My name is TheKnightMarket, or, as you may call me, just Knight. Pronouns are they/them, but I'm good with slangy terms and if it makes a joke land better, use it.
I will be writing one-shots here for the YouTuber Egos, and the occasional continuation if I really like a concept. The larger ones can also be seen on AO3 under the same account name, if you’d rather read there.
Requests are open, but they’ll be back open soon!
As always, there are some things that I will not be writing:
- Self-harm
- Pregnancy / birth
- Underage relationships
If you want to know if I'd be willing to write something, you can either DM me or send the request and I'll check it out. You can find the key for what I have written and am planning to write here! I'll still work on my own ideas, of course, so you'll be seeing fics along the way!
And there ya have it! So, ask away if you want anything written, read if you want to, and have fun!
YOURE WRITING FOR SIMON YAY OMFHBDJSHDKA 💐💐💐💐 Can we get our poor boy getting rescued by the Captain from ISWM? Maybe even Engineer feeling a little jealous that this newbie is hoarding his Captains (theyre nursing him back to uhhh being a well adjusted human?? i can imagine post iron lung simon to be akin to a traumatized beaten dog) attention but also eventually liking him too LOL (when petty hate starts to translates to oh fuck hes actually kinda cute dammit). you can decide whether the feelings here are more romantic or queerplatonic hehe we need more fluff with simon
"We'll teach you."
In which Simon faces divine retribution.
Part 1 - Part 2
TW: swearing, blood, mention of violence
Pages: 25 - Words: 8500
[Requests: CLOSED]
As soon as the Invincible II parked itself just above the atmosphere of their chosen planet, it was go-time, and it was going great. Scans were being run, rovers were being constructed, and the crew were all doing their best to get ready for a new home. Being the first colonist expedition outside of the Milky Way granted them certain expectations, but it was nothing they couldn't handle. In fact, beyond the normal stresses of a grand project such as this, everyone was calm and content.
With the exception of the two most prominent figures on the ship.
For a reason unknown to the crew, the Captain and the Head Engineer were frequently spotted sprinting through hallways like they had a countdown over their heads. Even the other crew leads were in the dark, leaving them only curiosity and concern when the two would share hushed whispers before breaking into another jog. The singular hint anyone had been given as to the problem was a vague warning to not enter the warp-core, though neither stayed still long enough for follow-up questions.
There wasn't an obvious issue, so their restlessness wasn't an issue either. The ship simply continued on like it always had—only with a pair of frantic leads shaking hallways with their footsteps. They got their work done, so there was no need for official action to be taken against them. The only things that came from it were glances, shrugs, and a healthy amount of gossip intrinsic to a tight space.
"I don't understand what could be so… scary," an assistant engineer said as they sat down with a food tray. The cafeteria menu didn't hold the most glamorous options, but they weren't there to dine in style.
A biologist nestled into the seat opposite them.
"Why does it have to be scary?"
"Anyone who goes into the infirmary looks terrified when they come out—and have you seen the Captain?" They leaned forward with an air of conspiracy. "They haven't stopped working for a second."
Their friend just rolled his eyes. "Maybe it's just important."
"But it's the med-bay. Why would they keep it there if it weren't—"
Two hard thunks of steel-toed boots landed inches from the table. Neither of the crew members had to look up to know who it was, and neither did for fear of their startled reflections in the Captain's helmet.
"Please keep gossiping to a minimum."
Normally, this kind of situation called for a gentle reminder, something friendly and casual and, most notably, informal. This was not a gentle reminder. They spoke in that kind of way you learn in high-ranking positions; how to appear neutral on transcripts but be heard with a tone that gave no second chance.
The engineer's shoulders dropped, and they nodded quickly, saying, "Right, sorry, Captain."
Their nod was returned, and it wasn't until the Captain had taken what they needed and slipped back through the cafeteria's doors that a single breath was taken. Once they had both relaxed, the topic was exchanged for worried comments over their superior. After all, it took a lot to shake you, and nobody but the Head Engineer seemed to know what it was.
The edges of his vision were fraying—were frayed, pulled apart at the edges like fabric, like an old rug, like some kid had played with them when they were bored until the fibers split apart and the floor was visible beneath them. Like they didn't care what happened. That wasn't new, but it was the first time it had happened to his eyes.
Simon should have been scared. He didn't know a lot, but he knew that, and yet he couldn't find it in himself. Whatever had attacked him had taken a lot, including all of his energy. For the moment, he didn't have the effort to exert. He was happy to stay in this fraying darkness, where he didn't have to wonder and he didn't have to ask.
But then his vision started to clear up, and he knew he would never have the luxury of true safety.
Simon had to be scared.
He was alone, which was the first thing that he processed upon glancing around. As far as he was concerned, that was the best case scenario. He had gotten used to being alone, but the rhythmic beeping kept him on high alert. The machine that was making the noise, far too similar to a drip-drip-drip, sat on the right, next to the cot he was tucked into. Wires stretched from little holes and jabbed into his upper arm.
Despite his brain realizing that he hadn't always been alone, his body was too focused on those thin, white threads. They looked new and delicate and terrifying because medical equipment didn't look like this. It was supposed to be scavenged from rubble and stained with the bodies of those it had been connected to before. Frayed. It wasn't.
First, Simon had the sickening thought that, wherever he was, the Quiet Rapture had not touched this place. Second, he had the thought that he needed to find Ava, who had surely survived herself and saved him. Third, he had the thought that she was dead, and if she were dead then so was he.
He gripped the wires and pulled. They popped out of his veins like teeth out of gums.
He was still missing an arm. It wasn't ideal, but he still had three other limbs to use if push came to shove. This was anticipation, the phase before action. Plans came to him half-formed and were thrown out. Too much uncertainty, too much opportunity. He had to find someone to give him answers, but who would he find? How would he know when he found them?
The beeping sped up, up, up until it crescendoed into a long cry for help. The convict was escaping, someone, help, the convict was escaping.
Frantically, Simon tried to pull the wires out of the machine altogether, but he only succeeded in tugging it forward. A tether to the wall followed, he tried to trace it, tried to unplug it, tried to get it to shut up before someone came.
But then someone came.
He heard the even footsteps first. A shadow came after, indistinct and threatening in its ambiguity. It stopped just outside the door. The urge to yell welled up in Simon's throat—as if surviving a near-death scenario before made him immortal, or self-sabotaging—but he stayed silent and staring at the door.
It slid open, and he noted immediately that he couldn't see your eyes.
At your first step, Simon scrambled off the bed and lunged for the first sharp object within arm's reach. He came back with a scalpel, just as unblemished as the wires, and pointed it straight out.
You stood your ground, but came no closer. Instead, you held up your arms and said, "Hey, hey, I'm not going to hurt you."
Once upon a time, in a distant, far-off land, Simon took people at their word. There, he was drowning at the bottom of an ocean with something else's bones lodged in his flesh.
His grip tightened.
You heaved a breath, preparing yourself. "I understand that you're confused and scared, but you need to put the scalpel down."
He didn't, not even when you continued, "I'm here to help."
His jaw ground just as hard as his grip-strength, but he managed to spit out, "Why?"
You were quiet for a few seconds. A question like that seemed to catch you off-guard, and Simon wondered if he was the first person to ask you. Who were you that you got by without being questioned?
Your answer came after you shuffled on the spot. "Because I want to."
It almost didn't matter; people said anything for any reason. Lying was not an uncommon concept, and he figured that lying to a stranger was the easiest of them all. No stakes, save for the scalpel.
However, he needed answers, and you had answered the first question posed to you. You were also the only other person around so his options were limited.
Slowly, as you let your arms fall, Simon dropped the scalpel onto the machine. This was also a lie, in a way. He didn't suddenly become harmless. He didn't need a weapon to do damage.
But you thanked him. Contained relief tainted your words. A threat diffused and progress to be made, starting with you asking, "What's your name?"
Simon didn't respond. He didn't trust you with that kind of thing—and there was a small voice in the back of his head reminding him that the last time he had told someone his name, they had been eaten.
"Okay," you said, not put-off in the least. "How about I tell you what we think happened first? Is that alright?"
The questions were getting on his nerves. It wasn't because you were asking too many, no, it was because you were asking at all, and you still hadn't told him what you really wanted. His heart was already running like a wild animal, encouraging him to do the same, and he didn't need more suspicions to make it worse. Nobody helped someone because they wanted to.
You kept talking. Somehow, you were completely undeterred by his silence.
"There was a wormhole," you explained. "My Head Engineer and I have been… experimenting with them, and we believe that instead of bringing us to another planet, it brought you to us. We don't know why the direction reversed, but we're working on it."
"So it was an accident?"
"Yes."
Simon's snarl turned to a frown.
"We didn't cause this, as far as we're aware, but we're trying to find out what did."
So maybe it wasn't you, or who you worked for, or whoever the Head Engineer was. Maybe it wasn't on purpose. That didn't mean he wasn't there for a reason. So much of Simon's life was consequence. He paid for other people's actions, the lamb that grew teeth, but he had torn out throats before. Was this retribution for his own actions now?
The scalpel shined in the corner of his eye.
"For the time being, we'll take care of you. Our medics are making progress on helping your arm fight against infection—"
Something in his expression must have shifted; you paused, turned to a cabinet, and slipped a file out of the drawer. You read from it, muttering to yourself as you made sense of the medical jargon scribbled down. Simon couldn't hear you over the sound of blood rushing in his ears.
"They found some kind of bacteria eating at the separation site. Would—" You stopped yourself and brought your hand to your helmet in contemplation, as if you forgot that you had it on. When you started again, it was with a shade of uncertainty, "Can I ask what happened?"
"No."
No hesitation. Just a simple 'no'. It wasn't an emotional wound, the soreness probably came from whatever science fuckery had been done to his arm, but it was going to be a rough subject for a while. Probably forever, and that was fine by him.
"That's okay. The medics might ask again, but you don't have to tell them. Of course, it might help to know if you were in contact with any dangerous substances or species, but…"
You shrugged.
"We won't force it out of you."
You weren't the COI. If there had been any doubt floating in the recesses of his mind, they were gone, wiped out by that simple sentence. They weren't replaced by unconditional trust, but manipulation like that wasn't their thing. If they wanted him to do something, they made him do it. They didn't need him to think it was his idea.
But if you weren't the Consolidation, and you certainly weren't Eden, then who were you?
"Now, moving forward," you said, tucking the file back into the cabinet, "you'll be undergoing physical therapy with our medical team and learning how to do basic tasks. I'll be working with you every step of the way. If everything goes well, we'll see about getting you a role on the ship or planet-side."
"Planet-side?"
All of his attention snapped to your words. The only scenarios he could come up for a planet were the COI or another ocean, and neither of them appealed to him. You could have been lying. That was always a possibility. In the background, there was the faint, useless hope of it being an actual planet, but he wasn't an idiot. Fantasies like that were what got people killed. The idea that there was something better out there was what got his brothers killed.
You twitched, a near flinch, like an idea had physically struck you, and you muttered a curse just loud enough for Simon to hear.
What followed knocked the breath out of him. You asked, "Do you want to see?"
Simon was not a man to cry. A few minutes of sobbing vulnerability that would inevitably be used against him, and for what? Relief? It never did him any good, he was always thrown into the next panic seconds later, so why bother?
But there were some times—even when he was accompanied, when he was on an unfamiliar ship in an unfamiliar place, when there were other things to focus on like plain survival—that he did cry.
The stars were beautiful. It had been so long that his memories had become paintings, shoddy, and imperfect, and probably exaggerations. Seeing them in person again was a reminder he much appreciated. Although the voice from before whispered that he should have focused on the person standing to his side, his eyes were locked onto the glowing balls of fire. Alive, right where they were meant to be, as if they had never left him.
The one bit of hope that Simon dragged with him through hell and high waters was that the Quiet Rapture was not what everyone thought it was. While Eden said that the stars had died, and the COI said that the planets were gone, Simon thought that they hadn't. Not really. Instead, it was them, the unlucky few who were pulled from one place and pushed into another, that created void space in the universe.
He didn't bother to swipe the tears from his eyes. They refracted the blurry image of a planet below the ship.
He tried not to startle when your voice rang out in the empty bridge, "I'll give you some time alone."
Footsteps came next, but he called for you to wait. It wasn't on purpose. He figured it was some ancient, human instinct, instead of him not wanting to be alone as his dismal world was shaken to its core.
You listened to him, stopping just outside his field of vision, but it was fine. It didn't really matter to him anymore.
Simon opened his mouth to speak, but his attention was stuck on the stars, as though they would also flicker out of existence if it weren't for him looking at them. Whatever duty Ava had given him to protect humanity, like he could do anything for them, apparently extended to this moment.
You spoke for him, saying, "Suppose this wasn't a view you saw everyday."
Past tense. Things had changed, and it was the first thing that he fully believed from your mouth.
"They were all gone," he muttered.
You nodded—like you knew what he meant, even if you didn't—and you watched the stars with him—like you didn't notice him crying, even if you did. Just the ship and the stars.
"We'll get you a room with a window," you said. "I think it'd be harder to find one without. Mark made sure of that."
Startling at your own words, you pulled a slim tablet off the center console of the bridge.
"You need to meet the crew leads. Everybody knows everybody on the ship, so you might be a spectacle." Gloved fingers tapped around the screen. "If anyone gives you a hard time, just let me know, okay?"
Given how gentle you had been with him so far, he doubted you could stop much that he couldn't, but it was nice to be offered protection. Except it wasn't really. It sat oddly in his stomach like food that refused to be digested, but he nodded, anyway.
"Good. Whenever you're ready to leave, let me know, and I'll get you set up."
He didn't think he would ever be ready to leave. The view before him was a comfort nothing else could give him, and it took half an hour for him to even think about moving. It was the adrenaline crash that did him in; he was close to passing out there and then as the fear faded from his system. Stuff that had kept him upright since he had scrambled from the med-bay cot was leaching into the air.
At Simon's acceptance, you walked him from the bridge to the crew quarters. You explained some of the logic behind 'cryopods' and beds, which was lost on him, but you didn't seem to mind. They weren't your area of expertise, as you told him, referring to another one of the crew leads. Surface-level information like that was all he took in before you arrived at a spare bedroom.
You swiped through the keypad system and then stepped aside when the symbol of a hand appeared on its pixillated surface. At your gesture, Simon pressed his only hand to it. Blue pulsed with light, ran a shining line across his palm, chirped with a high-pitched sound.
A lock, and his hand, the key.
Simon let you walk in first—less risk of being cornered—and spared a glance around after following you. It was bare bones, but it was more than he ever had.
"There should be some spare clothes in the drawers, and I'll come get you for breakfast after you get some rest."
You twisted on your heel to face him. The helmet was still off-putting, the artificial shadow that covered your eyes, but he got the sense that you were happy.
"Any questions, you can come straight to me."
You didn't wait. After another silent nod, you marched out, letting the door slide shut behind you. The room was closed, sealed after Simon played around with the lock symbol next to the inner keypad. He made sure that he could unlock it easily and followed up this security check with an inspection of his own. A bed, a closet, a desk. A window, just like you'd said.
He wanted to thank you, but words like that didn't come cheap for him. There was some hidden fee behind him saying them, a shiv in the hand that he shook for a job well-done, and he wasn't ready to admit that this place was different.
More and more information kept coming, so much that it felt like this was the attack. A bombardment of hope, mental warfare in a pretty package of beds and meals and stars. He shouldn't have trusted it. He shouldn't have wanted to trust it. He knew what humans were capable of, and teasing was not outside of the realm of possibility, but he had to trust it. He had nothing else.
The curtains over the window stayed undrawn when he climbed into the bed that night.
Time was a fickle thing for Simon, but he guessed it was twelve hours later that he was sat on a med-bay cot again. It was probably the same one from before, but waking up in a completely new environment with a missing arm didn't lend itself to details. This was a relaxed situation; you stood next to a medic, who was dividing his blood into little discs. He had spent the last hour being scanned and sampled as the medical team tried to figure out what bacteria lived on his arm. More importantly, they tried to figure out whether it was dangerous.
So far, no threat, but that was liable to change when they learned more.
The stress of being tested was waning while Simon listened to you and the medic chat. The planet was the big topic of conversation, and it was better than retreating into his mind. Plant-talk was interesting, the new flora that thrived on the surface and what could feasibly be transported back to wherever the crew came from.
It was calm.
And then the door opened, and someone new bustled through.
"Hey, Captain, I was going over the landing site scan and—"
Simon's blood pressure spiked. If it weren't for the surge of dizziness, of go-go-go, react or die, the monitor connected to his upper arm would have told him that he was panicking.
You waved them over.
When they were within a few feet, you turned, saying, "Mark, this is Simon. Simon, this is Mark, the Head Engineer."
The tension of an unexpected situation soured the introduction, but only Simon seemed to recognize it.
"Nice to meet you," Mark said, and he held out a hand.
Simon didn't move.
Mark pulled it back. "Okay then."
"Mark is going to go through the basic chores with you, once you're far enough into your recovery. Do you have any experience with fixing things up?"
Not as much as he should have for the positions he had been in, but Simon still nodded.
"Great." You were inexplicably cheery for the awkwardness in the air. "It's either that or we hand you over to Gunther and you get taught how to shoot."
"What's so bad about that?" Mark asked. To his credit, he seemed genuinely confused instead of eager to get a babysitting duty off his back.
"I didn't say anything about accuracy."
The man laughed, loud and boisterous and in that particular fashion that made Simon suspicious. It wasn't for the same reasons he had distrusted you. It wasn't because he thought Mark was dangerous—in fact, he thought he could pick him up and throw him across the room like a rag doll. He simply thought that no person would laugh like that just because you were funny.
Simon was busy trying to figure out his angle when the medic pulled you aside. You were still in the room, but having a stranger closer to him than you were made him uneasy.
This was when he discovered that, in awkward situations, Mark talked.
"So, you're the one who got sucked through the wormhole?"
He couldn't tell whether it was a question or not. He knew he was. Simon sat in the medical bay with his blood under a microscope and half his arm missing. Of course, he was.
"Not a nice ride, is it?" Mark continued. "You probably ended up somewhere better than you started though."
With a wave at Simon's arm and a sharp laugh, Mark teetered back and forth on his heels, as if the cold reception knocked him off kilter.
Good. His attitude was getting on his nerves.
"It might be rough at first, but we're a growing colony! We'll get there, and you'll feel right at home."
"You don't know anything about my home."
He wasn't alone in that. Simon wondered what had happened to Eden, to the COI, to the world that he was shot out of—but they weren't really his home. He still had questions for his mother that would forever go unanswered.
The reply caught Mark off-guard. He sputtered out a tepid, "Right, right. Of course."
He shrugged, shuffled, did all the basic gestures for a social blunder. He glanced around, searching for someone to get him out of this mess, but then he looked straight at Simon and said, "You know, you don't make conversation easy—"
"Goods news!"
And there came Mark's 'someone'. Simon heard the smile in your voice as you stepped up to them, the medic writing notes behind you.
"It looks like we'll be able to start your physical rehabilitation tomorrow," you announced cheerily. "You'll be fitted for a compression garment today, I'll take you for a tour around the ship, and then you're free to do whatever you want for the rest of the day. Within limits, obviously."
Simon braced himself. This was it, the impact, the 'stay here', the 'go do this', the 'stay away from that', the rules for survival. He was almost proud for beating your niceties and keeping his healthy suspicions. He wasn't crew or colonist, so, of course, he would have separate laws to abide by. It would have been nice had the freedom been real, but it wasn't, so it didn't matter. The hope didn't matter.
"You won't be able to use the gym unsupervised, and the warp-core is off-limits until we figure out what happened. Is that alright?"
His brow furrowed.
"That's it?"
"Yep. Any questions?"
Hundreds. More than he could count whirled in his mind like a school of fish. He didn't know where to start, if he could start, especially given present company. He held Mark in the corner of his eye, hands visible at his sides.
He shook his head. He didn't want you to shut down when he got to his real questions, so he decided to keep them to himself for now. Being measured for his compression garment would give him time to figure out what to ask and in what order to ease you into his curiosity.
"If you think of any, just come and find me."
With that, you nodded at Mark and started toward the door. He fell into step with you, like any dutiful Head Engineer would with their Captain. That was what Mark had called you, and it was what you were. You were the Captain, and one question bubbled to the surface of Simon's brain.
Why was a captain so eager to talk to him?
