#I think it should be called “Jimmy's Life”
Text
burn a light between
hello all! welcome to this team rancher fic requested by @flyingfish1234 who said:
Oh, yes! I was just wondering if you could write something with either chronic pain as a main point or something. Maybe something double life but idk? Team rancher?
here we are fish my beloved!! this has been crossposted on my ao3 - TheYesterdayShow.
title is from Speedway by Cedar Sigo.
~
Tango thinks he hides his trepidation well when he wakes up at spawn, Jimmy stirring beside him. He bemoans his mistake, apologizes, agrees to go with Jimmy’s plan.
When Jimmy leaves to see if he can regather his stuff, Tango buries his face in his palms, takes a shaky breath.
No wonder he’d been attacked by all those mobs. No wonder that creeper had turned up out of nowhere. No wonder he’s the first one yellow.
He’s soulbound to the Canary.
He hadn’t realized it until he discovered his soulmate, but he’d wanted it to be anyone but Jimmy. He’d wanted Grian, really, as crazy as the man was—or Impulse, someone he knows well and is decent at surviving. Heck, he’d even have been fine with Scott or BigB, despite barely knowing them—and when it comes down to it, even Scar has a better track record of survival than Jimmy does.
There’s nothing he can do, though. He’s stuck with Jimmy, as much as he doesn’t want to be. And he really doesn’t want to be.
But it’s forcibly him and Jimmy against the world, so Tango gets to gathering materials for their base and tools. His life depends on keeping Jimmy alive, impossible as it seems.
He’s barely cut down a single tree when his knee gives out from under him. He hisses at the pain—it’s not too bad, not like anything that had actually happened to him, but Jimmy must have tripped or something and banged his knee.
Tango balances himself against a tree, takes in a breath. When he feels like he can put weight on his left leg again, he does—but it doesn’t stop hurting. It aches, occasionally stabbing through with pain sharper than he would expect from a single fall. Maybe Jimmy tripped again?
Tango can handle a little pain. He’s died before, he’s been injured before. He grits his teeth and gets back to work, pausing every now and then just to breathe through it. Jimmy must have seriously messed up his knee doing whatever he did. Just more reason to get a hut built. Maybe Tango can convince him to just stay inside for the entire death game, where the only pain will be once-in-a-while singed fingers from poking at the fireplace.
Aw, who’s he kidding? Tango’s stuck with the Canary, of all people. Even if Jimmy stays inside, it’ll leave Tango with some cursed obligation to get them killed, and then they’ll be on Red and who even knows if they’ll be able to keep a lid on the bloodthirst enough to be conscious of their fragility. Tango’s never really interacted much with a Red Jimmy, but he’s probably even more reckless and danger-inducing than usual.
His knee throbs again and Tango bites his tongue accidentally, then curses at the taste of blood. Jimmy will have felt that. Which, now that he thinks of it, is kind of embarrassing. Someone he barely knows is right now aware that Tango just accidentally bit his tongue. That’s stupid. This whole soulmates thing is stupid.
There’s nothing he can do about that, though. There’s nothing he can do about any of this. So Tango goes back to ignoring the pain pulsing out from his knee and continues gathering supplies for their home.
-
Tango’s building a cow pen when he realizes that he can’t feel his left hand.
He pauses, wipes away the sweat that’s dripping into his eyes, then tugs off his rough leather glove with his teeth (his right hand still holding the fence post in place). At first he doesn’t see any noticeable difference. It looks like his hand, he observes as he turns it back and forth, normal, just slightly buzzing and—is it swollen?
He didn’t think he’d been working for too long, and he doesn’t remember pinching a nerve—and pinching a nerve, while it would explain the numbness and buzzing, does not explain swelling. He holds the fence post with his knees, awkwardly half-squatting to keep it in place (his left knee still aches which doesn’t make that any easier) and pulls off his other glove to compare his hands.
Yep, his left hand is definitely swollen—skin reddened and splotchy in comparison to the right, and the lines of his knuckles are just slightly farther apart on the left. He tries to bend the fingers of his left hand, finds them stiff and reluctant to move.
That can’t be right. Tango’s built dozens—if not hundreds—of bases and farms in his life, and he’s never seen anything like this happen from the exertion of the task. The longer he stares, the more the numbness gives way to a slow aching pain spreading through his entire left hand.
What on earth—
Right. Jimmy.
Jimmy’s out doing something—looking for a horn, maybe?—and he must’ve, like, dropped a cobblestone on his hand or whatever. Not that Tango can come up with any reason as to why that might have occurred.
He flexes his fingers again, watches as the movement meets even more resistance than before. This sucks. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to grip anything with his left hand at this rate, and he doesn’t even know why.
It hurts more, now, in an almost tingling way, like brushing a collection of needles across his palm. Jimmy’s got to be doing something idiotic—but there’s nothing he can do about it on his end, except growl in frustration and slap some ice on the offending hand. Which he does, even though it only helps marginally. It at least brings it closer back to the numb state it had started with, so after ten minutes of icing, tapping his foot impatiently as he sits on the steps that lead into their shack, Tango ties the ice onto his still-sore knee and returns to work.
As soon as Jimmy gets back, Tango isn’t letting him out of his sight until he figures out what he’s been doing to injure himself in such inconvenient ways.
-
When Tango wakes up in the morning, it’s not just his hand and knee that are bothering him (though they still are). It’s also his hip—and it hurts. A lot.
He gasps a little when it shifts, grinding against the joint, as he tries to sit up. Usually Tango would chalk that up to age and not staying young forever, but he hadn’t felt any sort of warning that this was coming. His joints ache now and again, but it’s always achiness that vanishes quickly and only bothers him when it’s cold out, and that is not what this is. This is bad. This is worse than anything so far in this game. This is—well, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say this is his hip dislocated.
It’s not—he can move it well enough, he can feel his leg below it just fine, but it hurts so terribly that it has to be something bad, doesn’t it? He doesn’t remember sustaining an injury, but he must have for something this awful.
Tango does his best to work around it for now, rolling out of bed and limping to where he’d thrown his clothes the previous night. They need to get some sheep, get a change of clothes spun. It’s been a couple of days, and despite the cleanse of the respawn, his usual outfit is becoming a bit ripe.
His hip screams at him, and he only gets his shirt pulled over his head before he has to stop and check it over, probing figures searching for the injury.
There’s nothing.
The fingers of his left hand pulse from where he’s grabbing his leg, and he watches as they turn red and begin to swell again.
Right. Soulmates. Jimmy.
A quick glance around the shack tells him Jimmy’s not here. He must’ve already headed out for the morning—something that worries Tango, mostly because of the pain that’s sure to be coming his way.
But he also kinda just wants Jimmy to be okay.
He hadn’t known Jimmy but by reputation, and it’s so terribly strange actually living with the Canary. But . . . not in the way he’d expected.
Jimmy jokes around and gives Tango praise for the bare minimum and always has a smile. He’s really a nice guy when it comes down to it, and Tango’s genuinely a bit surprised that he hadn’t known that before. Everyone who had teamed up with him in the past only proclaimed his faults.
What’s probably the most gut-wrenching to learn about Jimmy is that he cares. Jimmy cares a lot—he takes the time to name each of their cows, he insists on carrying Tango through the door of their house bridal style when it’s first complete, he extends offers of friendship and trust to anyone he meets. Just yesterday, Tango watched him cradle an armful of chicks on his knees, pure adoration beaming from his face, as if it was the first time he’d even seen a baby chicken.
Tango can’t imagine how much it must have hurt for Jimmy’s former allies and friends to loudly shout his mistakes and ignore everything great about him. Tango’s not even known him for a week and he’s already coming to terms with the fact that Jimmy is more than his legend, is more than what everyone says. Jimmy’s a person, a kind if often misguided person, and Tango definitely still doesn’t want to be soulbound to him but he can at least show him the same kindness.
Jimmy’s a good friend. He deserves some happiness.
That doesn’t excuse all the hurt he’s causing Tango.
Jimmy may be a good friend, but he’s a terrible soulmate. He keeps getting hurt in some stupid way, leaving Tango to limp across their one room hut to the furnace just to try and warm up his terribly aching body. Not that it’ll help much, knowing that it’s Jimmy’s pain and not his own.
Now, he is a little bitter over it. He grumbles a few curses under his breath as he stretches, trying to pop the joints of his left knee and hip as if it’ll ease the pain. He massages the three main points of pain as well, his response to pain so deeply ingrained that he can’t help but try to soothe it, even if it isn’t his own. He’s not sure where Jimmy is right now, but he is sure that there’s no way the man is walking.
Maybe it’s Tango’s responsibility as his soulmate to go find him. Then again, maybe it’s Jimmy’s responsibility as Tango’s soulmate to be more careful about his health.
There’s nothing he can say for it now. Jimmy’s out and about getting injured, so Tango ought to get that farm started that they’d discussed last night. He takes another moment to just breathe, the pain settling into more of a pulsing ache, then hobbles out of the house, more than a little unhappy with Jimmy.
He doesn’t see Jimmy all day. All day, he continues to hurt.
-
It’s still dark out when Tango wakes, an agonized moan escaping his lips.
He can’t move. The entire left side of his body radiates with fire, from his jaw to his toes, leeching any coolness from the right side and leaving him sweaty under the blankets he can’t move to get out from under.
It hurts, it hurts so much worse than Tango could have ever imagined, it feels like axes splitting open the skin of his side and fishing hooks caught in his knee and white-hot razors along his arm and hand and back and gravel in his hip and a porcupine nestling his foot. Everything hurts so, so bad, and it’s everything Tango can do not to burst into tears as a choked cry squeezes past his clenched teeth.
“Oh—Tango! Did I wake you up?”
Someone’s speaking to him, he doesn’t know who so he can’t tell them what’s wrong, that’s just common sense, can’t be seen as weak on this world—
But there’s something right about their voice, something that, deep down past all the layers of torment, pulls at his soul.
Jimmy.
“Hurts,” Tango manages to wheeze, and there’s a moment of nothing but suffering before there’s a soft glow beside him and he focuses on Jimmy’s clear brown eyes, his brow wrinkled in concern.
“Oh, gosh, you’re all sweaty,” Jimmy murmurs. “Do you want the blanket off?”
Tango nods, gasps when it sends shooting pain up his jaw. Blurrily, he sees Jimmy slowly pull himself up from his knees by gripping the side of the bed, then place his lantern down.
Moments later, gentle hands are tugging the blanket off of him, wrapping it up into a ball at the foot of the bed. Tango takes a shuddering breath, cursing raspily when he feels a tear trickle down his temple.
“Oh, gosh. Oh, geez,” Jimmy mutters from somewhere beside him, then there’s a large hand shifting under his right shoulder, another holding his right hand. “I’m about to help you sit up, all right? It helps, I promise.”
Tango nods almost imperceptibly. He’s practically lying in a puddle of his own sweat, and despite the terrifying pain crashing wave after wave into his body, he feels as if he might be more in control while sitting up.
Jimmy counts to three, then heaves him up so quickly Tango’s almost too shocked to feel anything. Almost.
Because as soon as he’s sitting up, all of the worst spots—his hand, hip, knee, jaw, foot—scream at him in one huge burst. His right hand somehow finds his pants to grip hard, reassurance that he’s here, he still exists, even when his world feels like nothing but endless shards of glass being hurled at him.
It takes Tango too long to realize that Jimmy’s sat beside him on the bed, both arms clutched around his middle. A sob tears from Tango’s throat at a pulse in his left hand, and as he turns his head ever so slightly, he sees Jimmy wince in time.
Right—Jimmy’s feeling all of this as well.
How in the world had he been able to walk, let alone help Tango sit up?
More importantly, Tango hadn’t done anything dangerous in his sleep. This pain doesn’t belong to him. Jimmy had been awake already—had he left the house, had something bad happened to him?
Panic drowns the pain, and Tango releases his pant leg and turns properly, using the low light of the shuttered lantern to examine Jimmy for injuries. There’s no blood or bruising that he can see on Jimmy’s exposed left arm, but the sleeveless white undershirt he wears to sleep obscures his side and the lighting is too dark to see his legs properly—
Jimmy carefully uncurls Tango’s questing right hand from where it’s wrapped around the hem of his undershirt, pats it. His face twists guiltily when he speaks. “I’m so sorry, Tango. I have a pan of water boiling for tea, it’ll help if you feel like trying it.”
Tea. Tango’s never been much of a tea-drinker, but it actually sounds . . . really nice. The pain is severe enough that his stomach is rolling, so at the very least, something to calm that would be great. A warm drink could ease the aching a bit too. He nods agreement, winces when it sends another jolt down his neck.
His knee and hip begin to hurt exponentially more—at levels he didn’t think were possible—when Jimmy stands and crosses the room, leaving his line of sight. Tango breathes in through clenched teeth, then out. Again. Again. He’s not going to cry, he tells himself despite the tears already falling. He can breathe through the pain.
A flash of something hot—stinging—burning hits Tango’s right arm just above the wrist and he jerks, hissing when the jostle just exacerbates everything. He looks to his left—Jimmy’s cursing over and over, balancing a very full pan of sloshing, steaming water. The light of the furnace is brighter than the lantern, and Tango can see a light red burn spreading across his right arm. A glance down at his own arm shows the same mark.
“I’ll rub some ointment on that in a sec, just gotta pour the other cup—”
That cup presumably goes smoother, because soon enough, Jimmy’s limping over with a cup for him. Jimmy presses it into his hands with instructions to let it seep, then goes back for the medical supplies. After several minutes of the cup warming Tango’s hand, he feels the burn on his arm cool, and though it’s only a marginal improvement in the grand scheme of his body, Tango’s grateful for it.
“Stupid Grian and his stupid no-potions rule,” Jimmy grumbles as he gingerly sits beside Tango again, sipping at his own tea. It’s not instant, but Tango feels his body relax slightly without his own input.
He lifts the cup to his nose, sniffs it. It smells almost woody, and while that’s not usually something he goes for, preferring a sweet drink, he tastes it anyhow.
It’s . . . well, it’s strange. It’s quite a bit saltier than he expected, and the woody flavor is very present—almost as if biting into a piece of driftwood found on the beach. He’s not sure he likes it.
He can’t deny it’s helping, though. It still hurts, a lot, but the tea cuts through the fog of pain in his head and relaxes his tensed muscles.
“Better?”
Tango nods, breathing a sigh of relief when the motion only twinges. “What . . . where’d you learn to make this stuff?” he rasps, shaking the mug for emphasis.
“Lizzie taught me, actually. I’m not sure if she invented it, though. It probably came from Ocean tradition.”
Tango chooses not to ask about that. Instead, with a slow wave of pain cresting, he takes another sip and brings up the obvious.
“You’re hurt.”
Jimmy winces. “No. I’m not.”
Tango croaks out a laugh, despite there being nothing funny about any of this. “Oh yeah?” he challenges. “Why’s it hurt, then? I’ve been feeling it all week. What’s going on?”
The hunch of Jimmy’s shoulders is despondent, his gaze into the tea guilty once again. “I’m not—I haven’t been getting injured,” he begins. “Well, except for just now, with the boiling water. But this—” he gestures vaguely to the left side of his body with his cup— “this is just the way it is. It always hurts.”
That’s not possible, though. Jimmy’s young, and he runs around and farms and keeps up with everything, and with this level of agony Tango doesn’t think that would be possible for anyone, no matter how young they are.
“Is this—is it a Canary thing?” asks Tango, trying to work it out aloud. “Like, the curse is already trying to kill you, and it just hurts until—”
“No,” Jimmy interrupts quickly. “It’s not—it’s nothing to do with—that. It’s—look, Tango, do you know what chronic pain is?”
“I’m a smart boy, I can figure it out,” Tango says drily, then more seriously, “like arthritis?”
“That’s one kind, yeah. It really just means a pain that you’re stuck with for life. And that’s . . . that’s what this is.”
“Yeah, but arthritis isn’t—isn’t this,” Tango protests, biting back a gasp as his elbow flares. “It’s—it means that sometimes you need a cane ‘cuz your knees are tired. This—”
“—isn’t arthritis,” Jimmy finishes. He looks tired, more than anything. “It’s called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, or CRPS. You ought to look it up when this is over, not too many people know about it. And arthritis can be a lot worse than you think, you know.”
CRPS. Tango rolls the letters around his tongue, takes another sip of his tea. The pain is definitely more manageable now, seeing as he’s not clenching his jaw so hard he’s afraid of cracking a tooth. “So . . . what, you just woke up one day like this? Or were you born with it?”
Jimmy frowns. “Neither, really. It—well, some years back, my hand just . . . stopped working right. Temperatures were all wrong, it got all swollen sometimes. All that. And ever since, it’s just . . . it’s spread.”
Tango takes a moment to process that, as well. It’s a little difficult to wrap his head around: Jimmy’s been feeling this pain for years, and it’s only gotten worse as time passed. Like dementia, his mind supplies randomly. At first it’s just little things here and there, then it builds and then one day you wake up with everything wrong.
“That . . . that sucks,” Tango says vehemently. “You just live like this? All the time?”
“There are good days and bad days,” Jimmy shrugs. Tango swallows back the pain that rolls through his left shoulder at the motion. “This is—this is a bad day. I pushed myself too hard this week.”
“Is there anything that helps?”
Jimmy raises his mug. “This stuff. Stretching and sleeping well and all those healthy lifestyle things. But potions don’t touch it, and neither does a respawn, so.”
That’s a disappointment for sure. Tango had been about to ask Grian to lift the potion restriction for Jimmy alone in light of this information. If Jimmy’s right, though, and there’s nothing that really relieves this pain. . . .
“How are we going to survive?” he mumbles to himself. If they’re both in constant, mind-numbing pain, how will they ever be able to stand up to the other crazy pairs on the server? How will they be conscious enough to even recognize threats?
“Sorry,” Jimmy says quietly, and Tango doesn’t realize until he glances over that Jimmy’s face is shadowed in guilt.
“Hey, no—that’s not your fault, dude! Why would you ever think it’s your fault?” Tango may still be fairly irritated (or a lot irritated, with this revelation) about Jimmy being his soulmate, but Jimmy’s his soulmate and he won’t stand for that kind of treatment of his soulmate.
Jimmy shrugs again. “I’ve always sort of—dragged everyone else down, you know?”
“What? No—”
“C’mon, Tango,” Jimmy says, fixing him with an exhausted glare. “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid. I know what they call me. I know what they think when they see me. I know what you thought when you realized that I was your soulmate—you didn’t want me. I could tell. I’m—I’m not meant to be happy, I’m not meant to win anything, and everyone knows and makes it their life mission to make sure I’m alone in that.”
It’s not the words that worry Tango the most. It’s the matter-of-fact tone, the clear belief that these thoughts are universal and unshakeable, that really bothers him.
“That’s not true,” he automatically responds. Jimmy just shakes his head.
“Grian won’t give me a horn because he thinks they won’t be fun when I have one,” he counters. “Martyn kicked me out of the Southlands and Grian voted to keep me out twice. Everyone I’ve met since the start of this world has been grateful that it wasn’t me they were stuck with. The last server I was on, everything was taken from me and I was exiled. I’m the Canary and my life is supposed to suck—whether it’s death or destruction or my own body fighting me, I’m supposed to be alone, so that if I die from the fumes no one else will!”
Tango’s not sure how to respond to that, so he doesn’t say anything. All he can think is those sound like a lame excuse for friends.
Jimmy’s shoulders are shaking and he sniffs, runs a hand under his nose. “I’m sorry that the universe—or whatever higher powers there are—stuck us together, Tango. I really am. If I’d had any idea that someone else would be feeling . . . this, I never would’ve agreed to come on this round. We can talk to Grian, arrange something, take me out of the game. I’m sorry I’m here. I’m sorry you’re with me.”
And then he hunches over into a miserable little heap, one that sends pulsing aches through Tango’s bones and his heart.
Because Jimmy’s right. He had been upset, angry even, over being paired with Jimmy. Ever since he found out, he’d been bitter—never to Jimmy’s face, but clearly his efforts to hide his true feelings hadn’t been enough and Jimmy had noticed.
And now that he knows it all—or at least, knows as much as Jimmy felt like telling—those feelings have completely vanished in an instant. Instead of resenting Jimmy just for the chance of being stuck with him, or getting angry at how he seemed to be getting hurt all the time, Tango just feels so much love for Jimmy it hurts.
He may not know the guy very well, but he knows by now that he struggles to even stay on his feet on a daily basis. He knows that he’s world-weary, tired, exhausted. He knows that he must feel like everyone has abandoned him for a chronic condition that he can’t control just because it tends to lead him into death a bit easier.
And maybe Tango is still angry, but not at Jimmy. He’s angry with Jimmy’s so-called friends for abandoning him to a world of nothing but pain.
“You’re amazing,” Tango tells him, and he hadn’t realized exactly what feeling those words were going to be imbued with when he said them, but now he knows and his heart is singing in admiration. “Jimmy, you’re telling me that you deal with this every day, and you’re still an incredible player? That’s—you’re amazing,” he says again, and this time, Jimmy lifts his head up.
His eyes are dry, surprisingly, but he only offers a disbelieving smile. “You think?” he asks drily.
