Imagine if Ryou and Taka had been together on the mission. Haggar experimenting on one using the other twin as the control. Separated by a glass wall. Able to see what is happening to the other. Imagine only one freed by Ulaz, he couldn't get the other out in time.
This is - heartbreaking. And I really can’t even add anything to it other than a few ‘ooooooh’ sounds of heartbreak. So I’m just going to share it with everyone else so they can suffer with us too.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Title: ‘Pieces of the Heart’
Fandom: FFXV
Pairing: Promnis (Prompto Argentum x Ignis Scientia) with hinted at GladNoct (Gladio Amicitia x Noctis Lucis Caelum)
Rating: Mature (mild NSFW - heavy angst - major character death)
Word Count: ~5150
Summary: Prompto swears to not let anyone into his heart, but one man decides that he won’t take no for an answer. Set in the V2 timeline.
A/N: This was written as a gift fic for @lavendartwine. Happy belated birthday! I hope that I have fulfilled your wishes with this tragedy of a fanfic.
Prompto put on a suit and picked up the bouquet of flowers he had purchased on his way home from the Citadel. Another long day rebuilding the destroyed city of Insomnia. But today he had told the King that he had somewhere to be, and Noctis had given him his blessing, and passed along his own thoughts to him which Prompto had put into the back of his mind.
It took him awhile to get out of the city, the countryside of Lucis looking just like he had remembered it looked. He drove out to Old Lestallum, parked his car and then rented a chocobo to get to his final destination. A simple grave, tucked away in a thicket of bushes, where the body of his lover has laid to rest these past two years.
im literally crying over Cheith like they just want to be happy together but people keep trying to eat them??? this is true angst, season 6 that was nothing THIS iS THE LIMIT im crying over cheetos
YOU’RE SO VALID GLITTER, the angst possibilities of this AU did not escape me, just picture cheith desperately trying to protect Chiro from being eaten, knocking him down to the bottom of bag time after time, risking himself, Chiro falling down farther and farther away and saying CHEITH NO, and Cheith shouting “Chiro please, I love you!!!!”
i mean how do you think cheith got his scar, it was one of those times he got injured in the cheeto bag while trying to protect chiro.... god now you’ve got me crying in the club and slow-mo remembering all those times I brazenly ate an entire bag of cheetos, not thinking of what the snacks meant to each other or which relationchips I was destroying....
I really enjoy Genos as a character because I fell in love for the first time at 19 as well, and even though we’re radically different I am placing all my empathy in to portraying him as accurately as possible in my story core set to self-destruct. In which he, despite the title, will not explode himself, but things will escalate up to the point where he would. No major character death warnings but major angst warning. One-sided love drama a plenty.
fuck me with a spoon that stupid mm whatcha say chrom video got me thinking about a bad future au with chromgai
noooooo
i’m not picturing gaius’ face when they find chrom at the Dragon’s Table
the eye bags he develops over the course of the next few months from sadness or sleep deprivation, as he tries to help lissa as she leads her people through the war as best she can
but his status as part of the royal family was always tenuous at best, and without chrom to fight for him, chrom as his anchor, how will he stop from drifting away?
And so this happened. cacatuasulphureacitrinocristata.
She's down. She's been down for a few minutes, now.
She's always been strong, her whole life.
She's always been able to attack and defend in one move, ever since she got her fan. She was ten when it became her weapon of choice. She's had fifteen years with her fan. It's her trusted partner. The one thing she trusts her life to more than Shikamaru.
But she doesn't have eyes in the back of her head.
And a katana thrust her abdomen gets everyone, no matter how tough they are. Your skin, Temari's discovered, never gets tougher.
It tears. And you bleed.
Your body works frantically to patch you up, platelets and the instinct to hold your hand over your wound to keep you alive, but he still screams.
She's afraid to turn her head, afraid something else will rip open and she will bleed to death on this battlefield. Bleed to death, like a stupid genin too cocky for battle.
There's nothing noble about bleeding to death. It's sticky and wet and metallic. Your own humanity is never as prevalent as it is when you bleed. You can forget about the blood flowing through your body sometimes, the thing that lets you move, breathe, exist, but then you get cut, and suddenly it's all you can think about.
Dying in battle has always been her preference. But she wanted to die like a shinobi, fighting for her country, for her comrades. She wanted to give everything she had in the pursuit of completing the mission.
Not be stabbed in the back and fall like a ragdoll into the dirt.
She doesn't see it happen, but she already knows Shikamaru's almost out of chakra, and she hears him go for one last kage nui. Shadow strangulation. Temari can imagine all too easily the black-as-night hand that sneaks lithely up the enemy's throat. Usually it's just an intimidation tactic. But the shinobi's gasp as his air is cut off tells her it was a second long.
A body hits the floor, and then Shikamaru runs.