You hummed to yourself in the corridor. It was barely audible through your helmet, but Mark kept sparing glances at you as you walked. Sure that the background noise wasn't what had piqued his interest, you turned off the tablet and slipped it into your waistband.
"Out with it, Mark."
You caught him when he was staring and only got a flustered, "Huh?"
"You have questions. Ask them."
"No, no, I'm fine, Captain."
There was a pause. Only the sound of the ship's inner-workings could be heard, but they barely underlined the conversation. You heard the whirring of Mark's brain louder. All the calculations, all the possibilities, all the choices being made for what he was going to say, because he was going to say something.
"Are you sure we should be giving him free reign?"
"You have free reign," you shot back immediately. "Why shouldn't he?"
He spoke even quicker, "Because I didn't randomly appear in the warp-core with fifteen gallons of human blood pouring down me."
His voice was quiet enough that no one passing by would hear, but you still spared a glance around. It wouldn't do for more rumors to spread, and no one yet knew what had happened to Simon. Barely anyone knew that he was even there. Keeping secrets from your crew was old hat to you now, and you were good at keeping the guilt at bay.
"We met a lot of people in the wormhole," you said. "A bit of blood shouldn't scare you."
"But fifteen gallons, Captain." His voice faded into a sigh, and his gaze dropped to the floor where you could see phantom blood splatters. "I just don't understand…"
You stopped at the door to the main reactor. For a moment, you considered making another joke, but then you were both bathed in the orange light of a star. Simon had said that the stars were all gone in his universe. This one was man-made, that man the one standing next to you with a frown and those eyes you couldn't look at for too long.
"He looks like you."
A moment of stunned silence and then, "What?"
It was tough to admit it, but you couldn't take it back—not anymore—so you said, "I know- I know I shouldn't pick favorites, but… what if it had been you?"
You bowed your head and stepped closer to the console. Lights flickered on the screen, readings and levels and jargon you would never truly understand. You knew it powered the ship, it could overheat, and it was able to melt the flesh off bones in less than a second. You didn't want to know that last one.
"If you showed up drenched in blood and absolutely terrified, and I didn't help you, I…"
Finishing that sentence was impossible, and, luckily, Mark got to you in time to stop you. He placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, though you still couldn't face him.
Instead, you said, "I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I trust him."
"Well, I don't."
That was expected. Not the best case, but the wormhole had taken a lot from both of you. Trust like that wasn't handed out freely anymore.
"But I trust you," he sighed, "so I'll get over it."
Your shoulders shook with a light chuckle. "Thank you."
"If he breaks that trust, I'm sending him out the airlock."
"Mark!"
You whirled around to slap him on the arm, but you couldn't help the laughter that kept pouring out of you. Being the captain was a lot of stress, and it was nice to button-down with someone, even if you still had the helmet on. Mark was laughing, too, bright and boisterous and enough to make you feel a little more confident in your decision-making.
All things considered, the tour was going well. You and Simon had picked up and dropped off some strays as you went, but it was limited to the crew leads, who you had said Simon was to meet anyway. He understood your hesitancy to leave training to Gunther, especially after he offered him a gun within ten seconds of an introduction. The other two were more his speed; Celci's professionalism and Burt's silence had a calming effect.
Still, meeting so many new people pushed his perception into overdrive as he tried to account for every move they made. A few minutes in Life Support was a welcome calm before the end of the tour in the bridge. It was just him, you, and tanks of unfamiliar flora.
"The planet's atmosphere is oxygen-rich enough to support us," you explained, "so there's no need to take them down." Gently, you drew a finger along one of the leaves. "They'll stay on the ship while we get all the colonists settled."
Eyes still locked onto the plants, he asked, "How many people are there?"
"100,000."
That got his attention; his attention snapped to you like a magnet. 100,000 was more than Eden had, more than the COI had, maybe more than what was left of humanity at all. He wondered if you were smiling beneath your shaded helmet, but no. It was just another thing about this ship that was normal to everyone else but shocking, and terrifying, to him.
But the way that you said it made him think you weren't part of that 'everyone else'. He knew that tone. The number was heavy on your tongue, and it fell to the floor like a slab of concrete. It was big, but not too big that it couldn't disappear.
Whatever guilt you had couldn't have been a transporter's fears of fucking things up. He wasn't ready to ask about it. He switched to muttering, "What about food?"
"Hmm?"
"These are for oxygen. What about food?"
"The cyrochambers can get nutrients to the colonists, and we have provisions stored from launch that should last us fifty years. It's not the most appetizing, but now that we've found a planet, we can get farming up and running."
Simon let out a shaky breath. The stars were the first thing, then the people, and then the food. It was all so good, and he didn't know what to do with it. It felt undeserved, like he hadn't worked for it, hadn't suffered enough for it. He knew other people who had died to fix what had been broken by the Quiet Rapture. Ava, his brothers, the guy he'd irradiated on accident—and there he was, standing in front of living plants in someone else's universe.
"Do you need a moment alone?"
Your voice almost scared him.
"No. No." He swallowed roughly. "No, I don't want to be alone."
"Okay."
Silence swam in again as you watched Simon watch the plants. You tried to do the same, but you were constantly brought back to him. Twice, you'd offered to leave, and you didn't understand why he kept denying you. You didn't want to leave, you didn't think he was better alone, it just couldn't be you. The captain. The one with the responsibility, who had screwed up that responsibility so many times before. 100,000 souls, over and over and over again. Whenever you did something wrong, it was best to leave before you made it worse, and that went the same if you did something right.
However, he had asked you to stay, so you did. You gave him the choice.
Simon moved to cross his arms, remembered, and slipped his only hand into a pocket.
"I want—" He turned to you, "—can we go back to the bridge?"
"Of course. There's probably going to be people working around, but they won't bother you."
You didn't know it, but one such person was Mark, who was tapping through the ship diagnostics on auto-pilot. The Invincible II was in tip-top shape, as it always was nowadays. The duty was checked off his list within minutes, but he was still stuck to the floor in front of the console. Distracted.
His mind drifted to where you might have been—answer supplied immediately that you were probably with Simon—and what you saw in that stranger—apparently, him. He was dangerous, but you could defend yourself, but he wanted to keep you safe, but you kept wandering off, but the last time you were hurt was with a fire extinguisher in the warp-core.
He went round and round, a dog ineffectively chasing its own tail, until he was interrupted by footsteps. He didn't need to turn around to know who it was, he knew the sound of your boots like a second pulse, and there was no mystery who followed behind.
There were a few other crew members pottering around at the edges of the bridge, but they cleared off the moment that Simon stepped into view. Mark didn't follow them, he wasn't scared, but he kept his eyes locked firmly on the dancing lights below glass.
When Simon settled at the hull, staring out as he often did, you stopped against the console. Had it just been you and him, you would have been leaning against it, scandalously unprofessional, and joked about the last hole Gunther left in a rover.
Instead, you simply asked, "How's the ship?"
"Looking good, Captain," was the somewhat dull reply.
He got a nod, nothing more, and it took looking up from the screen to see what had got your attention.
He tried not to roll his eyes.
He failed.
"Okay, I know I said I don't trust him, but you don't have to watch him constantly."
"I'm not watching him," you muttered. "I'm supervising."
Mark made a noise between a laugh and a huff. "Yeah, sure."
"He's in a new environment, completely disconnected from his home—how do you want me to treat him?" Surprisingly, you managed to tear your eyes away from Simon to look at Mark, which must have been an impossible challenge. "I'm just trying to help."
"There's a difference between helping and hovering."
"Hovering—"
"I can hear you."
Both of you snapped to attention, as if the bandaged attack-dog were your old drill sergeant from the training academy. He wasn't facing you, but the tension in his shoulder-blades was evidence enough of his irritation.
For a moment, Mark felt guilty, but he hadn't said anything he didn't believe.
You were the first to apologize. Then, after a few seconds and an elbow in his side, Mark followed suit.
When Simon's shoulders dropped slightly, you broke away to stand next to him, sending Mark a glance that prompted a pout you didn't see.
"I'm not hovering, am I?" you asked when he turned to you. "I mean, if I am hovering, or smothering or whatever, tell me, and I'll stop."
"It's fine."
He was content to leave it there, a question and an answer, but you pulled at the edges of your gloves as you asked, "Is it?"
Simon had two choices; he could either give another blunt answer, a simple 'yes' just to be done with it, which would undoubtedly leave you to worry in silence—or he could ask the question that had popped up earlier. It was obvious which was more appealing.
"Why are you asking me?"
"Because you're the one I'm—" You stumbled over the wording, aware of what Mark had said, "—trying to help."
"And you're the captain."
"I am. It doesn't mean I can do whatever I want."
Your jaw tightened when Simon scoffed. You were suddenly very interested in what kind of people he had dealt with in his universe, and whether they were still intact.
"Look," you said, "I have a responsibility to the colonists and my crew. You're walking around on the ship, so you're part of the crew now."
"But I'm not- I'm not helping." He squinted, as though, if he looked a little closer, he could see through the words. From an outside perspective, it might have looked like a glare, but there was a softness to it.
Your focus switched to the painting of stars before you. Some distant, some closer, some you knew the names of, some you didn't.
"That doesn't matter. Some people help by just being there. Morale support, you know?"
"No. I don't."
You were curious. So, so curious about where he came from and what life had been like for him. Nothing good, you could imagine, not with the way he tensed the second he saw another person. But you had to move forward, just like you had with the wormhole. The pain was still there, and the scar from the crystal was still seared into your wrist, but you learned from it.
Firmly, you said, "We'll teach you."
The conversation cut off when someone called for you. You bid your goodbyes to Simon and Mark and then left to attend to a captain's business. Both men watched you go until the door slid shut behind you, and it was only the two of them left.
Mark only spared a glance, which Simon returned, before his eyes darted back down to the console.
They saw one another three hours later, but the next time they spoke, a week had passed. Progress on the planet was being made at a rapid pace, which drew everyone's attention and energy. Work hours had steadily grown quieter with every crew member focused on the last push. Exploration would follow scanning, production would follow exploration, and habitation would be king of them all.
People were tired but eager, and the answer to that had been a ship-wide curfew to avoid the crew overworking themselves.
It was no surprise that Mark was the last woke awake, running through the hallways and frantically trying to cover the flashing screen on his wrist. The curfew came with enforcement measures, including an alarm that he was hoping no one would notice. When he was inside his room, it would stop, but he wasn't going to his room just yet.
The captain's quarters were at the end of the barracks. He knew because he had built them, and that was the only reason—and if someone thought it was because he went there too often for a professional relationship, it was none of their business.
Because of the recent workload, however, he hadn't found the time to see you on a more personal level, and he hoped to solve that tonight. A chat and a movie, or something to that effect.
Once he rounded the corner, the person sitting outside your door stopped him in his tracks.
"Really?" Mark muttered.
Even on the floor, legs crossed and eyes barely open, Simon was intimidating. No, not intimidating, he wasn't scary, he was just… unignorable.
Voice rough with interrupted sleep, he asked, "What?"
"You don't have to be with them every second of the day, you know."
"You got a problem with me, Mark?"
Simon's eyes were wide open now, taking in the sight of the dutiful Head Engineer with crossed arms and a petty frown. It was the same expression he had seen on him countless times before. It seemed he would never be satisfied with his presence on the ship.
"No, no," Mark said. He wasn't trying to cover up his annoyance. "I think it's completely normal for a random guy to appear out of nowhere and stick so close to the captain that you don't see them alone for forty-eight hours straight."
It was an exaggeration, of course, but come on. Was he wrong? Was it not a little bit weird? He could say it was a legal concern—you handled sensitive information every day, and this was a random guy—but he hadn't said anything incorrect yet, and he wasn't planning on starting.
"I've faced down people a lot worse than you," Simon said, halfway between a statement and a threat. "You're not gonna get me with a bit of jealousy behind you."
"It's not jealousy. It's concern."
There was a brief pause in which Mark figured this was how you felt when you defended your hovering. Slighted, defensive, and the smallest bit torn. It wasn't jealousy, there wasn't a reason to be jealous, but it was something.
Mark's frown deepened, and he said, "You're not the only one who's been in worse conditions. The Captain and I have gone through stuff you wouldn't believe, let alone understand, and I'd do it all over again just to keep them safe. You can't intimidate me into backing down from this."
Simon had heard this before. He was saying the same things that another prisoner would say when they were trying to impress a gang, the kind of things that might have bought you a sliver of protection. But Mark was no prisoner, and Simon was no gang, and it was the same thing he recognized with you. Guilt. You had both paid a price neither of you said aloud, and while you tried not to repeat your mistake, Mark was wrestling with apologizing for something he couldn't apologize for.
A quiet heaving filled the hallway as Simon parsed through his thoughts.
Eventually, he landed on saying, "I betrayed my brothers. I blew them up on Filament station. I killed them."
"That doesn't scare me."
"I'm not trying to scare you."
He let his head hit the wall. The ceiling was completely uniform. No rust, no wreckage, no Quiet Rapture.
Mark slid down next to him and wrapped his arms around his legs.
"I don't- what we did, it- I can't—"
He stumbled and stuttered and started the sentence over, trying to explain what had happened, but there were different kinds of wounds. Some scarred over quickly but burned every time you thought about them, and some were picked at over and over until they were just like new.
Mark brought his legs closer, curled so tightly that his face was almost hidden. If he finished, it would have been muffled, but your voice did it for him.
"We didn't kill anyone."
You appeared from around the corner. Both men were struck with the realization that they had been camping outside an empty room, but they didn't have time to dwell on it. Instead, their eyes trailed up from your boots to the box in your hands labeled 'celebratory provisions' to your face.
Visible.
It was Simon's first time seeing you eye-to-eye—diagonally, of course, he was still sitting, and you were standing because you had just got there, and you were grinning how he had always suspected you did, proud of yourself for spooking them, or maybe you knew how his thoughts were racing at the sight of the real you.
He looked away. Now wasn't the right time.
Based on Mark's reaction, he didn't think there ever would be a right time, nor that they would ever stop anyway. Red crept up his neck and to his ears, and he could see the corner of his mouth pointing up. Despite having worked with you for so long, and undoubtedly seen you without the helmet on, he looked as though it were his first time.
He looked away again.
You slid down the wall to rest on Simon's right. He was running out of places to look, so he settled on his hands.
Hand.
Fuck.
"But we got a lot of people killed," you said.
"Is there a difference?" Simon asked.
"Yes."
In your mind, there had to be. In his mind, there couldn't be.
Any spiraling thoughts were cut off when you dug into the box and handed him something. A cupcake, not that Simon recognized what it was at first. A distant memory of a birthday in his home with his mother, and she told him what it was.
He held it cautiously in the palm of his hand, lifting it up as you gave one over to Mark over his lap. The top was bright pink and covered in little white shapes; dots, hearts, stars, ones a child would draw when they were bored. He almost laughed. Even though he felt the heft, it seemed like a fantasy.
"Captain," Mark tutted at his side.
"Oh, like you haven't sneaked gingersnaps from the cafeteria."
He opened his mouth for a retort, shrugged, and then started to rip the wrapping. Little specks of the cake came off with its skin, and Simon watched with furrowed brows. A bird seeking the leftovers? Or another person just wanting to learn how to do it.
You tapped your leg just within his eyesight. He switched his attention to you, and you demonstrated how to peal it off—a little more dignity, a little less waste. He followed along with you, and, by the time that his was ready to eat, Mark was licking his fingers.
Before he went for it, though, Simon stopped to ask, "Why does it say celebratory on the bag?"
You wiped away icing at the corner of your mouth.
"They're supposed to be for when we get all the colonists planet-side."
And there was something he could have gone without; food-guilt. The thought of taking something away from people more worthy. He had been there for, what, a week? What right did he have to something meant for the crew?
You caught him putting the cupcake down and said, "We're ahead of schedule with the farming project. We can make more."
"Who's going to get you into trouble when it's the captain telling you to eat it?" Mark butted in.
Simon's normally neutral face ticked up into a near-smile. "So the captain can do whatever they want."
"Only when it's snack related."
Giggles were passed on either side of Simon, who finally took a bite of the treat in front of him, and he instantly understood why it was supposed to be a reward. It was nothing special, and, in fact, it was largely frivolous. Unnecessary for a colony or its crew, and yet there was a point to it.
What had you called it? Morale?
"Good?" you asked, and he nodded. You smiled to yourself and repeated, "Good."
The night could have ended there. It should have ended at the curfew, really, but being able to let your guard down was rare. You didn't want to willingly stifle that, not when Mark was grinning ear to ear and Simon was so close to laughing.
Instead of getting to your feet, you let your legs reach out across the hall and said, "You know, once there was a little old lady who somehow got out of her cryopod and got added to the crew list."
Mark's head snapped up.
"Wait, Captain."
"And we had a problem with our asteroid defense system."
"Captain, please."
"And she, for some reason, had a plate of cookies with her."
"Captain!"
In the midst of the story, Mark tried to scramble over Simon's lap to get to you, you managed to cover his mouth so you could continue the story, and Simon was too caught up in holding in his laughter to shove him off. When Mark gave up and dropped his weight onto everything below him, he was allowed to stay there through more stories. You didn't tell Simon all about the wormhole, and he didn't tell you all about his universe, but all three of you learned small things about another. Simon loved Mars, Mark was surprisingly cold-resistant, and you didn't trust plumbers anymore.
At what would have been three in the morning, if someone broke the curfew and wandered to the captain's quarters of the ship, they would find the Captain, the Head Engineer, and the strange man rescued from the stars asleep in front of the door.
And because gossip was intrinsic to a tight space, rumors would have abounded.
[i put time management as a skill on my resume lol NO BUT REALLY I did not mean to go so long without posting, I am working on things, but life has seriously gotten in the way. Things should come out at a faster rate, and just know that, if you have requested something or have even sent me a nice message (I see you, fellow undertale fan) I have seen it and I have plans for everything! For now, thank you so much for requesting, thank you for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed! Muah!
also huh it's a two parter i wonder why that is when it ended so nicely--]
Hiya! I just wanted to hop on quick and talk about The Astral / the bar AU series. I've been getting some asks and comments about whether it's still being worked on, and is it! Sort of.
It's been pushed to the side lines for multiple reasons (I've received a lot of requests on this blog, and, outside of writing, I'm currently at university and am arranging housing for next year), but the main issue I have with writing for it has been with the initial plotline. The outline was basically a bunch of one-shots tied together by the same characters, with no overarching story to it - even though it's a romance, I like to have something else happening to stabilise the story, as I've done in things like Wheeling and Dealing. So, before I work on writing new chapters, I have to restructure the plot and check what I've already told you guys/foreshadowed in chapters.
(It's a weird feeling when you realise that your original format would make more sense as a visual novel dating sim than a written fanfiction, but what are you gonna do--)
So, yeah! Thanks for sticking around, and I hope I'll be able to get back on track soon!
You ever write something one-off, thinking that it’s just for your enjoyment and you don’t really need to pay attention to detail because it’s not going to go anywhere? Well, that happened with both Mirror, Mirror and Wheeling and Dealing, which I understood because they both involve Dark to some capacity. Only now it’s happened again, this time with the Google/Bing series!
(Don’t get me wrong, I love those boys, but I didn’t know Google was as popular as he apparently is)
Still, since I’ve gotten a request for an epilogue and a very appreciated compliment (if you’ve ever sent me praise in a comment/reblog/ask, yes, I’ve seen it, and I really thank you guys, but I’m a selfish bastard and I keep them in my inbox so I can look at them when I’m down, sue me <3) I will be extending it into something a bit longer, like Mirror, Mirror was, so get in your ideas if you have them and want to share!
I've got a fic idea I've had for a real long time now, but I know I'm never gonna write it, and I feel like you could make something really cool out of it.
Noir Mark from iswm forced to work a case with a reader who's like a galactic bounty hunter. It's like noir/western aesthetics clashing, with the obvious sci-fi shit mixed in.
I'm picturing a lot of animosity between the two. He assumes they're a brute just looking to make a quick buck right from the get go. They just genuinely wanna help keep people safe and think he's a total incompetent dumbass. Classic buddy cop shenanigans. Enemies to friends to lovers. Plus both genres have voice overs, so they could interrupt each other...via voice over. That sounds hilarious.
Anyway, thank you for your time! Love your work!
"Worried for me?"
In which Noir is forced outside his genre.