“No, really—how long did you say this had been going on?”
Jimmy bites his lip. “Five years or so? I don’t remember.”
Five years. Five years of this all-encompassing pain, the pain that just minutes ago Tango had been certain he was dying from. And nobody had ever even noticed. He’d somehow hidden it.
He’d hidden it from Tango, too.
“I wish you’d told me earlier,” Tango says. “I wish I’d known.”
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t know you could feel it, otherwise—”
“Not for my own sake,” Tango interrupts. “I wish I’d known so that I could help you be more comfortable. It’s not the whole, feel-each-others’-pain thing. It’s about how you’re my friend, and I want you to feel better. For you, not me.”
Jimmy doesn’t believe him, he can tell. Tango’s not surprised after what he’s said. He takes Jimmy by the shoulder—the right one, of course, slinging his arm around Jimmy’s back to do so—and gently tips his head so that it’s leaning against Jimmy’s.
“I wouldn’t trade you for anyone else on the server,” Tango says, doing his best to rub Jimmy’s shoulder comfortingly. “Who cares if we die first? You’re my soulmate, dude. What’s important is that I got your back no matter what.”
Jimmy bumps his head lightly against Tango’s, lets out a shuddering sigh. “You sure?” he asks, voice so terribly small and achingly vulnerable.
“No doubt about it. And if any one of the others says anything about you, just let me know. I'll make ‘em regret it.”
“You can’t kill until you’re on Red,” Jimmy points out. Tango grins.
“There are a lot of other ways to ruin their lives,” Tango threatens ominously. Jimmy snorts out a laugh.
He’s still in severe amounts of pain. He still barely got any sleep. Somehow, though, Tango feels motivated. Motivated enough to help Jimmy understand that he’s willing to learn to be better.
“So what’s first?”
Jimmy shoots him a confused look. Tango takes another sip of tea before continuing.
“You said this tea stuff helps. What else? Should we take the day off, or power through it? Is there more to do to make it better? What do we do?”
“You—you really want to stay?”
“What, like you expect me to leave you to deal with this alone?” Tango scoffs. “No way. I’m here to support you, man. I want to stay.”
Jimmy nods several times. “Okay. Okay. Um, there’s a few chores we’ll need to do once the sun actually rises, but other than that we’d probably ought to take it easy. Um, ice might be good? But that’s mainly just to numb it enough to get through the chores, it’ll probably be worse after because it hates extreme temperatures. Other than that, we just need to . . . ride it out, see how it goes.”
Tango can do that. He trusts Jimmy knows what he’s doing. “I can handle most of the chores—we’ll both feel better if you stay in bed, I think. I can go get some ice from the icebox to start.”
Of course Jimmy protests. For some reason, none of the others had ever talked about how adamant Jimmy could be about his own capabilities, how desperately he wanted to help. And as the morning goes on, maybe Tango relents a little bit when the burning under his skin gets the better of him—lets Jimmy feed the cows while he pulls weeds out of the garden, lets Jimmy cook up something for lunch while he collects eggs and feeds the chickens.
And if they both sleep the rest of the day (Jimmy tells him they’re out of ‘spoons’, something Tango’s never heard before but is willing to accept), nobody comes calling to find out.
-
Tango knows Jimmy’s exerting himself when the ache in the bones of his left leg jumps from a 4 to an 8 on a 1-10 scale of pain. He’s learned by now that it’ll just trigger a chain reaction and soon his entire body will be on fire, so he packs up his hammer and nails and throws a tarp over the section of roof he’d been redoing. He leaves the ladder propped up against the house, sets his toolbox down just inside the door, and starts a pan of water boiling.
Jimmy stumbles in twenty minutes later, just as the pain in his upper back crescendos.
“Sorry,” he gasps, shucking off his chestplate that Tango notices now has a very glimmery effect to it, “went down to the Deep Dark. It’s—it’s something else down there.”
“That’s incredible!” Tango exclaims, and he helps Jimmy with the rest of the armor, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise at the spikes of agony shooting through him. Jimmy smiles proudly, the only indication that he hurts at all the pinching of his forehead and the lines around his eyes.
Jimmy willingly gets into bed while Tango finishes up the tea—a sign of how exhausted he is, really. Tango’s learned over the past week that Jimmy does not like giving up, even at the expense of his bodily functions. It’s another thing about him that, for some reason, had never been touted by his so-called friends.
When the tea is done and they both have their mugs, Tango gingerly clambers onto their pushed-together beds and kneels beside the face-down Jimmy. “Is it all right if I touch you?” he asks, suddenly anxious. Jimmy’s back tenses; Tango’s own back seizes in pain.
“Wh—how so?” Jimmy asks cautiously.
Tango works his hands absently in the air, miming his intended actions to no one. “Like, a massage. I thought it might help to loosen the muscles up or something.”
Jimmy’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe. I’ve never had anyone willing to try.”
Tango swallows back the anger at how lonely Jimmy sounds and gets to work, starting with both hands, switching to just his right when it proves too painful to be continuing with the left. He massages up and down Jimmy’s back, then his left leg, all while Jimmy presses his face into the pillow and is silent.
It doesn’t really help. Tango only feels marginally better, although that may be more because his body is less tense rather than any actual pain relief. But when Tango lies down properly, gritting his teeth at the spasms of pain trailing up and down his body, Jimmy turns to rest his cheek on Tango’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” he whispers, sniffling a bit. “Not just—but for everything. I don’t deserve you.”
Tango shifts so that his arm wraps around Jimmy, holding him close to his chest. Despite the stinging at the motion, Jimmy melts into him, and Tango wonders just how long it’s been since Jimmy was properly hugged.
Jimmy may be the Canary, but Jimmy’s his Canary. And Tango’s going to make darn sure that he’s always got someone to hold him when the pain won’t relinquish its grip. He’s going to be here for Jimmy until they both die first, and even beyond that.
Tango’s going to do his best to prove to Jimmy that his pain does not make him a burden. It does not make him unworthy of love.
And maybe Tango will learn a few things along the way, about chronic pain and disability, and how unfair the world is for those who need help. For now though, he’ll just hold Jimmy tight until they both fall asleep, and hope that Jimmy will begin to understand just how amazing he is.
#double life smp#double life fanfic#team rancher#jimmy solidarity#solidaritygaming#tangotek#dlsmp#mcyt#mas writes#written as platonic but if u want u can interpret it as romantic idc#i wrote a bit about crps in the endnotes on ao3#so if you wanna check that out go ahead!#um the cdc keeps calling me should i answer#ANYWAY i wrote much of this off of my own experience with crps!#i recommend looking into it#ask to tag#i really enjoyed writing this#ive actually written from tango's pov before funnily enough#back during deadcember i had a last life fic abt tango#um anyway lmk what you think!#love you guys
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im gonna be honest i think some of you should actually consider gatekeeping more. sometimes gates have keepers for a reason.
#anime life#sorry i saw the 'you don't have to listen to goth music to be goth' posts and it sapped my life force#but i AM enjoying thinking about applying this attitude to other subcultures#you dont have to do drag or enjoy watching drag performances to be a drag queen. you dont have to like ICP to be a juggalo#saying someone should like jimmy buffets music if they want to call themself a parrothead is gatekeeping (bad)#im so sorry i know it feels bad to be told that you actually dont meet the criteria for something but also. cmon.#words MEAN things#if you dont have to listen to goth music and you dont have to dress goth to be goth. then im goth????#i dress like a business clown and i only listen to the mountain goats. am i goth now.
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Can we talk about how many extremely successful celebrities have admitted they manifested their fame? You have REAL LIFE PEOPLE telling you they manifested their everything and you STILL doubt the law?
Oprah Winfrey has talked numerous times about manifesting her dreams, including her role in a movie she liked by visualising herself as an actress in the said movie. “The way you think creates reality for yourself.” — Oprah in 2007 on American talk show.
Drake has said he manifested his success and even some elements of his house in LA by visualising. "This some shit I wrote up back when I was broke. See the power of the mind is not a joke.” — His own lyrics in the song ‘Both’.
Ariana Grande wrote a whole song called “Pete Davidson”, which talks about how she manifested her relationship and engagement with Pete. “I thought you into my life / Universe must have my back” — Her own lyrics.
Lady Gaga is super open about how she manifested her fame by repeating affirmations to herself. “You repeat it to yourself every day. And it’s not yet, it’s a lie. You’re saying a lie over and over and over again, and then, one day, the lie is true.” — Her own words.
And these are just some of those who openly talked about it, but there’s many more ‘subtle’ cases, just like how Megan The Stallion tweeted in 2014 “I promise rap is gonna take off for me” or Tom Holland admitting Zendaya was his first celebrity crush and now he’s full on dating her.
So who cares if Jimmy and his 30 followers believe manifestation isn’t real? Let them be, they don’t matter. They are happy with living in failure, but you don’t have to settle for that.
Manifestation found you for a reason, don’t let it go to waste because of miserable people, they aren’t the ones you should be taking advice from.
#law of assumption#law of attraction#manifestation#manifesting#reality shifting#shifting community#void#void state#loa
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if mcyt isn’t fiction then
people who create dnd characters that are similar to them in personality are just playing themselves and should not be treated as having made a character
people who make any other dnd character should also be treated as just playing themselves since people refuse to even consider roleplay smps as fiction
any ocs someone puts a bit of themselves into? nope not fiction!
actors who play a character with the same first name as them aren’t really acting
and so on
maybe YOU can’t separate characters and real people and think that everything you see from a youtuber even when they’re explicitly acting is how they are in real life but we as a fandom just don’t have that issue lol. we’ve had disclaimers and indicators for when we’re talking about characters and not content creators for years because a certain smp contained a character having suicidal thoughts as a result of abuse at the hands of another character and we needed to make it absolutely crystal clear that we were referring to a fictional storyline and not real guy #1 being an abuser and real guy #2 being suicidal. these customs have either extended into other corners of mcyt fandom, or some developed their own independently like hispanic mcyt fans have used the word cubito to distinguish mc guy from real life guy from years, a term that other language speakers liked so much we’ve also started picking it up lol
we know exactly what we’re doing. i get that the line maybe does seem more blurred to an outsider looking in (i wouldn’t know given that both my first fandom at age 12 and current fandom at age 20 were mcrp lol) but it’s universally understood amongst us. i don’t have a problem separating hermitcraft!gem and empires s1!gem the wizard with a twin brother and empires s2!gem the princess and cc!gem the real life canadian woman.
idk it rubs me the wrong way that after years of trying to explain this we’re either met with people calling us racists because of three guys that the rest of us (all of us, really, because dream team fans do not claim to be minecraft fans. those are the type to actually write rpf and ship the real life racist guys) hate probably a lot more than any of you do, or they watch a few minutes of a less roleplay-heavy series/part and decide that the entire medium is invalid as a form of storytelling
it’s so annoying. i don’t think we need to be understood to have validity as a fandom we’ve been doing this for years already without that but it is so infuriating and sad how whenever there’s some kind of fandom poll thing one of three things happens
mcyt fans are banned outright and placed on the same level as something like hp
an mcyt fan runs their own and gets harassed for it
a non-mcyt fan allows us in until they get harassed so badly by whatever fandoms we go up against that they end up deleting our bracket
in what world is that normal behaviour. and that harassment always involves calling them all racist cishet white men such as misgendering both eret (real life bisexual genderqueer person) and their character (also queer), attempting to harass jimmy solidarity fans because jimmy makes mc videos so he must be a dream associate (the only time they interacted was in a tournament during which dream and georgenotfound shittalked jimmy’s best friends to his face), all the shit quackity has gotten for being a former friend of the dream team as if he wasn’t the #1 victim of their racism and xenophobia, the fact that any time c!technoblade is involved in a poll we have to beg other fandoms not to talk shit about him because the real life man died of cancer before dream’s grooming allegations came out, similarly when tfc was in one. and so on and so forth. all because people can’t separate roleplay and real life and think that the entire minecraft sphere revolves around dream just because their idea of mcyt does (not even his own smp named after him did that).
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Did Max’s P2 mean that Emilia didn’t make to Miami since crazy stuff happens when she isn’t at the race? (I mean I consider it pretty crazy that Max didn’t win)
As a consolation prize could we get Max and Emilia being domestic? Would love to see them just going on their normal life and being in love 🥺
I am sooo sorry this took so long! I went through an inspiration drought after Miami but I am BACK! I’m sorry this didn’t end up being a comfort post-Miami but I hope you like it anyway!!!
Edit: you know what, in my head she was in Miami because honestly I think she and Max would be really happy about Lando’s win. I don’t think they’d take it anywhere near as hard as Max fans lol. He’s their son, they love him.
✨Set between the China and Miami GPs ✨
I (vow) I (will) always be yours
Quiet Sundays in your household are a rarity. If it’s not a race, it’s an event, or time spent on a plane to get to the factory for some work. But not today.
Today Max was woken at nearly midday by Jimmy standing on his head instead of his alarm. He’d had a leisurely breakfast with you out on the terrace. Now, he was practicing for his upcoming sim race while you went through the kitchen cupboards to make a shopping list.
He turned around in his sim rig to sneak a glance at you. Max never lied when he told you that you looked incredible at all the events you went to. He still loses his breath every time he sees you dressed to the nines in haute couture, his palms still sweat and he still never quite feels worthy, because who could be. But he never loves looking at you more than when you’re home, not bothering with anything but your own comfort.
Now, wearing just that Alpha Tauri hoodie that you’d been stealing from him forever, hair in a ponytail, holding a lemon so overripe it looked like a lime, he falls even more in love with you.
He smiles to himself as he turns back to the sim and starts a new lap around Spa.
“Hypothetical question,” you call out to him, just as he gets to turn 1. Typical. Max credits you with the fact that he’s able to watch the race even while driving it, because he’s so used to distractions at home.
“No,” he replies immediately, because he knows where this is going. “I wouldn’t love you if you are going to be a beetle or a worm or something,”
“Firstly, that’s really bold of you to say after I loved you through the haircut in Singapore,”
“Oh my God,” he groans. He swears he’s forgotten everything about that weekend except the unfortunate haircut, because you never mentioned the race since. But the haircut, that’s haunted him ever since.
“Kafka had nothing on that haircut, that was an assassination attempt,” you say behind him.
“What is a Kafka?” Max asks as he bounces over a curb. The chair shakes a little bit.
Your bare legs appear in Max’s periphery and he allows himself one glance as you perch on the mini fridge next to his trophy.
“You know, like the book, Metamorphosis?” You explain, tapping your pencil against the notepad. “Because the guy turns into a giant beetle and his whole family turns on him,”
“No,” Max replies, already thoroughly disgusted. “What the fuck is that?”
“Max, I know you didn’t go to school but the internet is free,”
“I’m not going to spend my time reading about a human beetle,” he scoffs, a shiver rolling through him as his nose wrinkles. If this is what it takes to be educated, he’s glad he’s just fast. “What was your question,”
“It’s-“ you stop, and he lifts his foot off the throttle. “Oh, should we get some Chablis?”
“Why?”
“For when you’re dad comes on Tuesday,”
“My dad’s not coming on Tuesday,”
“Yes, he is,” you insist, and Max wonders how you would know that if he didn’t. “Isn’t he?”
Max pauses his lap, which he knows is basically fucked, and turns to face you. “I thought your dad was coming on Tuesday,”
He watches as your expression sours instantly. “Great, so one bad tempered European man who lives vicariously through his child is going to show up on Tuesday evening, we just don’t know which one of us he’s related to,” you roll your eyes, and Max reaches over to squeeze your knee. “I’ll text my dad and check,”
You pull your phone out of the hoodie pocket and begin to tap away. Max considers restarting his lap but thinks before of it.
“So, your hypothetical?” He prompts, his hand sliding towards the inside of your thigh.
“One second,” You say, scrolling. “Hm.” Maybe you don’t even notice you do it, but your eyes flicker up to Max for a split second as your tongue glides over your canine. Sassy does that right before she hisses at him.
“What?” Max asks, squeezing your leg to get your attention.
“Apparently we’re never getting married,” you say, finally looking up at him with a blank stare.
He hedges his bets, stuttering out a quiet, “huh?”
“‘Fans of F1’s most famous couple may have wait for a wedding, as Verstappen stresses he is in no hurry to tie the knot’,” you recite, reading from your phone.
Max rolls his eyes. As much as he tries to avoid answering questions about your relationship, he can’t dodge all of them. Every now and again he’s advised to feed the animals. And this is what they do with whatever he says - twist it into something only vaguely resembling what he meant.
He’s about to laugh when he notices the way you’re looking at your phone. Your lips are pursed as you scroll studiously. You cross one leg over the other, forcing Max to move his hand.
“So what?” Max asks, scrutinising your face. “Are you in a hurry?”
You lock your phone and toss it towards the couch. “Nope.”
“So, what’s the problem?” He asks, craning his head to catch your eye but you stand up and walk out of view.
“I didn’t say there was a problem,” you call flippantly, your voice getting further away.
Max may be a little bit clueless, but he knows you well enough to know there absolutely is a problem.
“No, you never say that,” he says, climbing out of his sim rig as you sit down on the couch. “You just disappear and don’t talk to me and then I have to run around a city trying to find you-“
“One time,” you say with a roll of your eyes.
“Four times,” Max corrects, ready to start listing them.
“Oh, so that’s why you don’t want to marry me?”
“When did I say-“
Max stops himself because he can hear his voice rising to a hoarse squeak. He doesn’t really understand how you got there. But then he looks at you, sitting cross legged on the couch, picking at your freshly manicured nails as if they’ve personally offended you, and he remembers that in an uncharacteristic lack of self awareness, you still think he holds even a single card in this game.
He’ll never understand what it is that makes you think that there’s a future for him without you in it, because there isn’t and there never has been. But, to paraphrase some writer you love, he’s not meant to understand, he’s just meant to love you. Which he does. Enough to know that you hate feeling like the person who cares more.
You move when he sits beside you, scrambling to the corner of the couch and stretching out perpendicular to Max, which makes him sigh. You pick up your phone and start scrolling, not even acknowledging his presence.
“To be clear,” Max says pointedly, “I didn’t mean I didn’t want to get married. I just meant it’s not…” he chews his lip, choosing his next words carefully. “I will spend the rest of my life with you anyway, right? So I can get married to you tomorrow or in ten years, it doesn’t matter to me,”
You don’t say anything to this, but you do put down your phone to cross your arms over your chest.
“Well, maybe it should. It is a legally binding contract, you know. Once you sign on it, you can’t get rid of me,” you tease, nudging his thigh with your foot. Max smiles ruefully; despite your sing-song tone, the thought even entering your mind makes him uncomfortable.
“I haven’t been able to get rid of you in twenty-six years,” he says, taking the way you’re fighting a smile as his cue to come closer. He shift himself onto the couch as crawls over you, one arm on the back of the couch to trap you while the other moves your legs apart so he slot between them. “And I haven’t wanted to. A piece of paper isn’t going to change that. But if it will that even more obvious to you then we can do it soon. If you want we can do it in the Vegas paddock for all I care,” he punctuates each couple of words with kisses pressed to your cheek, jaw, and finally your neck, which he nips at playfully as you squirm under him.
“Okay, slow down please,” you chide, pushing Max away from you, but when he pulls away he can see you’re smiling. “We don’t even know if we’re going to be together by November,”
Max snorts at that. “No, you’re right,” he says, fighting a smile as you shift in your seat so that you can lean against him.
He puts his arm around you and you spot in under it, resting your head against his chest. Even shielded from the sun as you are, the golden light seems to find you. You just glow.
“Okay, are you allowed to eat cheesecake this week? Because I’m not going to buy one if you just-“
“Wait,” Max interrupts. “What was your hypothetical question?”
You chuckle sheepishly as you glance up at him. “Oh, it was, if I disappeared how long would you wait for me before moving on,”
“Three days,” Max answers, pressing a kiss to your hair. “Because after three days either someone is going to return you because you’re so annoying, or you’re dead and there’s no point waiting,”
“You know, when you finally, and I quote, get around, to asking me to marry you, I’m going to say no,” you tell him, slapping at his stomach.
He catches your hand and entwines your fingers, lifting your hand to his lips. “Don’t worry, by the time I get around to it you won’t remember this conversation,”
“True,” you shrug, resting your notepad on his thigh while you scribble down bresaola. “You don’t even have a ring and that’ll take at least a year to find,”
Even with your head leaning on his chest you didn’t notice Max’s involuntary jerk. Quick reaction time saved his ass again.
Max isn’t good at lying. History has proven that. But he was good at omitting. There is always a small part of him that felt bad when he kept secrets from you, and now is the same. He always dealt with it by promising himself he’d tell you whatever it was when the time was right. He knows that now is not the time for you to know what you’d find if you went into the safe at his dad’s house. What’s been sitting there since the 4th January. You’ll know eventually.
So all he says is, “yeah,” with a gentle smile. “At least a year.”
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Finally finished taking notes on all the Empires POV’s that I take notes for. My hands are dead and I am tired. Here’s some of my personal highlights from today’s shenanigans, in no particular timeline order:
Scott Smajor having the coolest “hermits join the server” moment, with the purple sky and the fog. Very cool of you
Joel vibrating at the seams because he’s so excited his friends are here and he’s trying to be normal about it
Two different hermits absolutely gushing over Gobland and how cool it is
Scar: I love the colors in here, they go together so nice! / fWhip: I’m glad you think so, because I’m colorblind! So!
