AN: I absolutely love the poem Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye, and I immediately thought of it when I saw Gambit as the Horseman of Death, so I knew I had to use part of the poem as my title.
Also this little fic -which was originally supposed to be a oneshot, but turned into two parts- was written mostly because I wasn't fully happy with how X-Men '97 handled Deathbit, so this is my more angsty version of events.
Reader's mutant abilities make it so that, the longer you stay awake, the more invulnerable you become. For example: Day one of staying awake, you still bruise and bleed. But by day five, you are pretty much invincible and take absolutely no damage during a fight.
Word Count: 3,025
Warnings: Blood and violence, Graphic depictions of bodies, and Grief.
You took the last dose of the stimulant that Hank had prescribed you before tossing the empty bottle aside and turning your attention to the fractured city before you, briefly glancing at the gray, twisted bodies littering the streets, their frozen faces rife with terror as their glassy eyes stared up at the ash colored sky, purple lightning crawling through the black clouds overhead like a serpent.
You had been up for seven days now –the longest stretch you’d ever gone since your mutation had manifested– and you had to start taking pills like candy in order to stay conscious and functional on so little sleep. But it had all been worth it because you could feel the invulnerability buzzing beneath your skin, the power pumping through your veins with each beat of your heart.
“He’s definitely here.” You said into your comms as you walked barefoot through the ruins, Gambit’s old, worn coat flaring behind you as you carefully weaved your way through the stiff bodies –keeping your eyes forward so the gravity of what had happened here wouldn’t distract you from your goal– and made your way to the epicenter of the unnatural storm.
“Be careful, Insomnia. We just need you to distract him long enough for us to deal with Apocalypse." Scott’s voice came through the radio in your hand, crackling and tinny, and your grip on the device flexed as you were reminded that Remy’s very existence might now be intrinsically tied to the power-hungry tyrant.
So you weren’t even certain if defeating Apocalypse would free Remy from his clutches or just send him back to his grave, and the terrifying possibility of losing Remy a second time was killing you.
“See you on the other side.” You responded before tucking the radio into the pocket of the trenchcoat and picking your way through the rubble, freezing when you rounded the corner of a building and finally laid eyes on Remy again for the first time since Genosha burned… since Rogue and Kurt had pried your desperate hands away from where you were cradling Gambit’s bloodied body to your chest and dragged you away from the love of your life as first responders covered him with a white cloth, holding onto you no matter how much you screamed and fought and pleaded for them to let you stay with him.
“Remy.” Your voice was barely a breath, barely even a whisper of sound, but the man still turned toward you as if he’d heard you.
He stood as a harbinger of the end, his long coat billowing slightly in the caustic wind and sweeping around his heavy boots, his eyes –which were once warm and mischievous– glowing a burning red from the shadows beneath the hood he donned, reflecting the fire that had stolen him away from you, that had taken the lives of thousands on Genosha.
The wind caught the edge of his hood and pulled it back just enough to reveal the sharp line of his jaw, and his icy visage held no emotion, no trace of the man who had worn this face before… no flicker of the rogueish charm that had once defined him.
And, while Death did not flinch at the sound of your desperate voice, something flickered in his bright eyes as he watched you approach, there and gone again just as quickly.
Death tilted his head slightly, the movement mechanical and precise as he watched the pitiful, fragile thing walking through a field of corpses toward him with a flat, impassive stare. He searched the archives of his mind, but the name returned no memory –no feeling– only a cold, empty space where something had once been.
The sigil that his Master had carved into his collarbone pulsed a warning, a reminder of the hierarchy of his existence. He was a tool. A weapon.
“Dat name,” Death spoke, and your next step faltered as his low, resonant rasp reached your ears with all the severity of an avalanche, the smooth Cajun lilt that used to brighten every room he ever walked into now stripped of its music and replaced by a chilling, distant void. “It will not save you.”
