Ficlet - What if PM dies just before she reunites with WV?
Prominent Character(s): Peregrine Mendicant, Wayward Vagabond
Pairings: Peregrine Mendicant <> Wayward Vagabond
Genre: Tragedy...?
Length: 1058 words
Warnings: Major character death, blood, stabbing
Extra Info: I was talking yesterday with some pals about how we all can't wait for the PM and WV reunion in Homestuck, and then suddenly "But what if PM dies just before they meet?"
How could I resist?
~~~
She saw him in the Land of Heat and Clockwork.
She hadn’t even been paying attention to the scenery, too busy chasing after Jack, but she still recognized him even as a passing glance.
He was standing on top of a building, staring down at the sea of lava below. A boy was sitting nearby, distracted by something on his wrist.
She forgot completely about Jack, and she simply stared at WV, a hundred thousand thoughts running through her mind.
He’s alive.
She watched as he picked up a piece of rubble from the floor and threw it as far as he could into the lava. She remembered how he and AR would do the same back home, throwing rocks from atop AR’s base just to see who could throw better.
She felt as if a weight had been taken off her shoulders, and she suddenly realized that she didn’t have to be alone anymore. Most of all, she realized how badly she wanted a hug.
He’s alive.
Her first instinct was to fly over to him, but she stopped after a few feet. She couldn’t just appear in front of him looking like...well, a white version of Jack. She had a feeling neither WV nor the boy would take kindly to it-- besides, she didn’t even want WV to look at her like that.
She didn’t want WV to have to face the physical image of the one who had murdered him.
She made her way to the building next to WV’s, and landed as quietly as she could, not wanting to alert WV or the boy of her presence. She looked at her hand and rubbed her finger against the godforsaken ring that had been the cause of her misery.
After a few minutes, she took it off and felt herself go back to her old body. She had trouble adjusting at first, realizing she had forgotten what it felt like to not be an overpowered half-dog god.
Once she got the hang of it, she looked up and waved at WV, her heart beating frantically in her chest. She was about to scream his name, but she stopped and lowered her arm. He didn’t know what went on outside his base, meaning he had no idea what had happened to not only her, but to AR and WQ.
What if he thought AR and WQ were still alive? Did she really have the emotional strength to explain what had happened back at the desert? Maybe she hadn’t just been chasing Jack to get revenge...Maybe she had been running away from having to accept she had really lost it all.
But she hadn’t lost it all, had she? There, right in front of her, was the last silver lining she had. He was what was left, and with him there with her, confronting and coming to terms with AR and WQ’s death didn’t seem as hard as it did before.
She didn’t even realize Jack had floated behind her, and for a few instants, didn’t even feel the pain as Jack plunged his sword right into her back and into her chest. It was only until he pulled it out and she fell to her knees that PM realized what had happened.
“I don’t like you anymore when you look like this.”
“I hate you,” she whispered, collapsing on the floor, tears streaming down her face, wanting but unable to scream. “Damn you.”
Her eyes were glued to the lone carapace in the distance, so blissfully unaware of what was happening one building over. Help me, she wanted to scream.
Look at me, here I am, I found you, I’ve missed you, don’t let me go, I don’t want you to be all alone, turn around.
PM had dropped her ring when Jack stabbed her, prompting the Sovereign Slayer to pick it up, another trophy taken from one of his kills.
“Why haven’t you finished me off?”
“Simple,” he replied. “I want you to watch me kill them.”
She tried to scream a warning at WV, but Jack kicked her rather hard, forcing her to stay quiet and groan in pain. He then teletransported right in front of WV, startling the carapace. PM saw him raise his sword to kill WV, but the boy in red interfered, clashing swords with Jack.
“Fuck! What’s he doing here already?!” screamed the boy. “Mayor, stay behind me!”
No, she thought, staring at WV, her head starting to feel dizzy. Run, run, run.
“We can’t take him on, Mayor! Let’s get outta here!”
WV nodded and took hold of the boy’s arm.
He’s leaving, she thought, her mind going haywire. With the last of her strength, she screamed WV’s name, the pain in her chest starting to make her feel faint. Just as WV began to turn around towards her, the boy activated his discs and they both disappeared into thin air.
