without argument as the paramedic did exactly as Rhys said and started looking at her hands and the long cut that had caused the bleeding she’d felt running down her arm. It wasn’t deep, just had to be cleaned, bandaged, glued a little. He was muttering about the burns, about having them looked at by someone who wasn’t a paramedic but Jac ignored him, let him clean and bandage them and focused her attention Rhys who was still brimming with all the assuredness in the world. “I know,” Jac answered, quiet one already bandaged hand caught between Rhys’s. She tried to take the apology back, shake the guilt out of her chest. She felt exhausted. Adrenaline, again. It was something Jac had to keep making note of. “I love you.” It finally pulled past her lips like an exhale, like relief. “I just – you’re – I love you and it wasn’t scary until you were hurt. It’s .. never been scary until you’re there. I won’t let anything to happen to you. I can’t.”

Rhys was glad she was sitting. One leg down and the way her whole body, her face and shoulders and chest and knees softened and went flimsy under Jac’s words and she’d likely have fallen flat on her face if she hadn’t been sitting. She was grateful for that at least, but tongue tied as all the momentary surety of managing paramedics and saying what was true went rushing away like a flight of birds, like her heart on a balloon string. “Jac...” Rhys took in a sharp breath, but no words came. She was self conscious, suddenly, grasping for anything that would settle her again, that would help her find her voice again. “Hey,” Rhys turned eyes more warm than sharp now on the paramedic as he finished wrapping up Jac’s cuts and burns. “Can you...can you give us a minute?” He must have understood the gravity of the moment, because he hopped up into his rig and began rummaging with only a mild grumbling about this being his ambulance. It wasn’t quite privacy. Rhys tugged the hand in hers, pulling Jac between her knees so she didn’t have to stand but could rest her forehead against Jac’s, tuck a hand behind her neck in a way that always steadied her. She needed steadying for this. Much as she might boss the paramedics around...Jac was the steadier one in this relationship. “I...” Rhys closed her eyes, breathed in deep somewhere in the space where they were sharing air, sharing things...almost privacy. “I love you too.” It was a whisper, a thing to be shared privately just with Jac for this moment. She drew back a little bit, catching Jac’s eyes, voice rising to a normal volume again, eyes intent on Jac’s, trying to impress the importance of this thing on her. “I’m going to get hurt sometimes. Things will happen. We’re...us. We’re FBI agents and you’re...a god damn hero, which means I’m always chasing after you and your heroics and I don’t mind that. But...sometimes things might happen. To me. And that’s okay. You can be scared, that’s okay too, god knows I’m a train wreck when things happen to you. But you don’t get to take responsibility for this. For me. I chose this, Jac. I chose this life. And I chose you. Whatever happens...it’s on me, okay?” Rhys could practically feel the paramedic breathing down their necks at this point, but this was too important. Jac was too important. 

[lena-luthor]

I swear I am the only one who knows how to do this. I promise you I will do it.

[gothknight]

@heartofagiant

[heartofagiant]

gothknight:

Jac listened to every word Rhys said as intently as promised, this time not because she wanted to prove that was astute and obedient, but because the words were important, learning what Rhys had to say, understanding what all of this was, it was important. Jac could feel it and the more they talked about it the more she couldn’t keep up with the amount her mind seemed to search to know more, to understand more, to spend her nights thinking of why this was different, who Miss Rhys’s Jac was. It all made sense, crystal clear in a way Jac hadn’t expected. In fact, it answered more of her questions than it did bring up new ones. She sat, hands folded in her lap and answered Rhys’s question just seconds after it was asked, confident in the answer. “No,” Jac shook her head but looked Rhys in the eyes. They seemed to keep playing with each other’s trust and that word was really all the trust she could possibly put in Rhys. “I don’t want to fight.” Her voice got softer now. “I don’t like hurting people. I don’t like being the reason another fighter loses. But I do – I want to be good. I like fighting for my dominant and winning. I like when he’s proud of me and I don’t.. really even mind getting hurt. I like .. being the best even when it’s not to survive.” Jac shrugged, “I wouldn’t mind being the best at something else.” Her eyes lowered off of Rhys’s and for a second, Jac stared at her hands in her lap, thought a little too heavily about what they’d done, who they belonged to, that paired with all that Rhys had said before. “I always knew this wasn’t normal. After I went to D.C I knew. Our lives – our school, my parents – it was all too normal before that. I guess I just … hadn’t figured that not normal meant . not allowed or not good. The world like you talk about it sounds .. nice. Scary and confusing but nice.”