“I’m not looking for salvation.” You said as you came to a halt a few yards away from Death, meeting his ruby red gaze with a quiet determination that made the very air shiver with anticipation. “I'm here to keep you distracted. Keep you here while our friends –our family– deal with Apocalypse.” You said calmly, not even bothering to hide your intentions since it didn’t matter in the end.
You wouldn’t be letting Death leave the city either way, not until either you or Apocalypse were dead.
You took a deep breath and briefly glanced at the corpses sprawled across the ground near you, wondering if this horrible mix of anguish and fear and resolve was what Remy felt staring down that Sentinel, wondering if he’d thought of you while facing impossible odds like you were now.
You exhaled slowly, shifting your attention away from the bodies of those who had been smart enough to run, and met Death’s cold stare with an intensity that none of Death's previous victims held.
Death watched you, his expression a mask of stone, but his body language subtly changed in response to the conviction in your voice, as if to acknowledge that the person standing before him might be a genuine adversary worthy of his attention. His gloved hand twitched at his side as a sudden, violent jolt spasmed through Death’s chest that he couldn’t identify the cause of, his fingers curling instinctively before he forced them back into a rigid, emotionless stillness.
Most humans died screaming, begging for a mercy that the Horseman of Death did not possess, but you stood amidst the calamity with a chilling certainty, your keen eyes locking onto Death's as if you were searching for something hidden beneath his apathy.
“Distract me?” Death repeated. The words were slow, the low rasp of his voice carrying a hint of something that might have been amusement in another life, but here it sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates. He shifted his weight, the heavy fabric of his coat snapping in the wind as it howled. “You believe you are enough to hold back de end of all things?”
The sigil at his collarbone pulsed a deep, angry violet and Death grit his teeth as his Master’s next command came through: eliminate the interference.
Your eyes widened when Death suddenly darted forward with the sharp precision of a blade, moving far too fast for your exhausted mind to track. But it didn’t matter regardless because your vision was obstructed between one blink and the next as Death reached out with his finger splayed open and placed his palm over your face, his power surging forth like an invisible tide intended to strip the remaining vitality from your waxy skin and leave you as just another hollow shell on the pavement like all the others.
But, as he attempted to drain you, something odd happened that had Death’s eyes narrowing, a genuine crease of confusion appearing between his brows when you remained standing, looking just as perplexed as you felt as he drew his hand away from your face. Usually, the life force of a human flowed out of them like water from a broken vase, but this time was different… you were different.
He had felt a density to your bright soul that had the sigil on his collarbone burning, a stubborn, unyielding resistance that had refused to buckle beneath the staggering pull of his power, an invulnerability that defied the natural order of decay.
“Rem-” You began to say, but Death didn't let you finish uttering that cursed name in his presence a second time, something like unease creeping into Death's frantically racing mind as he slammed his fist squarely into your chest with a brutality meant to shatter ribs and stop a heart in a single, devastating blow. The impact was loud, a heavy thud that sent you flying down the street before slamming into a car, the alarm blaring as all the windows shattered and metal crumpled beneath you with a shriek upon impact.
“My name is Death and you are nothing.” Death snarled, his voice dropping an octave and his burning eyes wild as he watched you push yourself out of the warped vehicle with a grunt, completely unharmed. Death took an aborted step backward, his coat swirling around him like a shroud, and he looked down at his own flexing hand before turning his heavy gaze back onto you.
He was capable of great catastrophes, could extinguish entire city blocks with a wave of his hand, could drain gods and monsters alike of their life force in seconds without breaking a sweat. He was Death incarnate and yet… this fragile, sleep-deprived creature stood before him, unyielding and untouched.
The contradiction was maddening.
"Maybe you don't remember now... maybe you never remember me, but either way I'll be content with freeing you from Apocalypse's servitude. That alone is enough for me." You said calmly before you began moving toward him with purpose, not a speck of fear in your gaze, and a flicker of some long lost memory pierced through the rot inside him: the cloying scent of rain, the sound of a laugh, the feeling of a thumb brushing gently across his aching knuckles.