He slides to his knees, cradling her body in his arms--her blood's getting all over him, he'll never be able to wash it all out--and there are tears in his eyes. He's shaking, frantically pressing his hand to the gaping hole in her stomach.
But there's one in her back, too, and in his panic she thinks he's failed to notice.
"It's alright," she tells him, "I'll be okay."
But her voice is weak and it gurgles with the blood that's no doubt spilling into her lungs. She doesn't know exactly what organs were damaged, nor does she know exactly how she'll survive this.
But if there's any mercy in this world for Shikamaru, who lost his sensei and his dad while fighting, who's internalized their deaths as his inability to be a good shinobi, she won't die in his arms.
If there's any mercy in this world, a rogue nin they missed on their perimeter tracking will come and slit his throat.
"Shut up," he tells her, "don't talk."
"Sorry," she mutters quietly, "but you should know, Shikamaru..."
"Don't give me some last words spheal." His voice is ice and steel when he answers. "I've had enough of those. You're not dying."
"My back," she says, "the katana..."
Understanding flashing across his eyes and he curses. He makes a hand sign--she thought he was out of chakra, but the sunset is making it easy for him--and a shadow hand lifts from the ground and grapples for the closest pack to them.
It holds out the bandages, shaking just like its master, and Shikamaru takes it. He sits her up, and even though he's helping her the shift in angle is abrupt and disorienting and she forgets to bite back her groan of pain.
"Sorry." He apologizes, but he's already wrapping the bandages around her. "Stay strong," he commands--as mission leader, it's his prerogative to give her commands--and his hands work with impressive stability given the look on his face. "You're not dying."
"Not you." He goes on. "Come on, Tem, this is you. No one's stronger than you."
As if to contradict his words, she's seized by a sudden coughing fit. "My lungs, there's probably blood..."
"We're not that far from Konoha. Ten minutes. Come on, let's go."
She doesn't have the heart to tell him she's already been bleeding for ten minutes. Twenty minutes is the average time it takes for anyone to bleed out when hit with an abdominal wound.
She could make it, though just barely, and they could live through this together.
Or she could die in his arms.
A part of her screams how unfair this all is, but a louder part of her, the hardened part, the soldier part of her doesn't want Shikamaru to have the memory of her dying in his arms.
Struggling is the first thought that comes to mind--such a base instinct she almost starts to do it anyway--but then she recalls the wound. Shifting will upset things, make her bleed more. The trick with carrying her will be to stay as still as possible.
Which means her only option is to fight.
He lifts her carefully into his arms, though he's still shaking himself, and Temari takes the opportunity presented to bury her face in his neck.
If this is going to be the last time her husband holds her, she's going to remember it. "My fan," she mutters, and he gets it even though it's heavy and it's going to weigh them down and the extra time--both to carry and to get it--might kill her.
It scares her that he gets it. It means he isn't thinking.
It means he's trusting her right now, too. Trusting her above himself. Trusting that her stubbornness is going to make her live, not his skill in getting her back to the village.
He needs her even as she's dying.
"Run." She says, and Shikamaru pushes off with all his strength.
--
She's barely conscious by the time they arrive. She hasn't been able to keep her eyes open for a few minutes now, but at least she's in his arms. At least she's going to die remembering what he feels like.
So far gone that she's stopped thinking about him.
There's a shuffle, and suddenly she's being put down and leaving his arms. A pitiful little groan leaves her, and she forces her ten-ton eyelids open. "No. Where's--"
"I'm right here," Shikamaru says, breaking cleanly through all the medical nin with their glowing green hands. There are tear tracks on his face, both dry and new, and he's hovering so close to her that she can clearly see how tightly his jaw is clenched.
"Are you okay?" She asks. Because he doesn't look anything close to okay, but what if he's hurt to and he's letting them neglect him just because she's bleeding?
A strangled laugh claws its way out of his throat and tears fall from his eyes from the force of it.
He runs along at her side while she's wheeled into an empty room.
She's glad the medical ninja don't say anything about him being here. Looking at him is the only thing that's keeping her conscious.
If she's going to die, she wants to spend her remaining minutes staring at him, the man she loves above everything else.
There's a lot of warm sensations on her skin. She's flipped onto her side and her shirt is cut away so they can work for both wounds at once. The sensation of her flesh stitching itself back together is peculiar, if painful, but it's getting easier and easier to stay awake.
She wants to try moving.
"Shika--" She doesn't even have to finish the word, doesn't have to move her hand more than an inch for him to take it. He drops to his knees, at face-level with her, and presses kiss after kiss to her fingers and hand in front of all the medical ninja.
She takes too long to blink, because he starts muttering things to her. Apparently her smile isn't enough to convince him she's fine.
He's always so smart.
"You can't die. You can't. You can't die."
He's crying again; though, to his credit, it's not affecting his voice.
"Don't leave me." He manages. "Don't you dare leave me."
He looks so upset.