Whatever was going on w Sausage and Keralis. Why are they like that (affectionate)
Sausage being So Incredibly Normal about Pearl being there
Pearl wore her season one skin holy shit
Scott explaining Pearl away by saying she’s a cosplayer. A… god cosplayer. Yep.
The fact that they clearly did NOT discuss wether they knew each other or not. schrodinger's canon <3
Sausage: hey False what happened to the clothes you got off that dead guy that one time? / False, from Hermitcraft: ….what?
The hermits acting like they know Empires!Gem and her just being like “this is fine. Act natural.”
Doc meeting Pix and Pix is like “my world is gonna get real complicated for a bit!”
Also Doc made the Hermitcraft recap joke. Incredible
Sausage casually dropping his entire tragic backstory on Keralis and Jevin and then just. Moving on completely
Also the fact that Sausage greets them both by name and then acts surprised when they know his name a minute later, despite them calling him by it for a minute or two now. Great job everyone
Xisuma, guy who is bones, being paired with Joey, guy who hates bone people
RANCHER DUO REUNION! LETSGO!!!!
Jimmy ALSO got to see his evil soulmate, his soul enemy, if you will, Grian, who won’t let him have peace in any timeline
But Jimmy has SUCH a big smile on his face the whole time, you could tell he was so thrilled they were there
Impulse: Scott! My friend! My buddy! We’ve seen each other before, how are you! / Scott: I’ve never met this man in my life
Joe Hills saying he broke his arm but he’s actually just holding a stick while having litematicia installed and he doesn’t know how it works
The fact that Scar was the first one to consider that maybe the hermits should try to figure out how to get home?? Everyone was just like “ooh free vacation :)” and did NOT question it
Grian and Impulse blasting the Hermitcraft Recap music down the mic while they chase Pix around live on stream, and then Grian including that in his video so that Pix HAS to recap himself. Absolutely incredible work boys
And an extra special shoutout to the fact that fWhip and Grian have been working this out for four months now! Absolutely incredible, I’m so excited to see more. Oh my god
#empires smp#hermitcraft#esmp x hc#hc x esmp#which one are we using I don’t know. have both.#umbrify talks
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one of the guys ~ jimmy smith jr;8 mile
word count: 3481
request?: no
description: she’s always been viewed as just “one of the guys” despite having feelings for one of her friends, and now it’s looking likely that she’s going to lose him to the wannabe model
pairing: jimmy smith jr. x female!reader
warnings: swearing, pining
masterlist (one, two, three)
I had known Jimmy and Future since we were a bunch of snot nosed kids causing trouble on the playground in elementary school. Cheddar Bob was next, having followed us around like a lost puppy until we finally adopted him. Iz and Sol joined our little group in high school, and then we were complete.
For as long as I had known the guys, they considered me to be...well, one of the guys. Even after I went through puberty and actually started looking like a girl, I was still just one of the guys. It didn’t bother me for the most part. When you’re a kid, it doesn’t really matter if you’re a boy or a girl. We all played the same, caused trouble the same. But when we hit puberty, I found myself not liking being considered “one of the guys” anymore.
Especially when I realized I had feelings for Jimmy.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved being a part of the friend group and I couldn’t ask for a better set of friends. What I definitely could ask for, though, was for those friends to recognize I was a woman and treat me as such. Namely, I wished Jimmy would realize that.
One Friday evening, just like every Friday evening, I had just pulled into my driveway and was walking up to my front door when I heard another car pulling up behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Future.
“Get your ass changed, we’re going out!” he called.
“Future, I just got home,” I said.
“So?”
“So maybe I don’t want to go out with you chuckle fucks after I just worked an eight hour shift.”
“We both know that’s not the truth.”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t stop the smile on my face. He was right, I did want to go out. We went out every Friday night. It was a group tradition at this point. If I was seriously turning it down, there’d have to be something wrong with me.
“Give me 10 minutes,” I told Future before slipping into my house to change.
I was in and out in less time than I told him. I just changed out of my work clothes and into jeans and a t-shirt, and was ready to go again. I got into the passenger seat of Future’s car and he didn’t even wait for me to buckle myself in before he was backing out of my driveway and driving off to get the others.
“I fear for my life every time I get in the car with you,” I joked as I managed to buckle my seatbelt.
“Well, lucky for you, Jimmy agreed to drive tonight. His car can hold more people anyways.”
“Who else is going with us?”
“Just the usual.”
I looked over at Future in confusion. His tone definitely made me think there was someone else coming along for the night, but it seemed he wasn’t going to tell me. I couldn’t figure out who could possibly be joining us that Future wouldn’t want to tell me about beforehand.
We pulled into the trailer park and parked next to Jimmy’s car. Jimmy was exiting his trailer before we were even out of the car, as usual. Jimmy was usually waiting for us to show up and would be itching to leave his mom’s place as soon as he could. Jimmy gave Future one of their high five hugs, and patted me on the shoulder. It was just a step up from me also getting a high five hug, but not by much.
We got into Jimmy’s car, all three of us in the front. We started for Iz and Sol first, then Cheddar Bob. Once the car was full it was nothing but noise as each of the guys was talking over one another with Jimmy’s radio blaring as extra noise.
“How was work, by the way?” Jimmy asked me over the current argument between Future and Sol.
“Same bullshit as always,” I responded.
“I guess we should be lucky you even agreed to come out with us after working all day, meanwhile all we do is sit on our asses like a bunch of bums.”
I playfully nudged his shoulder. “Hey, you work, too.”
“I wouldn’t consider the Stamping work.”
I chuckled. I noticed then that we weren’t headed for the club. “Where are we going?”
“To pick up Alex.”
I felt my heart drop to my stomach. I looked over at Future. I couldn’t tell if he was actually deep in conversation with Iz or if he was just ignoring me. So this was who was joining us that he didn’t want to tell me about.
Alex.
She was a girl Jimmy had met at his work. She was a model apparently, or was trying to be one. Jimmy didn’t talk about her much, but the other guys didn’t waste a single moment in teasing him about her. It didn’t take a genius to realize he liked her.
Alex was waiting as Jimmy pulled up. She was wearing her usual mini skirt so short that you could basically see everything whenever she moved. It made me feel very self conscious about my choice in jeans.
Future opened the door and got out.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked. I already knew the answer and hoped he’d see the look of begging on my face.
“I’ll get in the back with the idiots,” he said. “I’d assume Alex will be more comfortable pressed up against you instead of Sol.”
“Yo, fuck you!” Sol snapped.
I hoped my clenched jaw would go unnoticed as Alex slid into the seat next to me. Her eyes immediately went to Jimmy and they shared a smile that made me wish I could throw myself from the moving car.
We got to the club and piled into our usual table while Future got the first round of shots. Cheddar Bob and Iz were sat on one end, I was in the middle, Jimmy and Alex were sat next to me, and Sol had pulled up a chair. When Future returned, he slid in next to Cheddar Bob. The table chorused with cheers as we held up our shots then shot them back.
I tried to play it cool, but having to sit next to Alex and Jimmy while they were flirting up a storm was making me more tense by the minute. When Sol offered to get the next round of drinks, I jumped to give him the money to buy me two of the strongest drinks he could for me. I downed the first one quickly, but took my time with the second. It didn’t take long for the shot and the first drink to kick in. My head was spinning and I felt care free and light as air.
At some point, when the drinks had hit me hard enough, I shoved against Iz’s shoulder and said (or rather slurred), “Hey, can you guys move? I gotta pee.”
“Yo, go the other way,” Future said. “There’s three of us here and only two on your other side.”
“You’re gonna break the dam this early in the night?” Sol asked. “You may as well sit on the end when you come out. You’ll be back and forth for the next few hours.”
“Look, I don’t care who moves and I don’t care where I sit when I come back, I just have to pee now.”
“Here, we’ll move,” Jimmy said.
He and Alex moved out of the booth and allowed me to get out. When I stood, I realized just how drunk I already was as I almost immediately lost my balance. I felt someone grab hold of me as the rest of the table chorused in laughter at my drunkenness. When I looked up, it was Jimmy that had taken hold of me. I smiled at him and he smiled back.
“I’m getting you water when you come back,” he said. “And you gotta pace yourself.”
“You’re always looking out for me,” I said. “You’re such a good friend.”
I put emphasis on the friend for my own benefit, but there was also some level of petty in the word. A reminder for both of us that that was the only way he saw me: as a friend. One of the guys that he went out drinking with every weekend, that he smoked with in the basement of someone’s house, that he ran around Detroit with causing mayhem since we were tykes.
I saw a look flash across his face that I couldn’t quite decipher, but I assumed I was just seeing things in my drunken haze.
I managed to make it to the bathroom on my own without incident. Once I was safely inside of a stall, I was able to sit down again. I almost didn’t want to get up and go back out to the table. Sitting was safe. The world didn’t spin when I was sat down. But I also couldn’t be sat on the toilet in a club bathroom all night either. I knew Sol was right about me going back and forth to the bathroom now that I had broken the dam, but if I put enough time between this bathroom visit and the next, maybe the spinning wouldn’t be as bad by then.
When I stepped out of the stall to wash my hands, I jumped to see that someone was waiting there.
Alex.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.
I waved away her apology. “It’s fine. I just didn’t hear anyone else come in.”
I stepped around her to wash my hands. She turned to face me as I did. “Listen, I need to talk to you about something.”
I looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
“Is there anything going on between you and Jimmy?”
The question took me by surprise. Why would she think there was anything between us? In all the time that Jimmy had known Alex, I had only met her once before after the lot of us had run into her at a house party. I remembered Jimmy only having eyes for her that night, too. There was no reason I could even fathom that she would believe Jimmy and I had a thing going on when he was so clearly into her.
“No,” I said. “He’s my best friend. Has been since we were kids.”
“And that’s it? Just friendship?”
“Yeah. What’s this about?”
She sighed. “I really like Jimmy, and I thought he liked me, too. But he’s never really asked me out or anything yet. I didn’t know if maybe you two had a thing going on and I read the whole situation wrong. I’ve known far too many guys who claim to be just friends with a girl and turns out they’re actually fucking around.”
Trust me, I wish that’s what was going on here.
Against my better judgement, I put my hands on Alex’s shoulders and said, “If you really like Jimmy and you want things to be more serious, maybe you should make the first move.”
She looked as though she had never even considered that option. “You think so? That won’t seem too...direct?”
“Who gives a shit? Why do men always have to be the ones to make the first move? Most of them are fucking idiots anyways and wouldn’t know if a girl liked them even if she was telling him to his face.” Alex chuckled. “If you want him, go get him.”
She nodded. I was taken by surprise when she suddenly pulled me into a hug. I reluctantly patted her on the back and tried to put the best smile I could muster on my face.
“You’re the best,” she said. “I think we’re going to be great friends.”
I bit my tongue as she hurried out the bathroom door.
That interaction was enough to sober me up more than I wanted. I could feel myself tearing up, but tried to fight it back. I turned to lean against the sink and looked up at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t help but notice everything that Alex had that I didn’t: gorgeous face, sexy voice, body of a model. I couldn’t even dream of leaving the house in a skirt as short as hers without feeling completely embarrassed and exposed. Of course Jimmy would like her, and of course he was going to say yes when she asked him to go out with her.
I hung my head as the tears slipped from my eyes and ran down my face into the sink. I prayed no one would come into the bathroom and find me here crying, and luckily someone was looking out for me because no one did. Once I felt like I had cried myself dry, I quickly splashed my face with cold water and tried to pretend everything was alright. I figured everyone was going to question where I had been for so long, but I didn’t feel like coming up with a fake answer to tell them. If I told them to fuck off, they wouldn’t pry.
My steps faltered a little when I exited the bathroom and saw that Alex and Jimmy were missing from the table. I was tempted to go right to the bar and get another drink, but I pushed through and went back to my group of friends.
“Hey, you good?” Future asked as I sat down in the booth.
“Yeah, just sobered up a little,” I responded. “Where did Jimmy and Alex go?”
“Alex asked to talk to him in private,” Cheddar Bob responded. “But that was a while ago, so who knows where they are now.”
I noticed both Future and Iz elbow him, causing him to spill some of his drink on himself. I didn’t care to imagine where Jimmy had taken Alex after she asked him out. I didn’t need to have that image burned in my mind for the rest of the night.
Everyone went back to their conversations, but I found myself not paying any attention to them. I kept glancing around the club, expecting to see Jimmy and Alex tucked away in a private corner, sucking face as if they were trying to blend into one person. Or maybe they’d be on the dance floor, practically dry humping in front of everyone. I didn’t think Jimmy was one to dance, but Alex had enough allure that she could’ve probably convinced him. But I didn’t see them, and that almost made it all worse.
Eventually I stood from the table suddenly, bringing everyone’s attention to me. “I need some air.”
“Do you want one of us to come with you?” Cheddar Bob asked.
“No, I’ll be fine,” I said. I turned and quickly made for the exit.
Once I was outside, I breathed in the cool night air. It filled my lungs, but it didn’t seem to help soothe me at all.
“You alright?”
“Jesus!” I hissed as I turned towards the voice. It was Jimmy, leaning up against the club. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Free country,” he said with a shrug. “Are you good?”
“Just needed air. It felt very stuffy inside.”
I walked over to stand next to him. The rough brick wall dug into my back through my t-shirt. It was cool out, but not enough to make me feel like I needed a jacket or anything. I was standing so close to Jimmy that I could feel the heat coming from his body anyways.
“Where’s Alex?” I asked. “The guys said you two went off to talk in private.”
“She left,” he responded.
I looked at him in shock. “What? And went where?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Home, I guess?”
“Don’t you think you should’ve driven her? It’s not exactly the safest for her to be walking alone at night.”
“I offered, but she turned it down. Said she didn’t wanna see me ever again.”
I’ve definitely missed a lot of things here. “What happened?”
Jimmy sighed. “Well, she got up and went to the bathroom after you, said something about wanting to make sure you were okay where you were so drunk. Then when she came back she asked me if we could talk in private. She brought me outside and told me how she had been waiting for me to ask her out properly since we first met and she was tired of waiting, so she made the first move to ask me if I wanted to go on an official date with her.”
“And you said...”
He looked at me for a second before responding, “No. Obviously.”
Well, yeah, it was obvious that he said no. But what wasn’t obvious was why he had said no.
“I thought you were into her,” I said.
He laughed. “Who told you that?”
I shrugged. “The guys seemed convinced you were.”
“The guys don’t know shit about shit. They just like talking a big game and making fun of each other.” I just looked at him, waiting to see if there was any more he had to say. He looked at me then away again. “No, I’m not into her. She’s beautiful, yes, but I don’t see her that way.”
“Wait, so if you don’t see her like that, then why did you invite her tonight?”
“I didn’t. She was at the Stamping today and asked if she could come along. I guess this was her plan.”
Well, it wasn’t her plan until I told her to go after Jimmy, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
I felt like everything had just been flipped upside down. I was so sure that Jimmy had been reciprocating Alex’s feelings. It seemed like that anyways. Or maybe it seemed like that because I was making it seem that way. I was projecting something onto the two of them that wasn’t really there, I guess because of my jealousy?
“Sucks that she didn’t handle the rejection well,” I said.
“It wasn’t the rejection, it was the reason I rejected her.”
My brows furrowed together. “The reason being...you didn’t like her like that?”
“No. Well...yes. Kind of.”
“You know, for a man who can freestyle, you’re god awful with your words right now.”
He laughed and lightly nudged me with his shoulder. “It was the reason I said I don’t have feelings for her. I told her that I don’t like her because I like someone else and she didn’t handle that very well.”
I could feel my stomach turning to knots again. “Oh? Didn’t like the competition?”
“No, she said something along the lines of she should’ve trusted her gut, and that all guys who hang out with girls end up fucking them in the end.”
It took a second for what he said to register in my brain. When it did, I thought back to Alex talking to me in the bathroom and asking me if there was anything going on between Jimmy and I because she knew of too many guys who were friends with girls who they were actually fucking. Then, I put the pieces together in my head.
When I turned to look at Jimmy again, he was already watching me, waiting for me to come to the conclusion. “Me?!”
“Jesus, that took you long enough.”
“What do you mean that took me long enough?! Why the fuck haven’t you told me?!”
“Because you’re my best friend! We’ve known each other since kindergarten. If I told you I liked you and you didn’t like me back, that would fuck everything up between us and within the friend group. I would rather feel this way in silence than risk losing you as a friend.”
“If you had told me I would’ve told your dumbass that I like you, too, and I have since high school.”
“Wait...for real?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, for real!”
We both stood in silence. We shared a look, and then a smile broke out on Jimmy’s face. I couldn’t help but mirror it, and soon we were both laughing. With the absurdity of the situation, we couldn’t not laugh.
“We’re both dumbasses,” I said between fits of laughter.
“I guess so,” Jimmy agreed. “That brings up the question, though, of where do we go from here?”
“Well, I think we try a date, just the two of us and not those other idiots in there, and we see how things progress from there.”
He smiled. “Okay, I like that idea.”
“And we promise that if things don’t work out, we stay friends.”
“And we don’t tell the guys about any of this.”
I laughed. “Okay deal.”
#jimmy smith jr#jimmy smith jr imagine#jimmy smith jr x reader#eminem#eminem imagine#eminem x reader#marshall mathers#marshall mathers imagine#marshall mathers x reader#8 mile#one shot#imagine#fanfiction#fanfic#fandom
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"Dude, I'm in your brother-in-law!"
Panic twists your gut as the bizarre scene sinks in! Those unnaturally clouded eyes are the trademark of Jimmy, your long-dead friend, and they're sitting in the skull of Carlos, your sister's fiance! The ghost is up to his usual antics, possessing yet another guy in your life without any regard to you.
"Did you imagine a tight gym rat like this would wear undies like these?" Jimmy chuckles, referring to Carlos' patterned boxers, "I mean how could you be so intimidated by a guy who's got hearts on his crotch?"
The underwear is the least of your worries: the man is supposed to be walking down the aisle in an hour! It may have been a dick move for your sister to get engaged to your high school bully, but that didn't mean you wanted her future husband to be late to the altar!
"Don't even bother asking me to get out of this body, dude!" the deep baritone of Carlos sings with Jimmy's cadence, "The only thing I plan on getting out of is this tux! Training like this needs to be appreciated, and who better to appreciate it than you? I'm sure you'd love to know what your sister is getting tonight..."
"I mean just look at these abs. It's like a rock hard washboard if you want a feel..." Jimmy winks one of his starkly blank eyes at you, "...speaking of being rock hard, it looks like you're enjoying this bonding time with your new brother-in-law. After all, Carlos does need to apologize for all the bullying he did in high school."
With a racing heart, you shush him and beg for Johnny to leave. He needs to return Carlos to normal before anyone notices! The wedding would be over if someone found the groom naked and flirting with the brother of the bride!
"If you're gonna be my new little bro..." Jimmy says with an unsettlingly accurate impression of Carlos' demeanor, "...then I think you should get to know me. Come on and grab my fat, meaty pecs; pinch my nipples; let me know who the real man is around here..."
It's hard to resist. You've only ever caught stolen glances at Carlos. The jerk would always shove you into a locker when he caught you staring in his direction, yet now he was begging for your attention.
"Come on, bro. Grab my athletic little ass and grope my crotch. It's the least I can do after targeting you for all these years."
Before you realize what you're doing, you find yourself rushing towards the shredded latino and pressing yourself against his exposed body, layered with dense musculature. Part of you still expected Carlos to kick you in the nuts and call you a slur, but his lips instead gleefully embrace your own.
"Damn, if I'd known being queer was this good, I woulda married you and not your sister!" he exclaims. You just roll your eyes, knowing Carlos isn't actually saying these things. Jimmy is just puppeteering his mouth for your amusement, "I bet having your dick in my mouth will be better than the tits of any girl! The only way a piece of crap like me can apologize is on my knees..."
You stifle a moan as all 200 lbs of the naked jock drops to his knees with a dopey grin. Carlos' soulless eyes stare at the tent in your pants like it's the most desirable thing in the world. It doesn't take long for him to unbuckle your pants and open his mouth...
...twenty minutes later, you're still catching your breath while Carlos slowly redresses.
"Now you can watch your sister marry this homophobic dirtbag and know that you've shoved your shaft down his throat," Jimmy purrs, enjoying his final moments in Carlos' form, "I'm not going to brush his teeth, so he'll have to taste you throughout the entire wedding."
You giggle at the thought of the guy wondering about the strange flavor in his mouth while reading his vows. Somehow, Carlos doesn't seem as big or intimidating as he once did.
"If it were up to me, I'd commandeer his whole life," Jimmy went on with a sparkle of enthusiasm in Carlos' clouded retinas, "I'd walk him out there in nothing but his heart-patterned undies and announce to his whole family that he's a flaming homosexual. Then I'd like to spend a couple weeks working his body as a stripper at the nearest club, and of course I'd come home to you every night..."