Then, before he could even begin to process what was happening, the images and sensations vanished as quickly as they had come, leaving Death feeling hollowed out and irritated.
Death's ruby eyes tracked your approach, an odd feeling welling up in his chest as he began to laugh, loud and mocking, appalled by the very idea of you somehow being able to break his Master’s hold on him. Free from servitude. The phrase was heresy, a glitch in the programming that Apocalypse had etched into his very soul when he’d created him.
To be free was to be nothing; to serve was to exist.
And yet, as you rapidly closed the distance between yourself and him, the sheer, reckless certainty in your stride sent a ripple of something unfamiliar through Death's chest, his laughter becoming manic as the storm raged above him.
He felt a violent surge of frustration pierce through the static in his mind, the air around him beginning to shimmer with a cold, oppressive pressure as he tried and failed to hold onto his composure. Your very existence was eroding the walls of his sanctuary, the icy detachment that kept the agony at bay cracking, and beneath it lay a yawning abyss of grief and longing that he didn't know how to name.
“Shut up!" Death hissed as he curled his hands into tight fists, his voice cracking for the first time, and you hesitated upon hearing that smooth Cajun lilt bleeding through the rasp, which was all the opening Death needed to rid himself of your poisonous presence. “Your words are nothing but pitiful delusions and empty promises. You will die here. This city shall be your grave.”
Your eyes widened when Death grabbed ahold of your wrist once you were within reach, the ground cracking beneath his boots as he spun around, channeling all that building aggression and anguish flooding his body into throwing you straight through the wall of one of the towering buildings surrounding the two of you.
Death didn't give you time to recover or regain your bearings, crashing through the hole right after you and making it wider as he slammed his boots down onto the ground where your chest would have been had you not dodged at the last second, the dropkick shattering the linoleum beneath his feet as you rolled away and pushed into a crouch before surprising him by launching yourself right at him.
“Stop fighting me and start fighting him. Apocalypse is the real enemy here. He stole you from me.” You shouted, grief and hatred dripping from every word as you rushed forward Death bracing himself as you slammed into him, your arms wrapping around his waist as you tackled him to the floor, struggling to stay on top of him as you both fought to gain the upperhand.
Death writhed like a feral animal under you as you tried to pin his hands down, the man growling in frustration when he felt that same, impossible solidity beneath his fists when he drove them into your ribs in an attempt to get you to release him.
The admittedly impressive physical strength you displayed was one thing, but the intent behind it was what truly unsettled him. This wasn't the fighting style of an enemy, not with the way you refused to do any real damage to him despite the way he threw you around like a ragdoll with the intent on causing serious bodily harm, no.
No, you held onto him with the clinging desperation of someone trying to wake a volatile sleepwalker.
“Let me go!” Death yelled –unsure of whether or not he was commanding or pleading since his mind was a wreck of emotions– as he seized you by the throat, his movements less like a Horseman and more like the thief he once was: quick, opportunistic, and desperate. He searched your face for answers, for a clue, something in the curve of your jaw or the depths of your exhausted eyes that would tell him why you looked at him as if he were something precious rather than a monster, why his own heart was suddenly hammering hard against his ribs.
“No! I won’t leave you, not again. Never again!” You sneered as you pinned one of his hands beneath your knee and reached out to grab a hold of the front of his chestplate, cracking it in half like it was plastic instead of metal before tearing it away from his body and tossing it aside where it hit the support pillar right next to you with a jarring clatter.
Death felt a flash of fear ripple through his body when you went to place your hand on his still chest, your fingers hooking in the fabric of his black bodysuit before he twisted his hand into the trench coat you were wearing and charged it until it was a blinding pink, the resulting explosion sending you flying away from him as he shuffled backward until he hit another support pillar, unable to keep his hands from trembling as as he reached up to inspect the torn fabric near his collarbone which revealed Apocalypse’s pulsing sigil to the chilled air.