"After everything we've been through together to get to where we are--you're going to leave me because some cowardly bastard stabbed you?" He shakes his head. "No, not you. Not Temari. You don't die like this."
His voice isn't so steady anymore.
What if she does?
What if she's too tired?
"Do you hear me?" He hisses--like he's angry. He's angry at her for dying. "Not you. Not you too. You do not go like this. Not you. Not Temari."
"You're lauded across the Five Great Countries for being so strong, and you're going to let some coward with a sharp blade end your life?"
He's shaking his head, clutching her hand so tightly it hurts.
She can't fade, she wants to tell him, not with him holding her hand like that.
Not with that look on his face.
There's a sudden shout behind her and panic ensues. Shikamaru's unceremoniously forced to the side, and everything gets warm again.
--
The gentle rise and fall of his chest wakes her up just as often as it puts her to sleep. It reminds that he's there, alive, next to her, and she shouldn't waste it.
"So?" She asks in a voice like gravel.
"Your lung got knicked, you were right."
"Hmm." She says, shifting slightly in an action that suspiciously resembles snuggling.
"But they repaired it. Tsunade-sama herself worked on you."
"I must've been fucked up."
"I was so hysterical they had to give me a sedative." He admits sheepishly, lifting his right arm to show her the needle still in there.
"You just love me a lot," she mumbles, "but that was nice of them. You looked worse than I did, I'm sure."
"Probably." His hand moves soothingly across her back.
"But there was no permanent damage?"
And it freezes. "You'll just be out of commission for a while. Your body has to heal."
By his tone of voice, she thinks that may not be it, but she doesn't press for more information right now. She simply exhales again.
They lie in silence for a few minutes.
"You saved me." She mutters, as though he wasn't there, didn't know all the things he did. "You carried me, you talked me through it, you stayed by my side..." She pauses, remembering what his face looked like. "I never want to see you looking like that again."
He's quiet for a long moment. Eventually, he mutters, "Don't die, then."
She sits up, shifting her torso though it pulls at something inside her gut, to observe his face now.
He certainly looks better, though he'd have looked better if he'd just fallen out of a ten story building.
"I'm here. I'm alive. You were right. I won't die like that."
He sits up, too, and her eyes close several seconds before his forehead bumps into hers. "God, I need you so much."
"You'd be a wreck right now if I hadn't pulled through." She states bluntly.
"I'd never go on another mission." His voice is solemn.
"I've been thinking," Temari says, smiling when Shikamaru rubs his nose against hers, "Naruto once joked about me being his Kage Guard now that I've moved to Konoha. Maybe he'd actually take me up on that."
Shikamaru takes a pause, and then smiles. "We'd work together every day."
"And you wouldn't take days off being his Advisor to go with me on missions."
"Alright," Shikamaru says, "that sounds good. No more missions for either of us."
"Ever again." Temari laughs, knowing it's a hyperbole, but the words spill from her mouth thoughtlessly. She wants him to feel okay again, wants him to be happy one day.
If he doesn't have to see her die, she won't go on any more missions.
a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity;antagonism.
---
Rarely does he ever refer to her as one of his own.
Sure, in the company of friends and neighbors, he will tell you that there happens to be four kids within the small household and that the ages range from eighteen to twelve, and of course he will name each one of us starting from the oldest to the youngest, but if you're smart enough to read between the lines, you would know. You would hear the slight change in tone when he jumps from the one who is eighteen to the one who is sixteen.
But if you don't know what you're looking for, you won't catch it.
He's a smooth talker, choosing a drink and a conversation to woo you over into siding with him. He'll tell you she broke everything apart with little white lies, tell you she's strong willed and stubborn (two traits that she definitely takes from her mother) and that's the reason he cannot trust her. Once there's enough alcohol coursing through his system, he'll bid you adieu and return to the home with four kids, one of which has fallen from his good graces because she cannot be trusted.
But he's inside and the front door closes, the tables will turn.
In a drunken stupor, he'll yell and slam things around. He'll make sure to anger anyone who dares step into his line of sight. No one and nothing is spared.The mother will try to cease his actions, but will not succeed. Instead, they'll fight, leaving the three youngest to lay awake in their beds, fearing the worst. The oldest will step in and try to calm the situation, cell phone in hand for the worst possible scenario.
But she never did use the cell phone.
Names are called, things are thrown. In the morning, there will be bruises, broken items, and half assed apologies. It'll be tense at the breakfast table and no one will speak, to afraid to utter a sound. The oldest will glare, the "father" will offer some remark about how "fucking rude it is to stare" or how useless she can be. The words will sink in, but her expression won't falter.
The name calling will continue throughout the morning, but she'll take it in silence.
Inside, the energy is broken and angry, but the moment they all step outside, ready to start their day in separate directions, all is fine.
All stays fine. All stays fake and perfect, except for the one who sins, the flaw within the four.
All stays silent.
And no one guesses what happens within the house at the end of the street.
