somewhere amidst all the festivities and spending time with people despite not really wanting to, harper finds herself starting to enjoy herself. no longer alone amidst the sea of people finding joy in the celebration of a new year, harper finally feels a little like the days of old again, when days like these brought her warmth and joy, spent in the presence of people she cared about and filled with the things she loved to do.
so when she finally manages to free herself of the captain and his gorram on-point suspicions, she finds herself wandering around the place trying to find octavia again. or one of the other people she can be herself around. in order to drag them out to spend a fun night with her, share a drink, perhaps even enjoy some dancing. there’s plenty of things to do on this seemingly never-ending celebration.
she doesn’t spot any of the people she’s looking for, however, but when her eyes land on one of her fellow mercenaries, one who has quite recently returned to them, harper can’t keep herself from going up to him. and the mere sight of him, the thought of the fun she can have with him without ever being questioned about her sometimes dubious moralities or any other strange quirks she might just let show on the surface, causes her to be in high spirits instantly.
“niiiiiiiine!” she therefore exclaims happily as she approaches him, an arm automatically being put around his middle, as she drapes herself against his side. “it’s good to see seven hasn’t eaten you yet, my friend.” sending him a bright and happy grin, she then allows her gaze to wander over their surroundings, until she spots a stall a little further up ahead that’s serving the most delicious drinks.
“let’s go get ourselves something to smear our vocal chords, shall we?” she instantly suggests, tugging the other mercenary along with her like there’s no question on whether or not he will go along with her. “you look like you need to get some fun in your system. let’s get drunk tonight!”
∇ - TOMBSTONE - who they are versus who they appear to be
He appears wrapped in darkness and shimmering with glitter, shadows befalling a grin too beautiful to be called ugly even despite it’s horrible, twisted nature that looks welcoming like a steel trap to a bear. He appears with eloquent lies and extravagant stories, flamboyant and selfish but oh-so interesting. He gleams with mystery and wonder, he calls out like a man signalling a bartender for another round. He smells like wine and fine cologne and walks like he has nothing to lose but far too much to give anything away. He is an enigma to the naked eye, all charm and no weakness except for when it’s convenient to be so. He shakes off waves of practice and composure, stands with his feet only a little too far apart, shoulders just a little too relaxed, too comfortable. He tastes like promise, like rebellion. He appears to be everything you were warned against, taught to avoid, but makes it feel as if you were raised to break the rules. He appears like an apparition, elongated and tempting, a devil on your shoulder, tasteful and ruthless. He likes to destroy everything he touches, fingertips red-hot like a branding tool, built to distort and dismantle. He likes to defile and steal, fire guns into flesh and reach into the warmth of a chest and remove the beating heart clean from it.
He appears to be immortal.
What he is, however, is far from the surface, a man in his body like a dog in a cage. His own deception forces itself into his skin as if he’s being waterboarded by it, a victim of his own lies. He drowns in sympathy and coughs out waves, shaking cold and wet in his own subconscious. Sleep does not visit him because his dreams are too cumbersome, they leave him sweating, his heart shaking. He’s a child, toothy and ignorant, smiles not hidden in the dark but lighted by a lantern, abandoned too soon and left to curl up on his own. Children’s stories tell of becoming a real boy, but never of hardening to plastic, a shell to cover your face, to hide your fears. He is weak, not strong, and awkward, not charming. His nature is sensitive, it’s soft and flexible under warm fingers, but his practice is pliant. He laughs loudly, his smile twisted in a very different way than what is seen. He cries often, blotchy and red, teeth bitten down into a pillow to stop the noise from escaping past his lips. He loves the beach, sandy and wet, sitting on his friend’s shoulders with his fingers reaching towards the new stars at night, his own eyes a reflection as they shine with excitement. He likes fast cars, he likes pretty men and prettier women, the stretch of neck to the length of a torso, he likes bad jokes, and easy humor. He likes to build and bend, but he hates the feeling of the snapping between his fingers, hates the crumble of something pure in his closed palms.
But he is all too aware of his own mortality, and because of that, he is afraid.
THIS motherfucker thinks they're so damn clever, but all they really are is a cheap shithead with cheap bullshit characters like Christmas Yunaka and Mythic Ninian to just fuck everyone over. So fuck THEM instead and not in the way their username implies.