The dust settled around the two of you, ash clinging to Death’s dark coat from the intense scuffle, while the silence of the ruined interior magnified the sound of your heavy, labored breathing.
His head snapped back up from where he’d been staring at his damaged clothes when he heard a wretched scream fall from your lips, his breath hitching painfully as he watched you scramble to collect up the ash, his throat going dry as your hands slid harmlessly across the shards of glass and pulverized plaster in a vain attempt to pick up all that remained of the worn coat you’d been wearing.
“Cher–” Death’s voice shook as he unsteadily pushed to his feet, weakly reaching out toward your hunched form despite the distance separating them as you sobbed into the meager pile of gray ash you were cradling in your hands.
Your head whipped around when you heard his voice, your expression twisted into renewed grief as you stared at him for a long moment before you slowly rose to your feet with a predator-like grace that was reminiscent of his own fighting style and your glaring eyes immediately locked onto the bared sigil carved into Death’s skin as it flared a furious violet, making Death wince as his Master fought to forcefully reassert his rapidly fraying control.
Death was the first to look away, closing his eyes as his stomach rolled, and he slammed his head against the concrete pillar at his back with a low, guttural snarl as a wave of artificial cold washed over his mind, trying to drown out the emerging fragments of Remy LeBeau.
He heard the crunch of glass and his eyes snapped open just in time to see you throw a handful of debris at his eyes before grabbing either side of his face and rearing back in order to slam your forehead into his own hard enough to make your teeth rattle in your skull.
The blow connected with a sickening crack, a collision of bone and rage that sent a shockwave through Death’s skull, and he fell back against the support pillar before doubling over, pressing his hands to his face with an animal noise of pain as he blinked against the tears in his eyes that he told himself was because of the dust and dirt in his eyes and not the tightness in his chest.
His long, white hair spilled down his heaving shoulders as he felt a sudden, sharp pressure behind his eyes and blinked rapidly, but that didn’t stop the kaleidoscope of memories flashing across the forefront of his mind: a soft voice whispering something in the dark, the feeling of a head resting against his shoulder, and a warmth that felt like home.
“Mon cœur. I’m sorry, désolé. I’m so sorry.”Remy gasped in broken French, the name tasting like copper and salt on his tongue, and the purple light of the sigil flared blindingly, then sputtered, as if the physical assault had created a momentary short circuit in the psychic leash connecting him to his Master.
The frigidity was gone now, the powerful Horseman being replaced by a broken man who looked as though he had just woken up from one nightmare only to find himself in the middle of another, Remy’s expression fraught with raw, bleeding vulnerability as he turned wide, terrified eyes onto you right as you raised a fist and hurled it toward his face.
Title: Mother’s Day is Always Hard - Quinn Hughes x Sarah Roberts
Author: Tory / @tkwrites
Relationship: Pre-established: Quinn Hughes x Sarah Roberts (ofc)
Summary: Quinn and Sarah discuss Mother’s Day.
Warnings: Grief. This whole thing is just talking about grief, and how much it sucks to have lost your mom on a day that celebrates moms.
Word count: 1,500
Comments: I’d kind of forgotten about the request for a Mother’s Day story until I was looking through my asks earlier this week. When I saw it again, it got my wheels turning, and I just had to write something down.
All in all, this came together in just a few days. It’s very raw and deals far more with the anticipation of Mother’s Day than with the day itself. I hope you still enjoy.
If you did enjoy this snapshot, please consider supporting me by reblogging, commenting, or sending in an ask. Talking with you all always inspires me to write (even if it does take a year for me to get the story written).
Sending so much love to everyone that's having a hard time this Mother's Day. I'm sorry if it sucks for you. Please know you're definitely not alone.
nicenamebutitsalreadytaken asked:
are Quinn and Sarah doing anything to celebrate Ellen, or for the memory of Sarah’s mom?