Rhys blinked rapidly, opened her mouth to say something, anything, and was startled to find her eyes welling. She cleared her throat, pressed fingertips along her brows, down over her eyes, a trick she’d pick up ages ago to compress her sinuses and flip the switch in her body (if not her brain, if not her heart) to swallow back the moment of welling emotion. Contained as the reaction was, the emotion was still there, the warm wash in her chest, an almost living thing rising up inside her despite her best efforts. She let out a breath, slowly, quietly, and reached for one of Jac’s hands, sliding her fingers under it, curling carefully around it. She  kept her eyes on her lap, murmured thoughtfully. “I’ve been away from that world a long time. I’ve been here. Doing what I can. Looking...looking for you. But it is nice. I’d like to show it to you, some day. That world. To see it again.” There was something vulnerable about this conversation, about this moment, and it would be unjust, unfair to offer Jac anything less than her own most vulnerable parts in return. So she raised her eyes, warm and a little red, to find Jac’s, squeezed her hand. “You are...” Rhys shook her head a little. “remarkable. For what it’s worth. I know I’m not Brogan and you’re not mine, but...you are, a little bit.” Rhys laughed, a small sort of self deprecating snort. “Presumptuous, maybe. But...true.” She squeezed Jac’s hand again. “My Jac. For what it’s worth...I’m proud to hear who you are. That you want more than to hurt other people. That you want more for yourself. Not many people...not many fighters make it through what you’ve been through with their souls in tact. It’s what makes my job so hard. They’re broken sometimes. Or...mean sometimes. The trauma...” Rhys shook her head a little. This wasn’t the time. She steadied herself, swallowed hard and firmed her jaw. “It isn’t normal, you’re right and technically, legally it’s not allowed, but the people who run these fighting rings find a lot of loopholes to keep doing what they’re doing. We find fighters sometimes who eventually trust me, eventually are ready to leave...to fight their way out. Because it is...it’s a fight. And it’s scary. And I know that and I’m glad we get them out but...it’s not enough. It’s not. And I don’t,” Rhys’ other hand curled into a fist, settled heavily on her knee. “I don’t know how to to stop it. The whole thing, the fights and the dominants and the money...god, there’s so much money. It’s...it’s why I’ve been talking to so many fighters without getting them. We’re authorized to try to help them leave, but not to bring down the organizations that bring them here in the first place. It’s...a kind of secret. A mission inside a mission. I’ve been trying to find a way to bring down the entire operation. Even if we can just get a couple cities...it would slow them down. It’s....dangerous. And not...entirely sanctioned by the my bosses. But I can’t keep....throwing starfish back. We need to change the tides...somehow. I just...don’t know...yet.”   

[heartofagiant]

gothknight:

Jac and shoved Rhys’s comment about her holding Max somewhere down where she didn’t have to look at it. Not right now. She’d never really considered herself to be someone that even went hand in hand with the thought of kids, being no where near the warm doting sort of person Rhys was or stern but open hearted person that Trevor was. Those were the sort of people that kids were meant for, that kids liked. She’d never really considered it. And she didn’t consider it now, focused instead on making sure they cleared the building and Max was safe in his mother’s arm and Rhys was lecturing and arguing and reasoning in the exact way she always did. “I hadn’t noticed, actually. You just said I looked good. Us is fine,” Jac smiled, giving Rhys a little more of her support now that Max wasn’t in her arms. It was easy to be lighter. Especially when Jac could already feel her chest filling with a mix of things she didn’t want to feel like guilt and frustration, and when she could feel the burns Rhys had mentioned slowly start to emerge along with her exhausted muscles from the grip of adrenaline rush. “If you wanted me to finally actually rescue you, half undressed, you could have just asked. We could have pulled off something in the field less draining than a fire.” Jac laughed a little, coughed through the burn in her chest and then let it fade before they approached the ambulance. “I am sorry .. for running in there for putting you in danger. You shouldn’t – you weren’t supposed to run after me.”