Hana isn’t at all sure how she came to stand next to the robot-esque male as the first celebratory fireworks set ablaze in the sky. The sound of the pop of celebration and splatter of colors against a darkened canvas always intrigued her; the mechanisms of such deathly beauty always drawing in her attention. It was the precise measurement, just the right amount of pressure, and an open-enough space that gave birth to such beauty -- but if fired inaccurately or too close, beauty would then give way to chaos: death. And instead of bombs of colors in the sky, the mechanism would shower down burnt, flammatory, remains.
Such, seemed to be analogous to life. Or the life Hana knew at least. Beautiful, but perhaps only because it was so fleeting. Wondrous but not without sacrifice. As the last of the first round of fireworks cackle upwards, splattering to reveal a darkened sky, Hana hears a poignant query that leaves the other’s lips: “How can a place hurt you? How can promises that never came to be trigger so much pain within?”
And almost without hesitation, perhaps it was the liquor flowing through her veins that made it so, Hana responded. “because it paints the picture of what could have been. Because it’s grounds are stained with the memories of what you couldn’t have.”
send me a 💔 for a heartbreaking au : not accepting
our muses being the sole survivors of a bus/train/plane spaceship crash
harper slowly pushes herself up from the dirt, groaning at her painful muscles. as she moves to wipe the dust off her clothes, she realises her palms are scraped up, and a quick look down tells her her palms are not the only things. her clothes are filled with rips and holes, and she barely manages to stay upright as a heavy gust of wind suddenly pulls at her frame, blowing the dust of the desert into her face.
she coughs, blinks her eyes rapidly, tries to regain her bearings.
it’s hard to imagine everything going so fast. the warning beeps, the alarm, jaewon’s voice over the comm telling everyone to get themselves ready for a crashlanding on the nearby planet. it’s a good thing most if not all the planets in their system have breathable air, because harper isn’t sure what they all would have done if they all needed a space suit to survive.
still, the descend into the planet’s atmosphere was harsher than expected and serenity took so much damage that it was clear they weren’t going to make it out alive if they stayed aboard. so parachutes were pulled out, the cargo bay doors were opened and everyone was encouraged to jump out as soon as possible, to make their way to safe ground on their own and regroup later.
she remembers staying behind, making sure the people she cared for would make it to safety. she remembers watching the others strap on their own parachutes, prepare to jump. she remembers considering not jumping at all so she could make sure jaewon would get off the damn ship himself. a part of her knows he would never have, of course, but she never had the chance to even try to make him, because someone had pushed her out long before the last person had left.
there’s a few names that come to mind, people who would have wanted to get her to safety instead, people who would have done for her what she intended to do for the others. but it doesn’t matter anymore now. with her feet on solid ground and her body still capable of proper movement, she’s probably off pretty well. she still had plenty of time to fall before having to open her parachute, and as she’d descended slowly, she’d gotten almost front row seats to the explosion caused by serenity’s crash. the blast of hot air coming off it had been nothing more than a breeze by the time it reached her, but others had been less lucky, she’d seen.
there’s no time to wonder who, however, not with an unknown planet all around her and a very obvious rendez-vous point up ahead in the distance. squaring her shoulders, harper gathers her leftover belongings, makes sure she still has plenty knives and guns strapped to her body and eventually sets herself in motion. she’s headed due southwest, in the general direction of where the ship would have crashed.
it’s days of trekking, covering unknown terrain, trying to find herself a meal in the wilderness. she thanks her relentless training several times over the course of the days, allowing her to survive despite the overwhelming odds. not only is she in unknown territory, but the wildlife on this planet turns out to be aggressive and ruthless, and even with all her experience in fighting people and things, she doesn’t survive without several heavy cuts and bruises.
but that’s not the only thing she figures out throughout her travels. because the bodies of those that jumped after her are spread out over her path. some of them she comes across by accident, others she tracks down after finding signs of their landing site.
none of them are still alive.
when she finally reaches the ship’s wreckage, she has given up the hope that anyone might still be around, but still there is something inside of her that just won’t give up. until she digs through the rubble of metal and scraps, only to find more bodies charred by the explosion. she can’t be sure, but she knows there’s a big chance it’s the captain and perhaps also mina - she can’t really imagine the first mate leaving jaewon behind alone.
tired, broken and beaten, harper drops down on a rock, eyes fixed on the remnants of what had become her home in the foregoing months. all of it has been reduced to charred remains and useless wreckage. all of it has been wiped from existence in a fashion too similar to what she’s endured plenty of times before. closing her eyes slowly, she brings up her hands to bury her face in them, allowing a sigh to escape her as she tries her best to settle this knowledge withing her mind.