Anonymous asked:
Loved your latest fic! Idea for next year: Mother’s Day fic, Quinn comforting Sarah if she’s sad about her mom and them spending time with Ellen
Mother’s Day is Always Hard
A Quinn & Sarah Snapshot
“What’s going on for you this week?” Quinn asked, flopping next to Sarah on the couch. She had her laptop open and a Word document on the screen. From the tiny scroll bar on the right, he guessed it was her thesis.
“Um…” she paused, her fingers tapping the keys. A thought had just entered her mind when Quinn sat down. After a few more moments of tapping, it snapped back into alignment, and she continued typing.
“I can come back,” Quinn said.
“You can stay, I just need to get this thought down while I still have it,” she said, fingers flying over the keyboard.
A few moments later, she hit a last few definitive keys and saved the document before closing her computer and turning to him. “Sorry, what’s up?”
Since the season had ended, other than a stint in New York to support Luke’s doomed playoff run, he’d been home. He still trained each day, but without the grueling game and practice schedule of the season, he was getting plenty of rest and looked happier and healthier than she'd seen in a long time.
“Just wondered what the plan for the week is,” he repeated.
“Oh,” she reached into her bag for her planner. Though her classes were done for the summer, she was still working on and finishing her thesis along with preparing to defend it in June. She could have done it sooner, but she had to declare a defense date back in January, and just in case the Canucks made it to the finals, she pushed it back to the middle of June.
The days in her planner were still segmented into blocks of time. Quinn was pleased to see she had larger blocks highlighted in the same sparkly blue ink she’d used for him since they started dating.
“Just kind of the usual,” she said, flipping over to glance into the next week.
“Oh, it’s Mother’s Day on Sunday,” she said when the bold words in the top left corner of the page caught her eye. “Yuck.”
The year before, Mother’s Day had come and gone, completely overshadowed by Quinn's playoff run. In a lot of ways, it had been nice to be focused on something else. There was nothing quite like a holiday built solely to celebrate mothers to remind Sarah hers was dead.
Quinn frowned at her. Hearing her immediate, disdainful response to the holiday made him ache a little. This was something that, when he thought logically, he knew would upset her, but he never seemed to think about it ahead of time.
“Sorry,” she said automatically, feeling guilt prick at her.
“Do you want to do anything that day?” he asked, trying to broach the subject gently.
“What day? Mother’s Day?”
He nodded.
Sarah bit her lip. It was a sure sign tears might not be far behind, so he scooted closer to put his arms around her.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, allowing herself to be pulled into his embrace.
“What can I do to make it better?”
“You can’t.”
She knew it was a harsh thing to say, but at some point, trying to solve the “problem” of grief became more of a problem than anything else.
He made a discontented noise.
“Grief can’t be solved, Quinn. You can’t just kiss it and make it better.”
Sarah got like this sometimes, a little prickly, like he’d never understand, which he knew was true.
“I know that,” he defended, biting back the insistence in his tone. He needed to find a different approach, a different entry, and a new way to rush the net. “I just want to help. I want to be what you need.”
He didn’t want to solve her grief — that was a burden he’d never be equipped to bear — but he did want to shoulder as much as she would let him.
She deflated in his arms.
“I can leave when I call my mom,” he offered, not sure if that would upset her.
“No,” she sniffed, “I want to talk to her.”
“You just… you don’t have to. She’d understand.”
“I know she would, but I want to,” Sarah said, a strange mixture of grief and gratitude swirling through her mind. The fact that those two emotions could co-exist and did so often was still a mystery to her. “She’s one of my ‘other mothers.’”
“What?”
Sarah took a deep breath but kept her forehead pressed to Quinn’s shoulder. One nice thing about being together for more than a year was that she knew he would understand when she didn’t want to look him in the eye. Sometimes, it was just easier not to. She would lose her composure completely if she had to see the worry she knew was etched between his eyebrows.