Jack stared for a few seconds at the spot where the child and carapace had been, eventually turning back towards PM. He looked at her one last time before flying off, presumably to find WV and the other children.
PM stared at the spot where WV had been and weakly punched the floor with her fist, tears still trickling down her face. She had been so close, so painfully close to being with him again, but now… Now she was going to slowly bleed to death, completely and utterly alone.
---
Dave and WV re-appeared in LOHAC a few hours later despite it having been merely a few minutes for them.
“Looks like he left,” said Dave. “We should probably get out of here.”
“Yes,” agreed WV.
Dave crouched down so that WV could climb on top of him-- one of the perks of being god tier was that Dave could float off everywhere and hey, WV was pretty light. As they began to float off, WV wondered about that sound he had heard before they left. It had sounded almost like if PM had called his name.
Maybe it was prediction. Maybe it meant that she was alive and well, waiting to meet up with him…. Maybe she was closer than he thought.
With this renewed sense of hope, WV held on tighter to Dave, completely oblivious to the dead carapace below him.
Prominent Character(s): Peregrine Mendicant, Aimless Renegade
Pairings: Peregrine Mendicant <3 Aimless Renegade
Genre: Hurt & Comfort (a.k.a sadstuck)
Length: 2289 words
Warnings: Dealing with death, sadstuck
Extra Info: So this is what I was working on a few months back and I'm sick of it laying in my comp unfinished so i literally went enough and finished it rn so hAVE AT IT also i'm sorry for typos so if you find one, tell me in an ask and i'll fix it up thank
Summary: The only things PM had left to remember the Aimless Renegade by were her own faded memories, a broken heart and a little can filled with his last words to her.
~~~~
The Prospitian Monarch’s house was one of the first things built on the Can Town of Earth 3.0.
It was the first step of a dream that had started out as a little town made out of cans; it was the beginning of a dream belonging to a dead dersite who laid buried alongside his dreams of being a real mayor.
It was a surprisingly modest house considering PM was the unofficial leader of the carapaces who’d survived the war-- then again, why would she want to live in a large house if she had no one to share it with?
The first weeks in her new house had been the hardest.
Days in New Can Town were so peaceful, it was as if she was back on Prospit...or back in the desert she had grown to call home. It was so peaceful, in fact, that she often forgot AR and WV were dead.
How many times had she unconsciously set up three places at the table for dinner before remembering she’d be eating alone? How many times had she woken up in the middle of the night and stretched out her hands expecting to take hold of their hands, but being greeted by two empty spaces on the bed? How many times had she forgotten AR and WV had been taken from her before snapping back to reality and thinking “Oh, right…”?
She’d try to distract herself by helping out with the town or organizing her new house. The more she had to do, the less her brain had the time to think of the two dersites. The less she was at her house, the more she could avoid dealing with their death… and having to go through the bag with WV’s last belongings tucked away inside it.
Dave had given it to her right after WV had died and, to that day, she had never summed up the courage to open it. It wasn’t so much because it had WV’s last belongings in it, but more because, unbeknownst to Dave, the contents in the bag did not belong solely to WV.
It had been WQ’s idea. Before Jack arrived, the royal advisor had proposed that a bag should be filled with essential items to take in case they needed to make a quick getaway. AR had found the bag in the old ruins and, after they all filled it in with personal and survival items, WV promised to keep it with him at all time-- a promise he kept right up until the first time Jack attacked him.
It wasn’t until a month had gone by since she started living in New Can Town that she finally found the will to get over with it and open the bag. She had been sitting at her kitchen table, the old and worn-out bag resting in front of her. It had been so long, she couldn’t even remember what she had put in it...or maybe she didn’t even want to remember anything that had to do with that awful week.
After a few minutes of staring at it, she finally opened it and reached inside, taking out its contents one by one.
The first things she took out were some cans of TaB that had belonged to WV. She couldn’t help but smile-- of course WV would have tried to salvage some of his favorite soda. She placed the cans on the table and reached inside the bag again, taking out a very pretty necklace that must have belonged to WQ.