TW: cursing, violence, alcohol
Pages: 22 - Words: 7500
[Requests: OPEN]
Staring out into the abyss of space, Mark had no unique thoughts. Each comet was an inside joke sent between winking stars, but he knew, just as all the stories said, that the universe was a cold, unforgiving place. A wasteland, by some definition. Was the world of humanity any better, though? The planets, the spaceships, the people—everything had a dark side, and Mark lurked in the belly of the beast. Lived. Thrived. More than the alcohol that he clung to, it was a parasitism, and he didn't know who took what role. Did the grimy galactic highways benefit or did he?
The distant, drifting planets appeared to slide down the bulkhead's window like raindrops. A storm was rolling in, and yet he was already drowning. A murder had wound up on his desk between empty whiskey bottles and full ash trays. A poor wife who had found her poorer husband dead in the study. He wasn't surprised, things tended to end like that, but that wasn't the issue with the case.
It was your partner, the bumbling greenhorne whose bark was worse than his gun that he never actually used.
Mark frowned and glanced to his side.
"Do you mind?"
You shrugged.
Your thoughts were none of his business, even if they messed with his accidentally. Whatever was in the air in these parts of the universe, you still had your manners. Ignoring the smarmy detective at your side was made no more difficult; you had long since learned how to tune out unnecessary chatter from the saddle beside you, and you bet not much would miss that description.
Mark scoffed and turned his attention back to the window—though he couldn't help but notice the rustling of your coat in the non-existent wind.
"Well, partner, shall we get started?"
The term left a bitter taste in his mouth, mixing dangerously with the leftover alcohol, but he pushed through. Once this case was over, he never had to see you again.
"You haven't already?" you asked. Your raised eyebrow was shadowed by the ten-gallon hat, but he saw the sign of doubt.
"I was… instructed to wait for your arrival. You took long enough."
"Had to finish a job."
Assumptions blew through his mind. A train robbery, a slipped jail cell, a murder? And who knew what role you played in them. From the look of you, the deliverer of justice was as likely as the perpetrator, but Mark kept his mouth shut. He simply took a file from the center console and handed it to you.
You were similarly silent as you chucked it over your shoulder. The spread of loose papers and photographs underlined the thickening tension.
"Not one for letters," you said.
Not one for manners either.
Your stare turned to a glare.
Or patience.
Glad that you were on the same page now, you explained, "I'd rather just see the lady in person."
Mark had long since grown used to hearing other people's thoughts, but most had the decency to veil their threats with stormy metaphors and comparisons to a messy divorce. You, though? You were a brute with not a single careful bone in your body.
"I'm afraid she left after her report this morning."
"So I'm stuck with you."
As long as they were being paid, they were shackled together, the old ball and chain that reminded him too much of his ex-spouse. Crossed arms, glint in their eye, and loaded revolver on their hip.
Mark's frown deepened. He'd never had a spouse.
However, if he had, he was sure flopping down into a chair and slamming boots onto the console would have driven them apart. He watched you as you did so, pulling back on the desire to shove you off. Manners, manners, manners.
"Come on, describe it to me."
Mark sighed. "Mr. Louis Jackson was found stiff by his window at eight this morning. Dead in his study. Mrs. Ruby Jackson—though, I suppose the r dropped as fast as her husband—came here to ask for help."
Your gaze had drifted to the window and was following along with the stars better than his words, which you had been the one to request. Normally, it wouldn't have bothered him, but he was stuck with you, and he wasn't going to spend a minute longer on this case than he had to.
He opened his mouth to get your attention, but you beat him to the punch, asking, "What time?"
"Nine-fourteen on the dot."
"She lives nearby?"
He considered just telling you to read the file, but he wasn't keen on waiting for you to acquiesce, so he continued, "Twenty minute drive, give or take. Traffic is just as much a killer."
"So, that missing fifty-four minutes?"
Hiding his surprise that you could do math, he said, "The dame was beset by grief. Hard to miss, but her husband died this morning."
It was a miracle that you stayed quiet. Really, he thought you had gone the way of the husband and kicked the bucket—but, no, he wasn't that lucky. Not yet. You had just been cowed for the meantime, it seemed, but that didn't make Mark any less proud of himself.
"We're heading to their residence to check it out. Be ready in ten."
That final order sent over his shoulder, he turned back to the glass. A colleague had once told him that it was stupid to put windows on a spaceship, but she never stayed in one place long enough to enjoy the view. Planets and stars, some completely indistinguishable, were scattered over the sky like shrapnel in an alleyway. It was a truly beautiful sight.
That was destined to be interrupted by your voice.
"Go on, then."
Mark barely turned. "What?"
"Take a shower, fix your hair—I'll be here when you're done."
"What's wrong with my hair?" He spun around completely and immediately darkened to a deep gray at your grin.
Hat in hand, your face was visible, and yet shadows flocked to contour your structure like sharks to the scent of blood. They practically moved like them, too, reflections of tail fins flicking in your eyes.
And yet, with nothing more than a deep laugh, you dropped the hat over your face. All at once, the predators were swept away into that tide of blackness, and Mark managed to breathe.
When had he stopped? When the sharks appeared, or when they did? It was easier to look at them with their face hidden, easier still through a mirror as he dragged his hand through his hair, which was perfectly fine, thank you.
Unseen, you grinned to yourself at his audible thoughts. Maybe this narration business would come in handy.
The local residential station was home to all manner of species from the vaguely-human to the supremely unfamiliar. The number of arms had as much range as their professions, but the architecture failed to reflect that. Instead, you passed by gray house after gray house as you followed a few steps behind Mark. You might have gotten lost had it not been for the directions he had given you before leaving the shuttle—not that you had paid much attention. Street names didn't interest you; the real action was in the Jacksons' home, and your fingers were twitching against your holster.
Arriving in front of the place only somewhat relieved you of that itch, but you stood, commendably patient, beside Mark at the front door.
"Anyone s'posed to be home?" you asked.
"No. It's empty."
A frown pulled at your mouth.
The facts from Mark's file were one thing, but assumptions? They were what got people killed. Thinking you were safe, seconds from riding off into the sunset, only to find yourself with one more hole than you were used to. You'd seen it before, and you weren't keen to feel it.
Huffing, you walked toward the door and pulled at the handle. It swung open silently, and your frown got deeper. This wasn't a good start, but you rolled your shoulder and walked in without another word. Any warnings would undoubtedly go unheard. Plus, he was a grown man, he didn't need coddling.
Before you got too far into the building, you heard Mark say, "I guess we're starting. Fine."
Footsteps followed you inside.
After five minutes of searching around, you had concluded two things: first, this place was a mansion, far beyond what anyone needed to survive—and, second, you were bored as hell, and it only served to shorten your fuse. Using any color greater than a two in the Munsell Color System was punishable by death because everywhere you looked was completely gray. The kitchen, the living room, even the damn bedroom was washed out. You had seen your fair share of limited palettes, but at least the tans were saturated.
After ten minutes, you felt like you had been put in a padded cell without knowing, until Mark's voice carried down the stairs and gave you some hope. Ever the gentleman, he was waiting by the door of the office, and you tipped your hat to him as you walked past.
For the first time, you hoped it was his manners because this was going to be a difficult case if he were just hesitating at the sight of blood. There wasn't as much as you had expected.
Or hoped.
However, the obvious bullet holes in Louis' chest explained the limited mess. Three dotted his chest and connected with a spattering of red like a vicious necktie. Two buried themselves in the wall opposite you, surrounded by the exit wounds' tapestry. One marked its escape only with shattered glass of the window. A countdown.
All in all, it wasn't a terrible way to go.
Your eyes searched the rest of the room. Everything else was untouched, as if the murderer had simply walked in, shot him, and then walked out. Louis was their target, and that was it. They hadn't even bothered to clean up the evidence, which meant that they were either confident that they could get away in time or getting caught wouldn't matter.
Mark stepping into the space next to you made you remember he was there at all.
"Well, he's dead," he commented.
"What gave it away?"
Your voice, as always, was rough with condescension. Mark knew he was pointing out the obvious, but the silence was getting on his nerves. You hadn't exactly been upfront with your ideas up to this point, and any conversation had the potential to get you talking. You were supposed to be working together on this, regardless of how either of you felt about it.
Neither of you continued, though. The clink of spurs trailed behind you when you stepped further in, rounding the desk to see the body in full, while Mark pulled a box of cigarettes from his trench coat's pocket.
Bad company called for a bad habit.
Sparks from his lighter outlined you as you rifled through the desk drawers. Carelessly, you pulled paper after paper from the depths, slamming them onto the surface and reaching for another in quick succession. Nothing piqued your interest until you chucked a file to Mark—or, more accurately, at him. He had barely put his lighter back in his pocket when the thing flew at him, and he only just caught it. Any higher and it would have snagged on his cigarette's flame.
You didn't meet his glare, but the smug smirk on your face suggested you knew anyway. You kept snooping without a word.
The file was similar to the ones at the main ship. Gray, labeled, and stuffed with paperwork. Finance statistics, he realized, once he had flipped through the first few pages. The first dollar sign already had his eyes glazing over; it wasn't as though he enjoyed the logistical side of investigating, but someone had to do it. His partner wasn't about to step up to the plate.
To them, it seemed second-guessing him was second-nature. Anything he offered was sure to be questioned, and the lamp was always hot on the face. Ever since he was young and faced down his first interrogation in that basement of a bedroom, he knew his vice. But alcoholics seldom admitted their dependency.
You straightened your back out of your hunched position and started to jostle the body.
"He's not going to get up," Mark said, tucking the file under his arm. Evidence of fraud, probably.
"I know that. What I don't know…"
You didn't bother to continue. Before any accusations, you had to make sure that you were right. Confidence was a joke on the incorrect, and it had been a long time since you had been wrong, especially about this kind of scenario. The murdered husband, the fancy neighborhood, the missing wife.
Holding your breath, you undid the knot of his tie and pulled his collar away from the paling skin—and you chuckled. There, nestled between rolls of skin, was a brand, and a very familiar one at that.
There it was. This job was a lick and a promise, but you knew who's target this guy was. Mark didn't know any more about this than a hog did a sidesaddle. He walked and talked like he did, though, and that was more dangerous than whatever the corpse had done to end up this way.
You muttered to yourself a gruff, "Knew it."
"What did you find?"
You ignored him and simply got to your feet, snatched the file that he had apparently decided was important, and threw it back to the desk. The soft thwack of it hitting the ground disappeared beneath your boots walking out of the door.
Whatever curiosity Mark had melted into annoyance once more.
"Do you know what partner means?" he asked, following you to the staircase. "It means we're both on this job, which means you have to talk to me, like a human being."
By the time that you reached the fifth step down, you had sent one glance over your shoulder, and that was to check whether he had brought the file anyway. He hadn't, of course; he was too busy chasing after you because you refused to explain anything.
"What's the point of working together if we don't work together?"
Staring at that back, Mark wondered how many people had wanted to stab it, how many went through with it, and how many had collapsed before realizing they had done it first. He couldn't have been the only one. A brute like them? Heavy-handedness could only get you so far. Some situations called for a delicate touch, and Mark could only be so smooth.
At the base of the stairs, Mark grumbled, "If you figured something out, I need to know."
Still more silence. Irritation was piling up in his mind, it spread easily to his heart, his lungs, his fists. He slammed the front door shut behind himself, but it was nothing against his voice.
You were already standing on the street, hands in your pockets and that damned smile playing on your lips.
"We'll be out of this situation quicker if you just—"
As soon as the words left his mouth, you unholstered your gun and aimed.
He had always thought Lady Luck enjoyed their dances. Staring down the barrel of an outlaw's gun with a pound of lead making itself comfy in one's chest didn't agree with that notion. But, luckily, it wasn't his chest.
Three bullets whizzed past Mark's shoulder. The only indication that you hadn't just missed was a grunt, curse and thud. In one swift motion, you spun your gun and shoved it back home.
A step forward, and you clapped your hand on his shoulder.
"Save your breath for breathing."
Mark turned his body to watch you walk towards the downed man. You were slow, sure, steady in your boots. He managed to drag his attention away from you long enough to assess the newcomer.
No doubt about it, he had been sent by the mafia. Very few people wore a fedora in public, fewer still people who didn't need to worry about the reputation it bought them. A gun in their back pocket was protection enough—but it appeared that being fast enough to use it was key.
One of your bullets had mangled his hand, meaning you were able to kick away his dropped gun easily. Another had gone through his lung, marking him for death sooner rather than later. The last was embedded in the tarmac. You were a quick shot, not a perfect one, but it was enough to impress your partner nonetheless.
You stared down the attacker as Mark glanced around the immediate area. Nobody in sight, but curtains worked in the favor of nosy neighbors. Getting out of there soon would be in your best interest, and there was plenty of evidence to warrant tracking down Mr. Jackson before she could get too far.
Mark was desperately trying to herd his thoughts back to the job, but his heart was wilder than his mind.
Even though he hadn't been hit, he was still in danger—and, to borrow their vocabulary, he was irrecoverably and undeniably fucked.
Mark swiped two glasses from the alcohol cart. Two whiskeys were poured, one of which he handed to you. It disappeared down your throat in a matter of seconds. It couldn't have been healthy, but Mark wasn't going to judge. Not anymore, at least.
The drive back to the main ship had been relatively quiet. Only the distant hum of thrusters played background to the glide through space. With very little reason to talk, it was silent in the cockpit until the shuttle was docked and and the two of you were in on the bridge. Even after that, the most that Mark said was a quiet, "After you."
You weren't ignoring him. Something more important took up your attention, and you had spent the drive over trying to figure out where Ms. Jackson would go next. A hotel, a service station, or maybe right under your nose.
You breached through the taste of whiskey and placed the empty upside-down on the console. An errant drop slid down the groove.
"You should board the windows and lock your door," you said. "They'll be coming after you again, and I won't be around to save your pretty face."
"What about you?"
"They aren't after me."
You fully intended on walking out in that moment, but you stopped at Mark's voice.
"And what makes you so sure? You don't exactly have a sterling reputation."
If you didn't know any better, you would have wondered if he worried about you—but his expression of surprise with his would-be assassin was one in a million. You saw how he looked at you, and wouldn't put it past him to sell you out to save his own hide. If he was smart enough, that was.
The furrowing of his brow told you he had caught that narration but not that he knew what to do with it.
"Do you know why your chief hired me?" you asked.
"You don't care about legality?"
A smile pulled at the corner of your mouth.
"And I know who we're dealing with."
Mark was still swirling the whiskey around in its prison, but it was an absentminded movement. A practiced pose just from the mere presence of alcohol in his hand.
"Why didn't you say something before?"
He was right not to trust you. You had yet to meet anyone who gave you the benefit of the doubt instinctively, so you didn't take offense. Hell, you hadn't believed the chief when he had called you in.
"I wasn't entirely sure it was her."
"One more vague statement and I might start thinking you're hiding something." He sipped at his whiskey. "Again."
"The lady who reported Jackson's murder wasn't his wife."
Relishing in Mark's confusion, you stuck a toothpick between your teeth. You weren't one for cigarettes; chasing after criminals already took too much out of you to develop breathing issues.
You offhandedly continued, "Well, she might've been, but there weren't no love from her side of the table."
You leaned back against the console as you watched the gears turn in Mark's head. It was even better when you started to hear it.
Ms. Jackson, who had access to her husband's study at all hours of the day, who apparently hadn't returned home after reporting the murder, and, as much as Mark hated to acknowledge its importance, had left a sizeable gap in her schedule? He didn't need a judge and jury to tell him that she was guilty. All he needed was an executioner.
His thoughts snapped together like puzzle pieces before he sighed. "I wonder how long she's had to go along with it."
He was proud of your expression, the mild surprise—read: one eyebrow raised by a millimeter—that told him you hadn't expected him to make the connection.
"She's a contracted killer?" he clarified.
Your smile was worth the slight hit to his ego, though he had to turn to the drink cart to hide the darkening of his face.
That kind of look was going to be the death of him. He had seen it time and time before on the faces of lovers, and his presence never alluded to good news. An angel of death to some. A vulture to others. Nothing good to anyone.
Voice barely about the pour of liquor, Mark asked, "And that symbol on his neck?"
"Sign of fidelity, 'parently, but it's more a keep away sing to other gangs. He's already on death's door, no need to knock for him."
He expected more explanation but instead heard the sound of your boots clicking against the floor. It was a noise growing more and more familiar, and still he turned around with suspicion in his eyes. One hand in your pocket, another on the door handle, you stared back, waiting for him to ask.
"And where are you going?"
"You've got a plan to come up with, and I've got a bar to hit." You removed the toothpick from your mouth. "See you tomorrow."
And, just like that, Mark was left alone on the bridge, thoughts rambling with no one to hear them.
When the gray sun breached the grayer horizon, you and Mark found yourselves on the bridge once again. You had fallen onto a chair—the same one as before that you were seemingly claiming for your own—while Mark flipped through random files. Although you kicked your feet up on the console, they were quickly pushed off and replaced with a whiskey glass. Probably unhealthy to drink at the start of the day, but you took it regardless.
Mark spoke once half of it was gone.
"Our black widow's disappeared."
Your fingers twitched, itching for the cool grip of your gun.
"She try anything last night?" you asked.
"No." The word came with the hint of a smug grin. "Worried for me?"
"Yep."
After what went down at the house yesterday, you weren't keen to let him out of your sight for too long. Someone had to look out for him, and, apparently, it was going to be you. Similar to finding a wet dog out in the rain—and his eyes definitely had nothing at all to do with it.
You were eager to get back on track, so the second that he muttered his, "Good to know," you threw back the rest of your drink and returned it to the console.
You established, "So, she's gone?"
His thoughts were silent, but that glint in his eye told you he had something to say about it. He wasn't going to, of course, his manners forbade him.
Instead, he relayed, "Her record's wiped clean, like she never existed. According to her neighbors, she didn't go back to the house just—" He clicked his fingers, "—disappeared."
He knew a lot of people like that, but they usually left behind something. A footprint, a bullet hole, a broken heart—but none of what they had could be traced explicitly back to her.
"We're a day behind, but she doesn't know we're after her." With that, you got to your feet and started tapping through buttons on the directory screen. "If we're quick about it, we might just catch up."
You had to admit, you weren't the best with tech. Horses and lassos were your strong suit, not code and blinking lights that probably meant nothing but still managed to panic you.
Mark wasn't as unfamiliar; he grabbed your hand and started swiping through the console's interface. He moved from the newspaper to the engines faster than you possibly could. When he had connected power to the shuttle, he looked up at you.
His pride faced down your blankness. To knock him down a peg, you took the glass out of his hand and downed the little alcohol still left.
His expression didn't change.
In fact, you were pretty sure it got worse as you perused the solar system. The logic was that Ms. Jackson, or whatever her name really was, would be trying to get to some kind of safe house, and a lawless wasteland would be easier to set up in than the HOA hot-spot you had just left. That meant you were heading west, away from the monochrome misery that Mark was so used to and toward your territory.
The sixth bar that Mark pulled up to was a prime example. You breathed in the air as your boots landed on the ground. It was certainly not fresh, and you heard Mark subtly cough into his hand from the dust kicked up. The docking bay in front of the bar was home to a wide range of vessels, but the sleek shuttle stook out like a sore thumb. You hoped this would be a quick trip, if only to limit the chances of it getting broken into.
You placed a hand on Mark's shoulder and guided him to the building's front. Excitement rippled through your body and left every blood vessel energized at the sight of saloon doors.
You'd missed this.
You pushed into the room, giddy and barely managing to hide it behind practiced nonchalance. However, you would have to have been a fool to not notice the suspicious looks cast at your partner.
You fit right in, but the man draped head-to-toe in gray, not brown, was a curiosity. He was something to gawk at, a sideshow attraction, an attractive attraction, and, someone with rugged good-looks like that was bound to—
You cut your thoughts off with a violent cough.
Dust.
Everyone in the room was involved in the sudden stand-off. Mark versus the patrons, you versus the bartender. Eyes met eyes until you reached the bar itself, sitting yourself down on a stool. Mark sidled up next to you, still looking over the bar, as you ordered two drinks.
"You really think Ms. Jackson would've come through here?" Mark asked once she had disappeared down the row.
"If not, she's come past, and someone's bound to have seen her."
You didn't have great chances, but one clue was all you needed to track her down for good. There were only so many places she could have run off to, and the options were whittled down with every spot you hit.
You snatched up one of the glasses the moment that it hit the surface, attention turning to the woman in front of you.
"I'm looking for a lady," you said swiftly; you didn't have the time for her to serve someone else.
"You ain't the only one."