The idea of Carlos coming out to his orthodox family and working as a stripper is an insane one, but it did turn you on. It's too bad your sister's taken a liking towards him, otherwise, you'd tell Jimmy to go crazy with the guy.
"Imagine your old high school bully coming home to you every night, hot and sweaty from dancing all day, with a new skimpy costume for you to explore. Damn, I'd want you to find a new way to degrade me each night while I wore him. It'd be healthy, I think, after all he's put you through."
Jimmy's crazy ideas never cease to amaze you. A little time belittling Carlos sounds hot as hell!
You give Carlos one last kiss and remind your paranormal buddy that he has to leave soon. The stud frowns, looking sad that he won't be possessed by a gay spirit anymore. At least you know that if this man ever screws up, if he ever wrongs your sister, if he ever hurts her; Jimmy is just one seance away from charging back in his body and making this twisted fantasy come true. It's only a matter of time before Carlos screws up his marriage, and then he's yours.
You almost can't wait for your sister's marriage to fall apart, and it hasn't even begun...
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to the moon & back
jamie drysdale x fem!hughes!reader
y/n.hughes just posted!
liked by trevorzegras, cam.york, and more
y/n.hughes: philly 🧡🧡
tagged: jamie.drysdale, philadelphiaflyers
( loading comments ! )
userone: THE TYING OF THE SHOES
usertwo: how many pics does y/n have of jamie tying her shoe 😭
lhughes_06: so you’d rather go & visit your bf instead of your brothers when offered 🤨🤨
y/n.hughes: this was already planned luke
lhughes_06: you were JUST in philly!
jackhughes: give her a break lukey, she’s having withdrawals
y/n.hughes: AM NOT
jackhughes: ARE TOO
trevorzegras: i would’ve never thought i’d ever say this but i miss you & jimbo’s lovey dovey grossness 😪
y/n.hughes: awww trev, you do have a heart 😊
trevorzegras: i take it back
jamie.drysdale: no take backs bud
cam.york: like this if jamie & y/n are the cutest couple that’s blessed your feed
liked by 1M others
userthree: my comfort couple fr
philadelphiaflyers: we always love having you y/n! feel free to come over whenever (please, jamie does not shut up about you)! 🧡🧡
userfour: admin begging y/n to come over whenever she can so jamie can stop talking and complaining about missing her 😭😭
jamie.drysdale: i love you so much baby 💓💓
mfrost16: everyone say thank you y/n for making jamie no longer mopey & sad (he literally never shuts up about you)
cam.york: thank you y/n!
foerster.71: thanks y/n!
joelfarabee: please stay forever. he always manages to bring you into topics of conversations somehow & i am TIRED of hearing how y/n’s favorite color is green & how everything reminds him of you 😭🙏
lhughes_06: sounds like your man’s a simp for you y/n.hughes
y/n.hughes: as he should 😙
jamie.drysdale: 🧍🏻🧎🏻♀️❤️ y/n.hughes
y/n.hughes: idk what that means but same baby <3
trevorzegras: i don’t think i want to know
userfive: jamie & y/n >>>> everyone
y/n.hughes just posted!
liked by jackhughes, yourbestie, and more
y/n.hughes: lover scored his first flyers goal tonight & i couldn’t be more proud 🧡🧡 here’s to many more goals to come my love 💓 (no seriously im so proud of you baby & everything you do fills me with immense pride i love you so much)
tagged: jamie.drysdale, philadelphiaflyers
( loading comments ! )
userone: im so glad that y/n was there to witness jamie’s first flyers goal! what a special moment <3
trevorzegras: congrats bud!! miss you lots & am so happy to see philly treating you well
y/n.hughes: jamie audibly sniffled right next to me & said that he missed you
jamie.drysdale: did not
y/n.hughes: did too. it’s okay to miss your best friend jams
trevorzegras: don’t go exposing my boy like that y/n (i miss you too jamie)
usertwo: the way he looks at her in the last picture
userthree: you should’ve seen his celly! he blew a kiss to her & skated to where she was seated & pointed to her too! it was so cute!
usertwo: love love
jamie.drysdale: words are not enough to describe the way i feel about you. you mean the world to me & i am so happy to have you by my side through it all 💓💓
y/n.hughes: i love you to the moon and back jimmy <33
jackhughes: damn didn’t know my sister was a simp
y/n.hughes: basic support for my bf is not being a simp jack. get your priorities in check fr 🙄
_quinnhughes: ❗️❗️YOU TELL HIM SIS❗️❗️
lhughes_06: purr. slay. period. you ended him girl
jackhughes: i –
userfour: these two never fail to make my entire heart melt 😭 i wish one day to have a love like theirs
y/n.hughes: and you will my love! when the time is right 🤍
userfive: i feel like their love story should def be written into a tswift song
philadelphiaflyers: congrats on your first flyers goal jaime! to many more!
jamie.drysdale just posted!
liked by elhughes, yourbestie, and more
jamie.drysdale: to my sweet girl, thank you so much for always being there for me and never failing to cheer me up. your support means the world to me and i’m so happy to call you my number one cheerleader. you have carved such a special place in my life that i cannot imagine you not in it. you mean everything to me and more 💓💓
tagged: y/n.hughes
( loading comments ! )
userone: HE TIES HER SKATES TOO 😫😫
trevorzegras: MAJOR SIMP ALERT 🚨
usertwo: THEY NEED TO GET MARRIED LIKE RN
yourbestie: FR THATS WHAT IM SAYIN
jackhughes: he’s basically my brother-in-law already
lhughes_06: they act like such a married couple anyway. they don’t need to get married to prove that fact lmao
y/n.hughes: tears are in my eyes rn 😭 i love you with my entire being jamie i do not think i can imagine anyone else but you in my life either 🤍💓
trevorzegras: also, i better be the best man or i will riot
#drysdalesworld works!#drysdalesworld#hockey x reader#nhl x reader#hockey#smau#social media au#jamie drysdale#jamie drysdale x hughes!reader#jamie drysdale x reader#jamie drysdale x you#jamie drysdale x y/n
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from eden, part IX (act I)
Word count: 11,504
Warnings: Blood/injury, violence, death, animal death, temporary dismemberment, dissociation, self-deprecating thoughts (not really, Jimmy’s just a listener and doesn’t know it), strong language, fictional racism/xenophobia, panic attacks
Summary: The Double Lifers have successfully thwarted the invasion by Hels Tek, but not unscathed. Now that Tango’s been outed as Bravo’s doppelgänger, the remaining threads are starting to unravel, and Jimmy suddenly finds himself fighting to save Tango from his own inner demons. Can their love survive the fallout?
A/N: This took a ridiculously long time to write and got way longer than I’d originally intended so uhhh happy belated holidays? There’s a lot in this one that I’m excited to show y’all so I really hope u enjoy it, pls reblog/comment if u do, it means a lot.
Also this chapter has been split into two parts bc Tumblr is a hoe with a paragraph limit, link to the second half at the end. And as always, this is part of a series, so the previous chapters can be found on my au directory here. - Aqua
~*~
from eden, part IX (act I) - no tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony
~*~
Somewhere in Double Life, a player kneels in a bloody wheat field.
Jimmy’s senses are flooded with iron. He’s regenerated enough health that his nose isn’t actively bleeding anymore, but he’s sure it’s still all over his face. As he finally pulls away from Tango, he realizes he’s smeared plenty of it on Tango’s shoulder. The blood on Tango’s chin and claws hasn’t fully dried yet, either. And through his slightly parted mouth, Jimmy can see it’s stained his teeth.
(Did you see what he did back there?)
(He was like an animal.)
(How long do you think he’s been keeping that in?)
Jimmy pushes the thoughts away. Focus on the here and now.
To be fair, though, the ‘here and now’ is a horrible place. The ranch is burning behind them. His eyes are burning from the tears and the smoke in the air. His throat feels tight and scratchy. He’s physically and emotionally exhausted, the weight of it dragging him down, sinking into the trampled soil beneath him. The singed edges of his wings are still stinging, but it’s an easily forgotten pain among everything else.
Jimmy hates crying. Especially in public. Really, nothing makes him feel more useless and pathetic than crying. But he has to admit, he’s at least a little calmer and more clear-headed. Now that he’s cried himself out, his awareness is gradually returning to the conversation going on around him.
“What in’a world was that about?!” Bdubs cries out, sounding absolutely flabbergasted.
“Yeah, who were those guys, anyway?” Etho asks, knitting his brows together. “How’d they get here?”
Joel makes a distressed noise. “They shouldn’t be able to open a portal here, this is a private world!”
“I know, I know, okay,” Grian gripes, “I’m workin’ on it. Hang on-”
“And what was all that nonsense about doggelpangers?” Scar pauses. “Uh, dop- doppabang-”
“Doppelgängers?” Cleo calls over wryly.
Scar hangs his head. “Dang it. Yes, that.”
“I dunno, but what if they come back?” Joel asks nervously. “What should we do?”
Isn’t that the question?
Jimmy takes quick stock of his surroundings. Grian is standing a little way’s off from Jimmy’s huddle, head bent down as he furiously scrolls through his communicator, the screen reflecting in his tinted glasses. Scar is hovering next to Grian, peering keenly over his shoulder, his bow held limply at his side. Both of them look a little roughed up from the battle, but alright for the time being.
Etho, still crouched at the spot where Bravo died, is searching through the dropped items. Joel is pacing in front of the broken portal frame and casting anxious glances at it, one hand gripping his sword while the other rakes through his hair, antennae twitching with agitation. There are a few scrapes and gashes between them- mostly superficial and likely to heal on their own.
Pearl’s wolf pack has been considerably thinned out- something Jimmy notes with a pang of guilt- but there’s still plenty of them milling about the place. With blood-matted fur and tucked tails, it’s clear they took a beating. Pearl herself must’ve gone, from the way they sniff and look around aimlessly, giving plaintive yips and whines. Scott is conspicuously absent as well, another hint as to the bonded pair’s fate. Jimmy’s sure they’ll be along soon.
Bigb and Ren are also nowhere to be seen- likely more casualties of the battle. Ren makes for a rather large target when in wolf mode; he probably drew a lot of enemy fire. And of course, Bigb would’ve gone with him. Box is quite a way from the ranch, Jimmy recalls, so it’ll take them a few minutes to get back.
Martyn is busy mining up the rest of the portal frame, seeming none the worse for wear. Cleo sits a couple yards away, one leg stretched out in front of her. The other one has been chopped clean off at the knee, and is clenched in their hand- but wait, it does that sometimes, Jimmy reminds himself before he can panic. The detached limb isn’t even bleeding, and she’s already pulling some string from her inventory to stitch it back on, seeming more inconvenienced than anything else.
Bdubs, across the field, looks no more beat-up than he always does. He’s fussing over his horse, snatching up stray bits of wheat to heal as it struggles to get its legs under it. Impulse’s horse, devoid of rider, has wandered off towards the barn- perhaps hearing the other horses inside. Impulse himself is crouched beside Jimmy and Tango, his golden eyes intently studying the collar that’s been locked around Tango’s neck.
Tango is still completely silent. He doesn’t move or give any indication that he’s at all mentally present, just kneeling idly in the dirt, expression blank, eyes distant. Nothing but static through their soul bond. He doesn’t seem to be seriously injured- most of the blood stains aren’t his. That realization isn’t as relieving as Jimmy wants it to be.
Grian clears his throat. “Right. First thing’s first, are we all still here?” he asks, scanning his communicator. “No one went through the portal?”
“Nah, all good,” Martyn calls over his shoulder as the final obsidian block pops onto the ground.
Etho has his communicator pulled up too. “Yeah, uh, just looks like Scott and Pearl got killed,” he reports. “Ren and Bigb, too. I’ll shoot ‘em a message, see if they’re alright.”
“Right, okay.” Grian chews his lip, wings ruffling. “And all the other fellas are gone?”
Etho nods. “Yep.”
“Okay-”
“G,” Scar cuts in, tugging on Grian’s sleeve, “you gotta respawn before that injury sets in.”
Grian shrugs him off. Only now does Jimmy realize he’s holding one of his wings closer to his body than the others, the one that took an arrow during the fight. “Gimme a second-”
”Um, guys?” Martyn says suddenly, pointing at the ranch. “Fire tick is on, yeah?”
Grian looks up at that, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “Hoo boy. Yeah, we need’ta get a ditch around the ranch, okay, or else the whole forest’ll go.” He casts a sidelong look at Jimmy, expression apologetic. “Tim, do you mind…?”
Jimmy shakes his head. “No,” he says hoarsely, “no, no, by all means. Whatever you need to… oh gosh, it’s all gonna go. It’s gone, isn’t it? It’s-” His voice breaks, and he quickly looks away, fresh tears welling in his eyes.
It wasn’t much, the ranch.
Only two floors- three counting the basement- and a bit tight on space. It wasn’t the most impressive build, not by a long shot. Certainly not when compared to the other builds on this world. It was something that would’ve taken two actually competent builders nothing more than a dedicated afternoon to put together. Plainly decorated, and comprised mostly of wood and stone variants. Nothing that’s particularly hard to obtain. And in all honesty, it was just a starter base; they were going to outgrow it sooner or later, anyways.
But it was theirs.
It was the scorch marks in the wood from Tango’s blaze rods, in the moments where his emotions got away from him. It was the rocking chair where Jimmy liked to do his embroidery, when he needed to unwind after a busy day. It was the auto-sorting storage room that Tango spent weeks fine-tuning. It was the small but cozy living room that Jimmy decorated with potted flowers. It was the kitchen that always smelled faintly of charcoal, and the wool rug in the foyer that came from their own sheep, and the bedroom that they shared with an east-facing window to let them watch the sunrise together, on the rare days when Tango was awake early enough to see it.
The ranch is burning, and there’s nothing Jimmy can do about it.
(Great. Gonna start crying again, are you?)
(What exactly is that going to accomplish?)
(Man up! Don’t be so pathetic.)
A gentle hand on Jimmy’s shoulder makes him look up. Martyn is there, sympathy glimmering in his eye. “We’ll save what we can,” he promises.
Jimmy manages a grateful smile, blinking away his tears. “Thanks.”
Martyn nods before straightening back up. “Etho, Joel, you got water buckets on ya?”
“Oh, yeah.” Etho puts his communicator away as he and Joel start toward the ranch, buckets in hand. “Yeah, here, let’s make an infinite source..”
“Right. I’ll get the ditch started, then,” Cleo chimes in, rising to their feet now that both legs are once again intact.
Grian makes an appreciative noise, still tapping away at his communicator. “Okay, so that’s done-”
“Grian,” Scar says again, more insistently. “You gotta-”
“Hang on!” Grian huffs. He looks up to meet Jimmy’s gaze. “Okay, so uh, I can’t ban them… but what I’m gonna do is lock the world down,” he explains, taking a few steps over. “No one goes in or out… not even through a backdoor portal. This is just a temporary solution, but it should do the trick for now.”
Relief washes over Jimmy. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
(Good thing Grian is here to clean up your mess, huh?)
“Hey, guys?” Impulse speaks up, making Jimmy startle. “Um, Tango… he’s not lookin’ so good.”
That’s putting it kindly. Jimmy’s heart tightens. “Right. We should prob’ly get him inside, um…” He trails off as he instinctively looks at the ranch, which is on fire.
Right.
Impulse gives him a comforting look. “C’mon, you guys can crash at our place.” He rises to his feet, calling out, “Bdubs, would you bring the horses over?”
“Yeah, gimme a sec,” Bdubs shouts back. He’s finally gotten his horse standing again, glancing around for Impulse’s. “C’mere, stupid- hey! No, don’t wander off…”
“You finished, Grian?” Scar asks impatiently, notching an arrow.
“Okay, okay, hang on…” Grian presses a couple more buttons before putting his communicator away. “There, it’s done. Now, I’m gonna do some diggin’ and see what I can find out about this. But, um…” His gaze sweeps over Tango, expression pinched. “As soon as Tango is up for it… we all need to have a serious chat, okay?”
The wording immediately puts Jimmy off. He can feel his feathers bristling, his wings flaring out almost unconsciously to block Tango from view. “Wh- hey, this wasn’t his fault!” he protests.
Grian holds his hands up. “Ey, I know, I know,” he says lightly. His lower wings sweep out and flatten into a sort of fan as he crouches; an appeasing gesture. “None of us think that, okay? But clearly those guys came here for him, so we need’ta figure out why and how if we’re gonna figure out how to stop it from happenin’ again. Alright?”
Jimmy takes a breath, letting his feathers smooth over again. “Right. You’re right, sorry,” he mumbles.
(Wow, so defensive.)
(Like you could protect him, anyways.)
(Have you no faith in your own friends?)
Grian glances at Impulse. “You got them, Impulse?”
“Yeah, don’t worry,” Impulse assures him.
Scar draws back his bow. “Any day now, Grian…”
“Okay.” Grian turns around with an exasperated sigh. “Alright, Scar-”
He disappears in a puff of respawn smoke. Scar immediately follows him, his bow clattering to the ground amidst the shower of other items.
Impulse exhales in what might’ve been a laugh, if he didn’t sound so tired. He turns to Jimmy. “Can you stand?” he asks, holding out his hand.
(Look, they all think you’re weak, too!)
Jimmy feels himself flush. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, his tone short. Ignoring Impulse’s hand, he struggles to his feet unaided, wings flapping about to help keep his balance.
And then he feels incredibly silly about it. These are his friends, for goodness sakes.
“Thanks,” Jimmy adds, to soften it. “But Tango, I dunno if he… I mean, normally I’d carry him, but right now, I think- I think I’d drop him,” he confesses. Already, the effort of just standing on his own is starting to fatigue him.
Impulse just nods, a knowing look in his eye. “Yeah, no problem.” Slowly, he crouches down next to Tango again. “Hey, Tango, buddy?” he calls softly. “Can you hear me? It’s Impulse. I’m gonna pick you up now, if that’s okay?”
Tango doesn’t respond. Carefully, Impulse gathers Tango into his arms in a cradle hold- which Tango doesn’t react to besides curling in on himself a little more. His breathing quickens for a few seconds before he settles down again.
“Sorry,” Impulse whispers.
Jimmy swallows. He’s never known Tango to be so quiet, so still. It’s incredibly disturbing to see. And gosh, he knows Tango’s pale, but right now he looks about as white as quartz.
The events of this afternoon were a lot for anyone to handle. Jimmy’s still only working with bits and pieces, of course. He knows that Tango originally came from a terrible world called Hels, escaped from that creepy scientist guy Dr. Atlas, and has been hiding out on Hermitcraft ever since. So it’s not surprising that Tango got a nasty shock when his past suddenly came knocking at his door- literally, in Bravo’s case.
But Jimmy also knows that Tango is quite tough. He’s not the type to shut down in the face of hardship- in fact, he’ll often go the opposite direction, with manic bursts of frantic energy. So for a reaction this extreme… either that collar they put on him is having a more drastic effect than Jimmy realized, or there’s something more to the story he isn’t aware of.
Before the collar dampened their soul bond, the fear Jimmy felt from Tango had been damn near overwhelming. What could those Hels players have done to him to elicit such a strong reaction? Jimmy dreads to think of it.
The sound of hoofbeats pulls Jimmy out of his musings.
“Here I am!” Bdubs announces loudly, leading a horse by each hand. “Got the hawsies all ready t’go- oh, hey, waugh- what happened to him?” he gasps, his horrified gaze falling on Tango, wide eyes going even wider. “Wha’ th- is he okay?!”
Impulse gives him a tired smile. “Bdubs, I know we’re outside right now, but indoor voice, please? I’ll explain later.”
“Oh, okay!” Bdubs immediately drops into a stage whisper, ducking his head sheepishly. “Right, right, right, right, right, sorry.” He eyes Tango nervously for another moment. “Jeeze, they really… okay, okay, okay, right. Let’s go.”
With an appreciative look, Impulse moves beside one of the horses. Shifting his hold on Tango, he hikes one foot up into the stirrup and swings onto the horse’s back, forked tail lashing through the air.
Bdubs follows suit, climbing onto his own horse before glancing down at Jimmy. “Uh- you wanna ride wi’ me, Jimmy?” he asks, still whispering.
“That’d be great, thanks,” Jimmy says gratefully. Just the thought of walking or flying to their base makes him feel like all his bones have turned to slime.
His own attempt to get on the horse doesn’t go anywhere near as smoothly. With someone else already in the saddle, it’s a clumsy maneuver, his flailing wings more of a hindrance than anything. In the end, Bdubs grabs the back of Jimmy’s shirt and helps haul him up. That only makes Jimmy feel worse. Bdubs is so much smaller than him, how did he manage that?
“Okay…” Bdubs glances over his shoulder as Jimmy gets settled. “You alright back there?”
“Yep, yep, I’m good,” Jimmy says quickly. He clears his throat. “Can we- can we get goin’?” He’s anxious to leave this depressing scene behind and get Tango someplace calmer.
Bdubs nods. “Okay. Uh- hang on tight, and you’d better keep those wings folded or else you- you’ll be blown right off’a this thing!” He turns to Impulse. “We go now!”
“Alright, let’s go.” Impulse urges his horse forward, and Bdubs swiftly follows.
