My first Bad Things Happen Bingo fic!! AH this is so much fun; I’m so glad I have such great friends that got me into this aslkjflakdsjf. Characters & setting are from my original story, What Rises From the Depths, being serialized on Chanillo & Patreon.
If you like this and want to see more of Diana & Chelsaline, read the first chapter of WRFtD for free here!
If you want to request one of these prompts, my askbox is always open!! Enjoy!
Chelsaline wakes up screaming.
Her first inhale cuts short. She coughs out acrid chalk and powder stuck on her tongue, coating her throat. It’s a taste she hasn’t ever known; she has never wanted to know. All she can hear is the angry, bright boom and burn of the dynamite, but all she can see is pitch black. Her rapid breath hits a stone surface above her nose; over and over again, little puffs of air push back against her face.
She is trapped.
She doesn’t know what she is pinned by, only that it doesn’t hurt and shouldn’t it hurt? Shouldn’t she feel pain? What does it mean if she can’t feel the pressure of the stone around her?
Chelsaline wiggles and kicks out until the arm wrapped around her waist tightens. Something softer rises and falls over her shoulder and Chelsaline realizes she hadn’t been aware of the weight of another person curled around her.
“Chelsie, love, don’t move.”
Breath cuts into her lungs. It is hot and cold all at once. “M-mom?”
She has never heard her mother sound like this: so haggard and thin. Her mother is a captain, the youngest the Winged Island’s Navy has. Her mother commands a ship and a crew and keeps them in order and carries her voice loud enough to be heard over the roughest sea storms. There are many things you could call Diana Carter; quiet has never been one of them.
“Yes, love. I’m here.”
Chelsaline wants to ask, but she’s afraid of the answer. Her breath is hot and quick, brushing back against her own lips. She starts to shake. Her mother’s arm tightens around her. There’s a slight drag of skin against stone.
“Give me…just a second.”
“O-okay.”
“Then…I’ll move. I promise.”
“Okay.”
True to her word, a moment later Diana pushes up against the stone above them. She gasps and huffs but eventually, dim light slips through. It’s hard to see but it’s there, subdued and small, growing wider and illuminating the silhouette of the slab above their heads.
“Still dark. We must…not have been out long.”
Chelsaline finds her voice again after realizing the low light could also reveal the form of her mother bent her, both hands braced against the largest slab on her back. “Is that good?”
Stone slides against stone. Crumbling sounds start out distant and muffled, an arrhythmic patter of tiny pebbles and broken pieces sliding off of the back of the one her mother lifts. But then there’s a shift and a shuddering groan and the edge of the giant slab finally slips over the lip of another at their feet. It slides away.
The night sky is serene above them.
Her mother is turned away, watching the wide section of wall that had pinned them down fall to the bottom from where they sit nestled at the crown of lighthouse rubble.
“We’ll…have to climb down. I hope Endric and Arvelle aren’t…somewhere underneath all of this.” Diana turns to look at Chelsaline over her shoulder. There’s a small smile on her face, framed by the moonlight. “Forget I said anything. I’m sure they’re fine. Think you can walk, love?”
No. Chelsaline can’t talk.
She can’t move.
She stares with wide eyes at the torn skin of her mother’s back, burned raw from fire and broken open by the stone. Her captain’s coat and uniform shirt she had always been so proud of had done little to protect her from the cruelty of the blast and the harsh surface of cement. Even still, she had grabbed Chelsaline and held her close without hesitation.
I did that.
“Chelsie?”
Her brown eyes snap up to her mother’s. It starts as something small, a tight kernel stuck in the center of her throat. It spreads like ice.
“Here,” Diana says. She rises to her feet slowly with a wince, wobbling once she’s up. Her hands fan out at either side. Then she extends an open palm to her daughter still lying prone in the rubble. “Let me help you up, love.”
Chelsaline takes one look at her hand. She launches herself upwards.