You huffed a disingenuous laugh, which caught Mark by surprise.
And it was surprise that he felt, not vague annoyance that a random bartender in a dust bowl dive was able to get a laugh out of his partner. It had taken him nearly getting shot, but, sure, laugh for the stranger.
You didn't acknowledge that narration, nor the questioning look that the lady shot him. You simply continued to talk as if nothing had been thought.
"Someone specific," you amended. "Smooth, independent, looks that could kill. You seen her?"
Mark's back straightened as someone got up from a table barely three feet away.
Back to the bar, he said, "We're only looking for her. If someone knows something, we won't ask any questions. All they have to do is set us on the right track."
"Might have seen her," the bartender replied. "My memory's a bit foggy at the best of times."
A classic response. You would have preferred her be upfront about what she wanted, but this was nothing new to you.
"No doctor in town?"
"I'm afraid medicine won't help this kind of difficulty."
Mark's eyes trailed down to the patron's hip, where their fingers curled around metal.
"Don't suppose the medical bills help any," you said, not bothering to fake sympathy in your tone.
He pushed back his trench coat to reveal his own threat.
A ten-dollar bill was flattened against the surface with a few extra coins, money that was immediately scooped back by the lady.
"Y'know, now that you mention it, a woman did come through here. She rented a room at the local inn and then came in for a drink. Left an hour or two ago—said something about filling up her ship."
He slid his gun out of its holster as the patron raised theirs.
"You've been mighty helpful."
"Please, come by for a drink anytime."
The clink of your spurs was the starting pistol to the stand-off. The patron moved an inch to aim for your back, but Mark beat them to it, recalled the sight of the mafia member in the street, and shot for their hand. Their gun clattered against the ground, but three others were drawn at the same time. A metallic hydra grew in the bar, and Mark knew it was time to leave.
He grabbed your hand and ran for the door. Normally, the bullets whistled or danced or some other romantic imagery that took ten seconds to describe, but his heart was thumping louder than his thoughts. He was out of his comfort zone and into the danger zone. He didn't have time to think.
You were both standing in front of the ship without injury, but you needed to get inside to keep that true. You wrenched open the door while Mark vaulted the hood. A bullet wedged itself in the passenger side just as you slammed it shut, but, luckily, the next noise was of Mark turning on the engines.
The bar was barely a speck on that station by the time that all adrenaline was flushed out of your veins.
Slouched back in your seat, you flipped between reactions, only managing a quiet, "What in the hell- Mark, who was- why…"
You turned in your seat to get a good look at him. His face was slightly paler than before, his hands slightly shakier, his frown slightly deeper. You were struck with uncertainty; what were you supposed to say? You had never been good at comfort, relying on fists over words in more areas than your bounty-hunting.
After a moment, and a deep breath, you said, "Thank you."
He sighed, and you thought he would stay silent. Hell, you would have taken a 'you're welcome' and that be that.
Instead, he glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, let himself smile, and said, "What are partners for?"
You were stunned into silence for the rest of the journey. The closest refueling station was roughly thirty-minutes away, but you could hardly wrangle your thoughts long enough to focus on that.
What were partners for? It wasn't as though you always worked alone; you'd ridden alongside other people before, worked with company to track someone down, and set up camp together in the rays of a dying sun. But this was new. The drinks were one thing, but Mark had your back in a way you had almost forgotten was possible. Bounty-hunters tended to be in it for one thing, and it wasn't companionship. You had thought yourself no different.
With an alarmingly soft feeling settling into your bones, you watched space drift by. A blank void, speckled with stars, melted into smaller rocks, which gradually culminated in a service bay held together with metal and tethers. Your shuttle descended to the docking area, and you swore you heard Mark mumble, "All sneaky-like," as the thrusters were disabled.
This station was less your style than the bar, nor was Mark accustomed to it. Practically desolate and with only a ship or two abandoned near makeshift chargers, it was certainly no place for someone like Ms. Jackson, which made it a prime target.
You scanned the area once you were out of the shuttle, but there was nobody in sight. Not even a worker showed themself, placing you on guard. Mark's shoulders were lowered, but his frown told you he wasn't comfortable either.
If Ms. Jackson were in the singular building, it would be easy to corner her, so you decided to check the perimeter first. You kept to the walls as you crept around the building's edges—open air gave you more of a chance at being spotted—with Mark practically breathing down your neck.
Good. That meant he was still alive.
You were nearly easing up when you turned the last corner and immediately slammed Mark against the back wall.
Your hand over his mouth, he was only able to stare at you in semi-panicked confusion.
Every muscle in your body begged to run out there and tackle her—Ms. Jackson was standing not 40 feet away, leaned up against the brick with a cigarette between her lips.
You kept your voice low as you hissed, "She's there."
Mark knew the anger in their voice wasn't directed at him. Their eyes were fixed firmly on the spot next to his head, as if they could see through the wall. They glared, huffed, practically snarled like a wild animal, but they were barely keeping him in place. Beyond the first panicked impact, they handled him delicately.
As you nodded in Ms. Jackson's direction, Mark peeled away from the wall and sneaked a glance around the corner. Quickly, he ducked back.
"Can't just walk up to her," you muttered. "She'll see us and bolt—shit—we could steal her keys, but we'd have to get real close for that. It was so much simpler with horses."
This was the closest you had ever gotten to the woman. Years of tracking her and then losing the scent was getting to you, and it was convincing you that this wasn't it. It couldn't have been this simple, it wasn't supposed to be, there was no way that this was the end.
You spiraled until Mark caught your attention.
"Hey, you trust me?"
Your eyes darted to his.
"What?"
"Do you trust me?"
Did you? Even though you posed this question to yourself, it didn't take long for you to come to a conclusion. You did. He had saved you once before when he should have been more worried about his own hide; what reason did you have to not trust him?
You nodded, despite your audible thoughts already giving the game away. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
With three confirmations, Mark smiled and said, "Go round the other way. Get as close as you can, then cut her off if she runs."
"What're you gonna do?"
He didn't answer; instead, he shook himself, took his hat off to swipe at his hair, and shot you a wink that gave you little confidence. That was especially so when he took a step to his right and placed himself in direct line of sight of Ms. Jackson.
You cursed, cursed her, him, yourself, but you followed his orders as you did so. You backtracked to the front of the building and hoped beyond hope that he wouldn't get himself killed before you got there.
"Ms. Jackson?" Mark said by way of announcing his presence.
The woman didn't even startle. She simply pulled the cigarette away from her mouth, smoke underlining her chin, and cocked her head.
"Detective, what a surprise it is to see you here."
He had a good distance to cover, so he needed to keep her talking, preferably casually.
"Just taking a stroll around the galaxy," he said.
"You've strolled quite far, haven't you?"
"What can I say? Got a lot on my mind."
"Don't we all?"
With six feet between them, Ms. Jackson raised her hand.
"That's close enough, detective."
Mark also dragged his hands to the air, placating the woman and begging his thoughts to keep quiet. The narration was finicky at the best of times, and there wasn't much room for damage control in a situation like this.
He slipped his fedora back onto his head—in anticipation of needing his fingers free—as he asked, "Why so defensive?"
She shifted, just barely but enough for him to see the glint of a gun beneath her jacket.
It was a threat he had always been familiar with, though so many times in the last 24 hours was a mood dampener. The local arms dealer was probably making a fortune.
Mark managed to cut his thoughts off before they revealed too much, but he was still forced to explain, "Alright, you got me. I'm actually here following a lead on your husband's death."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Not to speak ill of the dead, but he wasn't great at numbers, and I can imagine it ticked a lot of people off." His shoes tapped against the tarmac. "And not just people."
Her tone turned blunt. "Get to the point."
"Organizations, Ms. Jackson. The mob. You might be in danger, too."
He had halved the distance again, now standing at three feet, but she no longer looked happy. Audible thoughts weren't needed to know her patience was wearing thin.
"I appreciate the concern, detective," she said. "But, no, I don't think I am."
In a split-second, he debated between staying where he was or risking the extra step to get within arm's reach of her. In another, he was moving forward, trying to not think at all.
He was failing on that front; how fast could she move? How many bullets were in the gun? Where was his partner?
And when she slipped the gun out of its holster—
"I have my own protection."
Was the safety on?
It was not.
A bullet ripped through the meat of Mark's shoulder and out the other side. The rush of blood in his ears covered up his pained yell, but his eyes darted to the pistol being cocked again. His time was running out, and yet his legs wouldn't move. They burned, as if a slip of his focus would send him tumbling to the ground, but staring death in the face paralyzed him.
Ms. Jackson's chin collided with the ground, cracking like an echo of the gunfire. She cursed and spat, but then her forehead followed. Pressing her body against tarmac with one boot, you kicked her gun away with the other. You made quick work of her, hog-tying her without a second's hesitation.
Normally, Mark would have hemmed and hawed over attacking a woman, but his bullet hole stung like a broken heart—and there was a trail of sweat carving a line down the side of his partner's face.
When she opened her mouth to speak, you stamped down harshly on her throat. This was the kindest you had ever been to a target of yours. If there weren't rope in the shuttle, her extremities would have suffered a worse fate to keep her from running.
Once she had settled down, you pushed your hat up to look at Mark.
"Are you okay?" you asked.
"You worried about me?"
He said this as if you hadn't just watched him get shot in the shoulder at point-blank range, and you were still watching him for any hint that he was going to collapse.
"Yeah," you answered.
This time, it wasn't because you thought he was incautious and unobservant, not to the same extent as before, but it was because you cared about him. At some point, you might have tried to play it off as needed to return the favor, but you weren't about to kid yourself. More than competent, he was a partner whom you could rely on.
Mark heard you, both of you knew that, but it only made him soften slightly.
"I'm okay," he said.
"Good." You pushed your shoe's toe into the base of Ms. Jackson's skull. "As for you…"
Her words were muffled by the ground as she shouted, "Get off me!"
You looked to Mark, but he merely shrugged. Neither of you cared what happened to her, as long as she was locked up by the end of it, so you stood to the side and hoisted her onto your shoulder. She struggled, obviously, squirmed like a fish out of water, and you nearly dropped her before Mark secured her own gun beneath her chin.
She stopped moving after that.
When you'd stuffed her into the shuttle's hold, you and your partner slipped into the cockpit. However, your brows furrowed at Mark's hiss.
"Hey, I got it," you said, reaching for the wheel.
Your hand was batted away too hastily. "I can still pilot a ship."
"Not well."
"I'm fine."
Not in his condition.
His condition was just fine, they were just being dramatic.
You were completely mobile while Mark's shoulder was missing a considerable chunk, but, yeah, you were the dramatic one there.
They didn't even know the way back to the main ship.
Bullet hole.
Dramatic—
"Mark, you are getting in the passenger seat or I swear I'll tie you up just like the lady."
His thoughts paused for just a second as his face grew a degree hotter and a shade darker. With all of his energy directed to keeping the narration effect at bay, he mumbled, "Fine."
Although it was none too graceful, you and Mark swapped positions. He was still mumbling to himself once you were situated, but you paid it no mind, especially when it devolved into random rambling.
You were rusty with driving shuttles like this one, but you got it off the ground and into the air, which was the best you could hope for. Letting the thrusters do the work for you was the easy part, so you angled toward the base and settled in for the ride.
"You got a case lined up after this?" you asked absentmindedly.
"Another day, another murder. Chief gives me two hours off and then slaps a new file on my desk." Finally, the pettiness was fading from his voice to give way to curiosity and something you couldn't yet name. "Where are you headed?"
"I don't know. Haven't got any other targets in the area, so I might be off."
That was fine. His partner—rather, the bounty-hunter who sat next to him, he supposed—wasn't tied to one place like he was. Criminals never stayed in one place too long, and they would be forced to follow them if they wanted to survive. Money stood behind relationships with a smoking gun, a practical concept that he was all-too-familiar with. Detectives like him, who profited off dead love, didn't experience the living version for long.
"But who knows?" you said, knocking him out of his thoughts. "Like you said, another day, another murder. Something might crop up."
And he said he wasn't being dramatic.
Aware of Mark's gaze on the side of your face, you slipped a toothpick out of your pocket and into your mouth. It was something to balance out the frantic beating of your heart and the laboring of your breath.
"And that bullet hole needs tending to, don't it?"
Shuttle on autopilot and your target immobile in the hold, you and Mark glanced at one another. Silence spread between you, but no words were needed to convey what you were both thinking.
If it took an extra hour to get back to the main ship due to unforeseen but unavoidable issues, was it really anyone else's business?
[And that's a wrap! Thank you so much for requesting, and, as always, for reading. This was my first time writing Noir and I have been wanting to do something for him since my Actor series (it's the detective trope, man, it just gets to me). Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed!]
hiii, would you mind if i took inspiration from one of your fics, with credit etc? i read mirror mirror and taking part of the fic in a slightly different direction has been spinning around in my head…
Of course! This goes for any of my fics, as long as you let me know when you’ve finished so I can check it out ;) I can’t wait to see what you do!
Would you consider writing for Simon from Iron Lung maybe perhaps possibly?
"But they are pretty."
In which Simon has company.
TW: blood, Iron Lung spoilers
Pages: 14 - Words: 5000
[Requests: OPEN]
The first time that Simon saw them was in the flash of the camera. Not before, not after, only during—in that blinding, man-made burst of light, a figure sprung to life and died a millisecond later. He couldn't discern any details save for the brilliant outline of a person, enough to notice but not to understand. How did they get there? What did they want? Were they even real?
At their disappearance, he concluded that they weren't and continued on his mission. The numbers ticked up at a rapid rate. 50, 100, 150 along the Y-axis, just like they had told him. He kept his hand on the lever, his eyes on the sonar, his mind off the thing he had seen.
His grip tightened.
He didn't need to look over his shoulder because he knew he was alone. He was sent down alone, and he was still alone, and he would stay alone until they brought him back up.
Even if he kept seeing something within the supernovan snapshots of an empty ocean. His mind was just making things up. To help him, maybe, pretend he wasn't alone, but all it did was send panic through his veins at the thought of a stranger being down there with him. In response, his heart made up escape plans that indiscriminately shattered against the walls of the SM-13. He couldn't run, and he couldn't hide.
But it didn't matter because they weren't real.
The second time that Simon saw them was in the background of the lab. He and the captain were arguing, the sampler was getting installed, and the number of people in the room kept changing. When the porthole was clear, the captain having wiped it off with a pre-bloodied rag, the number was three—but it should have been more, with Simon set free from the submarine and sentence because they had promised. They had promised. He had gone down there because they promised.
"So come on, get me out of here."
The captain just looked at him like he was an idiot.
"We can't. Like I said, you're welded in."
But that wasn't right.
"We try and get you out of here, we might miss the opportunity."
She was breaking her promise.
"Another slip and that goes somewhere that we can't get it, so I'm gonna give you something to take a sample."
Simon's fist clenched, forcing him to fight against his own muscles. They had promised, the captain had promised that this would buy his freedom. Going down and getting a picture of the skeleton was enough.
They didn't agree. He was a convict, after all, and they could afford to lose him. Not only that, it would be better to lose him down there. Accident, intention, who cared? Despite what they told him, that this wasn't about him, he saw how the captain looked at him. The disgust on her face came back just as quickly as the blood on the hull, no matter how many times she tried to wipe it away.
When the porthole was bloody, the number was four. Thick droplets of red carved paths around another person in the lab. Head, shoulders, chest, legs, red. They watched, as one would do with a bug in a box, and stayed so silent that they melted into the fabric of the room. Indistinguishable from the equipment that the crew monitored him with, Simon struggled to keep them in focus.
He lost track of them when the captain wiped the hull's window once more, as if she took not just the blood but the flesh, too. A red hue was left behind to coat everything in the lab. He didn't know why she kept doing that. It would never be clean, not how it used to be.
And apparently he was going back down, anyway, so what was the point? They kept doing things without explaining them—wiping the porthole, taking samples, sending him back down there even though he kept telling them that there was something else in the water.
Slamming his hands against the console, he yelled, "You told me! Go down, come back, and then I'm free! That was the deal! How many times are you gonna use me before you let me go!?"
No response, and what else had he expected? An explanation? For someone to give him a single hint of what was going on? The veil of blood had returned, and so too had the figure. They stared at him without a reaction to what was happening. They were completely disconnected from his rage, confusion, and every other emotion that propelled him into smashing the camera button.
The lab went white. A star had been unleashed right in front of him, and it took a few seconds for the aftermath to appear on the screen.
Just as Simon had expected, there were three people, but he saw no faces. Instead, smeared skeletons with gaping holes for eyes looked back at him. He had definitive confirmation that the figure wasn't real, but the painted graveyard gave him more questions.
The captain returned to the porthole to shout, "Are you out of your mind!?"
"Oh, good, you can hear me." He stumbled to the front. "Now get someone else for your suicide mission, because I'm not going—"
"You blasted us with radiation, you sick fuck!"
Heart stuttering in his chest, he made eye contact with the captain through the haze of blood. There was utter disbelief and repulsion on her face.
"What?"
"It's not a normal camera, you can't see through blood, so you need x-rays to get through," she explained. Simon was surprised that she hadn't been more vicious, but she was too focused on helping the welder next to her.
He didn't manage more than a quiet, "I didn't…" before he saw the damage he had done.
The man was burned underneath his eyes. Underneath the sun, in a park, in the middle of summer, it might have looked like a healthy blush—but it wasn't. A gash of inevitability stretched over disgust just as potent as that of the captain.
"Look, I'm sorry," Simon said, only hoping that they could hear him through the metal, "but maybe if you had talked to me, this wouldn't have happened!"
If he had known, a lot of things wouldn't have happened, but he never seemed to know everything. He was always in the dark, and nobody seemed to want him out. Not even the captain, glaring through the porthole, was going to give him information.
"Just get the sample."
She walked away, and, this time, Simon didn't stop try to stop her. He focused on keeping his breath steady. He was going to be back down on the ocean floor within minutes, maybe less if the lights flickering on was anything to go by, so he had to prepare himself. The first journey down had been fine, they hadn't wanted to risk damaging—
Simon slammed against the metal belly of the sub. The casing was the only thing separating him from the ocean, a foot of steel easily dented, smashed, broken. He would be surprised if his head didn't leave a mark. Perhaps he should have had more faith in the hunk of junk, but the return of that figure didn't help its case.
The edge of his vision shook with each merciless beat of his heart in the back of his head. A concussion was the last thing he needed down here, and they wouldn't have dropped him so roughly if they were willing to bring him back up for medical attention. He tried to struggle through it, push back the darkness that took chunks out of his sight, and focus on something other than the pain that threatened to pull him under.
As Simon came to his senses, his mind chose to latch onto the figure that, for once, didn't disappear when he blinked.
"Who—" He choked on the headache pushed down to his throat, "—who are you?"
"The butcher."
His heart imploded.
"What?"
"You're the butcher."
His heart exploded; this person, this stranger, knew something about him. Unprompted, they had let it slip. For what, did they want something, what could he do for them at the bottom of the ocean? So many questions demanded to be asked, but his tongue turned to lead in his mouth. He could feel his heartbeat in his mouth.
The only thing that he managed to ask was, "How did you get in here?"
A relatively stupid question, given that it didn't matter, and the answer was no better.
"I didn't."
He stared at them. They stared back. Neither of them blinked.
"Great."
Simon's head thumped dully against the floor. Painful, yes, but nothing more than an echo of the first collision.
"Just great," he spat. "Wasn't enough that I'm gonna die down here. I had to go crazy, too."
He heard and ignored the figure's mutter of, "Rude." Instead, he ducked away from them, clambered to his feet and spun the chair so that it faced the console. If he didn't look at them, they would go away. They had to. That was how it worked, wasn't it? Hallucinations disappeared if you didn't acknowledge them.
And they were a hallucination.
A voice crackled to life through the speaker to ask, "Have you calmed down yet?"
It didn't mention them, and a stowaway was sure to attract attention, so they weren't real. They didn't matter. Simon's thoughts devolved into mantras; he was going to get a bone sample, he was going to get out alive, the person behind him wasn't real.
As he listened to the voice, different to the captain, and followed the occasional order, regret slowed his actions. This always happened after an outburst, and Simon didn't hate it. The guilt was good. It reminded him that what he had done couldn't happen again. He had one mistake and that was it. Right now, he was in the aftermath, where he had to decide to do better because it didn't come natural to him. He had to choose it.
Simon apologized. Sure, he received a lukewarm response, but the guy on the intercom was right, it was all 'fair play'. A bare acknowledgement of his regret was one of the better outcomes.