The horses gallop away from the ranch.
Jimmy does as he’s told, leaning forward to put his arms around Bdubs’s shoulders and tucking his wings tightly against his back. The jostling of the horse’s stride isn’t kind to his aching muscles and bones, but he’s not about to complain. Right now he feels completely out of sorts- like a stranger in his own skin.
As exhausted as his body is, his mind is absolutely racing. He can’t stop thinking about what Bravo said, that Tango was to blame for his being in Hels. And Tango hadn’t really denied it.
From what Jimmy can recall from today’s chaotic events, Tango used to be in Hels, and then a portal appeared. He went through it to Hermitcraft, and somehow, that got Bravo sent to Hels. That seems to be the conclusion they’ve come to. And Tango didn’t know about it at first, but he’s known about it for a couple years at this point, and said nothing.
(How selfish of him.)
But it wasn’t Tango’s fault! He didn’t intentionally send Bravo there, and he only kept his knowledge secret because he was afraid he’d get sent back himself if he revealed the truth. That’s… really upsetting. If Tango didn’t trust the Hermits enough to tell them, after spending nearly a decade getting to know them, it’s no wonder he didn’t tell Jimmy.
Has Tango spent this whole time feeling like a fugitive in his own home?
And what is Hels, really? What kind of world doesn’t allow portal travel in and out? The way they’d spoken about it, it almost seemed like a prison. But created by who? And why?
What exactly is a Hels player? What does a ‘doppelgänger’ entail, exactly? Because if Tango is supposed to be an evil version of Bravo, Jimmy is clearly missing something, ‘cause he doesn’t buy that for a second.
Do all players have a Hels counterpart? Does Jimmy? Oh, now there’s a disturbing thought. Is there another Jimmy running around in a prison world somewhere, locked away from the rest of the universe?
Now that he’s aware of the possibility, he isn’t sure this is something he can just forget about.
But he knows his questions will have to wait. Tango is hardly in the condition to be discussing any of this- getting him recovered from his shock is Jimmy’s first priority. He’s about to ask how far away they are when two figures appear in the distance.
It’s Scott and Pearl, on the way back from their respawns. Pearl is preoccupied, intensely scanning her communicator as she walks. But Scott spots them immediately, nudging Pearl with his elbow and lifting a hand to wave them over.
Impulse glances over his shoulder at Bdubs and Jimmy. “Guess we’d better go see what they want,” he says as he steers his horse towards the pair, Bdubs following suit.
Pearl looks up at their approach. Her respawn must’ve taken care of any injuries she sustained from the battle, because she seems like her usual red-eyed self. But there’s an unmistakable air of anxiety about her- one that Scott seems to share, based on his terse expression.
“Impulse!” Pearl shouts, as soon as she’s within proximity hearing range. “You seen Tilly ‘round?”
Impulse eases his horse to a stop. “Oh, uh- she’s the one with the dyed collar, right?” he asks, knitting his brows together. “Yeah, yeah I���m pretty sure she was back at the wheat field.”
Pearl exhales heavily. “Oh, thank goodness. I- I lost so many dogs, I wasn’t sure…” She puts her communicator away, looking them up and down. “So uh, is everyone alright? Are… you guys alright?” she asks uncertainly, quirking a brow.
“We’re fine,” Impulse assures her easily. He jerks his head back in the direction they came from. “The others are dealing with the ranch right now, it’s uh… it’s a pretty big fire, I’m sure they’d appreciate some help.”
Pearl follows his gaze, eyes widening at the plume of smoke still visible above the trees. “Oh gosh, yeah, we’d better get goin’, then.”
“You alright, Timmy?” Scott speaks up suddenly.
“Huh?” Jimmy startles at being addressed. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Mmm.” Scott doesn’t look convinced, his sharp eyes studying Jimmy’s face before flicking over to Tango. “Is Tango alright? Where’d tha’ thing on his neck come from?”
Jimmy’s heart jolts. “Um…” He isn’t sure how much he should be sharing with the others, while Tango’s incapacitated like this.
Luckily for him, Impulse cuts in. “Don’t worry,” he says gently, “we’ve got it covered. You guys go check in with the others, okay?”
It’s not a very subtle hint, but Scott allows it. “Alriiiight,” he drawls, holding his hands up. “Just remember you’ve got help if y’want it.”
“I appreciate it,” Impulse hums, but Jimmy catches the flash of relief in his eyes as he turns his horse away.
“Yeah, ‘preciate ya!” Bdubs echoes as they ride off.
They ride in silence for a few moments, until they’re out of proximity range, before Impulse clears his throat. “I just think Tango would appreciate some privacy right now,” he explains quietly. “You know everyone else- they’d all want to help and see if he’s okay, but a big group would probably freak him out.”
“Ah.” Jimmy nods. “Good thinkin’.”
(Gee, Impulse is really taking charge, huh?)
(You’re basically useless.)
(He would’ve been a way better soulmate for Tango than you.)
The thoughts make Jimmy flinch. He hasn’t often felt insecure in his relationship with Tango, despite having known him for a much shorter time than the Hermits. But right now, his general lack of knowledge and experience in how best to help Tango has become glaringly obvious.
Thankfully, before he can spend any more time feeling sorry for himself, Impulse and Bdubs’s house finally comes into view.
They’ve added another floor since Jimmy was last here. Floor-to-ceiling windows made of light gray panes curl around one side of the building, continuing with the sleek mid-century modern design. The front yard has received some landscaping as well; a wide, circular path that frames a small cluster of custom trees and shrubbery before leading to the dark oak door, framed by neat flower beds on either side.
As they come up on the house, Impulse and Bdubs turn their horses along a branch of path that veers off from the main circle, taking them towards a small structure built against the house’s side. Made only out of diorite wall posts and a flat, deepslate tiled roof, it creates sort of an overhang, divided into two compartments with warped stem fence posts. Its purpose quickly becomes obvious as Bdubs hops off his horse and pulls a lead from his inventory, leashing his horse to one of the posts.
Jimmy swings his leg around to slide off the horse, dropping onto the ground with an ungraceful grunt. In the stall beside them, Impulse has carefully dismounted from his own steed, still cradling Tango in his arms.
The longer Jimmy looks, the more his chest aches with longing. So he looks away.
“Alright, let’s get inside.” Impulse’s voice is soft. He turns back towards the front of the house. “This way.”
Bdubs finishes hitching the other horse to its post. “Right behind ya!” he chirps. He pats Jimmy on the arm as he passes- an encouraging, or perhaps comforting, gesture.
Either way, Jimmy appreciates it. He knows Bdubs tends to diffuse tense situations with humor, or by maintaining an energetic demeanor. It might be mistaken as inconsiderate, in some situations, but he seems to know where the line is. Genuinely, Jimmy thinks he’d feel worse if Bdubs was suddenly walking on eggshells around him.
Pity is a suitor that won’t take a hint, no matter how many times Jimmy turns it away.
He follows Impulse and Bdubs around the front of the house. Bdubs has already scrambled ahead to open the door for Impulse, whose arms are, of course, full of Tango. He ushers Jimmy in after them with a wide sweep of his arm.
They’ve moved their bedroom upstairs at some point, it seems. The main floor is now a dedicated living space with a modest kitchen in the back, overlooked by a loft from the second floor. An L-shaped lounge made of quartz stairs is built into the conversation pit occupying the center of the room, surrounding a small fireplace. The glass panes encasing it go all the way up to the ceiling, but the sight of fire makes Jimmy flinch anyways- which he immediately kicks himself for.
(Jeeze, man, get a grip! What if Tango saw that?)
If Impulse and Bdubs noticed, they don’t comment on it. Impulse silently leads the way up a spiral quartz slab staircase, which opens up into the loft. Bdubs’s interior work is clearly showing here, with cozy seating nestled beside a custom bookshelf-console unit. Straight ahead past the loft is a short hallway with a couple doors on either side.
Impulse stops at the first one on the right. “We got a spare room here,” he says, nodding his head at the door.
“Not finished yet!” Bdubs adds hastily, though still making an effort to keep his voice low. “Or uh, heugh- furnished. I’m gonna- I was gonna do the interior, I swear.”
Somehow, the fact that Bdubs is concerned Jimmy will judge his lackluster interior decoration- despite everything else going on right now- makes Jimmy crack a smile. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers, ey?” he jokes.
“Oh, very freaking funny!” Bdubs huffs, but he’s grinning, too. He opens the door for them, and Jimmy lets Impulse carry Tango inside before following.
The room is, as expected, fairly bare bones. Quartz walls and a dark oak floor carry over the mid-century modern theme from the exterior, but there’s no furniture other than a double-wide cyan bed against the wall. A couple of haphazardly-placed torches on the walls provide the room’s only lighting.
“No windows yet, either,” Bdubs mutters, clicking his tongue as his critical gaze sweeps over the room. “I need ta- I- I still gotta figure out how to place ‘em, with the exterior wall and stuff.”
“It’s alright,” Jimmy assures him. Windows would make him feel a bit too exposed right now, if he’s being honest.
Impulse carefully sets Tango down on the bed. “Okay, Tango, here we are.” He straightens up, running a hand through his hair as he exhales heavily.
Bdubs crosses quickly-but-quietly over to Impulse, wrapping him in a hug. “You okay, sweetie?” he asks softly.
Impulse smiles down at him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Don’t worry.”
“Okay.” Bdubs goes up on his toes to kiss Impulse’s cheek- and even so, he barely makes it. “I’m gonna go check on our boys, then, and see if the others need help with th- with the uh, the ranch. D’you- is there anything you want me to tell ‘em?”
“Yeah,” Impulse says thoughtfully, “maybe just let them know that we’d like to give Tango and Jimmy some privacy right now? We’ll let them know if we need anything, and we’ll chat more once everything’s calmed down.”
“Right, okay.” Bdubs glances at Jimmy. “That- is that good? For you?”
Jimmy is taken aback by the amount of consideration he’s being given. “Oh yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”
“Alright.” Bdubs casts one final look at Tango, trying but failing to hide his worry from those big eyes of his. “Alright, I- I’ll be back in a little.”
He slips out the door, leaving them alone.
Before an awkward silence can descend, Impulse clears his throat. “So uh, looks like someone got you pretty good,” he says, gesturing to his face.
“Huh?” Confused, Jimmy brings a hand to his face- only to jerk away as his fingers brush against his nose. Now that he’s actually paying attention, there’s a dull ache of pain radiating down the bridge of his nose, and underneath the still-sticky blood, he can feel a prominent bump where there wasn’t one before.
“Oh, right,” he murmurs. “Forgot about that.”
“Yeah, looks broken,” Impulse says sympathetically. “Need a respawn?”
Jimmy pauses. It’s difficult to tell when an injury will result in lasting damage- no one’s really cracked that particular scientific riddle yet. But generally, it’s understood that the sooner the respawn, the better the outcome. That’s why things like creeper explosions hardly ever leave a mark, since the death is usually instant.
More so, superficial wounds tend to be less likely to scar than deeper, more structural wounds. A simple gash will almost always go away after respawning- if it hasn’t already healed on its own- but things like broken bones can linger in the form of scars, joint deformities, and chronic pain. If he’s being smart, he really should get a quick respawn in, just to be sure.
But they’re on the Double Life world, and right now, his life isn’t just his own.
Jimmy looks Tango over. None of his wounds are serious enough to warrant a respawn, he only got a little scuffed up in the initial attack. In his current state, it’d probably do more harm than good.
“No,” Jimmy decides, “I… I can’t do that to him, not right now. He’s disoriented as it is.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Besides, I think it’s just the cartilage. Either it’ll heal on my next respawn, or it won’t, and it’ll just match the rest of my face.”
Impulse doesn’t laugh at the self-deprecating joke, simply offering a sad smile. “Alright. I’ll see if Martyn can bring some healing potions by once they finish up at the ranch, I’m pretty sure he’s got a brewing set-up.”
Jimmy’s throat tightens. “Right, thanks…” He smoothes a hand over the bed’s cover, setting his spawn anyways, before he eases himself onto the mattress. “Tango…?” he ventures. “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”
Tango has yet to move at all from where Impulse deposited him, back against the wall with his knees tucked to his chest, arms limp at his sides. He doesn’t acknowledge Jimmy at all- which isn’t anything malicious on his part, of course, but god does it hurt.
Taking a deep breath, Jimmy tries again. “Hey, Tango? It’s me, it’s Jimmy.” He puts a gentle hand on Tango’s shoulder, watching him all the while for any sign that he’ll startle or panic. “It’s over, you’re safe now. Are- are you hurt anywhere? Do you need anythin’?”
Still nothing. Somewhere behind Jimmy, Impulse makes a noncommittal noise. “Jimmy, buddy, I don’t think that’s gonna work right now…”
Jimmy ignores him. “Please, Tango,” he pleads, feeling his eyes sting, “can you just…” Idly, he lifts his other hand to wipe some of the blood off Tango’s chin. “Can you look at me?”
Unexpectedly, that gets Tango’s attention. He lifts his face almost robotically to look at Jimmy, eyes and expression still devastatingly blank.
The sudden movement startles Jimmy, his hand jerking back. And as it does, Tango lets his head drop back down.
An image flashes in Jimmy’s mind; Atlas, the doctor with the blood red gloves, grabbing Tango by the chin and tilting his head up.
(Oh, that’s messed up.)
(You’ve really done it, now.)
(Brilliant, just brilliant.)
Jimmy’s stomach turns. He scrambles back, away from Tango, his heart starting to pound. “Sorry,” he whispers, even though Tango gives no indication that he’s hearing it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
A hand lands on his shoulder, making him jump. Impulse gives him an understanding look. “I… think he just needs some time to come out of it,” he says quietly. “Y’know, alone. When he shuts down like this, there’s really nothing to do but wait.”
Jimmy finds his voice again. “Wait, you’ve seen it before?” he asks, creasing his brows together.
Impulse winces. “A couple times, yeah.”
“Oh.” Jimmy swallows, glancing back at Tango. “I dunno, I- I don’t wanna just leave him like this…”
“We can stay right outside,” Impulse says reassuringly, folding his arms. “It’s just… when he gets like this, I’m not sure he’s fully processing what’s going on. It’s like a defense mechanism. So he’s not gonna come out of it until he feels safe, and um… well…”
It’s not hard to catch his meaning. Jimmy bristles. “What, are you- are you sayin’ he doesn’t feel safe with me?” he snaps, which is so unfair because Impulse has been so helpful and so kind and he’s actually sort of right, but Jimmy can’t help it.
Impulse holds his gaze. “Not if he doesn’t recognize you.”
That sobers Jimmy a little, his wings sagging. “Oh. Oh, yeah, good point. You’re right.” Ducking his head, he swings his legs off the side of the bed and rises to his feet. “I guess he’ll be okay in here,” he relents. “But um, can we- would you mind if we put out the lights? It’s just…”
“Tango feels safer in the dark,” Impulse finishes, realization dawning in his eyes. “Good call.”
“Yeah.” Jimmy fidgets with his hands as Impulse collects the torches.
(Wow, he really knows Tango, huh?)
(Thank god someone knows what to do.)
(What exactly are you even here for?)
With the room now sufficiently darkened, Impulse holds the door open for Jimmy. Jimmy gives Tango a final look-over, his blank face now lit by the dim glow of his dampened blaze rods.
“We’ll be right outside if you need us, Tango,” Jimmy says in parting.
Tango remains silent as Impulse closes the door behind them.
As soon as they’re back in the hallway, all of Jimmy’s fatigue seems to hit him at once. He sways where he stands, shoulder bumping against the wall- the dull pain is easily ignored in favor of the black spots dancing across his vision. He squeezes his eyes shut, biting back a groan.
Fortunately, Impulse is there to steady him. “Woah, easy there.” He quickly guides Jimmy over to the loft to sit down. “Just breathe, okay?”
Jimmy takes a few slow, deep breaths- in through the nose, out through the mouth. When he opens his eyes again, the room is no longer spinning around him, so that’s a plus.
“Here,” Impulse presses something into Jimmy’s hand, “you must’ve worked up some hunger.”
It’s a golden carrot. “Thanks,” Jimmy murmurs, immediately starting to nibble on it. He probably does have food on him, somewhere in his inventory- cooked steak, most likely- but the extra saturation helps.
Seemingly satisfied that Jimmy isn’t going to pass out, Impulse sits down in the chair next to him. “How you feelin’?”
“Better, thanks,” Jimmy murmurs, shifting to fold his wings a bit more comfortably. He feels awkward and just… so out of place here. And Impulse is a nice guy, sure, but it’s a little embarrassing to have to be taken care of like a child. If it weren’t for Tango’s sake, he probably wouldn’t have accepted Impulse’s offer of help in the first place.
“Good.” Impulse looks him up and down, brows pinching together. “Jeeze, they really did a number on you. I’m sorry we weren’t there sooner, chat was chaos and we thought they’d be at spawn ‘til we saw your SOS.”
That comforts Jimmy a little. At least he managed to do something right. “It’s alright, not your fault,” he assures Impulse. “I mean, if you guys hadn’t come when you did…”
“Yeah.” Impulse nods solemnly. “That, uh… would’ve been pretty bad.”
Jimmy studies Impulse for a moment. Now that they have a second, there’s a question that’s been nagging at him. “So…” he starts, “how much did you hear, of what Bravo said?”
“Eh, bits and pieces.” Impulse shrugs. “Something about Tango being an evil doppelgänger from Hels.”
He says it so casually, like he’s talking about the weather. Jimmy’s stomach cinches. “Impulse…” he says carefully. “Did you… did you know?”
“What?” Impulse looks at him in surprise. “Oh, that Tango was from Hels? No. No, I never knew anything about before he came to Hermitcraft. But you know, I always kinda knew there was something… not great in his past. I mean, there were signs. I just figured he’d come from an anarchy server or something.” He knits his brows together. “I guess you… never saw what he was like, when he was still new, huh?”
Jimmy frowns. “Wha’d’you mean?”
Impulse makes a noncommittal noise. “It’s not my place to get into all that. But let’s just say… he’s come a long way since then. So um, looking back, it kinda makes sense.”
“So then…” Jimmy hesitates. “D’you believe what Bravo was saying? About what Hels are like?”
Impulse actually laughs- though not unkindly. “Oh, no, not by a long shot,” he assures Jimmy. “Don’t worry about that. I mean, there are players who think non-humans are bad, right? Like, there are still public servers out there that’ll ban Cleo soon as she joins, just for being a zombie.” He shrugs a shoulder, his forked tail idly flicking through the air. “Or me, for being a demon.”
“Oh.” Jimmy blinks, feeling stupid. “Right. It’s… so easy to forget, sometimes, that some folks still feel that way.”
Impulse tilts his head. “Well, not when you have to live it,” he says lightly.
“Oh. Oh!” Jimmy smacks his forehead. “No, no, right, of course,” he adds hastily, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it’s easy for you specifically to forget. Just, in general, I guess. ‘Cause most players don’t have that problem with avians- I mean, sometimes they think some of our traits are weird, sure, but uh- but it’s not the same thing, cause we aren’t hostile mob hybrids. Obviously. And- and none of my friends feel that way, either, so I just…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, I’m not makin’ a lotta sense.”
Impulse gives him a gracious smile. “It’s okay, I know what you mean.” He leans back in his chair, his eyes thoughtful. “I’ve gotten so used to Hermitcraft, sometimes it catches me by surprise when I travel to public servers and people act scared, or… distrustful of me. And that’s without even seeing me in ‘full demon’ mode. So uh, even though I don’t know anything about this Hels world, I don’t believe that just being from there would automatically make someone evil. I know Tango better than that.”
Jimmy’s throat tightens. “Right…”
Now it’s Impulse’s turn to give him a sideways look. “... you don’t believe what Bravo said, do you?” he asks, voice low.
“What?” Jimmy blanches. Despite himself, he feels his wings puff up with indignation. “Gosh no, no, that’s- not in a million years, mate, it’s utter nonsense!”
“Alright, alright, sorry,” Impulse chuckles, holding his hands up. “I didn’t think you would. But you know, I just had to make sure.”
“Yeah.” Jimmy sighs, letting his feathers smooth down again. “You’re a good friend, Impulse,” he says, glancing away. “Seems like you know what to do, here. He’s gonna need that.”
“He’s gonna need you.”
That makes Jimmy look up. “What?”
Impulse’s expression softens. “I’ve known Tango a while, now, and even though there’s been plenty of fun and good times over the years… this is the first time I’ve seen him truly content. Like, he just seems at peace in a way I’ve never seen before. You do more for him than you’ll ever know- probably ‘cause he’s too scared to tell you.” There’s a knowing glint in his golden eyes. “Emotional vulnerability, uh, isn’t exactly his strong suit.”
A bittersweet smile tugs at Jimmy’s mouth. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
Impulse claps him on the shoulder. “We’re gonna figure it out, okay? You guys aren’t alone in this.”
Warmth blooms in Jimmy’s chest. “Thank you, Impulse,” he says softly, “I appreciate it.”
“No problem.” Impulse returns his smile before sitting back in his chair. “Now, how about you get some rest?”