PM, assuming it had been a present from WK, imagined it must have looked very pretty on her former advisor. Carefully placing the necklace next to the cans of TaB, she reached once more inside the bag and felt her heart sink as she retrieved an old and rusty can, its top sealed with caution tape and the name AR written on one side of the can.
~~~
“Messages in a box,” said PM.
AR looked at her. “Huh?”
“It’s something we did back home,” she explained, making her way through WV’s base, sitting down next to Can Town and taking an empty can from the floor.“We’d take a container, make a hole, fill it up with little messages and then, after a little while, we’d exchange containers, open them up and read the messages.”
AR watched as she cleaned the can and then sealed it again with his caution tape, leaving a little hole to slip strips of paper in.
“Want to do it with me?” she asked. “We could make messages for each other.”
AR chuckled. “That sounds like something WV would do, not me.”
“Aww, come on,” she insisted, showing him her work of art. “Look, I’ll start!” She got up and grabbed a nearby oil container. She sat back down next to her can, opened the container, dipped her finger in and carefully wrote her name on the side of the can. “Can you please pass me the etiquette book?”
AR indulged her and handed her the once heavy tome of proper human etiquette. A rather large amount of pages had been already torn from the book by the exiles to use for all kinds of things, primarily as napkins and kindle for the campfire.
She started leafing through the pages of the book and neatly tore off an almost blank page. She then ripped the page into several strips, dipped her finger in the oil again and carefully wrote something on one of the strips. She waited a few moments for the oil to dry off before folding the message and slipping it inside the can.
“What did the message say?”
PM grinned. “It’s confidential!… Unless you also make one for me!”
AR crossed his arms. “That is silly and mushy.”
PM smiled. “If you say so, AR,” she said, making another message and putting it into the can. “Maybe WV will do this wi--”
“Okay, okay!” he interrupted, taking one of the empty cans on the floor.
“Yaaay!”
“Yeah, whatever,” AR grumbled, cleaning out his can, a little smile creeping up on his face.
~~~
She shook the can and could tell it was pretty full with messages. Placing it on the table, she stared at it, unsure of what to do. Should she open it? Could she even open it? AR had been dead for over three years, but now that she was face to face with the only thing of his that was saved, she realized that maybe she still wasn’t over his death. Would she ever be?
After what felt like an eternity, she got up to get some scissors, sat back down at the table and carefully cut off the tape. She poured all off the messages on the table and placed the empty can next to the necklace and cans of TaB.
She then folded her hands on her lap, her heart shrinking once more in her chest. Funny how she had no problem fighting a skull monster and a blood-thirsty dog-god but was terrified of a bunch of harmless strips of paper. Why did she feel almost sick at the prospect of reading the messages? Was it because she was scared it would bring back the pain or...was it because, on the contrary, reading his final words meant closure for her? Was she afraid that she’d be forced to come to terms with his death?
She took one of the papers and carefully unfolded it. The words had faded out a little but she instantly recognized his hand writing.
~
i think you should just admit that i am a far better kisser than wv.
~
PM covered her grin with her hand, reading and re-reading the message. She could practically see the playfully smug grin AR must have had on his face when he wrote that message. She then started thinking of him kissing her and could feel herself blushing as she buried her face in her hands, giggling.
AR had always been much greedier than WV when it came to showing affection. While WV would always be much more timid, AR usually had no problem with stealing kisses or shamelessly flirting with her. He’d been shy, at first, but once he had been completely sure that his feelings were reciprocated, he never held back.
After regaining some composure, she folded the message and dropped it inside the empty can before taking another one.
~
i wish your nightmares were illegal so i could throw them in the slammer. also that they were actual things i could touch. because then i could shoot them.
~
AR had always hated the nightmares that plagued PM and WV every other night; she always suspected it was because he felt helpless against them. He never had nightmares as terrible as PM and WV did, so he didn’t know what to say to make them feel better when they woke up in cold sweat during the middle of the night. Not that he needed to say anything, because he always knew how to make her feel better.