However, his back burned when the words left his mouth. They hovered in the air, almost physical, but he knew that the figure was looking right at him. Things like that were making it more and more difficult to convince himself of their insignificance—harder to make himself believe that they weren't real.
The only saving grace, their silence, was shattered when the voice went silent and the only thing that remained was Simon.
"Why are you doing this?"
He didn't know whether it was them or lingering effects of his concussion, but the question was broken, a radio on a slightly different frequency. Words cut in and out, but his damaged mind helpfully filled in the gaps. He was almost tempted to ask them why, what had changed in the last fifteen minutes to make their voice so distorted, but no. He elected to ignore them.
They appeared next to him, leaned against the console as if they had always been there.
"Why?" they repeated.
He stayed with his eyes fixed on the coordinates that ticked up, number by number by number, but he did respond.
"For my freedom."
"Why?"
"What're you, a child?"
The tone of voice he used had once scared off a gang of inmates. Although his reputation had preceded him, there was something dangerous about a man with nothing to lose.
And yet they continued to push, "Why does this get you your freedom?"
"It just does, okay?" he said with a huff. Part of him wanted to look them dead-on, but the another held him back.
"Why do you need freedom?"
"You heard the radio. I'm a convict."
"You're the—"
Flesh thudded against metal as he bellowed, "Stop saying that!"
The words seemed to ricochet around the sub before being absorbed into the pipes. Groans from the ocean's pressure seemed to get louder.
Simon didn't see their reaction, but they didn't ask another question. If they were alive, breathing would have assured him that they were still there at all, but he was left to wonder if they had disappeared. Not that they had been there in the first place.
Despite knowing that their voice was figment of his imagination, he couldn't say it wasn't calming. Company of any kind was appreciated so far away from actual human life.
He dipped his head, attention sliding away from the numbers and to his clenched fist. Slowly, he let it flatten against the console.
"Sorry."
He didn't expect them to respond.
They still did, with a simple, "You're okay."
The silence that swept between them was almost comfortable, as if they were two guards on duty or pals hanging out on a weekend. Simon knew such a fantasy was beyond his reach; inside this sub was nothing but a prisoner and his imaginary friend, who had returned to his mind by the time that he checked the map again.
But it didn't matter because they weren't real.
The third time that Simon saw them was in the glow of the button. It was no surprise that they reappeared after he'd rammed into the skeleton—the pain of crashing into a wall thumped inside his skull—but neither of them acknowledged the other's presence yet. The shaking of the sub was more pressing.
Something was out there. The Consolidation didn't believe him, but the figure was pointed in the direction of the blank screen, as though they could see through it. They knew that something was there, and that it was alive. Curiosity for how they knew came second to relief that he was right.
Pushing himself to his feet, Simon asked, "What is it? That thing- it's not a skeleton, is it?"
Their attention stayed trained on the screen.
"Hey." He crept closer. "Don't go quiet on me now."
When he was barely two feet away, they whispered, "I don't know what it is."
His sigh was light, a mixture of disappointment and understanding, and he skirted around them to place his hand on the button. The sub was still swaying. It was probably the waves batting against it, but he needed to know what was making them.
Their voice made him stop short of pressing in. Certainty removed some of the static disconnect in their warning, "You shouldn't do that."
Although he tried to look at them, it was as though a hand moved returned his head to facing forward. He wanted to see them, but he wasn't supposed to. The billion of years old instinct redirected him for his safety.
So he compromised and asked, "Why not?"
"You just shouldn't, okay?"
Simon huffed a slight laugh. He appreciated the company, but the goodwill that afforded them could only go so far. The camera was his only way of knowing what was outside, and now that those audio logs had given him a taste of information, he wanted more. He just wanted to know what was happening, and why was that so wrong?
He didn't look at the screen until the figure moved away. Had he moved just a second earlier, he might have stepped into the shadow that they created, but they were stationed beside the console while Simon flitted about. Moving between from front to back to front to back, he followed a course through the ocean, and the figure watched on.
Until he bumped into something new, until he found another submarine, until a new voice whispered through the radio.
Then, and only then, did they move, ripping the wire out of the speaker and sending out fizzling sparks that cut off the sound of a human. For a moment, he saw the figure lit up completely, but there were no features. No mouth with which they spoke, and no eyes with which they stared. They were blank, the only different being a second-long brightness.
When they were plunged back into shadow, Simon's mouth moved before his mind, screaming, "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Don't listen to it," they instructed.
Rage swelled in his veins.
"Why not?!"
"You just—"
"I just shouldn't? Like I shouldn't use the camera—I shouldn't try and save someone's life?" His chest heaved with adrenaline. "She's stuck trapped, and no one's coming to help her! Why can't I?"
His eyes desperately searched the darkness for some kind of emotion. Sympathy, hopefully, but even anger would have been a sign that he hadn't enjoyed the company of a cruel monster.
"You can't both get out," they said, and their voice seemed to warble worse than before.
"How do you know that? You don't- you don't know anything."
They knew that there was something outside the sub, they knew he shouldn't use the camera, they knew he had killed his brothers—great! They weren't saying anything that could help him, though, and in that laid the problem.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, leagues quieter than before.
"I'm trying to help you."
"And how's that working out for you? I'm stuck down here." He swallowed the heart that thudded in his throat. "And so is she. And I can help her."
A pause. Momentum willed him to keep talking, prove his point, fight, but his mouth stayed wired shut. The only movement was his shoulders that bounced with every struggling breath.
"How?" they asked. The syllables detached to form a sentence, but they were held together only by the string of unintelligible static. "How are you going to help her?"
Simon wrenched open his mouth to respond, but they beat him.
"You can't."
"I can!"
"You're welded in to keep you alive, so why shouldn't she be? How would you get her out? How would you get her into this ship?"
"Shut up."
"Without breaking the seal, without drowning, without getting eaten by the fish in the water?"
Each part played over the others, an echo that couldn't get past the metal skeleton so they cracked through his skull instead.
"She's survived this long!" he yelled back.
"So have you." They stated this with such simplicity, as if it were the answer to every point he was making and he should have already know it. "You're going to get yourself killed for this thing."
Another statement. Another truth. Another inevitability. But what did they know? Nobody told him anything, and he was starting to think it was because they didn't know either. Everyone was just taking wild guesses and acting like they knew what they were doing, but they didn't. Humanity was lost at sea, and he was the only one not pretending.
Simon's shoulders dropped as his breathing settled. The adrenaline was growing stale, but it crawled through his veins just fast enough to get him talking again, though much calmer than before.
"I have to try," he said. "If I deserve my freedom, so does she."
When the words were out of his mouth, he could have sworn he saw a glimmer where the figure's face should have been. A star someone used to wish on.
Regardless, when the light died, Simon turned away from them. His eyes latched onto coordinates.
"Doesn't matter what you say. You're just my imagination."
The silence that responded to him was taken as agreement. He was tempted to grab their arms, shake them, make them spill everything about them that had the chance of explaining what was happening to him. It would have been cathartic, probably, but he had already made one mistake. He had looked at them, despite primal instinct screaming that he wasn't supposed to, and he wasn't going to make a second by touching them.
For now, all he had were words, so he looked back at them as he said, "Y'know, if you told me anything about what you know, I might start to believe—"
Too late. The space in which they had stood, just beneath the speaker that was crackling with the return of that woman's voice, was empty.
But it didn't matter because they weren't real.
The fourth time that you saw Simon was in the aftermath of the creature. It attacked him and sent both him and the sub spiraling. Where exactly he ended up was unknown to you, but you always managed to find him, above or below. After all, the only thing still human in the ocean was difficult to miss.
So there he was, laying on his back on the floor of the sub, like so many times before—and there you were, cross-legged and leaning over him. Conflict stretched across your face, and you did have a face. He could just never see it, or he never wanted to see it. You preferred the former, though; it made you think he enjoyed your company, at least a little bit.
The last conversation you had said otherwise. You hadn't meant for it to turn into an argument, but he wasn't listening to you, and the outcome lay out beneath your shadow. The voice—it, her, the thing—had tricked him, and he paid the price.
However, you had to forgive him. From what you had seen, you were one of the few who was still able to, and one of the fewer who actually did. Your hand itched to reach out and touch him, but you knew that was a bad idea. You didn't know what would happen, especially in his current state, so you restrained yourself and did the next best thing.
"Why do they call you the butcher?" you asked, not expecting a reply. "Or I guess- I guess, why were you called the butcher? If they call you convict now. And by they, I mean the people who sent you down here." Your eyebrows, which you had, furrowed. "I'm assuming that's who you're always talking to."
You pulled your hand back from where it had moved to without your input.
Gently, you joked, "This was easier when you talked back."
Even with the added burden of carrying this conversation, you kept talking. Whatever topic popped into your brain went straight out your mouth, and there wasn't much of a filter. It started about him, questions drip-drip-dripping to form a puddle before it grew into a stream. Who was the captain he had been talking to at the start, who was the man after that, who was Jack, the only other name you knew besides Simon's? You wondered aloud about the other people he might have known, whatever part of humanity was left drifting among the stars, until an ocean of curiosity swallowed you up.
None of them were answered, of course, and that left you at a loss by the third day.
This was when you moved on to talking about another topic. No more questions, just your statements. You started to talk about the stars.
And Simon started to wake up.
"Some people called them 'stellar nurseries'—which is a real cute name for a bunch of hydrogen and dust drifting in the void. But I guess it's fair." You leaned back on your hands, eyes drifting to the condensation-coated ceiling. "Once gravity pushes stuff together, it gets denser and starts to heat up. I-I think it's called a semi-star."
A few feet from consciousness, Simon heard a voice he recognized. Not the captain, not the other sub, but the figure that had grown so familiar to him. The words were spliced together like before, but they ran rhythmically, following their own pattern of ups and downs.
A sharp snap of fingers broke through the veil between them.
"No, a protostar. That's when you can start to see it in infrared light, and then it gets hotter and hotter until you can see it with the naked eye. And it stays like that for… for years, for millions of years."
They shuffled, and when they started again, they sounded ever-so-slightly closer.
"But then it gets hotter and becomes a red giant, and then a nebula or a supernova and then white dwarfs or black holes and it's all so pretty."
Simon was awake, now. He saw the glow of the camera button behind his eyelids, but he didn't want to open his eyes yet. No, that could scare them, and he wanted, so desperately, for them to keep talking.
"But when the red giant sheds its outer layers, the core collapses inwards and the leftovers become more nebula… nebulae?"
A laugh pulled at his chest, and he knew his time was up. He had to face the music, and, doing so, he cracked his eyes open to look at them.
He quickly went from holding back a chuckle to a gasp because the figure was no longer such a vague term. It didn't suit the face that he saw, one with eyes and a mouth. Some parts were still difficult to make out, and the edges were still blurry, but he saw a person's face no more than eight inches from his own. He saw you.
"They make another thing that makes more stars, which make, uh…"
You slowed to a stop when you realized that Simon was looking at you, and your body turned stiff. Mouth clamped shut, you straightened your back so he wasn't forced to look at your face.
"You get the idea," you muttered, glancing around the sub.
"Why are they pretty?"
"What?"
Your attention snapped to his mouth. It had moved. He had definitely asked that question, but he couldn't have. He didn't seem angry, not the smallest bit annoyed at your appearance. After your last interaction, you didn't think he would want to see you again. The plan to disappear before he woke up was thrown out of the window by that gentle, innocent question.
You couldn't bring yourself to refuse him.
"Oh, uh, you know, they're multi-colored." You stumbled through the words, half-expecting him to realize what he was doing and shoot off to the front of the ship; he didn't, so you continued to explain. "The different elements in the gas ionize and emit light at specific wavelengths. You can't see them without some kind of telescope or something, but… but they are pretty."
"How do you know what they look like?"
You shrugged, and a small, slow grin spread across Simon's face. You found that you rather liked this look on him.
His tone was lighter as he asked, "How do you know so much stuff?"
You wished you could give him a better answer than, "I just do."
Another question was on the tip of his tongue, and he opened his mouth to speak, but a new voice cut frantically through the peace of the sub. The captain called out for Simon, astonishment and panic and glee rolled into one. The questions came hard and fast from her, this time, but it wasn't until Simon looked to the speaker's light for confirmation that he acted.
He pulled himself to his knees, then to his feet, and then to stand under the speaker. Guiding the wire closer, he assured himself that it was still connected before looking back to assure you, too.
Why was he surprised that you weren't there? Why was he disappointed?
But it didn't matter because you weren't real.
The fifth time that you saw Simon was the last. You had always known this moment would come, but even though you hadn't known him for very long, it still felt like a loss. The captain—Ava, as you learned—and the voice were talking, or arguing, or trying to persuade Simon to do something. You weren't listening anymore. It didn't matter whether he saved or destroyed the black box, there was no getting out of danger this time. It was the end, and you were going to do the kindest thing that you could.
Simon's hands shook as he wrapped the black box in the life jacket. All the blood made the straps slip between his fingers at first, but he tried again and wrenched them tight. It was the least he could do for the captain, who had risked her life to come and get him. She wouldn't make it, the blood was rising too fast in the sub, but it was the thought that counted, wasn't it?
More blood spat through more holes as the thing outside bit down harder. He never did know exactly what it was, but the size of the teeth alone made him slightly grateful for that. He would have been happier to know more, but his shoes, his legs, his chest were already red.
With a small prayer to his mother, Simon let his head dip beneath the surface.
For a moment, that was all it was. His eyes were pressed closed, and the blood blended in with the backs of his eyelids. Time became elastic; seconds were minutes and hours were years. The space changed next as crushing pressure at the bottom of an ocean became limitless. He couldn't move, claustrophobic as this space was, but he didn't need to.
When he opened his eyes, he saw, at first, an angel. Bright and bold against a void-like backdrop, it came closer. Once it was in arm's reach, the details of a face distinguished themselves from the light, and he saw you. He didn't think he had ever been happier to see someone.
"Simon?" you called out. "Can you still hear me?"
He nodded almost giddily.
You mimicked him. "Good." A soft smile flattened to a line. "You're not going to get out of this alive."
He nodded again.
"I'm sorry."
Shaking his head caused matter to ripple away from his body. Blood, water, air? Neither of you knew.
"I wanted to do more," you explained. "But I'm not real. I'm sorry."
You were sorry for a lot of things—listing them would take longer than the time you had known him for, but Simon didn't let you start.
He couldn't tell whether he opened his mouth or not, but, nevertheless, he asked, "Can you tell me about the stars?"
Your smile returned, and you began to talk about the differences between type I and type II supernovae, the elements that they released, and the way that they could explode to outshine their entire home galaxy at the end of their active lifetime.
[I had expected a request for Iron Lung (thank you so much, btw), but I had not expected that the hardest part would be remembering the order in which things happened. I know there's definitely some things that I missed and could have talked about - and you best believe me, the second I get my hands on a DvD, you guys are screwed for angst - but, for now, I'll blame anything that I missed on severe radiation poisoning and exposure to eldritch horrors. Hope you enjoyed!]
Hello!! I love reading your works! I found one of your pieces on Ao3 and then came over here to find so many other amazing works on here!!
I thought a fun little idea would be with Damien and the reader in university as the academic rivals to lovers trope,, their relationship before they fully become the mayor and district attorney always fascinates me
Ofc it’s only a suggestion! I will enjoy anything you write in the future 🫶
"How about a wager?"
In which Damien and the DA raise the ante outside of poker.
TW: none
Pages: 15 - Words: 5000
[Requests: OPEN]
One would have thought that the most stressful aspect of a college career was the workload. All those essays, exams, and energy put toward what wouldn't matter in another month. If not the work, maybe it was the expectations, or the isolation, or the looming responsibility to make a name for oneself in the real world.
For you, those mattered, but none of them were on your mind was you sprinted to your first lecture of the week. Ducking through passageways and slipping between other students, you tried to cut as much of the journey as possible without breaking a bone, and even then you were playing fast and loose with the rules. You were single-minded, set on your target like a bullet with barely a passing glance at whoever you nearly bowled over in your mad-dash.
Heavy breathing became panting as you turned a corner down the final hallway, but you instantly shut your mouth the instant that your eyes landed on a familiar figure. He was walking at a steady pace to the staircase, but you knew better than that; you had seconds before he noticed you, and you were at the disadvantage after your marathon through the campus grounds.
You probably should have been embarrassed that you completely froze—animal instinct telling you that he wouldn't be able to see you if you didn't move—but you were so focused on getting to your lecture before him that emotion didn't occur to you.
Obviously, he saw you.
And then he smiled.
You took a wary step forward.
"Don't you dare."
He placed a single hand on the railing.
"Don't."
One foot on the step.
"I swear."
The stand-off solidified around you, a tangible, pushing, strengthening force that put too much importance on this moment. You were already inside, though, and you felt the gravity. If you did anything, said anything, thought anything, then the bubble would burst and it would be off to the races—
He leaped immediately for the third step, and your hiss of his name was right on his tail. Clamoring for the banister, you used it to propel yourself off the half-way platform and around the turn, just about falling beside him at the next section. Adrenaline flooded your veins, as if this were life or death, and you were inclined to agree. Shoes skid against polished floors. A slip, a click, a hurried jump as you pulled ahead.
You were both winded once you reached the second floor, worse when you got to the third, and the fourth was death's door, but you were a step ahead of him at the end, able to wrench open the lecture theater's door and bolt for your prize.
With barely a breath to spare, you collapsed into the chair. Your chair. The one you had been sitting in since you started this class, which nobody else had any reason to sit in. That chair.
And yet this had been the routine for the past month. Getting up early and hoofing it to your lecture was the price you paid for sitting in this chair, but you would rather puncture a lung before you gave it up.
You watched the man you had raced slowly trudge to the seat next to you. He appeared completely nonchalant, but you could see the pain of losing in his eyes. Good. He deserved it.
The day that Damien Whitacre accepted defeat was the day that you could die happily.
Although there wasn't a single, specific cause of your distaste for him, it wasn't without logic altogether. The first, and most obvious, was the whole seat-debacle. For some reason unknown to you, he had decided to start sitting in your chair—and, no, there weren't assigned seats, and, no, it wasn't any better than the others, and, no, it wouldn't have mattered to anyone else, but it was your seat!
It begged the question of why you wanted it so bad, but you elected to ignore that.
The second problem with Damien was his results. Petty, maybe, but you couldn't get a single piece of feedback without his name coming up. From your professor suggesting you get his advice on exceptions within tort law to other students using him as the upper band of the grading system, you were constantly reminded of how well he was doing. You were sick of it.
You weren't a bad student, quite the opposite, in fact, but that didn't matter when there was someone better than you. Someone who was a perfect student, a perfect child, a perfect person. The poster-boy for perfection. Hell, you were probably the first and only person to hear him curse, and that was under his breath and directed at no one.
As the professor started up the lecture, you tried your best to avoid his eyes.
The next time, you got to the staircase first. Despite being inconceivably early for a university student, you were only certain that you had beat Damien when he walked around the same corner as you had just the day before.
The difference, though, was that he was approaching with his hands up.
Confused, you allowed him to get closer, though your heart was already pumping as though your body were getting ready to book it.
He stopped within a few steps of you. Given you had negated that yesterday, you were still cautious of any sudden movements, but Damien kept his eyes locked firmly on yours.
Just as cautious, he pulled his arms back to his side.
"What would you say to a contract?"
This was the first sentence he had said to you outside of first introductions. Everything else had always remained unspoken. This rivalry was silent but very, very real.
You squinted at him, as if you just weren't seeing him right.
"I'd ask why I should trust you."
He didn't take offense, simply stating, "It's three stories, and neither of us can pay attention in the first fifteen minutes afterwards."
"That's a drawback I'm willing to deal with."
"Is it?"
At that, he held out a hand. You stared at it, blinked, and looked back at him. A small smile ran across his face.
"We'll both start right here at the same time, count down from three and run on go. Whoever makes it to the top first gets to have the seat."
As much as you distrusted his proposal, he didn't seem the type to lie straight to your face. The more clarifications you made, the less opportunity he had to omit information. Still, you had to admit, it was tempting. Running took its toll on you, and burning lungs had long since stopped being an attractive outcome.
"And if we both get there at the same time?" you asked, hoping that your coming around wasn't obvious.
"Statistically unlikely."
You hummed and shot his hand another glance. Empty. No physical tricks, and this deal was quickly growing more appealing by the second. Downsides were being knocked out as soon as they occurred to you, until nothing remained but to take the offer.