Jimmy’s heart jolts. “Wh- no, wait,” he protests, “I’m not gonna leave-”
“You can stay right here!” Impulse assures him easily. “Just close your eyes and rest a bit. I’ll keep an eye out, and wake you up as soon as Tango comes to, okay? But right now, frankly, you look exhausted. And I’m sure you’ll wanna be well-rested for whenever Tango’s ready to talk about stuff.”
“Ah…” Chewing his lip, Jimmy glances over at the door to the spare room- mere steps away.
Since he forewent a respawn, he has to admit some shut-eye would be quite welcome at the moment. The immediate danger has passed. And right now, there’s nothing he can do to help Tango but give him some time. Might as well spend that time resting.
“I… suppose you’re right,” he relents finally. “But you gotta promise you’ll wake me if anythin’ happens, alright?”
Impulse nods. “I promise.”
“Right, then.” Jimmy settles into his chair, folding his arms across his chest. He fights back a yawn. “Thanks again. I- I mean it though… any little thing…”
“I know, I know.” Impulse waves him off. “Don’t worry.”
“Famous last words,” Jimmy quips, closing his eyes.
Impulse huffs a laugh but says nothing else.
Silence settles over the room, filled only by Impulse’s steady breathing and the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of him typing away on his communicator. He’s probably updating the others on the situation, so Jimmy can rest easy. He’s considerate like that.
Jimmy would’ve thought it’d be hard to fall asleep. This chair isn’t exactly built for it, and as lovely as Impulse and Bdubs’s home is, it’s not the ranch.
The loss is still fresh. He already knows it’s gonna hit him even harder in the coming days. But for right now, the post-adrenaline exhaustion is finally sinking in, and before he knows it, he’s drifted off into the inky blackness.
~*~
A gentle hand on Jimmy’s shoulder startles him awake.
“Jimmy,” Impulse whispers, his golden eyes glowing in the darkness, “wake up.”
It must’ve been quite a deep, dreamless sleep, because while it seems to Jimmy that he only just closed his eyes, he can clearly see through the window that it’s been at least several hours. The sun has long since set; a half moon is rising in the night sky. That’s alright with Jimmy- he was afraid he’d have nightmares.
Rubbing his eyes, Jimmy squints at Impulse. “What’s goin’ on? Everythin’ okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Impulse scratches the back of his head. “I uh, I just heard a thud in Tango’s room so I went to check on him and- he’s fine, don’t worry!” he adds quickly, as Jimmy bolts upright. “He’s fine, he’s up, but he still seems kinda disoriented? Like, he’s conscious, but when I tried to go in… I guess I look a bit too intimidating,” he taps one of the curved horns poking out from his hair, “‘cause he growled at me.”
“Growled?” Jimmy repeats, raising his eyebrows.
(Well, that’s promising.)
(Round two!)
(Here we go…)
“Yeah.” Impulse gives a sad smile. “So um, I think you should go try and talk to him, if you’re up for it.”
“Oh.” Jimmy blinks. “Oh, right, of course.” He rises to his feet, shaking off residual soreness from his awkward sleeping position.
Impulse pulls a lantern from his inventory and holds it out to Jimmy. “Give a shout if you need anything.”
Jimmy takes the lantern. “Right, thanks.” Steeling himself, he creeps over to the spare room, knocking lightly on the door- which is slightly ajar. “Tango…?” he calls softly, poking his head into the room. “You okay?”
The bed is empty, covers strewn in disarray. Tango is crouched in the corner farthest from the door, his back pressed against the wall. Hunched over and breathing hard, he stares at Jimmy, his blood-stained face lit by the faint glow of his blaze rods. His pupils are dilated again, lips curled back to show his teeth. There’s no recognition in his expression at all.
(You cannot sleep, there are monsters nearby.)
Jimmy swallows. His heart starts to pound. “Tango,” he starts tentatively, holding the lantern up so his face is clearly illuminated as he steps forward, “it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Tango makes a blaze noise deep in his throat; a haunting, hollow sort of growl. It’s unmistakably a warning.
Jimmy hesitates, wings shuffling uncertainly. How to get through to him? General reassurances don’t seem to be working. He needs to remind Tango of where he is, to convince him that he’s safe- in a way that only Jimmy would know.
He takes a breath. “Hey, rancher.”
Tango falls silent. Surprise flickers across his features, mouth parting, gaze sharpening. For a moment he just stares, motionless. Then he squints.
“... Jimmy?”
Oh, Jimmy could cry. “Yes, there we go!” he says encouragingly. “It’s me, it’s Jimmy. You okay, Tango?”
Tango’s breath hitches. He takes a single, careful step forward- then he halfs runs, half stumbles towards Jimmy.
Jimmy rushes to meet him, catching Tango before he falls. “Oh jeeze, okay…” Setting the lantern down on the bed, he lowers them to the floor, shifting so he can wrap Tango in his arms. “It’s alright, it’s alright…”
“Jimmy, thank god.” Tango clings to him just as tightly, face buried in Jimmy’s shirt. His claws dig into Jimmy’s skin just shy of being painful. “I- I woke up,” he gasps, “and the quartz- I thought I was…” He pulls away enough to scan Jimmy’s face, eyes wide and frightened. “Where are we? What- how long has it been?”
Jimmy knits his brows together. “Uh- we’re at Impulse and Bdubs’s place, and it’s been… several hours, I think? Half a day?”
“God.” A shudder runs through Tango. “That- that really happened, didn’t it?” He starts to breathe faster, his voice straining into that faint upper pitch that Jimmy’s come to associate with panic. “Oh god, I- I- I don’t- hhh, I c- can’t…”
“Hey, hey, breathe,” Jimmy soothes, rubbing circles on Tango’s back. “I’m here, you’re safe. It’s over. Just breathe.”
They stay like that for a while, Tango curled against Jimmy as he rides out the worst of it. He shakes violently, eyes squeezed shut, breath hitching as he tries to get control of it again. Jimmy’s heart aches for him- he wishes there was something more he could do to help.
But he knows from experience that just being here is enough.
It’s not terribly infrequent for Tango to have nightmares. Sometimes he simply startles awake at night, apologizes for waking Jimmy up, and goes back to sleep. If Jimmy asks about it the next morning, he brushes it off as nothing; just silly nonsense nightmares, the kind that are terrifying at the time but seem utterly ridiculous in the light of day. Nothing more than that.
And all this time, Jimmy believed him.
(What a fool.)
Jimmy’s only ever seen a couple nightmares cause a reaction as severe as this. The shaking, the shortness of breath, the panic. What helped in the past was simply holding Tango- offering a few reassurances, but mostly silent comfort. And of course, Tango never wanted to talk about those nightmares, and Jimmy didn’t want to push too hard. He’d figured that Tango would talk to him about it when he was ready.
(Fool me once, shame on you…)
Gradually, Tango calms down. His tremors cease, and his breathing starts to grow deeper. He’s still holding onto Jimmy, but it’s less desperate, now. More familiar. Jimmy curls his wings around them, as if providing another barrier, another layer of security.
After Tango’s been still and quiet for a few moments, Jimmy softly breaks the silence. “How much d’you remember?”
Tango takes a shaky breath. “All of it,” he whispers. “E- everything, I was- it was like I- I was watching everything happen to someone else, like I was outside my body…” He looks up to meet Jimmy’s gaze, eyes brimming with tears. “Jimmy, I- I’m so sorry.”
“What?” Jimmy frowns. “Tango, what on earth are you apologizing for?”
Abruptly, Tango pulls away. “I burned you,” he grits out.
“No, you-” Jimmy almost grabs him by the arm, but then thinks better of it. “That wasn’t your fault.”
Tango stares at him incredulously. “Wha’ th- what do you mean? Of course it was!” He rakes his claws through his hair. “I- I lost control, I set the ranch on fire, and you got burned.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Jimmy argues. “You didn’t do it on purpose, you were just defending yourself.”
“Doesn’t matter!” Tango throws his hands up. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten burned, true or false?”
(True!)
(He’s got a point…)
(Why are you arguing this?)
Jimmy doesn’t answer. “Look,” he says instead, “honestly, it’s not a big deal. I’m fine!”
“Well, you don’t look fine!” Tango says bluntly. Distress flashes across his face as he looks Jimmy up and down. “Your poor wings- and oh, your face! What, did- we didn’t respawn?”
Jimmy ducks his head. “I didn’t wanna put you through that,” he explains, wincing.
He can actually see the guilt in Tango’s eyes intensify. “Ohhh no,” he breathes, dismayed. “You- why did you…” Shaking his head, he fixes Jimmy with a firm look. “Okay, you- you need to respawn, now.”
“It’s not important,” Jimmy replies, just as stubbornly. He holds a hand out, beseeching. “Tango, please, I- I’ve been worried outta my mind about you. So much happened- ”
“I’m fine,” Tango says shortly.
“No, you’re not,” Jimmy insists, working hard not to raise his voice. “I mean, honestly, I- I don’t even know what that thing ‘round your neck is doin’!”
Tango shuts his mouth with a sharp click and glances away.
That sobers Jimmy instantly. Tentatively, he scooches a bit closer to Tango. His eyes trace the collar- it’s so deceptively simple, so innocuous at first glance. Just a ring of smooth, flat iron. But clearly, there’s a lot more going on; a single red light above the keyhole hints at a mechanism hidden within.
“Do you… know what it is?” Jimmy ventures, giving Tango a searching look.
Tango’s jaw tightens. “It’s wither rose.”
Jimmy blinks, taken aback. “What? But… we aren’t withering, we aren’t takin’ damage-”
“It’s not…” Tango makes a noncommittal noise, waving a hand in an aborted gesture. “They’ve modified it, somehow, I dunno. It- it’s not the full effect. All it’s doin’ is dampening my fire.”
“And our soulbond,” Jimmy realizes, his stomach sinking. “After he put it on you, I- I couldn’t feel your emotions anymore. It’s just… numb.”
Tango’s face is grim. “That’s what wither rose does,” he says lowly.
The certainty in his voice is… somewhat concerning. Sure, any player who’s been ‘round the block will have learned what it feels like to be withered, at some point or another. But due to the tedious and somewhat risky nature of obtaining the roses by way of a wither farm, most players don’t regularly encounter them. And as far as aesthetics are concerned, they aren’t the most appealing flower, so when they are farmed, they’re mostly used for mass-producing black dye or as the killing method in a mob farm. Not as decor or landscaping, where a player might actually touch the rose and be subjected to the wither effect.
Personally, Jimmy can’t remember the last time he touched a wither rose, as a player who doesn’t make a habit of farming withers or even taking on the boss fight. But the tone of Tango’s voice right now is the tone of someone who is horribly familiar with the sensation.
“Tango…?” Jimmy prompts quietly. “Is there… somethin’ I should know?”
Tango swallows. He’s avoiding Jimmy’s eyes. “I… I don’t wanna talk about it,” he whispers hoarsely. “Not right now?”
It’s almost a plea, and Jimmy’s heart tightens. “Okay. That’s okay,” he says gently, forcing down his disappointment; this isn’t about him. He rises to his feet, holding out his hand to Tango. “Here, come on, let’s… let’s get up on the bed, alright? It’s late, you need some proper rest.”
Tango hesitates, though he accepts Jimmy’s offered hand to help him up. “You need to respawn…”
“It can wait,” Jimmy says easily. He tries for a grin. “Honestly, I- I already knew I wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes, but I didn’t think it was that bad…”
“No,” Tango says quickly, “no, you’re not-” He makes a frustrated noise. “Your wings.”
Jimmy softens. “They’re just feathers. They’ll grow back.”
Sure, it might take a while if his follicles have been badly damaged, and his wings won’t be a pretty sight once all the burned feathers fall out. But most of his flight feathers are still intact, so in terms of places to get burned, it could’ve been much worse.
Tango huffs a breath, clearly still upset with himself. But he doesn’t protest further as Jimmy eases onto the bed, gently pulling Tango with him. After collecting the lantern so the room is properly dark again, Jimmy nestles under the covers, sweeping a wing out to lightly gather Tango beside him.
Tango settles against him, and it’s then that Jimmy realizes he isn’t as warm as he used to be.
He’s not cold, not by any means. But Tango has always run a bit hotter than the average player- a blaze hybrid trait that Jimmy’s quite fond of. It was the whole reason they first shared a bed, back in the early days of the world, and inadvertently plunged their relationship into new, terrifying depths. If it wasn’t for that moment, they likely would’ve danced around the issue for far longer, and been robbed of many precious days of happiness together. So even on warm nights, Jimmy will still cuddle up beside Tango. Even if he has to kick all the blankets off.
But with the collar dampening Tango’s fire, he’s been robbed of that, as well.
Jimmy swallows the lump in his throat and puts an arm around Tango, who curls into his side, head resting on his shoulder. Having Tango so close is immediately comforting. God, to think of how close he came to losing this, to never holding Tango again…
It’s scary. It’s incredibly scary. There are few things in the universe that can really, truly cause lasting harm to a player. Injuries can heal upon respawn, death isn’t permanent- except for worlds where it is, then they just respawn on a different world and start again. But if those Hels people had succeeded in taking Tango through that hacked portal, into some isolated prison world that Jimmy has no way of finding… he’s afraid that would’ve destroyed him.
Jimmy turns his head to press a kiss onto Tango’s forehead, right between the dimmed blaze rods hovering around his temples. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” Tango whispers back.
The room grows silent. Jimmy stares up at the dark ceiling. His earlier tiredness has up and left him, his mind racing, plagued by thoughts of what might’ve been. It’s all he can do to reassure himself that it’s over, that Tango’s safe and still here with him.
That for once, he was lucky.
(For how long, though?)
He isn’t trying to stay awake. And he isn’t pretending to be asleep, either, just laying quietly with his thoughts. But at some point Tango must think he’s nodded off, because only then does he start to cry.
It’s a quiet sound. Just the sharp inhale and exhale of breath. Jimmy might not have even known he was crying if it wasn’t for the way his shoulders shake, and the sudden dampness seeping into Jimmy’s shirt.
It takes all of Jimmy’s willpower not to console Tango, to hold him tighter and offer hushed reassurances. There’s a reason Tango waited until he thought Jimmy was asleep- he’s very much the kind of person who prefers to show emotion on his own terms. If he knew Jimmy was awake to witness this, he’d completely shut down again. And he needs this.
So Jimmy pushes down his own emotions and does nothing as his soulmate cries, trying not to move or start crying himself as the guilt for being so useless eats him alive.
(Sweet dreams…)
~*~
Morning comes, eventually.
At least, as far as Jimmy can tell by his internal clock. The room he wakes up to is still fairly dark- just a slim beam of light coming in from the hallway through the cracked door. Impulse must’ve done that to better keep an ear out for them overnight. Thoughtful guy. Tango is sleeping deeply next to Jimmy, and the sight is quite comforting.
It seems they’ve kept with their usual sleeping habits, even without a sunrise to greet them.
Carefully, without jostling Tango, Jimmy pulls up his inventory to grab his communicator. He can’t recall hearing it go off, but he wants to make sure there isn’t anything that urgently requires his attention. He’s surprised, however, to find a potion of healing; Impulse must’ve slipped it to him while he was sleeping.
A smile tugs at Jimmy’s lips. He’s long since regenerated his health, but the potion ought to help with his lingering injury. He downs the potion quickly, grimacing at the cloyingly sweet note of melon. It doesn’t take long for a cooling sensation to settle over his broken nose. When he gently probes at it, he can feel it’s still a little crooked, but at least the pain is gone.
Putting the empty bottle away, Jimmy digs out his communicator, squinting against the blue light. No one’s used chat lately or sent him any whispers- it seems they’re taking the request for privacy quite seriously. But there is the backlog from yesterday waiting for him. It takes him a minute just to scroll back to where it all began.
Bravo joined the game.
<Grian> ey??
AtlasSyn joined the game.
Tyrannicide joined the game.
Phantonym joined the game.
<Grian> EYY????
Helfyre_004 joined the game.
<PearlescentMoon> Ummm?
<Renthedog> What the heck??
CRIMETIME joined the game.
t3rr0r_b1te joined the game.
EbonyHelmentia joined the game.
baddomen666 joined the game.
<InTheLittleWood> WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!?
staluggmite joined the game.
PwrPlayz joined the game.
<PearlescentMoon> Hello??
XxSLAYERxX joined the game.
Vexed2theMax joined the game.
ApexGamer98 joined the game.
<Smajor1995> wait how is this happening
<PearlescentMoon> Raid?? D:
SheHelsSeaHels joined the game.
ne’er_do_hels joined the game.
<Grian> i don;t know??
Jaffu joined the game.
<Grian> theres no one at spawn???
<Etho> woah!
<SolidarityGaming> SOS RSNCH
<Smajor1995> oh no
<Renthedog> What??
<Smallishbeans> rsnch lol
<GoodTimeWithScar> G come pick me up
Tyrannicide was slain by Tango.
staluggmite was slain by Tango.
Phantonym was slain by Tango.
<InTheLittleWood> Wait WHAT?!?!?!?!?!
<Smallishbeans> NO WAY
<BdoubleO100> OHHHHHHH
<Grian> EVERYONE TO RANCH
<ZombieCleo> what is happening???
staluggmite joined the game.
Tyrannicide joined the game.
<Smajor1995> omw cleo
Phantonym joined the game.
<impulseSV> Etho, Joel, our place?
<Renthedog> BigB where you at??
<bigbst4tz2> coming
SheHelsSeaHels was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]
EbonyHelmentia was shot by Smajor1995.
XxSLAYERxX was slain by impulseSV.
CRIMETIME was slain by Wolf.
t3rr0r_b1t3 was slain by Renthedog.
Jaffu was doomed to fall by ZombieCleo.
SheHelsSeaHels joined the game.
ne’er_do_hels was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]
Tyrannicide was slain by Renthedog.
XxSLAYERxX joined the game.
EbonyHelmentia joined the game.
CRIMETIME joined the game.
Phantonym was slain by Etho.
t3rr0r_b1t3 joined the game.
ne’er_do_hels joined the game.
XxSLAYERxX was slain by Wolf.
Jaffu joined the game.
Helfyre_004 was slain by Renthedog.
Vexed2theMax was slain by bigbst4tz2.
Tyrannicide joined the game.
XxSLAYERxX joined the game.
Jaffu was slain by Renthedog.
SheHelsSeaHels was slain by Wolf.
bigbst4tz2 was shot by AtlasSyn.
Renthedog died.
Phantonym joined the game.
baddomen666 was slain by Wolf.
SheHelsSeaHels joined the game.
Jaffu joined the game.
PwrPlayz was slain by InTheLittleWood.
Helfyre_004 joined the game.
Vexed2theMax joined the game.
staluggmite was slain by Smallishbeans.
Helfyre_004 was shot by Smajor1995.
EbonyHelmentia was slain by Wolf.
PwrPlayz joined the game.
ApexGamer98 was slain by PearlescentMoon.
baddomen666 joined the game.
PwrPlayz was slain by Wolf.
Jaffu was slain by Wolf.
baddomen666 was shot by Smajor1995.
EbonyHelmentia joined the game.
Vexed2theMax was slain by InTheLittleWood.
PearlescentMoon was shot by AtlasSyn.
Smajor1995 died.
Helfyre_004 joined the game.
ApexGamer98 joined the game.
SheHelsSeaHels was slain by Wolf.
ne’er_do_hels was slain by Wolf.
baddomen666 joined the game.
Vexed2theMax joined the game.
Helfyre_004 was slain by Wolf.
baddomen666 was slain by impulseSV.
CRIMETIME was slain by Smallishbeans.
Phantonym was slain by Wolf.
Vexed2theMax was slain by Wolf.
t3rr0r_b1t3 was slain by Wolf.
ApexGamer98 was slain by BdoubleO100.
Tyrannicide was slain by Wolf.
EbonyHelmentia was slain by Wolf.
AtlasSyn left the game.
XxSLAYERxX was slain by Wolf.
Bravo was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]
Grian was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]
GoodTimeWithScar died.
Jimmy doesn’t know how long he spends looking at chat, reading it over and over again as he tries to make sense of it. All those Hels players came here with the express purpose of kidnapping Tango. But why? Dr. Atlas had said something about ‘getting back to work’ and a farm design, but what does that even mean?
Speaking of that doctor fella, he seems to have been the only one to get kills on the Double Lifers- the rest of them must’ve been preoccupied with Pearl’s wolves. Gosh, to think what her chat must look like…
But that’s something worth noting. Atlas didn’t waste his time with wolves, he went for Pearl and Bigb. He must’ve realized the wolves were Pearl’s and targeted her because of it. And the fact he went for Bigb instead of Ren, who was racking up the most kills... that means he was able to put together that they were soulbound, and he used that to get rid of the threat more easily.
Out of these Hels players, Atlas is clearly the one to watch out for.
Well, him and Bravo, of course. Though Bravo technically isn’t a Hels, if Jimmy’s understood it properly. But he’s certainly just as cruel and bloodthirsty as those other guys were, and he’s got it out for Tango the most. Jimmy can’t recall the last time he saw such hate in a player’s eyes, for any reason. And this is the guy claiming he should’ve been Jimmy’s soulmate? Unbelievable.