“harper?”
her head shoots up so quickly it hurts her neck, but she doesn’t care about that as much. when her eyes find nine standing a step or three away from the rubble, she needs a moment to process that she’s really seeing him and that he’s not just a figment of her imagination. but then if she could imagine anyone from the crew still being alive, it wouldn’t be nine, would it? that’s the thought that jerks her back into reality and she’s on her feet in seconds, hurrying over to him.
it doesn’t matter that they’re not usually very close, nor does it matter that he’s looking just as much like he’s gone through hell as she has. nothing matters except for the fact that he’s alive and that, if one other person made it out, maybe more did just the same.
she leaps at him and - for all his robotic mannerisms - he’s quick enough to realise she’s not attacking him. so rather than fend her off, his arms come around her, catching hold of her and securing her against him, as she in turn wraps both arms and legs around him almost gratefully so, relieved to find at least one other person that survived. nine, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be very affected by the entire situation whatsoever.
“no one else survived,” he simply tells her, his voice not any different from usual, his tone one of neutral fact. her world comes apart at the edges, his still stands solidly on its foundations, it seems. “you were the last person i was trying to confirm, everyone else has been accounted for.” all that she manages to produce is a choked sort of sound, but it’s enough to make nine attempt to look at her.
“i did not quite catch that what you were saying,” he tells her, and in the face of such ruin, she still can’t help but chuckle. burying her face against his shoulder a little longer, until she can fully compose herself again, she then lifts her head to look at him as well.
“i’m glad you’re alive, nine,” she says, unwrapping her legs from around him and allowing him to put her back down on the ground. “i’m glad i’m not alone.”
nine gives a nod of his head, but she’s not entirely sure if he understands. there’s a big chance that the look in his eyes is a lack of understanding in what she means with those words. it’s no surprise therefore that he doesn’t really comment on it himself, instead merely glances over at the wreckage.
“we should salvage what we can use for survival.” ever the realist, of course, set on making it out of a shitty situation. harper nods shortly regardless, wrapping herself in the steely resolve of a survivor all the same. letting go of the hurt and sadness she feels over the lives and friends - family - lost, and facing the struggles of a new day.
“time to get back to civilisation, if i have to tie a pair of those horned pantser creatures together to make us a ride,” she says. nine hums in clear appreciation of the idea.
“we would need something to keep them moving forward rather than attempt to attack us, though,” he muses, and she flashes a grin his way.
“no worries, man, you can run out in front of them, i’m sure they’re ready to chase such a fine piece of ass.”
“I think you’re sexy yet intimidating. I’d like to, as some on the ship prefer to say, have coitus with you.”
on anon, tell me what you think of me and i’ll try to guess who it is
"the mere use of the word ‘coitus’ makes me think that this is nine, who will first have to learn a bit more about appropriate ways to be a human being before i will try to even attempt to have coitus with him. and if it’s anyone else: please never use the word coitus again in your life it is the biggest turn off i’ve ever heard.”
the sound of bullets is almost deafening, considering how many of them are being fired, but harper is little to not impressed at all. it isn’t the first time she finds herself in a tricky situation, after all, and it won’t be the last time either. at least nine is a worthy companion to have on a rescue mission like this one, a fact that has been tried and tested through several rounds of hand-to-hand combat with her fellow mercenary.
there is another guy with them too, but he’s being nothing but a nuisance. sadly, he’s also the one they were sent to rescue for this reason or the other. she has long learned not to question the orders she’s given but just to execute them to the best of her ability. and it’s the first time in a long time that following orders has been this much fun.
tilting her head lightly as if in thought, while simultaneously turning around halfway to fire a few bullets at the ones following them, she eventually shrugs a little and shoots a grin at her companion. “lots of things, to be honest. i like to laugh. ain’t no gorram reason not to, either.” she reaches out a hand to quickly push down their charge, thereby avoiding him getting shot, before she ducks behind a few boulders to be able to reload in a heartbeat.
“you should try it some time,” she tells nine meanwhile, nimble fingers grabbing hold of bullets in her pocket and pushing them into the empty mag. there are easier ways to reload - have filled up mags at hand - but harper has always found this way the easiest one, which is why she keeps on using it. the guy freaking out on her right side is not helping her concentration, but luckily she’s learned to tune out annoying background noises.
“i feel like one, good, booming laugh from you would definitely send a few of your enemies running.” she sits up a little straighter and glances over at nine, already starting to grin. “perhaps a few of your allies, too.” snorting at the words, she then quickly peeks out from behind the boulder and proceeds to fire another round at the people following them, felling as many of them as there are bullets in her gun.