Diana freezes at the slender arms that wrap around her waist and the head that burrows itself against her abdomen. She places one hand on the back of Chelsaline’s head, fingers weaving into wild, dusty curls. She thinks Chelsaline might be saying something into her stomach; over and over again, the same phrase, sobbed out past chapped lips.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
And when Chelsaline, exhausted, eventually falls asleep against her, Diana gently props her on her hip. She thumbs at the dried tear tracks on her cheeks and for the second time that day, holds her daughter close to her heart. She carries her down the mountain of rubble.
THANKS BIANCA SO MUCH FOR THIS PROMPT wow u made me hurt my own child how dare u...no but seriously this was a fun exercise!! it was the first time i wrote an au for my own children lksjdflakjsdf kind of had to because Diana canonically doesn’t lose any limbs so...
here have a Modern-Day AU of my own What Rises From the Depths (w/ a background coffee shop au) where Diana grieves a lost limb
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Inarticulate
[Read on AO3]
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Mordecai leaves with his arm around Chelsaline’s shoulders, promising to go out and actually get some decent burgers for a change and to swing by to check on Soewati and make sure affairs at the coffee shop haven’t been trainwrecked by these past few days, and that leaves Diana finally alone with Endric.
It is, perhaps, something neither of them have ever wanted as much as they do now.
“How do you feel?”
“How do you think I feel?”
Amusement quirks at the corner of Endric’s mouth.
Diana sighs. “You probably know better than anyone the answer to that question.”
When Endric shakes his head, it makes his ponytail bounce against his shoulders. “Y’know, as much as I love talking about myself, it doesn’t matter right now how I felt. We aren’t talking about me.”
Diana’s fingers dig into the white linen over her lap.
“How’m I supposed to feel?”
“Try again.”
Diana huffs. It would be amused if she could muster energy for it. “Endric--”
“--Diana, you fucking lost a leg. Bouncing around that’s gonna fucking hurt later when you run out of places to bounce to so just…be honest with me. Be honest with yourself. It’s shitty, isn’t it?”
Diana doesn’t know whether to scream or cry. “Are you trying to calm me down or make me have another anxiety attack?”
“I don’t know. Do you need one?”
“I--” Diana’s head snaps to Endric. “--what? No! Fuck you! I know my leg isn’t there anymore, okay? I know it. Don’t--” She gasps for words that won’t come. All that’s there inside her is just a feeling; a sensation. Just an open, gnawing, nameless thing that she can’t articulate, only experience. “--don’t push me. I had that leg in my life longer than you had your hand, so just…stop.”
Endric stills. The rarity of his obedience would probably be momentous, if it wasn’t soured by the gigantic elephant in the room.
Diana chuckles breathlessly and bows her head. “What am I saying?” she whispers and runs a hand over her face; she blows one full-lunged breath against the heel of her palm. She closes her eyes. “I’m sorry. Just…give me a sec.”
“It’s okay,” Endric says.
And Diana breathes.
When the first tears drip down her cheeks and fall to the hospital blanket, Diana lets them go, squeezing out from under her tightly closed eyes. It’s perhaps the first time she has ever allowed herself to cry in front of someone that isn’t Mordecai or Soewati, but Endric doesn’t say a word. She wonders if he knows.
“I’m not dying,” she finally murmurs. “My life isn’t suddenly over.” She rubs at her cheeks hard with both hands. “I know that this isn’t the end.”
“Right.”
“But it’s so hard to not feel like it is.”
“Don’t discredit that. I mean, it is still the end of something. Just…not everything.”
Diana sniffs. “What, are you suggesting I let myself be miserable about this?”
“You didn’t listen to a word I said.”
Diana finds a smile curling at the edges of her mouth. There’s irony in those words.
“I don’t know,” Endric continues and sighs. “I’m not a pro at this. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all for healing from an amputation. I just think…there’s no way you’re not upset in some way. I think you already know you are. You just can’t bottle it. Your life has been seriously changed for you; you’re allowed to mourn the idea of your future you once thought you’d have.” Endric shrugs, the motion lopsided.