You grabbed his hand and shook it.
"Fine," you said as you let go.
The picture of content, you and Damien shared a look, both glad that these bouts of exercise were over. Maybe it was even the start of a beautiful friendship.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, you cut him off, spilling out a rushed, "Three-two-one-go," before you lunged for the staircase. Two, four, six steps up, and then Damien finally caught up to your little ploy.
"That's cheating!" he yelled as he bounded up behind you.
"Loopholes, Whitacre!"
Much the same as before, your veins were flushed with adrenaline, your heart pounded so hard that a squeak of your shoe could have been mistaken for your ribs shattering, and your lungs barely stayed inflated long enough for oxygen to reach your brain—but you were still smiling. A loose grin stretched from ear to ear, even when you caught sight of Damien gaining on you. If you paid attention, you might have seen the same expression on his face, too.
You barely reached the top before he did, and you tried to play off your breathlessness when you turned to him.
"You take law," you said, definitely not light-headed, "you should learn how to exploit them."
It took a few sharp inhales for Damien to recover, and he had to lean against the railing as he asked, "What was that about trusting me?"
"Should've asked if you could trust me."
Endlessly proud of yourself, you pulled open the lecture theater's door and gestured him inside. Knowing he wouldn't go back on his word, you were fine to employ your manners. You received a strained 'thank you' for your effort.
And that was how it continued for the next week; you and Damien would meet at the bottom of the staircase, make your best attempts to stretch in office-wear, and then race up to the fourth floor. It was an even success rate, although he consistently claimed that the first time didn't count. You stuck to your guns but let him count from them on.
Regardless of this new routine, you didn't see one another outside of your classes, which was just fine with you. Studying took up most of your time, which meant that you barely left your dorm for anything that wasn't academic. There were the odd days when you would get coffee with an old friend from back home, but moving to another city left you lacking in the social department. You weren't complaining. It just meant you could focus on essays and exams and all the other oh-so-entertaining parts of university.
You would have been just fine to never see Damien out of class, but the universe had a strange way of pushing things on you.
After a particularly rough class that left you more confused than ever before, you took a visit to the library. You were in search of a very particular textbook at the recommendation of your professor, so you made your way to the librarian's desk to ask after it.
It was just your luck, then, that she pointed not in the direction of the shelves but towards someone studying alone at a table.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," you muttered.
"We only have one copy of that, and it can't leave the building."
It was just getting better and better.
After your most strained noise of appreciation, you marched over to Damien, who had one hand pressing pages apart and the other jotting down notes. He only looked up from his task when you overshadowed the printed letters.
"Can I help you?"
His smile bordered on a smirk, but you held yourself back.
"I need to borrow that book," you said.
The pen clicked against the table.
"Hmm, well, as you can see, I am rather busy at the moment."
You hummed back and hoped your aggravation wasn't too visible. By the widening of his grin, you assumed it was.
"And how long will you continue to be busy for?"
He theatrically pressed a hand to his chin as if in thought before saying, "Remind me, what time does the library close?"
"Eight o'clock."
He nodded. "Yes, eight, that's right."
You shared a look and a tense silence spread between you. Another stand-off.
"I'm not failing our exam just because you want to hoard the materials," you said, to which Damien sighed.
"We both know well enough that the library books are free reign. If you needed it that badly, you should have come earlier."
Although it had only been recommended to you mere hours ago, you ground out, "That has become clear."
"Well—" He shrugged cheerfully, "—good luck next time."
His attention returned to the textbook and pen to his hand, you had a choice. The first option was to back down, which wasn't really an option given your track record, but the second option wasn't much better because you really didn't want to start racing for another somewhat meaningless object. It was a toss-up between conceding and competition, but another choice presented itself just as you were about to storm away.
You threw a quick glance at the surrounding tables and grabbed another chair, swinging it next to Damien's.
His reaction was immediate this time.
"What are you doing?" he asked, sounding split between surprised and curious.
As you draped yourself over the seat, you made eye contact and said, "How about a contract?"
There was a moment of hesitation, Damien staring at you and you staring at him, and then he dropped his pen back to the table.
"What are your terms?" he asked.
The urge to laugh at your mimicry of your last deal welled up inside you, but you pushed it down in order to reply, "We take turns. You can have the textbook today, I get it tomorrow, you the next day, and so on and so forth. We trade at eight in the morning at this table."
At the last word, you held out your hand and underwent the same inspection that you had performed on him. You must have been deemed fit for a handshake; he brought his own hand away from his notes and reached for yours.
He paused an inch from grasping it.
"And no cheating," he ordered.
"It wasn't cheating, but fine."
And with that final promise, another deal was sealed.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Whitacre," you said when you separated, and you actually meant it. Your legs were already singing praises for your good deed.
"Please, the pleasure's all mine," was the happy response—or, you chose to think of it as happy, at least. You didn't particularly care whether he was truly happy or not, but it was easier to 'do business' with a willing participant, so technically, in one sense of the word, and not really that much, you were glad that he was happy.
In the proceeding weeks, it proved beneficial, regardless of how you felt about it. The exchanges were efficient, and so too was the time spent with the textbook. You managed a system of note-taking and then revising on a schedule the inverse of the other. After the fifth day, you started finding Damien's paper stuck between pages relevant to the latest lecture. The contents ranged from clarifications to expansions to jokes that would stick in your mind until they were replaced by a new one. You responded in kind, purely to secure this advantageous, academic relationship.#
And if you spent your free-time coming up with tips that Damien might have found useful, that was between you and your lecture notes. And if you glanced at one another when the topic of child custody agreements came up in the syllabus, it could have just been accidental. And if you wondered how he was faring with the workload outside of a spiteful context, nobody else needed to know.
These odd thoughts followed you right into your first proper exam for the class. The hall was overcast with the dread of every law student. Knowledge was one thing, but you had never been good at timed conditions. Half of your colleagues did struggle with the information, but the others were right there with you, staring up at the clock every time the hand moved.
Tick, tick, tick.
It was fine. It had to be. You had studied so much that just looking at the word 'defamation' made you nauseous, and if that wasn't enough…
You swallowed as you sat down at the desk.
No, it would be enough. Deep breath in, deep breath out. You would be fine.
Three hours later, Damien joined the sea of students, each and every one of them staring down at their shoes, shell-shocked, wandering like ghosts struggling to recover from their deaths.
He had but one thought: what the hell was that? He was a good student, he was self-aware enough to admit that, but no one could have understood a word on that paper. Every problem was convoluted and the printed text ran circles around his mind. It haunted him even as he stood in the hallway, leaned against a wall as he struggled to come to terms with what had just happened to him.
He didn't bother hiding his relief when you flopped beside him, dazed just the same as the stream of zombies you had fallen out of.
A second to breathe and then you muttered, "What was that?"
He wanted to laugh at you speaking his thought aloud, but all he could muster was a quiet, "I have no idea."
"Did we take the wrong exam?"
"Maybe." He glanced at you. "Hopefully." He looked forward again. "Probably not."
When the possibility of a mistake faded from his mind, Damien returned his attention to you. You didn't look great. It wasn't an insult, just a simple observation, but it was still an issue. Normally, you would be fine after an exam, if not smiling to yourself or scribbling whatever you struggled with on your hand. He had seen you, cursed that he wasn't as diligent with his mistakes, and tried to remember the problem-questions with no luck—but his brain had the awful habit of throwing bad experiences out the window the second that they finished. It was done, so why dwell on it?
Looking at you, it seemed the first time that a distraction was sorely needed, and that was what he was good at.
Silently, Damien grabbed your hand and pulled you into the thinning crowd. You didn't say a word as you followed him, but the tightening of your grip in his told him that he was alright to continue forward. Down the hallway and through doorways, the pair of you walked until you pushed through to the outside world. Only a few people were still milling about, giving both of you space to breath, but he thought he could do you one better.
Bringing you down the side of the building, he veered off the stone path and toward a stretch of nature. There was a comfortable quiet between you as you traced the footsteps of past years. An informal tradition for worrying students led the way along grass that gave way to dirt.
You didn't have much more in common than a fear of failure. Even the race for the chair was just an extension of it. Damien tried his best to hide it, but you were both stubborn, and giving up on the most unsubstantial things was still a loss. Both of you had to win—the chair, the textbook, exams, approval, everything. In the most important things, there was only one winner, and you were his only competition.
Compromising was an idea he had only recently warmed up to. His offer of a truce had been a shot in the dark, an experiment that even he hadn't been sure of, but it had worked out. Strangely, insanely, it had gone well. Your second contract had been a shock, not only that it was your suggestion but that it worked, too.
If there had been more time to think it over, the possibility of a friendship might have been the reason for this walk.
However, there was no reason why Damien had taken you outside—except for that shared fear of failure. He saw you and saw himself. Scared.
He was the first to break the silence, saying, "I don't think I can handle one of our professors being upset with me."
It was almost a joke, and you did chuckle lightly, but both of you knew it wasn't completely.
"It's not going to hurt your rapport with them any," you replied as you kicked a rock out of your way. You had strayed far from the path in your wanderings, now surrounded by trees and a setting sun.
"But they'll look at me differently. You can see it in their eyes."
"What—" You huffed, turning your head to see him properly, "—the golden boy can't handle displeasing his professors once?"
"Can you?"
You looked back in front of you. Best to keep your eye out for anything that might trip you up, especially when you knew looking at Damien anymore would make slipping inevitable.
Voice too quiet for your liking, you said, "Sure."
"Oh, so you work so hard to impress yourself?"
Damien had his own laugh when you tried to say something in your defense, but all that came out was the weak sputtering of a totaled car. You weakly glared at him until both of you got a hold of yourselves, but neither of your smiles faded.
"I value my own opinion," you said.
"From one perfectionist to another, you don't do this for yourself. Nobody ends up with top grades because they want to."
He knew he got it right when you didn't answer.
His elbow poked you in the side.
"Who is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Who are you trying to impress? Whose opinion matters so much to you?"
Another silence swam between you, not uncomfortable but certainly… something. Something important.
"Nobody's."
"Really?"
His disbelief stirred an impulse to lie, to keep it up that you were doing this for yourself until he let it go and stopped talking to you altogether—but it was overridden as soon as it reared its head because you liked talking to him. You liked his company, and you liked his advice, and his jokes, and, hell, his face while you were at it. You didn't want to walk down the path alone.
So, breathing deep, you said, "I'm not- I'm not doing this to impress anyone specific. It's people. In general, I mean." A whole year of inconsistent socializing left you rambling, but you couldn't, and didn't want to, slow down. "Everyone who said I couldn't get here, or that I would get here but couldn't stay here, or I'd get here and just be here because that's all I can really do."
Almost as breathless as you were when racing up those stairs, you waited for Damien to speak. One second, then two, then three, and you thought he would just stay quiet.
"When does it end?"
Your breath hitched.
"What?"
"When do you get to where you want to be? You've already shown people what you can do—it's more than what most people can say."
A million answers flashed through your mind, none of them satisfactory. Too defensive, too deflective, too daunting to say aloud. Eventually, you shrugged.
"I'll tell you when I get there," you said. Although it was vague, Damien spoke as if it were a certainty that you would get there, and you believed him. Sure, you wondered why he was so sure, but that didn't make you doubt him.
It did, however, also make you ask, "But what about you?"
His serene expression shifted to confusion.
Attention fully fixed on him, you continued, "If nobody does it for themself, why do you do it?"
He must have asked himself the same question once upon a time because his response came as soon as your words left your mouth.
"My family. It's always been my family."
You should have expected that; Damien's name was no secret, or, rather, his surname wasn't. The very day everyone showed up, word that a Whitacre had arrived spread through the university like wildfire. One name out of a thousand the talk of the town. The Whitacres had made a fortune as bankers, railroad tycoons, and, their current stint, landlords—and with so much money to inherit, rumors abounded as to why he tried so hard at his studies.
You had wondered the same before chalking it up to an aristocratic need to be better than everyone else. Now, a tinge of heat swelled in shame.
"Politics isn't what my parents expected of me."
You stared at Damien, whose head was bowed to the grass below you. He wasn't lying. If anything, he looked just as regretful as you were.
You managed a dull 'huh' before he continued to speak.
"They expected me to go into business, but- I'm not the best at numbers, and how much good can I do stuffed behind a desk?"
"So you decided to go for a bigger desk?"
This time, you were ready for his elbow to your side and dodged out of the way with a laugh.
He lifted his head as he muttered, "You know what I mean."
It was at this point, light chuckles swept away by the wind, that the campus came back into sight. Shortening trees gradually faded into bushes, to shrubs, to slightly overgrown grass. Distant discussions and students trying to get back to their dorms before dinner took the place of rustling leaves.
This break was coming to an end, but it was exactly what you needed. Damien's distraction let your mind rest, and yet you were itching to get back into books.
"It sounds like we've both got things to prove, which means we have a lot of work to do." On impulse, you took his hand. "Come on."
Starting to tug him toward the library, you were relieved that he didn't pull back, though he did hear a hesitant, "And where are we going?"
"If that exam is anything to go by," you said, "we need to start studying for the next one immediately."
"I guess so."
Despite not saying it, you heard the fatigue coating his words. You didn't blame him, not after what he told you, but neither of you could give up. A few more weeks of exams and you would be able to calm down properly—for now, supporting one another would have to suffice. Enough with the silent rivalry, the useless feuds, the comparisons, the competitions—
You stopped in your tracks.
"How about a wager?"
"A wager?" Some of that tiredness was swapped for curiosity.
"You know, nothing big, but it would be… an incentive."
"What are your terms?" Curiosity swapped for eagerness.
"Whoever gets the higher score on the next exam gets something."
A smile graced his lips, which you found you enjoyed more than a look of defeat, before he said, "You know how something tempts me."
You took a step back with your arms raised in surrender. "Hey, I came up with the betting idea. You choose the prize." You knew you had him when he followed with a step forward.
As he deliberated with himself, you tried to parse out the look in his eye. Was he actually trying to think of something? Did he already know what he wanted? Was it good, bad, something important to both of you? You almost yelled at him to tell you when he held out his hand.
"The chair."
Of course. What else was it going to be?
Sighing, you said, "Fine, whoever gets the higher score gets the chair for the next month."
"Two."
You gritted your teeth. "One and a half."
"Deal."
And though you took his hand, shook it up and down as you were so used to doing, there was a part of you that was strangely disappointed. He had all the choice in the world—a rule-bender though you were, you stuck to your promises—and he wanted to sit in one specific chair in one specific lecture theater that you probably wouldn't even be in next year.
Seconds before you pulled your hand away, Damien said hastily, "And if I win, I can take you on a date."
So distracted by being jealous of a chair, you didn't let go until after your hands had bobbed up and down again, sealing the deal. It was, of course, the warmth of being tricked that flooded over the bridge of your nose and down to your neck, and awe of your own unawareness pulled a smile to your lips.
"Whitacre!" you yelled as he strolled past you.
He turned around with an oh-so-familiar, smug smile. "Hmm?"
You floundered for a moment and then asked, "What happens if I win?"
"You can take me on a date."
And he continued walking to the library, shoes clicking against the stone path, while you tried to come to terms with your situation behind him. Only, it was less 'coming to terms' and more 'trying to get yourself to believe that this was actually happening'.
When your brain caught up to reality, you whirled around and chased after him, happy with the fact that whether you won or lost the wager, you would win in the end—and when the sappiness finally faded, you pledged to win. You wouldn't go easy on Damien just because you were dating, after all.
[As always, thank you for requesting and for your kind words! I actually already had an idea for an academic-rivalry fic between these two, I just needed to find the time and motivation to do it! I had also actually written the dialogue prior to the Valentine's Day one-shot, so it was pure coincidence that both Damien and Dark have said "the pleasure's all mine". Probably just the vibes of them. On another note, I hope you've enjoyed, and thank you for reading!]
[Non-chronological part of the Eldritch AU]
In which Dark takes his dove out on a date.
TW: none
Pages: 10 - Words: 3500
[Requests: OPEN]
When had Dark last looked in a mirror? When had he last seen clothes, his hands, his own eyes looking back at him? By his nature, he never changed. He looked the same as he had yesterday, which was the same as a year before, which was the same as a century before that. Really, the most attention he paid to his appearance was the odd adjustment of his jacket that barely went beyond the subconscious.
So, as he stood in front of the full-length mirror of his office, he couldn’t help but shift awkwardly, no matter how much Wilford tried to encourage him from the desk.
“Oh, it’ll go just fine, Dark! What’s there to worry about?” His words were punctuated by a snip of a stem.
“I am not worried.”
Over his shoulder, Dark saw Wilford raise a disbelieving eyebrow. He had always been good at reading his emotions, no matter how well he hid them—not that he was worried in the first place, because he wasn’t, and if he were to feel anything, it wouldn’t be worry.
Dark sighed, the sound swallowed by the void as soon as it pierced the air. He just wanted this to go well. After all his research, there was no reason for it not to, but dealing with humans meant anything could happen. Chaos tended to follow them like a stray dog, and you were no different. In fact, you brought a tornado of disorder the very moment you came into his life.
But, despite Dark’s love for an easy task, he loved you more, and an easy task was the last thing he wanted you to be. Someone like that would have taken his out the moment he offered it, if they had met at all, and he couldn’t imagine the last year without you. Sometimes people were worth the trouble.
An elbow pushed roughly down on Dark’s shoulder. Speaking of trouble.
“Now, what’s that face for, old boy?” Wilford fiddled with his own bow tie. “You look like you’re going to your own funeral.”
“I’m supposed to wear a suit.”
His tutting followed as he rounded to the other side.
“Can we at least see a smile?”
Dark stared at the his friend’s reflected eyes. His grin was always visible in them, too, a window to the soul that never showed a rainy day. He wondered how he did it—he’d seen what Wilford had gone through, what he’d done and what was done to him. He couldn’t always be happy, and yet, his eyes never seemed to lie. Dark met his own and saw only curtains.
“How about a smirk?”
When Wil started to reach for his mouth, Dark knew enough was enough. A quick turn of his heel and he was marching towards his desk to scoop up a rose. A myriad of colors littered the surface, a palette that the void saw for the first and last time. Reds faded to oranges to purples, the lightest of which was raised to the backdrop of nothingness. The near-white contrasted nicely with the black, and although he was no artist, the simple composition pulled at the corner of his lips.
“I saw that!”
No sooner had Wilford took a step forward than Dark’s figure melted into the void, a vague chuckle the dying echo of his presence.
The rhythmic tapping of Mark’s fingers against his leg was surprisingly loud in your room, as if all noise gave way to him in respect. You appreciated its ability to ground you, but you were too easily re-wrapped in your thoughts. There weren’t exactly guidebooks on what to wear on a date with an eldritch god—hell, you were probably the expert, but you were still stuck.
“How fancy is too fancy?” you asked, pulling out a navy waistcoat. “Dark’s probably going to be wearing a suit, so I should match that, right?”
A world-weary sigh let you know Mark was taking action, but it was only when the fabric was torn from your hands that you turned to him.
“Dearest,” he said gently, “you know he won’t be looking at your clothes.”
He turned the waistcoat over with a pout before throwing it haphazardly onto a chair. Although he had stopped treating you so much like a doll, he still took pride in your appearance so that you shifted from a mannequin to a model. You didn’t begrudge him a little playing around, especially when it was causing you so much strife.
You wanted this to be perfect. A sit-down dinner with just the two of you, candles and music and all of the stuff that went into those classic Valentine’s Day celebrations. This was the first time you were celebrating it from your memory. You just wanted this to go well.
And it would! It had to.
Your train of thought was saved from swerving off the tracks when a sweater hit your face.
“Nice aim.”
Mark waved you off, but you continued to watch him root through your closet. Pulling out things you hadn’t worn in years and then pushing them aside, Mark sorted the clothes with a ruthlessness you had come to expect from him. If it weren’t exactly what he was looking for, it wasn’t given a second glance. Only airy sounds of consideration escaped him in his mission.
Figuring that you weren’t needed, you headed to the kitchen for a drink.
At the very least, you were glad that someone knew what they were doing—and you weren’t only referring to this date. You had spent the last year making things up as you went along, and some part of you wondered if you deserved this. Your partners were brilliant, and you were some human who said the right words at the right time. It should have been someone else. Wilford deserved someone who could keep up with him, Mark deserved someone who shared his flair for the dramatics, and Dark? He deserved someone who knew. You were still struggling with the foundations of his world, and he was the one who ran it.