There were several times where she had woken up form a particularly nasty nightmare to find him silently getting up from his spot and lying next to her, holding her close until she fell asleep. There had been other times when he’d stay up talking with her until dawn so she’d forget the nightmare, asking her plenty of mail-related questions so she’d be talking about something he knew would take her mind of the nightmares.
She kept on reading the messages, his handwritten words temporarily tricking her into forgetting he was gone.
~
serenity accompanied me on my patrol tonight. i could not understand her blinking but she was great company.
~
i made dinner tonight and you said you liked it very much. i think i am going to start cooking more often.
~
but i also love your cooking a lot. this is a very difficult decision.
~
She folded the note and put it on the pile, remembering the time she had accidentally burnt dinner, only for AR and WV to pretend they thought it was the most delicious thing ever. Smiling, she reached inside and took another message.
~
i love you.
~
Before she even realized it herself, tears had started trickling down her cheeks. Oh gosh, she missed him. She missed him so much, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt like hell.
She remembered AR talking about their future with such high hopes. Sure, he had been scared at times, but he was always convinced that they’d be fine in the end, that they’d be together no matter what.
“Vagabond says that the first thing we should build is the city council, but I want to build our house first. It will be a lot safer and you won’t have to sleep in the cold anymore.”
He had always cared more for her own interest than his own. Even though the three of them loved each other above all else, AR had always been irrevocably and unabashedly in love with PM since the very beginning. She had once heard that, in every relationship, there was someone who loved and someone who let themselves be loved. AR, both towards WV and towards PM, had always been the one who loved.
~
i can’t wait to read your messages.
~
She covered her face with her hands, feebly attempting to stop herself from crying. Why did he have to die? Why, why, why, why, why? They had been so close to ending it all, so close to being together forever, so painfully close.
She placed her forehead on the table, hands still covering her face. She wasn’t even able to bring back his body. She wasn’t even able to give him a proper burial, wasn’t able to hold him as he died, to tell him how much he had meant to her, how much she loved him, and tell him just how damn much she would miss him.
After some time, she managed to regain some composure and wipe the tears off her face. She looked at the can, messages still inside, and wondered if she even wanted to keep reading. Why was she even torturing herself with them? They were words belonging to a ghost, to a dead soldier, to a memory-- words as faded-out as the one who wrote them.
Why cling to something that wasn’t even there anymore?
And yet…
And yet, her hand still reached for the can, still took another of the little folded strips of paper.
~
questant believes we might have to fight soon. i am scared of dying. but if i die fighting next to you. and as long as you are still alive and well. then i guess i can deal with being dead.
~
PM stared at the message for a few minutes before carefully folding it again. However, instead of putting it with the others, she decided she wanted to keep it in a little pocket of her messenger bag, so it would always be with her. She put the messages back in the can and decided to read them later. She was already running late to help out around Town and figured AR wouldn’t mind waiting a little more for her to read the rest of his messages.
After cleaning up herself a little, she left her house, wondering in the back of her mind if she had an empty can she could use to make new messages for AR. One day, maybe soon or maybe far away, she’d see him again, and then she’d be able to keep her side of the deal.
After all, she had so much stuff to write to him about.
*Art by Miry
* There seems to have been some confusion with the drawing so I just wanted to explain that it's AR reading PM's messages in Limbo.
I'm working on something and this part I wrote works as a standalone drabble so here it is if anyone is interested. It's still a first draft, though D:
“Messages in a box,” said PM.
AR looked at her. “Huh?”
“It’s something we did back home,” she explained PM, making her way through WV’s base, sitting down next to Can Town and taking an empty can from the floor.“We’d take a container, make a hole, fill it up with little messages and then, after a little while, we’d exchange containers, open them up and read the messages.”
AR watched as she cleaned the can and then sealed it again with his caution tape, leaving a little hole to slip strips of paper in.
“Want to do some with me?” she asked. “We could make messages for each other.”
AR chuckled. “That sounds like something WV would do, not me.”