Rhys rolled her eyes and steered them toward the a nearby ambulance, but not the nearest one, keen eyes hunting for what looked like a young paramedic. “Don’t be an idiot,” Rhys glanced at Jac only briefly, voice clipped but unfocused, absent minded almost. “You’ve rescued me enough for a lifetime, Jac Griffin.” As Rhys arrived at the ambulance she focused on her best play to avoid a hospital visit, waved away the proprietary hands of the young man she’d identified as her best bet to be convinced that she was fine. Rhys sat on the back of the ambulance gingerly, but kept her feet firmly on the ground. Her eyes found the young, vaguely awed eyes of the paramedic, and she raised her finger perfunctorily, “You look at her burns first, I’m fine here with the weight off my leg, then you can examine me, find I have a pulled muscle, hand me some pain killers and let me go home for my day off with my beautiful girlfriend. Got it?” Barely deigning to acknowledge him and not waiting for an answer, like he had no choice in the matter, she turned her eyes back to Jac, face serious and any trace of absentmindedness washed away as she focused her entire attention on Jac’s blue eyes. “You run into danger, you can bet I’ll be hot on your heels every time. That’s the deal. That’s how we do this. So...just....think of that, before you go running off into danger.” She reached for Jac’s hand, squeezed it warmly to take some of the edge off her clear, serious tone. “I’m with you, Jac. Danger and all. Even when you try to leave me behind. I know who you are and I chose that. I keep choosing it. So...keep your apologies to yourself just...don’t forget, okay? Even if sometimes you want to. I’ll always be right behind you.” 

[hope-mikaelson]

ENDLESS GIFS OF EMILY PRENTISS: Season 13, Episode 16; “Last Gasp”

[daeneryskairipa]

Isabelle Lightwood in 3x06 “A Window Into an Empty Room”

[heartofagiant]

@gothknight

[heartofagiant]

gothknight:

It was enough. Rhys was moving. She was still okay. In pain but not bleeding. Jac kept Max’s arm wrapped around her neck and stood with him, other hand reaching carefully for Rhys. She didn’t have time to truly appreciate their united front in disregarding the far too late firefighters, all of her attention on the boy she had on one hip and Rhys on the other. Jac placed her hand around Rhys’s back, as steadying as she could. “I’ve got you, we’re good. We’re all good.” She huffed the words at no one in particular,, burying Max’s shirt covered face into her shoulder as they made their way out of the smoke, flanked by firefighters. Once they finally emerged into the clear light of day and real oxygen, Jac found herself coughing again, finally getting air and feeling the burn of smoke in her eyes. Max’s mother reemerged, reaching for her son, thanks upon thanks pouring out of her mouth at both of them. She nodded assurances, and added a “get him to the paramedics, he needs clean air” before Jac finally turned her attention fully to Rhys. Ignoring the crowds and the medics and the firefighters, Jac through her arms around Rhys’s shoulders, like an unstoppable explosion and unshakeable relief at the same time. It muddled her brain with memories of emerging from that cult, of Rhys and the kiss and her own confusion. But this time there was no confusion. It was crystal clear. “I’m so sorry,” Jac muttered against Rhys’s hair, one hand holding strong at the back of her head. “You scared me.” It was a quiet, careful confession and she pulled herself out of the feeling as quickly as she let herself get into it. Jac stayed there a moment too long before lowering herself back on her heels. “We gotta get you to a bus. You should get an x-ray.”

Rhys managed a not-too-undignified hop limp out of the burning building, grip steady but not tightening on Jac’s shoulder, just enough to keep her stable, to keep her moving. That was what she needed to be right now, moving out of this building with this kid. With Jac. Rhys leaned down a little, close to Jac’s ear and hopefully inaudible to anyone but her. “That’s a good look on you, by the way,” let her eyes sweep the curly blonde head tucked into Jac’s shoulder, the way she’d settled the boy on her hip like she’d done it a thousand times before (she probably had). Jac looked good...right with her hero-straight back and steadying hands and an adorable blonde child in her arms. There it was again, that word drifting in and out of her mind. Hero. Before she could dwell on it she was smiling warmly at Max’s mother and nodding her agreement with Jac’s exhortation to get him to a paramedic. Then she was stumbling back a step, finally bracing her good leg well enough to hold them both, getting her arms around Jac’s waist, leaning on her more than holding her, maybe the only thing keeping her from tumbling onto her ass in a heap. “Okay, easy,” Rhys closed her eyes, turned her cheek warmly into Jac’s hair, quietly near her ear again, softly, “easy. It’s okay. We’re okay. We did it.” Rhys was surprised to find the we catching in her throat, raw and expansive but before she could deal with it or think about it Jac was out of the brief moment. Out of the emotion of it, back to the reality, grounded on her feet again. Rhys wasn’t ever as quick as Jac to square it all away and even as she pulled back her hands braced around Jac’s hips, still leaning and steadying herself. “Yeah, right. We-” it was there again, the raw feeling, the scraping feeling, she wondered if it was smoke inhalation. Rhys cleared her throat a little. “I don’t suppose you noticed that your hands are covered in blisters and you look like crap too. But by all means, yes, let’s get me to a bus.” Rhys shook her head, finding her feet...foot, finding her one steady leg again. “Let’s get us to a bus, huh? You can get your burns treated and we’ll both probably get oxygen forced on us and I can fight with you and the paramedic about how I don’t need an x-ray I just need to go home and lay down for a bit. It’ll be just like old times. Lead the way.” Rhys gestured, maneuvering herself around to lean on Jac’s shoulder again, angle them toward a nearby ambulance.