“When my mom died, a woman in my neighborhood came to her wake, and she told me there would always be other mothers in my life.” It was the first time she’d said it out loud in a long time, and the memory of it constricted her voice. He had to strain to hear her next words, especially because she was talking into his chest. “None of them could replace my mom, but they’d fill some of that motherly void in my life.”
Quinn made a noise of agreement to keep her talking.
“After you had surgery,” she turned to press her forehead to his neck, and her voice became significantly louder, “and your mom held me when I had that breakdown in the hospital…”
Wincing, he tightened his grip around her. That was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to watch. He remembered thanking god his mom was there to step in when Sarah needed to be comforted so badly, and he couldn’t step in to do it himself.
Sniffling, she blinked a few times, fluttering her soft lashes against his skin. He wasn’t surprised to feel a tear slip under the collar of his t-shirt a few moments later.
“That’s when I knew she was one of my other mothers.”
Something behind his sternum fractured, and he pulled her completely into his lap. “I know she’s happy to be that for you,” he said, emotion choking his own voice.
“I know. It’s just a weird day, you know?”
He didn’t, but he let her talk.
“Because I miss my mom so much, and I feel like I should celebrate her, but celebrating her also just kinda reminds me that she’s dead.”
Quinn wished he could somehow carry this pain for her for a while. Death was so unfair.
“But then I also have those other mothers in my life, and they deserve to be celebrated, too. It’s just a lot of conflicting emotions all at once.”
Unsure what to say, he stayed quiet as he held her, resting his cheek against the crown of her hair.
After a few more tears soaked into his shirt and she worked her arms around his waist to hold him back, Sarah asked, “what does your mom like for Mother’s Day?”
“She asks us to plant flowers for her. For a long time, it was just Luke doing it. Now it’s whoever happens to be there.”
“Do you want to go home for the weekend?”
“We don’t have to. She’ll understand. I’ve missed Mother’s Day before.”
“I know,” she said. She’d missed a few herself when her mom was alive. “You’d just be there if you weren’t here.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “but it’s not like I’m just here for no reason. You’re here.”
Sarah’s heart fluttered a little, and she nuzzled closer to him.
After a few minutes of quiet, she said, “I think we should go.”
Since losing her parents, she felt a certain sense of urgency for those in her life who still had them — the feeling that visiting those you love should never be put off. It was too late for her parents now, but it wasn’t for his, especially not when Quinn had the means to get them there without much strain or trouble.
“Would you be up for that? I don’t want to go if it’s going to be hard for you.”
“Mother’s Day is always hard for me,” she said, “but I think it’d be nice to spend some time with your mom. Plant some flowers. Make her brunch. Go visit your grandma.”
“Okay. When can you fly?”
It was a short trip, flying in on Friday night and back on Sunday evening. They planted flowers around Ellen’s house on Saturday. Seeing both Luke and Jack struggling with shoulder injuries made her doubly glad they’d come, so Ellen didn’t have to step in to plant her own flowers.
On Sunday morning, Jim gave her a tight hug, and they shared an understanding, sad smile before brunch preparations began. Ellen went to pick up her mom, and as they sat around the table, laughing, Sarah was glad they made the trip.
If you enjoyed this Snapshot, check out the rest of Quinn & Sarah’s story in their masterlist.
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Happy mother's day Sarah Rogers, your son still buys you flowers and paints you something.
Happy mother's day Queen Frigga, your eldest still prays, your youngest still holds your world's together.
Happy mother's day May Parker, your nephew still hopes you remember him.
Happy mother's day Sarah Wilson, your sons got up early today to try and make you breakfast.
Happy mother's day Pepper Potts, you have gotten a card from absolutely everyone at the compound, but your favorite is the little hand-made one sitting up in your kitchen.
Happy mother's day Olivia Walker, John just called and offered to take little walker today so you could go out.
So a day or two ago I figured I’d finally finish these two sketches I made around(or a little before) the time of Femme’s first era change, so enjoy :D