“Aww, come on,” she insisted, showing him her work of art. “Look, I’ll start!” She got up and grabbed a nearby oil container. She sat back down next to her can, opened the container, dipped her finger in and carefully wrote her name on the side of the can. “Can you please pass me the etiquette book?”
AR indulged her and handed her the once heavy tome of proper human etiquette. A rather large amount of pages had been already torn from the book by the exiles to use for all kinds of things, primarily as napkins and kindle for the campfire.
She started leafing through the pages of the book and neatly tore off an almost blank page. She then ripped the page into several strips, dipped her finger in the oil again and carefully wrote something on one of the strips. She waited a few moments for the oil to dry off before folding the message and slipping it inside the can.
“What did the message say?”
PM grinned. “It’s confidential!… Unless you also make one for me!”
AR crossed his arms. “That is silly and mushy.”
PM smiled. “If you say so, AR,” she said, making another message and putting it into the can. “Maybe WV will do this wi--”
“Okay, okay!” he interrupted, taking one of the empty cans on the floor.
“Yaaay!”
“Yeah, whatever,” AR grumbled, cleaning out his can, a little smile creeping up on his face.
themiry answered your question: I want to do something fun for april fools so why...
AR dancing like lady gaga from the telephone video since she uses the caution tape shit too GOGOG specially if he seduces PM with the dance
you really take it to heart when i say ridiculous, don't you?
FOR BETTER ENJOYMENT PLEASE WATCH THE OFFICIAL VIDEO OF THE MAJESTIC SONG "TELEPHONE" WHILE READING
ALSO, AS WITH ALL OF TODAY'S FICS, THIS WILL BE EXTREMELY OOC AND BASED ON COMMON FANDOM INTERPRETATION AND THESE WILL BE MOST CERTAINLY TERRIBLY SILLY SO READ UNDER YOUR OWN RISK
THANK
--
"WELCOME TO THE STRIDER CRIB" said a sign on the front door of the dance club the Striders had founded in New Can Town. Ever since it opened, Strider's Crib had been the most popular place in the small town and, as with any popular establishment, it needed to have TOP SECURITY.
One saturday, AR had decided to take charge of the Club's security for the night (after all, Dave always gave him free soda and snacks). It was just past 3 AM and AR was sitting at the bar talking to a carapace when a security guard quickly informed the dersite that he had received a phonecall.
"What?!" said AR, screaming over the loud techno music.
"TE-LE-PHONE! YOUR WIFE CALLED AND SAID TO CALL HER BACK," screamed back the carapace, putting his hand against his ear like a fake cellphone.
AR grumbled and got up. Why was PM calling him at three in the morning when she knew he had nightshift at the club? After pushing his way through the crowd, he finally reached the little red telephone hooked to the wall. He dialed his home number and waited for PM to pick up.
"Hello?" said her voice, slightly tired.
"HELLO, PM," he replied, rather loudly. "YOU CALLED?"
"I CAN'T HEAR A THING!" he continued after only listening to mumbling on the other side of the line. "THERE IS BARELY NO SERVICE IN THE CLUB."
Another inaudible reply.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY? YOU ARE BREAKING UP ON ME," he yelled, making a mental note to ask WV to talk to someone about the damned telephone reception in the area. Just as he strained to listen to what she had to say, he started to hear people yelling on the dance floor.
Glancing that way, he was horrified to see that a fight had broken up between two rather drunk individuals. Damn it all, why couldn't he have one decent nightshift?
"SORRY, I CANNOT HEAR YOU, PM," he yelled. "I HAVE TO GO. SOMETHING CAME UP AND I WILL BE KIND OF BUSY. I WILL CALL YOU LATER."
He quickly hung up the phone and stomped his way over to the ring of carapaces that had now formed around the two fighters. Once there, he started trying to separate them.
"STOP FIGHTING RIGHT NOW OR I WILL HAVE TO KICK YOU BOTH OUT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT, I SWEAR TO G-"
His sentence was interrupted by the terribly aimed punch of one of the troublemakers, knocking him down. The last thing he heard before he hit his head and blacked out were the collective gasps of everyone around him.
He woke up a little later, surrounded by worried and curious faces. The officer from before was kneeling next to him.