[heartofagiant]

gothknight:

“Maybe,” Jac huffed glancing over her shoulder. So far, no one had come. She assumed they were probably taking their sweet time deciding whether or not the building could sustain any sort of rescue. It was a motive she respected but in the moment didn’t care about. Rhys was in this building. Kids were in this building. Sustainable rescue be damned. “Not going to stand around waiting for them. We’re getting you out of here.” With one glance at Rhys and a second check over the kids, Jac squatted by the beam that had fallen and did her best to get a grip on it. “I need you to listen,” she leveled her eyes at Rhys, “If I lift this and something hurts – too much, like the wrong kind of too much, I need you to say stop. We don’t want to .. take your legs off or something. Go it?” Once she had Rhys’s approval, Jac counted to three in her head and bore all the strength she had down into that beam. She twisted and pulled but nothing budged. Panicked, her eyes found another beam that had fallen across it in another direction, a pile of rubble on the other side and Jac moved toward it as fast as she could, just like before, clearing piece after piece until it had nearly taken all the air out of her lungs. Once she’d almost cleared all of it she heard the approaching firefighters, and walked toward them. But as she did, the small blonde boy, Max, reached and clung to her leg, probably scared of their suits and masks. “They’re firefighters,” Jac whispered. “They’re here to help,” but Max clung to her and didn’t let go. With a wave, the firefighter tried to usher her out but Jac shook her head. “I’m not leaving without her.” “And that kid isn’t leaving without you.” The firefighter spit back, taking his mask off and discarding it to work. “Well we better get this beam up fast, then.” Jac said nothing else to them and crouched back to Max, noting the other two children being escorted out by the firefighters. “Can you stay right here behind me?” She turned, once again to the beam that lay over Rhys and this time, when she counted to three and pulled it moved. Maybe it was Max, maybe it was the cleared debris or the peering firefighters or the fear of how long it was taking to get Rhys out, but the board lifted, blistered hands and tired lungs. As soon as it was up  she knelt down, Max with his arms around her neck and her hand on Rhys’s knee. The firefighters were somewhere, maybe clearing the beam the rest of the way. Jac had stopped paying attention.“Are you okay? Can you walk?”

“Jac, you can’t-” It was useless. She was already examining, bending, lifting, moving. Rhys just jerked her head in a tiny nod, determined to say nothing no matter how much it hurt if it got her unpinned and these kids out of here. She warred with the heavy weight in her chest that was probably smoke inhalation, but also annoyance with Jac’s reckless disregard for her own body and these kids, her singular focus on getting Rhys out. “Will you let up and take these kids out of here, the fire fighters are right around the damn corner. They’ll get me-” Like she’d summoned them, they appeared. And one look at Jac’s face and the fire fighter’s annoyance had her gritting her teeth and letting the shifting weight of the beam as Jac lifted it grind into her left hip for a few agonizing seconds without a sound and then managed to haul herself out from under that god damn beam, scraping her elbows barely noticed amidst the pain in her hip, the prickles shooting through her legs and feet as the blood began circulating properly. She flexed her feet, hissing a little, “Yeah, yeah. I’m...fine. I’m good.” 

Rhys got her hands under herself, shoved up onto to her good right leg, trying not to lean too much against her left as pain went stabbing through her hip and back. She sucked in a sharp breath just as a firefighter reappeared. “Ma’am, please, wait for a paramedic, you shouldn’t be walking.” Rhys waved him away, flexing her left leg carefully, testing her weight against it. “Go away and let us get this kid out of here.” Rhys set a hand carefully on Jac’s shoulder, not wrapping or leaning, careful to just put a little extra weight on Jac’s shoulder every time she stepped on her wobbly left left. “C’mon, Hercules. Let’s get little Max back to his mom before she comes charging back in here.”