More than anything, you wanted to help him, but how were you supposed to do that if you couldn’t help yourself?
The train was hurtling to the jagged rocks below, sure to crash and burn within minutes. It was only stopped, or postponed, by Mark calling your name.
The second that you stepped into your bedroom, you let your shoulders relax and your brows unfurrow.
Mark’s arm encircled your waist and drew you into his side. “What do you think?” he asked with just a tinge of hesitation that almost made you laugh. You were tempted to tease him, but that idea went out of the window when his grip imperceptibly tightened.
“It’s wonderful, Mark.”
Those words opened the dam for his gloating. You could practically hear the smugness in his voice as he said, “Maybe my finest work yet, if I do say so myself.”
With the clock counting down until seven o’clock, you started to get ready.
Two minutes to go. You were acutely aware of every twitch of the clock’s hand, the rush of adrenaline forcing excitement and apprehension through your veins as time skittered by. Once your outfit issue had been solved, it was a flurry of other preparations that were intermittently interrupted by silent moments in front of a mirror. Mark managed to get you out of your ditches, but he had left half an hour ago with a kiss and a smile.
In the present, you were sat on your couch, alone and staring at the blank screen of the television. Although you tried to keep your breaths steady, a gasp escaped you like a punch to the gut when something tumbled onto the cushion next to you.
How Wilford managed to land upright was beyond you, but he moved quickly on as if he had always been there, remarking, “You two have something in common, then.”
“And what’s that?” Your words came out breathless from the small surprise, but you had long since learned to recover. Who’s that was your second question, which went unasked as he jumped to respond.
“You’re both treating this date like a business deal—and I know we’re very fond of them, but do we want this to end with a handshake?”
In your defense, the first deal you had ever made with Dark ended with a kiss, so that wasn’t what you were worried about. No, the problem area was the date itself, and conveying the anxieties of a mortal life to someone like Wilford was an exercise in futility.
You simply huffed and ran a hand through your hair. “A dinner isn’t romantic enough for you?”
“Of course, it is! You just need to let go of your worries and actually enjoy it.”
That was easy for him to say. He wasn't the one going on the date, let alone the fact that this was Wilford you were talking about. Nothing was wrong until someone was dead, and even then…
You were jostled when Wil swung an arm around your shoulder.
"If it makes you feel any better, Dark's worried, too."
"Yeah, right."
"Do you know how long he spent fretting over tonight, how many journal articles and guidebooks he read on making the perfect date?" He shook his head with the air of a man who'd heard one too many lectures on the importance of lighting. "I have to warn you, a lot of them were from the thirties, so you'll have to put up with a few traditions."
Although you laughed, having to 'put up' with Dark's plan was the furthest thing from unfortunate. The relief of having a framework for this whole thing pulled a weight from your shoulders. Anything to make tonight go smoother.
"Now—" Wilford slapped his thighs and got to his feet, "—what do you say about finally getting there?"
The drawback of your whole flesh-and-blood situation, an unavoidable part of humanity, was that getting to the void required an escort. The alternative was taxing, and Mark's complaints about getting blood out of clothing were enough to vanish that idea. So, linking your arm around Wilford's, you closed your eyes and allowed him to guide you into the space between worlds.
Once the brief moment of terror had passed, milliseconds of falling down an infinite hole and seeing the floor fast approaching, of knowing when, where and how you were going to die, painfully and blissfully and inevitably and watched, you stepped out into the darkness. Supported by nothing, you pressed a kiss to Wilford's cheek and soon found yourself alone in the void.
But not for long.
As if your eyes adjusted to the darkness, a scene distinguished itself from the wall of black. A table, a chair, a man, the latter standing just steps away from you. Everything was positioned just so, to the point that you wondered if Mark had a hand in this set dressing. Wilford's words echoed in your head, and you were hit with the urge to laugh at your ten-seconds-ago-self. The two of you had done enough worrying for four.
You were the first to step forward, holding out your hand for Dark to take. Giving him the option was a litmus test for how touchy he felt on that day, but he had never taken it with as much hurry as he did now. Numbness from the void's non-air was swept away with his touch, like dipping your hand into a lake. Blue and red waves rippled from the contact.
"It's so good to see you."
Gently, he brought you closer to stand in the space that the words melted into. His free hand settled on your waist while yours moved to fiddle with his tie. It was a rare occasion that he was without one, but this struck you as something different.
"You changed your tie," you murmured. You threaded your fingers in the gap against his shirt, feeling slightly more texture, silk instead of satin.
His voice was equally as quiet as he said, "I did."
You continued to rub your thumb up and down the fabric, unable to bring yourself to shatter this moment of calm. Dark didn't seem to mind—in fact, his eyes drifted closed, and there was second in which you forgot this was meant to be a date in the first place.
However, all good things had to come to an end eventually. When you reached the bottom of one of your passes, you tucked the tie neatly back under his jacket's button.
"Come on, we only have so long until the others get restless."
While you were mainly referring to Mark and Wilford, who hadn't quite mastered the art of staying out of trouble, you were also aware of the responsibilities that Dark had put to one side. Other deities, other contracts, other cosmic events that needed keeping track of didn't just disappear because he did. You wanted to make this break count, and sitting down seemed a good start.
Nodding, Dark followed you to the table, only to quickly step in front of you to pull the chair away.
"Thank you," you said with a small smile that was mirrored on his face. Wilford hadn't been lying about following some traditions, and you were half-tempted to pull out his chair for him, too, but you appreciated the effort and sat down, nonetheless.
Rounding the table to his side, he said, "Of course."
Once he was situated so that the flickering of a flame danced beneath his chin, relief flooded you. The apprehension was over, this was really happening, and all you had to do was enjoy it. Those words would quickly become your mantra.
"How has your day been?"
For the next ten minutes, you indulged in routine. Casual conversations with Dark always started with you filling him in on whatever you had done in the last 24 hours, ostensibly because he was curious about the daily life of a human. However, at the end of a week that had you repeating like a broken record, you had a feeling he simply liked to hear you talk.
Not that you didn't hold the same sentiment for him; hearing him describe the void, with all the eldritch and mystery that came with it, both sated and grew your endless curiosity. Even though you knew it was dangerous—beyond dangerous—you hungered to understand the universe just an inch from your fingertips. Dark entertained your questions, always with the preface that his dealings could bore you to death. When it inevitably morphed into a rant about his latest interaction with a careless god, you hoped that it took some weight off his back.
The latest of the messes had been created by two deities that he strove to keep apart for many reasons, chief among them that the messes tended to duplicate at an alarming rate.
Swirling his glass of wine by the stem, Dark sighed. "If they were to choose better targets, I could let them be, but Murdock keeps encouraging Yan to chase the first person she sees. She has never been brilliant at self-control, but this…"
He trailed off, though you got the message. From what he had told you so far about the pair, Murdock just enjoyed the hunt with little regard for who the prey was, and Yan took that decision off his plate. The mentorship might have been sweet had Dark not also told you how it ended. Panic, then blood, then tears.
"Could you get someone else to keep an eye on them?"
"The last time, I sent Wilford, and he joined in."
You hummed, wracking your brain for other gods that you had learned about. It had to be someone of the same origin, you didn't want to imagine a human trying to keep up with them, and there had to be someone willing to watch out.
"I could call in a favor from Google, but I had hoped to save those for a more important occasion," Dark lamented, and it was from the mention of the android that another idea struck you.
"Maybe Bing could help? If you treated it like a test of his reliability, he might be able to set up a camera without the strings attached."
For a moment, Dark only stared at you, and you had to wonder whether you had said the wrong thing. Were you not supposed to know about them? You supposed he hadn't told you directly, but he hadn't banned you from that book of deities—though, it was up for debate whether you would listen to that, anyway.
You were considering downing your drink just to have something to do when a smile grew across Dark's face, a fissure turning into a canyon. His laugh, light as it was, seemed to shake the very particles of the space between you.
"You always surprise me." Glass clinked against wood. "And you are usually right."
"And that's why you keep me around?"
"No, dove—" The smile softened, "—I keep you around because I happen to like having you around."
He just had to go and make it sentimental, he just had to make a fiery heat streak across your face that you hoped wasn't visible. A completely honest Dark was a rare sight. Not in the sense that he lied to your face, but he was normally keeping something just below the surface. If you fought to peel back the layer, you would find it, and stubbornness always compelled you to fight. You didn't begrudge him for keeping up a thin mask, but you were never upset to see him drop it himself. Making him comfortable was something you also fought for.
As if that interaction made him realize where you were, he glanced to the space in front of you, saying, "You must be hungry."
With a wave of his hand, where once had been empty spasmed with red and blue light into a plate of food. Something similar appeared in front of Dark, but trying to look at it head-on made your vision swim and eventually unfocus. Something told you that you didn't want to look, and you had a sneaking suspicion that you knew who was whispering those things.
Dark just smiled at you and raised his glass.
"We should have done this at the start, really, but now is better than never."
In the middle of the void, surrounded by nothing, you brought your glass against Dark's and cherished the clear click that reverberated to the edges of the universe.
You hadn't wanted the night to end. If it had been your choice, you might have spent the next day, and the next, and the next in conversation with Dark. The food was an afterthought to the stories, advice, and teasing that always caught you off-guard. However, eternity in the void was not a fate suited for you, so you returned to your apartment just as the clock struck midnight.
Wooden floorboards beneath your feet were a welcome sensation. Grounding was always necessary after a trip to the void, just to assure yourself that you were in the right universe.
When you were happy with your sense of self, you swiveled on your heel to meet Dark's eyes.
"Thank you, for tonight," you said.
"The pleasure was all mine."
Again, you held out your hand, a silent invitation, and, again, Dark took it without hesitation. Within seconds, you were close enough to see your own reflection in the blackness of his eyes. Behind it, though, was a contentment buried so deep into his heart that you could have missed it.
You would have been happy for that to be the final thing you saw before he disappeared in a dramatic puff of smoke, but Dark took it a step further when he whispered, apprehensive, anticipatory, and oh-so-delicate, "May I kiss you?"
Not a breath after you nodded did he dive forward to press his lips against your own, flesh molding into non-flesh and producing a buzzing sensation. Sparks snapping at the ends of wires, biting and lighting up the air with light. They spread across the seam of your lips, and you were only vaguely aware of Dark's hands positioning themselves at your waist. The feel of his jacket beneath your own hand transitioned to his shirt, his tie, his skin. While he stayed calm, the remnants of those colored waves whipping around were ingrained in your eyelids when they slipped closed.
A short pause for breath before you went back in—another pause, shorter still, and then you were under the waves again. The cycle went round and round for however long your brain was still processing sensations, but your blazing nerves soon left receptors fried.
The final pullback gave you time to recover, though you also used it to search Dark's expression. If you didn't know any better, you might have thought you had really snipped a wire in two. His eyes ran up and down your face in return, a rare want that bordered on desperation bleeding through his smooth exterior.
However, such an indulgence was for another time, another place, one where the very fabric of the universe wasn't at risk.
Regretfully, you pressed a last kiss to Dark's cheek, pulled his tie back up to his collar, and tried not to fall into a new bad habit.
"I'll see you in the morning, okay?" you said, trying to regulate your breathing.
Silently, he nodded, and then his brain caught up to him and he muttered, "In the morning."
A heavy quiet spread in the space between you, potential energy waiting to lash out again, a thunderstorm brewing just out of sight. For a moment, you thought he might wait there the entire night.
But the tension dissipated with a smile and a shake of his head. As it turned out, Dark wasn't the only dangerous thing in that room.
"In the morning," he repeated.
The promise gave both of you something to think about after you separated, Dark melting into the shadows and you practically collapsing into your room with no more thought than an exhilarated fatigue.
[Happy late Valentine's Day, guys! This one is for everybody who's reading the eldritch au (Wheeling and Dealing) and is waiting for Dark's moment to shine, to so speak. You've got a bit more waiting ahead of you, so I hope this helps tide you over (especially you, Otterly). As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed!]
I wanna request something for my boi The Host,,, but i noticed hes not really on your masterlist. Do you write for him? Ill send the request if you do but if you dont then thats alright too i respect your decisons because your really cool
Oh, I totally would write for him! The master list is just what I’ve already written (which I really need to update, anyway) and have current concepts for, so feel free to request anyone! I’m looking forward to your request :D
As it’s been requested, I’m going to try my hand at an Iron Lung fic - however, I first want to ask if anyone has or has seen a play by play of the movie because I only saw it once, I have the memory of a goldfish, and I want to get as much right as possible. Obviously, it’s not completely necessary as I have ways around inconsistencies, but I pride myself on relating to the source material, so I’ll ask anyway.
(If you want a little spoiler, I’m thinking of something like The Day of the Doctor between Rose Tyler and the War Doctor)
Back again requesting another fic based on a song. </3
Basically, I love ABBA and have fallen into my habit of relistening to all their music during fall/winter. So, I was listening to "Under Attack" and it was just clicking so perfectly in place with my DA/Captain. I would love to write this myself, but feel like I absolutely could not do it justice.
I was imagining a reader/DA and Actor fic about their dynamic after WKM. Specifically the lines "I'm nobody's fool and yet it's clear to me
I don't have a strategy", and of course, "Under attack, I'm taking cover
He's on my track, my chasing lover."
The DA is so smart and they've been so sure that everything would be fine/they had a "plan"/they could get away from Actor, but they're starting to realize that isn't true and they've kinda just been lying to themselves so they don't have a crazy wave of emotions to deal with.
I liked the line from the chorus a lot for this because of the chasing lover, which I very much read as chasing "lover." (It makes it even more depressing in my DA's canon cause there was definitely something between them and Damien, so the concpet of Actor being their "lover" while basically wearing their real lover's skin is just too good and deeply unsettling.)
Like I said before, I thought you would absolutely nail writing about this concept so I wanted to send it your way. I can't wait to see what you do, Thanks!
"But what else can I do?"
In which Actor doesn't have control.
TW: cursing
Pages: 14 - Words: 5000
[Requests: OPEN]
The fact that Mark had jumped in front of you was deeply unsettling. He had sacrificed himself for you—and although dying wasn’t a foreign concept to him, that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Still, he had done it. He’d taken that blast of energy for you.
You didn’t know what that meant. You had ventured down so many pathways, becoming a prisoner, a pirate, a meal for some crazy hermit in a cave. You had met people, too, but none were stranger than the face of an old friend who didn’t seem to recognize you. Whoever William was now, he was no better than a stranger, but he wasn’t the weirdest thing you had encountered.
That award went to Mark. He confused you to no end, making you constantly second-guess your opinion of him. Sometimes his words made you think he wasn’t Mark at all, but that idea shattered when he looked at you. Apprehensive and cautious and half certain that you were going to attack him like a rabid dog. As soon as you’d notice, he’d go back to joking with a wink and a smile.
When he’d asked if you wanted to go on a date, you almost laughed. You couldn’t help it. A date? You? With him? The man who stood before you, wearing the outfit of a robber and the skin of your old partner? You wanted to spit, you wanted to cry, you wanted to scream until your throat turned raw, but a date would have been too tame for the games that he wanted to play with you.
Whether it was a blessing or a curse, you were thrown into another adventure all the same. Space, this time, and you might have taken the time to marvel at the stars if it weren’t for your sudden arrival at the Invincible II, as was written on the side of the giant ship. You were sure this introduction would get old soon. You had already grown bored of loops, the feeling of a reset making your gut churn almost as much as the sight of Mark’s face did.
“Welcome aboard the Invincible Two, Captain.”
You stared at him blankly.
“Glad to have you here.”
Yeah, right.
Mark shook your hand—the gloves weren’t enough of a barrier—and led you through a tour of the ship. You didn’t pay attention to the details, faces and descriptions became blurs in your mind, these people would disperse into smoke soon. That was how all of it went, time and time and time again. They would forget you the next time you met, so you didn’t waste your energy on committing anything to memory.
The sight of Celine startled you out of your haze. For a dizzying, disgusting moment, you thought it was her. It was pitiful, really, how your heart picked up and your breath fled your lungs and a smile dared to pull at the corners of your lips. Mark looked upset enough that you entertained the hope a second longer than you should have.
Until that first word came out of her lips, your new title of ‘captain’, and it went down the drain. Celci, not Celine, had no idea who you were beyond the new pilot of this vessel. She was not your way out. She was nothing.
Was that callous? Probably. But you had been doing this song and dance for so long, the blinding lights and the blisters, that your feelings were dulled. Nerve endings were burnt, and maybe that made you a self-centered opportunist, but you had little else at this point. It was the only permanent thing about you.
Standing in the cryopod was the first time that you had a moment to yourself. The heist had been running and hiding, and this was a slower start. There was no doubt that whatever awaited you would return to the status quo, but being able to rest your head against the cool panel of the door was a life preserver in this ocean of madness. You wondered what the planet would be like. You had never been one for science fiction, but alien species were always a fun thought experiment. Mark was a lot of things, like sadistic and cruel, but he was creative.
He could still surprise you.
You bit back a curse when you were thrown from the cryopod, landing roughly on the ground and clambering to your feet. You were just in time to register the crunch of Mark’s bones against the window. A crack spread from the impact, you only had a moment to grab hold of something, and then the universe pulled at the room. Air was gone in an instant, and Mark followed. Your grip was starting to slip when the shields dropped shut over the window, and you breathed in the aftermath.
You glared at the new metal wall. That was one way to write himself out of the story. It was a small comfort that he would be back, some way or another.
The silence was not to be enjoyed for long, as an announcement of a fire rang through the bridge. You jumped into action, completely ignoring the rest of the words and reaching for the extinguisher that hung on the wall. Flames heated your body and licked at your boots. You were getting dizzy. You fumbled with the thing in your hands. You pressed the nozzle. You couldn’t see. You were barely aware of the fire disappearing. Your vision faded to black.
You wished that dying was a new experience for you. The caress of the void was all too familiar, a thick, inky blackness that swam around you, curled through your limbs, poured into your veins—and was yanked out.
Consciousness flooded you. Back in the cryopod, you coughed and spluttered for air. You had died, but not like before. During the heist, death was death, and you moved backwards because you had died, and that was how dying worked.
You didn’t know what this was. You had died, but you had also moved forward.
You were shot once more into the room, taking the hit through your hands on the console, and watched Mark fly through the air. He landed right where he did last time, lines slowly creeping from his target like a frozen lake, and you had a decision to make.
Let him fall through or pull him away.
He deserved it. He deserved to keep dying. You both knew it, even if he didn’t want to admit it, he deserved it.
But you deserved answers, and Mark could die on his own time.
You lunged for him, grasped his hand in yours, and tethered him to the ship just as the window broke into a million pieces. Feet wedged against the console, you tightened your hold, gritted your teeth, made sure that he didn’t get away that easily.
When the bulkhead was sealed, you opened your mouth to speak. You had questions, so many questions, but a new problem arose. The fire and life support. You dealt with them, of course, but then there were more issues. The asteroid defense system, cryo, the reactor, everything that you needed to fix before you could talk. Answers weren’t useful if you kept dying before you could use them, and, you would admit, it was nice sending Mark to deal with them. He got shot at, frozen, burned, and you watched on with the smallest grin. You didn’t try to hide it when he shuffled back to you. He knew how you felt, and he probably felt the same, based on his smothering you with a pillow right at the end.
You weren’t foolish enough to think that was it. An ending, death or otherwise, was never the end. Suffocation was easy to brush off, which maybe should have concerned you, but being worried wasn’t going to get you out of there. The loop wasn’t sentimental. It wouldn’t let you go if you asked kindly, said your ‘please’s and ‘thank you’s, demanded, groveled, begged, it was all the same. The only thing that had ever worked was exploration, so you followed the only human part of yourself that was left.
Curiosity drove you to the light and down the many winding paths. Just the same as the heist, you saw new things, made new choices, met new people—but Mark was with you all the while. He didn’t run away, and that had you slowing down at certain points just to look at him. He looked at you the same way, so you didn’t feel bad about getting caught, if you ever did. He usually noticed you, but very few times did he look back; fewer still did he say anything.
You wanted out. You had been very upfront about that, and you took every chance you had to look for the exit. It was there, somewhere, you just had to find it. An escape not only from the inane wormhole convention but from everything. All the adventures that Mark trapped you in, for what, his sick amusement? Because he was bored? Because he was—
No.
You glared at the man beside you out of the corner of your eye. He was beaming, confident and smug, as he marched into the rigged hallway.
No. Mark didn’t get lonely.