"Did you deal with the troublemakers?" he groggily asked, still sprawled on the floor trying to ignore the intense headache he felt.
The officer nodded. "Yes! They've been apprehended. Mister Dave has them in his office."
"Ugh, everything hurts."
"Also, your wife phoned again, sir."
AR closed his eyes and groaned.
"Tell her to stop callin'. I don't want to think anymore. I left my head and my heart on the dancefloor."
----
April Fools promp #1 complete!
Will AR ever stop being the unwilling victim in all of my fics?
All signs point to no.
Also the real joke here is that WV was the second wife who called. ba dum tsss.
Prominent Character(s): Wayward Vagabond, Aimless Renegade, Peregrine Mendicant
Pairings: PMWV,WVAR,ARPM, PMWVAR
Genre: All?
Length: 1500-ish words
Warnings: None
Extra Info: A couple of drabbles I've done this month and I compiled them here whoops it's my make-up for lack of serious posts ahahahaha,,,,
Snippet: Looking at her, he realized that he had never seen a more wonderful view.
it really is a wonderful view for him no?
also the actual april fool's joke is the idea of me actually posting something serious ahahahahaaa,,,,, *sobs*
Visiting the Aimless Renegade’s grave was always one of the hardest things to do for the Prospitian Monarch. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to visit AR but the truth was that every single one of her many, many regrets came flooding back to her every time she looked at his grave--if it could even be called that.
Was a grave truly a grave even when there was no body to bury?
His grave, or memorial rather, consisted of a large, white tombstone. Engraved on it was his name, a simple quote and nothing else. The fact that she hadn’t been able to mark down a date of birth or death killed her inside.
There had been no way of keeping track of what day it was during exile so it was pretty understandable that his date of death would be unknown but his date of birth was an entirely different matter.
She had never felt the necessity to ask him for it during exile. It was one of the many seemingly irrelevant facts she had never bothered to ask because she thought she’d have all the time in the world to find out. It was just another of the many small but important questions about him that she’d never be able to ask and whose answers were now lost to her like the body she had not been able to recover.
She put down some flowers on top of the tombstone and walked away, her heart breaking in her chest just like it did every day she came to visit and just like it would for the rest of her life.
I asked for people to suggest prompt words back at my main blog and I got plenty of great suggestions but I'm too tired to do them all so I picked one that would be most fun to write.
I'm a little tired so the writing quality may not be very good whoooops
Anyway yes, the words was "breasts" (oh la laa)
Every so often, the Aimless Renegade would wake up in the middle of the night. He’d usually keep his eyes closed and try to fall asleep again as quickly as possible so as not to oversleep the next day.
One time, however, he found it quite hard to fall asleep again, leading him to fidget restlessly. He extended his arms to the sides and was quite surprised to feel his right hand fall on top of something rather round. If he had not been half-asleep, he would have opened his eyes to investigate but, seeing as that was not the case, he decided to fiddle with it while he waited for sleep to take over.
After a few minutes of bored poking, prodding and squeezing, he suddenly heard a sharp intake of breath coming from someone next to him. He opened his eyes and found a half-horrified, half-appalled PM staring right back at him, his hand comfortably placed on her breast.
PM was kind enough to send him off to sleep with a surprisingly strong slap.
~~~
The Wayward Vagabond once found himself in a pretty similar situation. Just like the Aimless Renegade, he woke up in the middle of the night except that, when he woke up, WV’s hand was already pressed firmly against something round and firm.
AR had told WV about his little “incident” and WV instantly realized he was in the exact same position. Oh god, PM would kill him if she woke up.
Praying that PM was still asleep, he slowly opened his eyes and...and with horror noticed that PM was sleeping on the opposite side of the campfire. Feeling the blood drain from his face, he slowly turned his face and came face to face with his other prospitian companion. A little shocked, he gasped and accidentally squeezed WQ breast.
The prospitian, still sound asleep, was still for a few seconds before whispering something that made WV’s face go a whole new shade of red.
The next few days, neither PM, AR or WQ could explain why WV was suddenly very insistent on no one sleeping next to him.