As if Jimmy would ever go for such a dense, hateful, entitled piece of-
“Honey,” Tango says suddenly, sitting up on his elbows, “you okay?”
Jimmy jolts in surprise; he must’ve been looking quite cross with his communicator. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he assures Tango softly, offering an apologetic smile. “Sorry if I woke you.”
It’s difficult to make out details in the scarce light from the hallway, but Tango looks much improved from yesterday. Even underneath the dried blood, the warmth has returned to his skin, replacing that sickly, pale pallor. His red eyes are sharp and alert- that’s a huge relief, as well.
“No, no, you’re good!” Tango says brightly. He leans over to press a kiss to Jimmy’s cheek. “Sleep alright?”
His tone throws Jimmy for a moment. Someone’s feeling better. Blinking, Jimmy puts his comm away. “I did, yeah,” he answers uncertainly. “You?”
“Yep!” Tango smiles at him; it seems a bit forced. “I uh- I’m all rest-ificated and ready to start the day. So, what I- well, I- I guess our first order of business, we should go take a look at the ranch, right, see what the damage is? Then we can do some resource gathering and start rebuilding, so we aren’t crashing at Impulse and Bdubs’s place forever.”
Jimmy pauses for a moment to process the words. “Umm… are you sure?” he asks tentatively. “I mean, we can go look at it if you want, but uh, are you- we should really focus on getting that collar off you first, don’t you think?”
Tango shrugs. He isn’t quite meeting Jimmy’s eyes. “Doesn’t bother me. Besides, we don’t have the key.”
Jimmy knits his brows together. “So what, we just... let it alone? Move on?”
Tango huffs a laugh- it sounds a bit faint. “Yeah, yeah exactly.”
(What an abrupt change of character!)
(Lying again, it seems…)
(How suspicious.)
Okay, this is definitely strange behavior. Considering everything that happened yesterday, Jimmy would’ve expected Tango to still be physically and emotionally wrecked. But instead, he seems rather keen to just move on, like everything’s normal-
Ah. Of course. Jimmy doesn’t know why he’s surprised.
“Tango...” he starts, “I don’t think-”
“Good morning!” Impulse hums as he pokes his head through the cracked door. “How we doin’, guys?”
Curse his timing. Tango, of course, immediately takes advantage of the distraction.
“Oh, hey Impy!” he says cheerfully. “Hey uh, sorry about earlier. You know, I uh, I was a little confused, and uh… you know...” He pulls a face; overdramatized. He’s trying to make light of it.
Impulse seems to share the same realization as Jimmy. “Hey, it’s alright,” he says easily, though he keeps his tone in a lower register- more serious. Not feeding into the fake energy. “No hard feelings. Here, I brought some food.”
Tango takes the offered food without even a second of hesitation; a stack of golden carrots. “Of course. Thank you, thank you.” He quickly starts crunching on one, conveniently busying himself so he doesn’t have to say anything else.
Oh well, at least he’s eating. Jimmy gives Impulse a tired smile. “Hey, Impulse. Thanks again for lettin’ us crash here.”
Impulse returns his smile. “Yeah, of course, no problem. So um, I’ve just got a bit of an update for you guys.” He sits down at the end of the bed, expression sobering. “The ranch situation is under control, they managed to get the fire out before it spread to anything else nearby. So your pastures, barns, and fields are safe. All your animals, too.”
It’s easy enough to pick up on what he’s left out. “But the ranch itself is gone, isn’t it?” Jimmy says quietly.
Impulse nods. “I’m sorry. Most of what’s left is just the stone. I think the basement is pretty intact, too, but everything else…”
“Yep.” Tango, finished with his carrot, shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah, I figured. That’s what we get for building with wood, even though I’m super flammable and stuff.”
Jimmy gives him a sympathetic look. “It’ll be okay-”
“So,” Tango interrupts, avoiding Jimmy’s gaze as he gives Impulse an intent look, “uh- anything else?”
(Ouch! Testy…)
Impulse rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Grian wants to know if you guys are up for a chat. Nothing bad,” he adds quickly, “he’s just trying to figure out a solution and we’re just a little in the dark about everything. You can stick to the basics; if there’s something you aren’t comfortable telling us, that’s fine-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Tango assures him. Despite his grin, there’s a hard edge to his voice. “Let’s do it. Call everyone up, we’ll have a nice chat at spawn or something. Let’s- let’s get goin’.”
Impulse pauses. “Well, if you want, we can have just Grian come over...”
Tango huffs. “No, why- let’s just get everyone on the same page, okay? Get it all over with at once.” He spreads his hands. “No point in delaying, or- or having to explain the same thing over and over again, right? I mean, everyone’s stuck here ‘til Grian lifts the lockdown, I- I’m sure they’ll wanna know why.”
Jimmy exchanges a look with Impulse. “I… I suppose,” he says hesitantly. “But are you sure you’re-”
“Yeah,” Tango says, “yeah, it’s fine.”
Impulse purses his lips, clearly fighting not to let his frustration show.
The sentiment is one that Jimmy shares. It’s obvious Tango is trying to downplay everything- and if that’s his way of coping, fine. But it really throws a wrench into the works when moving forward requires actually addressing what happened, and having an in-depth conversation about it. And this doesn’t bode well for long-term; they can’t just pretend everything’s normal, no matter how much Tango might wish it.
“Okay, I’ll let him know.” Impulse rises to his feet. “The bathroom’s at the end of the hallway if you guys wanted to wash up.”
Tango actually makes a face at that, dropping the facade for a moment. He really doesn’t like water. “Wash up..?”
Impulse winces. “You’re um. Still covered in dried blood.”
(I was wondering when he’d realize that…)
Tango blinks. “Oh. Oh, right, of course.” Absently, he reaches a hand up to scratch at his chin. “I should probably wash that off, yeah. I mean, everyone knows I’m a vicious monster but I don’t have to look it, right?” he laughs.
Jimmy’s heart tightens. “Hey, Tango…”
“No,” Impulse protests, “that’s not-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Tango says shortly. “Thanks, Impulse.”
“Alright.” Impulse lets the matter drop, turning to leave. “Come downstairs when you’re ready.”
As soon as Impulse is gone, Jimmy turns to Tango. “Hey, so-”
But Tango has already hopped out of bed and crossed to the door, calling, “Hang on, be right back!” over his shoulder.
Down the hall, Jimmy hears the bathroom door open and close. He sighs.
This is gonna be a fun conversation.
~*~
CONTINUED IN PART IX, ACT II
#hels to pay au#HTP fic#hermitcraft#double life smp#my writing#man tumblr really threw a wrench in the works#i know this chapter got long and i use line breaks excessively but DAMN
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I think the larger MCYT fandom needs to come together to petition AO3 to change the character tags. Yes, it'll be annoying to redo for them and us, but I would MUCH rather tag things with shit like "Grian (Hermitcraft)" and "GoodTimesWithScar (Third Life)" instead of fuckin "Charles | Grian (Hermitcraft)" or "Ryan | GoodTimesWithScar (Third Life)", because I, and no one I know, have never thought of those cubitos/creators as Charles or Ryan instead of Grian or Scar. Bryce instead of fWhip? Hell even "Dave | Technoblade", even if it's not being changed and is wrong bc his name was Alex, it should be NOT THAT.
Their real life names should not be associated with the character name unless their username is different than the general name they use even in the content they produce (such as Jimmy | SolidarityGaming, Lizzie | LDShadowLady, or Martyn | InTheLittleWood). No one calls Bdubs "John" or "Booko". He's just Bdubs or BdoubleO100.
I know Mumbo's name is Oliver Brotherhood. But that's not the name I associate with him, and I'm willing to bet most fans don't associate "oliver brotherhood" with Mumbo either.
Content Creators should only have their iRL names attached to their AO3 tags if a) the tag is for ACTUAL RPF that isn't about the fictional personas, which SHOULD BE A SEPARATE TAG, or b) they actually go by their actual name in their content. And even then, if they don't go by their FULL NAME it should be "first name | username" not "full legal name | username". So "Scott | Smajor1995" or "Scott | DangThatsALongName", not "Scott Major | Smajor1995" or "Scott Major | DangThatsALongName". "MumboJumbo (Hermitcraft)" not "Oliver Brotherhood | MumboJumbo".
Just. We are the only ones that can tell AO3 why the tags are currently wrong. And we need to do so.
ETA: I have created a petition actually, if we want to try to approach AO3 en masse. Please sign?
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the best you can hope for
It's been a while, I know.
But it's time for a trust au update.
At this link, you can find the masterlist for the entire series! It's also on ao3 under the same name.
Reminder that this fic features sausage, fwhip, and joey as villains--and an extra warning, they do some pretty nasty things this chapter. pay special attention to the content warnings.
and just for fun, in the rb i'll link the spotify playlist i've made for the au! i'm always open to song suggestions :)
cw: kidnapping, violence, torture, sleep deprivation, non-consensual drugging, vomit, hallucinations, blood, unreliable narrator, insects, paranoia
~
When Scott wakes, fighting the thick fog of sleep, his head hurts something terrible.
He reluctantly wrenches his eyes open, blinks around at his surroundings. He can’t see a thing.
This. . . .
This is not his bedroom.
His bedroom is usually significantly lighter than this when he wakes up.
He hasn’t the faintest idea of where he is.
The last place he remembers being at was . . . right, the royal wedding. But the suite he’s been staying in also has windows that shine directly on his bed. Nothing about this place now lines up with where he should be.
Then Scott shifts, lifts his pounding head from where his cheek is pressed up against stone, and realizes he’s on a cold floor in a damp-smelling room with no bed.
Now how on Aeor’s green earth has he ended up here?
He takes stock of himself. He’s wearing a suit—the new suit he’d worn to the wedding, but judging by the tears he can feel in the fabric it’ll have to be retired. Other than his aching head (which, judging by the tacky dried stuff he can feel in his hair has sustained some sort of injury), he doesn’t seem to be harmed more than a few bumps and bruises.
He eases himself into a sitting position, stretches out his legs, squints around. Elves have decent night vision, and now that his eyes are working better, he starts to take in the room.
It’s a cell. Plain and simple. Stone all around, low roof, bars on one side. Beyond the bars is a dark room with normal basement stuff, so he’s presumably underground. Otherwise, he’s got barely more information than he did before. He can’t even tell what empire this might be.
There’s no noise—there’s very little noise, he amends. There’s a dripping sound coming from somewhere in his cell. Very aesthetic, nice and dungeon-y.
Right, fWhip had smashed a potion over his head, he suddenly remembers. After . . . after threatening Jimmy.
There was . . . it was a meeting on the docks. Scott had gone out to it, met Sausage and Joey, and fWhip had come up behind. . . .
Well. That would explain his rather grim surroundings.
There’s no one else in the area, which hopefully means that the three rulers have remained true to their promise, but Scott knows better than to assume he’s in the only cell in the only dungeon.
He doesn’t call out. Nothing for it but letting his captors know he’s awake before he’s fully prepared to meet with them. Not to mention, calling out for help is below him.
(Being in a cell is below him.)
Scott sighs, rolls onto his hands and knees and pushes himself to his feet. His head still hurts, but now that he knows the injury isn’t serious it’s easier to ignore it. Most of the pain comes from the residual potion effects, which should fade within a couple of hours, if not less.
It’s been a long time since he was drugged, but he’s had sleeping potions while in the infirmary before and they never fail to leave him with the worst headache of his life when he wakes up. If this was a sleeping potion (administered, perhaps, in a different way than he’s accustomed to, but a sleeping potion all the same), he should recover soon.
He paces the length of the cell a couple of times before stretching out his entire body (his wings are a bit too big to properly stretch, but he does his best) then sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. If he’s going to be here for a while, he might as well preen.
He stretches his left wing around himself, starts picking between the feathers for dirt and realigning those that have been bent out of place since his kidnapping. Can it be called kidnapping if he technically agreed to it? Did he agree to it? All he agreed to do was come out to the docks to meet with Graceffa.
They won’t hurt him, will they?
Scott’s not sure where the thought comes from, but he’s a little bit nervous now that he’s thought it. He’s always held the upper hand when it came to these three, but rarely all at once, and usually when he has the promise of his entire empire behind him. He’s alone here, trapped in a dungeon—
He digs in his front pocket for a moment, then all of them. No communicator. Nothing, actually, nothing but a pebble Jimmy had pulled out of his pocket at one of the wedding events and Scott had slipped into his own when nobody was looking. He rubs his thumb along it for a moment, then returns to preening his feathers.
It’s not a long task—he’d cleaned them just before the wedding ceremony, so he doesn’t have much to show for this, but there’s still a handful of feathers and dirt and even two or three leaves. By the time he finishes, the headache has faded into a dull pulsing and he’s beginning to get bored. This is certainly the most undignified position he’s been in for the past decade, but he might as well sleep.
He’s only just laid down when there’s a clanking sound from beyond his cell, and then light flickers into view.
Scott stands again, leans casually against the wall while he watches through the bars. He blinks several times as he adjusts to the approaching light, until suddenly the entire room is lighting up and he has to raise a hand to cover his eyes.
“Awake, are we?”
It’s Joey, a clear smile in his voice, and Scott bites back a sigh, peeking through his fingers. Sausage is there as well, using a torch to light the bracketed fixtures lining the rest of the room.
“Now, Major—”
“I do believe that I agreed to a conversation on the docks,” Scott interrupts. “Not whatever this is.”
“Now, Major,” Joey repeats, leaning tantalizingly on the bars of his cell. “I’m sure you know my boyfriend, Xorny?”
“I’m familiar,” Scott says, dread washing over him. So this has to do with the demon. This can’t be good. “What do you want from me?”
“Oh, nothing bad!” Sausage has joined the conversation, wiggling his fingers in between the bars. “We’ll let you go, just as soon as you tell us where the End Portal is!”
That’s one thing Scott knows he can’t do. He hasn’t done much research on where the demon might be from, but he knows it’s got some connection with the End. Giving Sausage and Jimmy that link could be disastrous.
“No can do,” he tells them, straightening a bit. Joey huffs; Sausage only grins.
“C’mon Smajor, it’s just a couple of coordinates! We know you know them, so save yourself a lot of trouble and hand ‘em over!”
Scott doesn’t respond to that. He can’t give up the location of the portal. He’s been tortured before, he can survive whatever they choose to do to him.
For a moment it looks like a beating, Joey slamming on the bars suddenly enough that Scott jolts back. Sausage drags him away, whispering something in his ear. After a moment, they both turn to Scott, slow smiles spreading across their faces.
“Have fun in here, Scott,” Joey snickers, backing away. Sausage follows him, chortling. “You’ll be begging to give up that location soon enough.”
Then they’re gone, leaving the torches flickering in the dungeon.
Scott blinks. He feels like that should have been a longer conversation. He feels like they ought to have threatened him more, or hurt him in some way.
Then again, he is an emperor. Rivendell’s armies are well-trained and strong. Maybe they don’t want him to rain down retribution when he’s returned.
He snorts. If that’s their goal, it’s in vain. He can handle a little waiting until his advisors realize he’s gone, and when he gets back there’ll be nothing keeping Mythland or the Lost Empire safe. Or the Grimlands, to be fair.
Scott settles in for a long wait, his wings tucked around him, and after hours of running over all of his interactions with Jimmy this week (he needs to stop doing that, he can’t be in love with him, he has to move on), he begins to fall asleep.
-
He’s rudely interrupted what feels like moments after falling asleep by a guard banging on the bars of the cell. Scott blinks open his eyes to glare at him, curls up a bit tighter.
“Get up!” the guard shouts, smacking a halberd against the bars. The sound reverberates around the cell and in Scott’s ears, and he groans before sitting up. The guard raises the halberd threateningly and Scott stumbles to his feet, rolling his shoulders out.
“I’m up, jeez,” he mumbles, arms crossed over his chest. So they will be torturing him, will they? Maybe he can slip out of the cell while it’s open, then fly home and declare war. Screw the House Blossom Alliance, he’s held back long enough.
But the guard doesn’t unlock the cell. They just glare at Scott, then step away.
What?
After a couple of minutes, he slowly slides to the floor. Nothing. What on earth was the goal with that? He’s on edge for a good hour, waiting for Sausage or Joey to enter the room, taunt him in some way, but there’s nothing.
His head still feels jostled by the loud noise of the halberd, but he lays back down on the floor, head on his arms, and drifts off.
-
Once again, he’s woken immediately by the halberd against the bars. He scrambles up to sit against the wall, breathing heavily. The guard squints at him, sidles away.
The third time he falls asleep, he’s woken before he even gets past the dozing stage. Dread settles in as he realizes exactly what’s happening.
They’re not going to let him sleep.
Scott’s good at staying awake. He can skip a night or two in order to work on a project, or worry about Jimmy. It's not a big deal.
Hopefully he’s freed within a couple of days.
He’s tired, but not tired enough that he’ll doze off while standing, so Scott stands. He stands, pacing here and there, tapping his feet. At some point he starts singing, sings all the elven folk songs and nursery rhymes he can think of before repeating them. The guard yells at him, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop until his voice cracks and his throat is raw. Hours, he thinks. Hours of singing.
When he can’t stand any longer, he kneels. He kneels and thinks, plans out an amendment to a marriage law that he’s been wanting to adjust for a while. He’s not sure when his thoughts slip away, not sure when his head dips to his chest.
All he knows is that suddenly there’s loud banging on his cell and he jerks awake, blinking rapidly. It hasn’t even been that long. He’s not sure how long it’s been, but it hasn’t been long.
He moves every couple of minutes, forcing himself to his aching feet, stretching out his wings, contorting himself into odd angles. The next time his head falls the person to bang on his cell is someone new, a guard with a beard and a stern face. It seems as though the next time he blinks it’s another guard, this one with hair that trails down to their knees.
He glares down at the floor. He’s stayed awake for longer than this before. What’s wrong with him?
But when he’s stayed awake in the past, he’s had books and fresh air and things to do. Now he’s in an empty cell that smells of mold with nothing but a rounded pebble to occupy himself with.
And it’s not like he came into this fresh. He’s been losing sleep for weeks, even more this past week what with the wedding. Scott’s been running himself into the ground for a while now, and in a cell with zero entertainment, he’s going to fall asleep.
He reaches a point where he can’t stop falling asleep. He begins to jerk himself awake before the guard can bang on the bars, the guard who is now permanently standing before him, halberd ready and waiting. He’s ready to cry when the routine changes and Sausage brings him food, a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of water, and he thinks his throat might be bleeding from how dry it is so he takes the water eagerly and drinks it all in one breath.
He hadn’t noticed the hunger over the exhaustion, but now that there’s food in front of him he can’t help but feel his stomach twisting in on itself. He reaches for it with trembling hands, glares when Sausage laughs at him.
“Aw, wittle Scott want his porridge?” Sausage mocks, and it’s all Scott can do to not throw the oatmeal back at him. He needs this. Food will help wake him up. He needs to swallow his pride for a moment and just eat.
He manages to eat slowly, his grip on the spoon tight and white-knuckled. He’s not going to give Sausage the satisfaction of seeing him eat like a desperate man.
Sausage doesn’t stop grinning, though, takes the bowl and glass when Scott’s done, carries them away with a “Toodles!” thrown over his shoulder.
Scott clenches his fists, stares into the flame of a torch on the other side of the bars. Maybe he can count how long he’s been awake by mealtimes. That was something to eat, and breakfast-y, so maybe he’s been here for . . . how long did he sleep after first arriving? How long was he unconscious in this cell?
He was abducted close to midnight, probably. If he slept until morning . . . has he been awake an entire day and night? Did he sleep until midday? Was he out until nighttime, and he’s only been awake a couple of hours?
A rooster crows from somewhere, somewhere nearby, and Scott jerks from where he’s swaying to stare off in that direction. Dawn? Why was Sausage even awake before dawn, let alone bringing him food personally?
It crows again, closer. Scott rubs his eyes, stands on wobbly legs. The water and food has helped to replenish his energy a little bit, but he really just needs to sleep. He glances around past the bars of his cell, at the three guards—two of which are twins—and their weapons, at the various chests and torches and other basement stuff.
The rooster crows a third time, close enough that he should see it in the room, but there’s nothing there.
Then he’s waking up.
He’s in a bed in the infirmary of Rivendell, and he barely has a moment to take in the pale blue of the room before he’s pitching over the side of the bed to vomit.
His stomach hurts, burns, tears at itself until he’s crying, close to screaming. He bites his lip to keep it down, even as several elves hurry over to him, help him sit up.
“My lord, you’re all right,” one elf says, trying to wipe his mouth with a towel. “Bad case of food poisoning. You’ll be fine, your fever just broke.”
“Hurts,” Scott whimpers, before clamping his mouth shut to silence another scream. The elf wiping his mouth looks closer at him, frowns, snaps xyr fingers.
“Health potion,” xe says, holding out xyr hand. “My prince, your stomach is still trying to expel whatever was spoiled in your food. A health potion should help resolve that.”
Scott gags, but opens his mouth to let xem pour it down his throat. He nearly vomits it back up, hands shaking.
He’s about to ask after his family, but his father and brother are let into the room once the vomit is cleaned up. He can see in his brother’s eyes how scared they had been. It must have been touch-and-go for a while.