His voice bounced off the reactor’s door, “We finally made it. Come on, Captain. It’s time to end this. That is, if that thing actually works.” He turned his grin to you. “I guess I still have a lot to learn about wormholes.”
You just wanted to get it over with. Whatever was behind the door, it would be a step in the right direction, although you knew the end was far from here.
As if able to read your mind, Mark started speaking, “Does this feel right to you? Like, this moment feels kind of final. You know when you’re up against the last boss and you get a moment to breathe before pressing on?”
He knew you didn’t know. Dying when you did didn’t afford you whatever knowledge he had gained access to. How he knew about it, you weren’t certain, but asking wasn’t worth it. Instead, you kept your mouth firmly closed.
“Isn’t that what this feels like?” he goaded. “Eh, maybe I’m crazy. What do you think we should do?”
Silence crept through the air. Even the whirling noise behind the door had softened, as if the entire universe were waiting to hear what you had to say—but it passed. A moment to breathe, indeed. No matter how many times Mark tried to get you to speak, dialogue designed to get a response out of you, he failed. All the insults and praise slipped by you with no word. Of course, you made your opinion known in other ways, but he had always been particularly susceptible to the silent treatment.
However, just as you were about to push forward, something else pulled at your attention. You tensed at a distant sound. Not speech, not atmosphere, not anything that you had gotten used to along the pathways. This was different, but a voice nestled deep in your heart whispered that this was familiar, too.
Without explaining, you turned around and started back the way you came.
Mark’s protests fell on deaf ears. Captain, captain, captain, you weren’t a captain. It was getting on your nerves. Had you not been drawn to the end of the hallway, you might have tried to blow up the hallway or throw yourself out of the airlock again. It wasn’t your responsibility to help these people, you didn’t know who they were, they didn’t even exist!
You did, and so did Mark, and so did whoever was behind this door.
It slid open, dousing your vision in warm oranges and vibrant blues. Music whisked through the air and into your bloodstream, but you kept your eyes on the dancing figure in front of you. Were you still in the same place? Despite the explosives lining the walls, you doubted it. The last time you had seen this man, in all his bubblegum glory, had not been amongst the stars.
You were more prepared to see him this time, though. Comparisons to the Colonel had clouded your vision during that interview, but you understood that he was different now. A new outlook on life and a new name to boot.
Wilford Warfstache took one look at you and frowned.
“No, no.”
The music slowed in the background.
“That’s bad. I know why you’re here. You’re looking for an easter egg.”
Confusion washed out any relief at seeing someone you knew. You weren’t looking for an easter egg, whatever that had to do with the adventure, and you certainly weren’t doing anything wrong. You were meant to explore, you knew you were. Did he not see how important this interaction was?
“No! Wrong! That’s bad! Go back to the main story. You’re gonna find nothing here.”
Resistance immediately pushed you forward. You weren’t going back there. This was an opportunity that wouldn’t come easy again. You had seen Wilford during the heist adventure, which meant that there was a way to get between them without Mark noticing. There was no way that he would include Wil in his universes, after all, and he wasn’t going to just let you leave.
“Our meeting is in part two, which is not now, this is part one! Turn that butt around and go back.”
You weren’t listening, you couldn’t, not now. One foot in front of the other. As you got closer, Wil continued to rant. Both of you acted as if the other weren’t there. You were right in front of him, and he kept speaking.
“It’s a great scene. Well-acted, too.”
It was him. Not just some face Mark was putting on. It was William, or Wilford, or whoever, it didn’t matter, it wasn’t Mark!
Against your better judgment, you sprang forward and wrapped your arms around his shoulders. He didn’t return it, but that was okay. It felt nice to have some physical contact. Years had passed, decades, maybe a century, since you had touched someone, just for the sake of it.
Letting go seemed a death sentence, but let go you did.
Wilford placed his hands on his hips, the image of a parent after their child had a tantrum. His eyebrows raised, he leaned forward slightly.
“Now, do you feel better?”
You nodded.
“Good. Because you’re not gonna get another chance until part two!”
You should have expected that, but it felt bad all the same. Off-putting. Disappointing. Staying wasn’t an option, and you had actively fought leaving the first time, but being forced out by your shoulders hurt.
You shoved the pain to the side. The little break did wonders for your resolve, or so you tried to convince yourself. When you were returned to Mark’s side, you were too busy thinking up an escape plan to care about his expression. That stone-cold stare was at the back of your mind after a moment. You replaced it with the assurance that all you had to do was find the hole that Wilford left when he got in. He was a careless man in this state, he had to have broken something to be where he was, and he wouldn’t have repaired it. There had to be a way out, and Wilford had provided you with one. Surely.
You took a deep breath and opened the door to the reactor.
At this point, you were picking randomly. There was no clue as to which direction you should have been going, not when it was a choice between right and left. All the wormholes looked the same. Every streak of cerulean was the same as the next and the next and the next. Every face was the same as the one before, and none of them mattered. Not even your heist partner was able to awaken any feeling in you. Maybe you lost excitement in the horror scene, fear in the action shooter.
Little pieces of you broke off as you landed in another universe. A bathroom was new, but it wasn’t long before you were opening the door. There wasn’t anything else to do, after all, and you had to keep moving forward because you were getting close, you could feel it, a charge in the air, anticipation.
You stopped in your tracks with one shoe nestled on the carpet.
Someone was crying on the bed. Sobs pierced the room as a click closed you in with them.
For a second, you doubted your senses and then your judgement. Your spine stiffened and your legs locked. It was Mark, that was for sure, but was it real?
Back when you were alive, you had seen Mark cry three times. The first had been in his youth at the death of a family pet. Sad, but inevitable, and the tears had flowed freely. Childhood afforded him a freedom of emotion that he lost as you all got older. The second time was after his first starring role. You had seen him before the movie and at the afterparty, but it was during that you saw the reflection of sword-fighting in his streaked cheek. William had elbowed him and pointed at the screen, giving him enough time to scrape it away and laugh alongside his friend.
The third, and last, time you had seen him cry was after his parents’ passing. It was disjointed, and stuttering, and completely shattered as if each sob struck with his heartbeat. You would never forget the sound, and you always hoped that you would never hear it again.
You didn’t, but that didn’t mean it never happened.
When you took a few, tentative steps forward, his breath hitched, and shaky exhales told you he had noticed your presence.
He got up from the bed, walked around its end, and locked eyes with you.
Callous, self-centered, opportunistic you, who opened your arms.
“Really?” he whispered. Tears slid down his face, yet this second of shock blocked any more from falling, if only briefly.
You nodded quickly. Your arms weren’t wide, and your expression wasn’t welcoming, and you weren’t going to stand there like an idiot if he waited any longer—but he took the opportunity to rush forward and hug you.
It was unbelievably awkward, and you had half a mind to shove him off. A thought hit you, though, that this must have been how Wilford had felt, which meant Mark probably felt the same as you. Such assumptions gave you comfort, so you closed your eyes and brought your own arms around him in return.
His grip tightened.
Words were said, but they were swallowed by that whirling dervish. It pulled you apart and put you back together in another moment. Mark was there, of course, but neither of you acknowledged what had happened only seconds ago. That was then, this was now, and you had a bomb to defuse.
You blew up. Obviously. You were smart, but you weren’t smart enough to disable a piece of technology that you had no experience with. Death was old hat, and you ended up in front of a campfire, blew up again, and was promptly deposited in a streamer-lined room. Music flooded your senses, lights flickered from purple to pink to purple, and—oh, you knew where you were.
Wilford didn’t notice you at first as he slipped between the streamers. He was still dancing, but anything else would have been concerning. He jumped back with a yelp when he saw you, martini glass barely spilling but for a fleck on the ground.
A glance up and down, and then he relaxed.
“Oh, it’s you. Is it that time already?”
Talking continued after he finished his sentence, but it was coming from behind the streamers. You took a step towards it and were immediately gestured away by Wil.
“Let’s chat over here, away from them. They’re still figuring themselves out, those two. Quite the story, but for another day.”
You were herded backwards, barely far enough for the voices to fade and not quick enough to tame your curiosity, but Wilford left no room for questions.
“And I’m glad that I ran into you,” he said, “because you’ve been avoiding me!”
Pink swirled next to him, a wormhole looking for its next meal that went unfed as he popped it.
You didn’t know that was possible—and, knowing Wilford, it wasn’t.
As if he hadn’t just challenged your understanding of the universes, he continued, “You’ve been avoiding me, and now that I have you right where I want you, I’m gonna book that interview. And I won’t take no for an answer. And I won’t take yes either. No choices at all, really. Haven’t you had enough of those?”
He reached into a wormhole that arrived on his cue, and you should have really questioned that, or at least thought about it, but you didn’t, you couldn’t, because what did he mean by an interview?
All it took was a minute. Sixty seconds and only talking. In the grand scheme of things, it was over in just one. Every hope that you had of getting out crumbled in your palm. Freedom from this nightmare was washed away, joining Wilford’s words as he rambled on about the interview that you had already attended. That loop was closed. There was no hole to get through.
You weren’t getting out.
In the aftermath, it was a rather foolish idea. Optimism had never been your forté, but you had indulged yourself. Nothing bad could come from it, so why not give in to the delusion for a while?
Anger gave way to fear gave way to agony gave way to numbness. There wasn’t a point in fighting for yourself anymore. It would never amount to anything, and you moved through the next paths in a haze. Things happened, and you made your choices, knowing full well that they weren’t choices at all.
When you saw the older version of Mark sitting in the diner booth, you ignored him. Words of wisdom wouldn’t help you, and you saw the light from under the next door. He didn’t call after you, and you let it slip closed after you had stepped through to the warp core.
You were knocked out of your mental blur by pain bursting at the side of your head. Knees colliding with the floor, you didn’t have time to put your hands out to cushion your next fall. Instead, your body toppled, and two firm thunks rang out as you and the fire extinguisher hit the deck.
“Sorry about that. Couldn’t afford to let you make another mistake.”
Even with the blossoming ache that reverberated through your skull, you recognized the voice. You guessed this was payback for getting him blown up twice, but, in your defense, they had both been accidents.
You turned over so that your back was to the blissfully cold ground, but Mark was grabbing your wrist before you could try and get to your feet. With a pair of pliers, he ripped the crystal from your wrist, and the urge to vomit swam through your stomach.
“Yeah, funny thing to say after an eternity of nothing but second chances—”
“Cut the whining, Mark.”
He froze, and you took the opportunity to cough. Damn, your voice was scratchy. How long had it been since you had spoken? Probably just as long as your break between hugging people. You had almost forgotten what you sounded like.
Shakily, he asked, “What?”
When you stayed silent, letting your eyes close, panic lurched into his voice.
“No, no, what did you say?”
He knelt down in front of you just as you pushed yourself onto your elbows.
“I said, cut the whining. Even here, you’re acting like a brat.”
“Captain—”
“Stop it,” you interrupted. “We both know I’m no captain, and you’re no engineer.”
One of his hands returned to your de-crystalled arm, while the other supported your waist as you maneuvered to the railing. The bumps of the bars dug into your back, but you liked being able to look him in the eye comfortably. Pure eye contact lasted a mere moment before Mark looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
You blinked. Your first attempt to speak was a sputter, an engine that wouldn’t turn over. The second try was a crunchy, “For what?”
“I hit you with a fire extinguisher.”
“I think that’s the least of what you’ve done.”
You watched Mark struggle with what to say while you struggled with an oncoming headache. The memory of Benjamin’s miracle cure haunted you.
Mark opened and closed his mouth a few times, but he eventually settled on asking, “Why are you talking to me?”
“I can shut up if you want.”
“No!”
The corner of your mouth perked up. Dramatic as ever—but then your smile dropped again. He sounded so scared. He was an actor, through and through, and he never showed all of his cards. This vulnerability that you had a front seat to was a thing that you begrudgingly appreciated. You were a lot of things, but you tried not to be cruel.
After he settled down, Mark continued, “No, I mean, why now?”
“I ran into William,” was your short answer.
You didn’t blame him for gasping, nor for letting it out as a soft hiss. If that thing that had trapped you in the mirror showed up, you didn’t know what you would do. As far as things went, a gasp was tame.
But you kept talking, not letting him make too many incorrect assumptions. “Or- or I thought… I thought I did.”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t him anymore.” You huffed. “He’s pink.”
His throat bobbed. “What did you say to him?”
Your unimpressed gaze slid over to meet his as you replied, “For being in control of this place, you sure do ask a lot of questions. Shouldn’t you know everything that goes on here?”
Mark twisted his body to that he could slide next to you. The thud of his back against the railing rang out in the warp core before fading into the universe.
“I’m not in control,” he admitted. “Not fully. If it were up to me, William wouldn’t be here.”
You knew that, you had assumed as much before, and you knew it didn’t mean anything—but there was still a sick, stubborn part of you that wanted it to.
“If he got in—”
“You can’t get out.”
“Why not?”
“You’re dead.”
“So are you.”
Your pulse was rising even as the shotgun burst of words faded. Mark’s nod had you glancing away.
“We can’t get out,” he said. “Neither of us would survive anymore.”
The universe took you down to rock bottom and then dug a little deeper to make sure you were good and truly hopeless. The metal bar behind your head dinged as your head fell backwards.
“You’re shattered. But you’re not broken. When you’re on one of the adventures, you’re alive, and I intend to keep it that way—” A word caught in his throat, and his hands clenched into fists, “—I can’t just let you die, I-I couldn’t.”
You had so many questions. You wanted to ask him why it mattered so much, where you really were, how long he could keep this up for. The only thing that came to your mind was a single statement.
“Mark, I’m tired.”
“I know.”
“I’m so tired.”
“I know.” He turned his head to you, and you met his gaze out of the corner of your eye. “But what else can I do?”
You didn’t know. You didn’t want to die, but continuing to run was just as much a death sentence. You wanted a break from it all, somewhere to rest for as long as you wanted. This reprieve in the warp core was the first in a while, but you were waiting for the hourglass to run out.
“Why do you keep coming after me?” you asked. “I haven’t said a word to you, I don’t do what you want me to, I go out of my way to annoy you. In the heist, you—”
You cut yourself off; the memory of how badly Mark had wanted to go down those paths only brought the pain of abandonment back to you.
Mark encouraged you with a light, “What?”
“You kept trying to leave.”
A second of silence passed, and then another, and then another, and the sand in the hourglass was pooling at the bottom.
When he spoke, it was close to a whisper, “I thought you hated me.”
“I did.”
But you hated being alone more.
Whether or not he had actually answered your question, you pushed forward, asking, “What do we do now?”
If this was all there was, loop after loop after loop, was there anything to fight for? You had been searching for an exit for so long, and to know that there was no exit… Hopelessness was difficult to overcome, and your resolve was thinning dramatically.
You sought a firm answer from Mark, but his response was a shrug and a smile and the one thing you never thought you would hear again.
“Do you want to go on that date?”
For the second time, you started laughing. You cracked up, broke down, bent over yourself with the force of your cackling. Mark joined in hesitantly, but you barely noticed it in your fit. Even when the warp core started to crumble around you, you weren’t all done. Tears gathered in the corners of your eyes, and you put all your effort into keeping them there.
“Fuck it,” you said through chuckles as you eventually came down from that high. “Sure. Let’s—” A few more escaped you, “—let’s go on a date.”
When all that remained was the little slice of universe that you were still sitting on, you turned your full attention to Mark. For a second, you saw him not as an engineer, and not as an actor, but as a politician whom you had once given your heart to. He wore a suit and a bowtie, held a cane, and spoke to you so gently that you never once heard him yell until that fateful day—the suit turned red, and the voice turned teasing, and you wondered, for a moment, if you could live with that for the rest of eternity.
[SO. as i am always, im so sorry about how long this took. im so appreciative of your request and every request that I get (I'll address where I've been in another post, but, for now, I'll leave it at my apologies), but I hope you enjoyed reading anyhow, and I would also love to see how you'd take it, so let me know if you do or have done!]
Okay, so I just got back from seeing Iron Lung, and I have a few specific things that I wanted to comment on. So, uh, spoilers?
First things first, I bloody loved it. Most especially, I loved the combination of cinematography and suspense. I loved that every time the radio was onscreen I was staring at the light, waiting for it to blink - by the last quarter I was begging for it. I loved when Simon/the Convict was first talking to SM-8 and he started talking about whether she were real, the singular oxygen light was always neatly centre frame, reminding us that he didn’t have long left and doing the monologue was actively reducing his chances of survival. I loved the constant flashing of the camera light, even when you weren’t allowed to see the picture it took, I loved it all.
(To get a bit more essayist) Due to watching the movie in the cinema, any time the camera would flash or the radio’s light would go off, the entire theatre would flash, which really ties into the themes of the light, the truth, and perception.
I also really appreciated the practical effects (which has to be the case given the blood world record) and the audience I was in audibly shuffled both when Simon peeled the bandages away from his skin and when he ripped his own arm off.
I’ve obviously seen/heard some qualms with the movie (some say it dragged at points and there’s some confusion about the plot concerning Eden, the Firmament, etc.), but I think -given that it’s Mark’s first actual movie, and it was based on a game that has a ‘missable’ plot - it was brilliant.
Plus, if you’ve seen what I write, you know damn well I like me some trippy, eldritch-deity scenes.
Hello! I was wondering if you had ever written/had any ideas of when/how Mark had found the DA.
I see a lot of different interpretations in which both are so broken and longing for companionship they cling to one another, and thats why mark makes the DA his main character, or that Mark is forcing the DAs hand and using them as a pawn . I wanted to know what you thought! 😸
Okay, I've finally formulated my ideas about this because I love having multiple interpretations of things, but there will always be favourite ideas! A lot of it comes down to whether you see Actor Mark as a sympathetic character.
Number one, I wrote something like the second idea - Mark using the DA as a 'pawn' - in my series about Dark (Mirror, Mirror). In that, Mark takes the DA out of the mirror dimension/void as an attack on Dark, totally antagonistic. At this point, they've developed a positive relationship, so it's both a way to take something away from Dark and a flex that he could get them out of the mirror and Dark couldn't. However, they don't really have a 'use' once they're out in this case.
Another interpretation could happen if the DA is removed from the mirror before Dark ever gets to them again, therefore somewhat removing Dark from the equation. In this, it could go either way in the portrayal of Mark - as you said, he might genuinely be looking for companionship, which I could definitely see because the DA is the person least responsible for what went down between Celine, William, and Mark. Plus, that whole "It's not fair, is it?" could be taken as him feeling genuinely sorry for the DA, who got shot without doing anything wrong. Mark could feel kinship with them in that neither of them had a choice in what happened to them - with the affair or the murder.
Admittedly, I used to see Mark pretty one-dimensionally - Damien has always been one of my favourite egos, and he got him killed, so he was on my bad list from day one. However, as I started writing for him and actually exploring his character, he got to me. I went from completely condemning him to having a five-part fic about him. (An animation - linked here - was probably the start of my softening towards him- because omg the lyrics and the imagery and--)
SO! At the moment, my personal interpretation of how Mark found the DA has a lot to do with his hero complex (I touched on this idea in Mirror, Mirror, but it was mainly mocking that Mark saved the DA from the mirror). In Mark's mind, he's the 'hero' of the story, and Dark/Damien's the 'villain', so who better to help prove his superiority than rescuing the victim of the villain? Dark was the one who trapped them in the mirror, after all, so why not help them get out? It's very much the idea of Mark collecting actors to fill the roles.
Also, I saw this post on Pinterest (sue me) and it made me think of the DA and Mark's relationship, so you guys are gonna have to see it, too:
okay, this is pretty long and I've already answered the question so feel free to ignore this, but it's just hit me that, even though Mark tells Damien that he's going to be the villain in the story... has he actually been made to do anything villainous? You could go through the entirety of Date, Heist, and Space without encountering Dark. SO! My theory is that Mark appeared in 'Damien' in order to collect him as the 'vilain' for his story (in the same way as he would for the DA), but Celine killing him interrupted it, so Mark left without a villain and had to come up with something else for his adventure plots. That still left Damien with the ability to impact the story, though, hence why Dark appears in some paths but is otherwise unrelated to the general plot of the adventure.
Anyway, sorry, just had to get that out there before I forgot.
But yeah! Also sorry for the long answer, but usually my thoughts would be a literal fanfiction, so I guess it's relatively shorter? Either way, thank you so much for asking, I really love exploring characters :D
Likewise, I'd love to hear about anyone else's thoughts!