Diana watches Endric for a long time. “Everything feels so damn open. I can’t even picture how things are going to be different after…”
When Diana doesn’t finish, Endric murmurs, “Isn’t that how the future is normally supposed to be?”
“Well, if change is supposed to be so normal, then why the hell does this all feel so terrible?”
The words came out harsh, much more than Diana intended.
Endric doesn’t bat an eye. He leans forward and puts both arms on the edge of her hospital bed: his right stump and his full left hand. “Believe it or not, Diana,” he says, “you are allowed to keep crying.”
It starts with a hiccup. A tiny flinch of her shoulders.
Diana bows her head.
When Endric touches her arm with his hand, Diana takes his hand and squeezes it. He still doesn’t say a word, even when he must feel the drip of her tears onto his knuckles.
hey do a coffee shop au. OR if you want something cooler, maybe a twewy au? (for the wrftd characters pwease)
ALKJSDLFKJSDF OH HECK THESE ARE SO COOL!! I’m definitely gonna do the coffee shop AU because that....that just sounds so sweet and I can’t unthink of it. alksdjfljaksdf THANKS BABE <3
Coffee Shop AU
There’s a longstanding rivalry between the Ge-Mocha and the Twisted Whip, two indie coffee houses right across the street from one another. Rumor has it the owners of each establishment--Diana Carter and Actaeon Ford--were once extremely in love and had a coffee shop together, but ever since their horrible break-up, they’ve been Incompatible and Sworn Enemies.
Mordecai Rose is just a barista who is working to support himself through college, caught up in the middle of the two ex-lovers’ dramatic feud.
Endric Inuusuttoq is just a regular who’s blind and comes in pretty much every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon when he’s got that ugly, early morning class on campus, and orders the same hot chocolate each time.
Mordecai would be lying if he said he looked forward to seeing Endric only because of his super-cute service dog.
absurdinadress replied to your post “absurdinadress replied to your post: ...”
UGHGHGH YES! Endric finds himself wholly involved bc he comes to Care for the people there and they have started to care for him!!! tell me though... are nick and ode also baristas? or are they also college students?
ALKJSDLFKJSDF OK LET’S BE REAL Ode is totally a barista there. Nick works there occasionally, but he doesn’t have as nearly as many hours as his sister, thanks to his nightmare classes since he’s trying to get fast-tracked into medicine. He is working his ass off to achieve his dream of being a doctor and Ode wants him to focus on that instead of bills so she does the work.
not gonna lie tho there is totally the potential of an angsty subplot here of Ode deciding she doesn’t know what she wants to do and so she drops out of college and stops taking classes but doesn’t tell Nick and picks up a second job instead to support him and his dream even more alskdjflaksdf
absurdinadress replied to your post: absurdinadress replied to your post: ...
fdhdg i would read this AU… one day ford walks into the coffee shop while endric’s ordering, and it gets super tense between ford and diana and mordecai, meanwhile endric’s like “…so… my hot chocolate. where is it. i have a class to get to can y'all do this later”
asldkfjlaksjdf l i t e r a l l y tho
endric notices over time there’s a Certain Asshole who comes in from time to time who makes the nice people at Ge-Mocha act differently. he doesn’t know what the deal is. doesn’t necessarily think it’s his business.
somehow, he ends up making it his business anyway because endric.
absurdinadress replied to your post: hey do a coffee shop au. OR if you want something...
hey holy shit hon? i love that endric orders HOT CHOCOLATE from a COFFEE SHOP in the WEE MORNING HOURS. no caffeine for him!!
ALKJSDLFKJSDF NONE
boldly and unflinchingly at the oddest hour, he will make his demand
“One venti hot chocolate, please.”
Mordecai will stare at him the first time. probly a little shocked to be hearing this from a fellow college student. “Uh. Are you sure you don’t want a shot of espresso with that?”
to which Endric will answer
“I know what I’m about.”
it’s as much of an answer as Mordecai decides he is going to get