His brother steps closer to the bed, takes Scott’s hand. “It’s so good to see you awake,” he says, genuine and not at all like his brother.
Scott blinks at him, confused, and finds himself on his side, staring out of a cell.
The cell.
He sits up, rubbing away the chills on his arms. His senses are going haywire—where’s the infirmary? His father is dead, why was his father here? Where did his stomach pain vanish to so suddenly?
So many questions for an answer he has.
Maybe it’s just because the memory is so close to the forefront of his mind, but Scott knows instantly what happened.
He’s been drugged.
Something in the food—or the water—or—something is acting as a hallucinogen, bringing up old memories and twisting them because that isn’t how that had gone, nobody had visited him and when he’d finally gotten out of the infirmary and had been moved to his bedroom, when his family had come by his brother had sulked in the corner and not spoken to him at all.
He blinks when there are flowers sprouting from between the bricks of the dungeon, but he knows it’s not real. It can’t be real. A rooster crows and his head whips up (when had it fallen?) only to see nothing.
“It’s not real,” he mutters, then louder, “it’s not real!”
“Shut up,” someone says, and it echoes around the cell, whispering in his ears. Scott twitches his head, bends forward to escape the sound. It follows, staying in his ears as it fades.
Then it’s silent. Suddenly, utterly silent. Not even the pitch dripping from the torches is making sound. Scott rubs his ears. Nothing.
Where’d the sound go? Did the guards take the sound? Why can’t he hear anything?
He grabs at his ears again, just to make sure they’re there. He went from too much noise to nothing at all and his mind just can’t handle it.
Maybe the sound is hiding. Maybe he has to find it.
Scott crawls around the cell, ignoring the bugs skittering up the walls because they aren’t real, he’s hallucinating them, searching for where the sound might be. It’s not in the corners, it’s not anywhere above him, the sound is gone, maybe he needs to scare it out of hiding—
Scott shouts, short and quick, and the shout breaks through and comes out with noise. It all hits him at once, the pitch hitting the floor with a ground-shaking boom, the bugs creeping and crawling with rattles in their bodies, the guards whispering loud enough to be screams—
“Yeah, they’re making him hallucinate . . . just a little potion in the food . . . should wear off within a couple of hours, but he might be fun to mess with. . . .”
He groans, tries to cover his ears but the sound of his skin is too loud and he cries out, ducking his head away, shoving further and further into a corner but the noise keeps following until his head slams into the wall—and again—and again—
It doesn’t cure the sound, it doesn’t help anything, and it’s all Scott can do to not gouge his eyes out. He misses the silence, wants it to just be quiet again.
It’s the drugs, he knows it’s the drugs, but knowing it’s the drugs making him act irrationally does not mean that he’s not experiencing this. It’s sensory hell, and Scott’s not sure if his eyes are bleeding or if he’s crying but he wouldn’t be surprised about either.
There’s shadows standing in front of him, staring him down, and Scott grits his teeth and looks away. It’s not actually shadows. Right? It’s nothing.
The shadows grab him by his arms, though, drag him forward. One of them laughs, spits out “Sorry, your majesty,” and clamps something around his wrist.
It’s on his other wrist, too, then both arms are pulled up and held there. He shudders, tugs. His arms are restrained.
“Let me go,” he demands, pulling at them. He’s still in the cell, right? His surroundings are misty and unclear, the shadows fading into the background and leaving him alone. There’s still laughter, though, still laughter all around him.
His brother steps out of the mist, concern written all over his face. “Scott,” he says, kneeling down before him. “You look ill. Are you ill?”
“I’m—I’m not—” he shakes his head, sweat dripping down his temples, “you’re not here. You’re not real.”
His brother’s frown curves upward, and Scott stares as his lips pull back to reveal far too many teeth. “Aren’t I, brother?” he says, and Scott knows that echoing voice and it does not belong to his brother.
Does it?
“You’re not real,” Scott says again, and this time his head feels a little clearer. There were drugs in the food, or maybe the water. Everything is a hallucination. The only things real are the cell and the guards and the cell. And the guards. And the cell. “I’m real,” he remembers.
“Oh, good job, Smajor!”
He jerks his head up, eyes darting around. There’s someone here. He can’t see anyone. Even Xornoth is gone. “Not real,” he mutters, ducking his head. “Not real, not real, not real. I’m real. Stay away from me, you’re not real.”
“He’s really out of it, isn’t he? I wonder what he’s seeing. . . .”
“The guards told me he was hitting his head against the wall earlier!”
“That was an accident,” Scott grits out, pulling on whatever is keeping his hands above his head. “I was trying to make the sound stop again.”
Silence except for everything. The creaking of leather boots near-deafens Scott and he tries in vain to cover his ears.
“Smajor, look at me,” the first voice says, sounding as if it comes from all around. Scott checks the entire room—the room that’s just become clear as the cell he’s in—nothing.
A disbelieving laugh. “He can’t see me. How much of that stuff did you give him?”
“Just half the bottle!”
“Half the bottle? He must be tripping out of his mind right now. Sorry about that, Scott, it was only supposed to be about a quarter of the bottle.”
There’s no bottles. They aren’t real. He twitches his head. “Not real,” he mutters. He’s in the cell. There are hands on his wings.
He jolts forward, hisses when his shoulders strain from whatever is holding his arms up. “Don’t touch me!”
“Nobody’s touching you, birdbrain. Want some water? It should help it run through your system faster.”
Water.
No, no water. He can’t. “No water,” he rasps. “Can’t—something in it—”
A sigh, one that rattles Scott’s very bones. “I promise it isn’t drugged. Don’t fall asleep while I’m talking to you.”
A slap to the face and Scott’s eyes flash open. He doesn’t remember closing them. He doesn’t remember starting to fall asleep.
fWhip’s in front of him, the bars to the cell hanging open behind him. He’s wearing something fancy and red and detailed that Scott can’t quite comprehend (the wedding, something in the back of his mind tells him), a glass of water in his hand.
He wants it. He desperately wants to drink the water, and he would reach out for it if he could but he can’t—
There’s a water skimmer bug. Dancing at the top of the glass. And below that, in the glass, there’s a frog that Scott thinks must be dead because frogs aren’t supposed to be that bloated nor float upside-down.
His mouth clamps shut (he hadn’t even realized it had fallen open) and he turns his head away. Another long-suffering sigh.
“Smajor, I promise it’s not drugged. I’ll take a sip of it, see?”
And Scott can’t help but watch as fWhip swallows the dead frog whole.
Scott gags, his entire body seizing as bile rises to his throat and he throws up all down his front. fWhip leaps back, shouting in disgust.
Scott’s shaking. He’s been poisoned. The last time he threw up was because he was poisoned, and now he’s been hallucinating from something they fed him and it must have been poison. Forget the frog, Scott doesn’t just throw up.
“Not again,” he moans, “please not again. Please.”
And then everything is blessedly quiet. Scott blinks a few times. Still in a dimly-lit dungeon. He sniffs; the stench of vomit. His head hurts. There’s a guard outside his cell, maybe another that he can’t see. No one else. Nothing else.
No bugs, no Xornoth, no shadows moving toward him.
He must’ve lost time somewhere. Or maybe the drug wore off. Or maybe both. Whatever it is, he’s conscious of what’s happening and what’s real.
He feels almost like he has control of his own head again, and that’s what matters.
-
He’s not sure how long he's been awake, but he can’t keep it up.
The guard is no longer outside the cell. Instead he looms over Scott, halberd abandoned in favor of a whip. If Scott droops, if his eyes close for longer than a few seconds, the whip cracks across his skin until he wakes again.
The chains locking his wrists to the ceiling are gone, replaced with a bar on his shoulders that his arms are cuffed to, the bar itself held by two chains linked to the ceiling. Less chance of permanent damage that way, fWhip had cited.
fWhip had been in earlier, with more water that Scott couldn’t bring himself to drink. fWhip had had to pry his jaw open and hold it there to force the drink down his throat, repeating reassurances that it wasn’t drugged or poisoned in any way. Scott had still spat out as much of it as he could, water dribbling down his once-lovely silken shirt to join the vomit stains.
The vomit had been washed from him as well as possible, buckets of chilly water dumped over his head. The water had kept him awake for a short time, soaked and shivering as he was, but it doesn’t do anything to rouse him anymore. Now he’s so out of it that he can barely hold his own head up, only jerking up when the whip lashes across his calves.
“‘M awake,” he gasps out the most recent time, letting out a choked cry when the whip strikes again, across his wings. It burns, feathers pulled up the wrong directions, the delicate skin tearing. “I’m awake, I’m awake, stop—”
“Smajor, look at me.”
Scott looks up. fWhip. Again.
“I hate you,” he mumbles. fWhip grimaces.
“I know. Do you want to sleep?”
He very much wants to sleep, thank you. But he can’t. Every time he tries, the guard hurts him and he can’t handle that. He can’t sleep. He can’t let himself get hurt any more.
His feet sting with the crack of a whip and he blinks his eyes open, crying out, “I’m awake! I’m awake, I’m awake. . . .”
fWhip clucks his tongue. “The strong ruler of Rivendell, a blubbering mess at my feet. Tell me where the End Portal is, and I’ll let you sleep all you want.”
The End Portal. Why, it’s—
No no NO can’t think about it, can’t think about where it is because then fWhip will know and they CAN’T KNOW, can’t let the demon out—
“Hate you,” he says again, biting his cheek to keep back a micro-sleep. “You . . . you hurt Jimmy.”
“Where’s the End Portal, Scott.”
“He didn’t do anythin’, he just . . . why did you hurt him?”
“Are we playing twenty questions?”
Scott shrugs as well as he can with a bar pressed down on his shoulders. He doesn’t mind playing a game. Anything to keep him distracted. Anything to keep him awake. He can’t sleep. He can’t tell them where the portal is.
fWhip grins, sits cross-legged on the floor. “I love games! Okay, I won’t ask you anything about the portal, okay? This is just for fun. You first!”
“Um,” Scott tries to remember what he’d just asked. Something about the portal? Where is it? No, he already knows that. Jimmy. “Why’d you hurt Jimmy?”
“Because it was easy, and it was funny,” fWhip says, stretching out his arms. It’s a mockery of him, Scott just knows it. “My turn. You’ve been the emperor of Rivendell for like, my entire life. How old are you?”
He’s—he’s fifty-five.
No.
“One-hundred. And nine,” he says after a moment of thought, during which he surely slipped into a micro-sleep but he desperately hopes fWhip didn’t notice. He shakes himself. It’s his turn. His turn for a question. To be asked. To ask. He needs to ask a question. “How long?”
fWhip frowns. “How long . . . what? Have we been messing with Jimmy? How long have you been here?”
Scott’s not sure what he’d meant when he’d asked it. “Both,” he offers. fWhip chuckles.
“I’ll use it as your next question. We’ve been having fun with Jimmy for years, Smajor. Pretty much since he joined the alliance.”
Right, Scott knew that. Jimmy told him.
“How did you find out about our games? Us messing with Jimmy, I mean?”
Can he say this? What can’t he say? He can’t talk about the End Portal. He can tell fWhip this.
“His scars,” Scott says. “Saw ‘em once by accident. I didn’t know.”
fWhip nods. “To answer your earlier question, you’ve been awake for a little over three days—seventy-eight hours, I think.”
Seventy-eight hours. That’s nothing. Scott’s stayed awake that long on his own before. Just knowing the proper amount of time he’s been awake grounds him, bringing him back to proper awareness for the time being.
“My question,” says fWhip. “What does Rivendell’s defense lack?”
Scott snorts. There’s no way fWhip believes he’ll actually reveal that, no matter his condition. “Fat chance,” he spits out. “I’m not that out of it.”
fWhip chuckles. “Yeah, I figured. Are you really allied with Lizzie and Joel?”
“Yeah,” Scott nods, shifting his shoulders slightly to try and reduce the strain. “My turn. Er. Jeez. Did—did I scare you? When I caught you?”
“Oh yeah, you sure did,” fWhip laughs. “I was terrified. I was actually still scared of you until I saw you like this!”
He really doesn’t make for an imposing figure right now, does he? He wonders what he looks like. He wonders if his eyes are as dry as they feel. He spends a moment trying to touch his eye, test it, before remembering that his hands are restrained above him. Right. He’s out of it.
fWhip snaps in his face and Scott jolts from where he’s drooped. “Wake up, Smajor. It’s my turn to ask a question.”
He hadn’t even realized his eyes had closed. Only seventy-eight hours, he reminds himself.
Only seventy-eight hours. Out of what? How long until his advisors decide he’s been missing long enough? He’d told Ilphas that he was off on something demon-related. How long until he’s worth looking for?
No one else even knows he’s missing. He didn’t tell anyone else. Presumably, the three who had abducted him had returned to the celebrations, removing any suspicion from themselves. Presumably, Scott’s alone, and will be here until he breaks. He needs to sleep. He needs to take any opportunity to sleep.
“What’s your sudden obsession with Jimmy?” fWhip asks, and Scott blinks a couple of times. He can answer this, right?
Nobody can know. Nobody gets to know how he feels about Jimmy. He needs to lock that up in a scuffed little box in the back of his mind, right next to the location of the End Portal underwater near—
“I happen to be a decent person,” Scott manages. “Jimmy’s nice. He gives good hugs. Shoot.” He wasn’t supposed to say that last part.
fWhip raises an eyebrow. “Gives good hugs? What, do you have a crush on the guy?”
Scott doesn’t answer, but he can feel his face burn. He’s giving it away, he’s giving everything away, if his feelings for Jimmy got out of the box immediately who’s to say that the location of the End Portal won’t?
fWhip’s laughing, delighted and vicious. “Oh, you do! Oh, that’s just perfect! Does he feel the same?”
Scott shakes his head doggedly. “My turn, my question. Is—” he doesn’t want to ask this question, but he has to know— “is anyone looking for me?”
The smile fWhip fixes him with is gentle, almost patronizing. “No.”
Scott sags, ignoring the pain in his shoulders at the motion. He’s not going to survive. He can’t do this. He’s not going to make it. He can feel his lip quivering; makes a valiant effort to not cry. “I don’t . . . I don’t wanna play anymore.”
“How about this,” fWhip says, pushing with two fingers at Scott’s forehead until he props himself back up. “We finish the game. Just ten more questions. If you can finish the game, I’ll let you sleep for an hour. No strings attached, just an hour of glorious sleep. Sound good?”
Someone will come looking eventually, and that hour might make the difference between holding out and giving in. Not only that, but he’s so tired. He doesn’t care that it’s only been three days and three nights. He’s so out of his depth here, and it’s not like he started fresh, and he needs that hour of sleep.
He nods, two twitches of his head up and down. He’ll finish the game for the chance to sleep. It’s not that big of a deal.
“Great. My turn! Does Jimmy, The Codfather, like you? Like, like-like you?”
The tear that he’s been holding back finally drips from his eye, down his grimy cheek. Scott swallows, croaks, “No.”
fWhip grimaces. “Jeez, that’s awkward. Your turn.”
Scott doesn’t have another question. He casts around his overfull mind—anything will work, literally anything, it doesn’t have to do with this at all. . . . “Where’s Sausage?” he eventually comes up with.
fWhip shrugs, gesturing vaguely upward. “Doing something important, I guess. He and Joey have locked themselves up in a little meeting room. Who told you where the End Portal is?”
“No. No. No portal,” he says, rocking back and forth a bit. He can’t answer that. He can’t tell him that Lizzie showed him personally. He can’t mention Lizzie, because that’ll give it up.
“All right, no portal,” fWhip acquiesces. Then, with a sudden, conspicuous subject change: “Did you have a brother?”
He’s flying, he’s reveling in flight, he never gets to fly these days and he misses it, he’s just so busy—
There’s a hand on his wing, though, another on the other, and whoever is in the air with him (and he knows exactly who it is, there’s only one other person who set out to fly with him) yanks. He feels it, feels the delicate bones bend—
Both hands are on his left wing, a knee pressed into the bone—he’s falling now, right wing valiantly trying to glide—the hands pull against the knee and his wing snaps—
A shout is startled out of him as something heavy hits him in the stomach. He looks up—the guard is gone, has been gone ever since they started playing the game, and fWhip is holding his sword with the flat edge out. “Stay awake,” he says, voice tinged with something that makes all of Scott’s senses scream for him to run, hide, get away.
“Yes,” he gasps in answer to the question. “I-I had a brother. Why do you care?”
“Heard some rumors about a certain demon. What was your brother’s name?”
Scott doesn’t want to answer this, because he knows what it’s going to confirm. He bites his lip, looks away. Another blow from the flat edge of fWhip’s sword to the solar plexus sends Scott wheezing.
“Answer it,” growls fWhip. “Unless you wanna forfeit that hour of sleep.”
Scott breathes in, eyes fluttering closed. It’s only been seventy-eight hours. He needs an hour of sleep because his senses are already overloaded from the drugs and the sleep deprivation and he’s just so tired. “Xornoth,” he says finally, just as he hears fWhip pick up the whip from the floor of the dungeon. “My brother. His name.”
“Open your eyes.”
Scott does, as impossible as it feels. There are weights on his eyelids and every time he has to open them again, and again, and again, it gets harder. There are tears blurring his vision when he glares at fWhip.
“I hate you,” he croaks.
“I know. It’s your turn.”
Scott’s head dips a little, but he forces his eyes to stay open. There’s a question bearing down on his mind, one that’s been developing for weeks now, ever since he first heard what the demon’s name was.
“Is my brother the demon?”
A laugh bursts out of fWhip. He laughs a lot. He laughs at Scott far too much. “Scott, my good friend, I was about to ask you the same thing.” fWhip cracks the whip to the side; Scott flinches. “I would think he is. His voice sounds strangely similar to yours. What do you think? Is your brother the demon?”
His throat is dry. His lips are cracked. He needs water, but he can’t have water because it messes with his head. “I think,” he says, tongue heavy in his mouth. “I think he is.”
“Talk about family drama.”
“You talked to him?”
“Yeah. A few times, actually. Do you miss him?”
Does he miss him?
Sometimes, he thinks he does. Sometimes, he wakes up in the morning with no reason to get out of bed and he lies there with his eyes closed, pretends that at any moment, Xornoth will enter and throw a pillow at him, despite their parents’ disapproval of childish actions.
On the other hand, there’s literally everything else.
“Smajor.”
“I’m awake,” he mumbles.
“Answer the question.”
“What was it?”
fWhip sighs, longsuffering. “That’s strike two,” he warns. “Three strikes and you don’t get to sleep. I asked if you miss your brother.”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Scott says. “No,” he decides a moment later, then again, “I’m not sure.”
“Good job. Ask me a question.”
“What was the . . . um. The first strike?”
“It was earlier, when you fell asleep in the middle of answering.” fWhip reaches over, unlocks the chains that shackle Scott to the bar on his shoulders. “We’re all done, all twenty questions asked and answered. You can sleep for one hour.”
All thoughts fly from Scott’s head and he collapses as soon as he’s free, gone from the world in an instant.
-
“Wake up. Smajor. Wake up.”
Something hard cracks across his shoulders and Scott jerks up, crying out, “I’m awake! I’m awake, I am, I’m awake!”
It’s fWhip, holding a guard’s halberd. He discards it, pulls Scott up by his ruined shirt, reattaches the chains to his wrists that pull his aching arms around the pole.
Nothing’s changed about his cell. The torch beyond the open bars is still burning at the same level, the small pool of pitch below it no bigger than it had been. The guard standing outside is the same guard.
Something’s not right about this.
He blinks blearily at fWhip. “That . . . that wasn’t an hour, was it?”
fWhip goes still; grabs Scott’s chin, forces it up to look him in the eyes.
“Are you calling me a liar?” he asks, and his body is screaming danger, run, snake, but his voice is jovial, almost joking.
“I—”
“Because that’s a serious accusation to make when the person you’re accusing has the power to cripple you forever, Lord Smajor.” he kicks Scott hard in the knee and Scott screams as it stops supporting his weight, slipping down but he can’t slip because there’s a chain linking the pole on his shoulders to the ceiling.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—you’re not lying, you’re not,” Scott insists, trying and failing to keep the tears gathered in his eyes from spilling out. “It was an hour, I swear it was an hour!”
fWhip backs off, picking up the halberd and hefting it over his shoulder. “I know that. But that was a rude thing to say, Scott. So I think I’m gonna head out, all right? Sausage and Joey aren’t going to be as nice as I was. They’re not going to play games. Don’t forget how nice I was.”
“I hate you,” Scott bites out, flexing his trembling fingers around the pole as he straightens, knee pulsing with pain. fWhip doesn’t reply, just sends him a cheeky wave and vanishes.
Scott doesn’t have the chance to get in a quick sleep, because as soon as fWhip is gone the guard is standing there, raising their weapon threateningly.
He can’t help but feel despair in the pit of his stomach.
-
When Joey and Sausage leave, Scott is shaking.
They’d made him hold himself up on his toes, they’d whipped the soles of his feet and made him walk the length of the cell, they’d taunted him with food that he couldn’t have.
He’s not sure he’s going to survive. He knows they want information, but it’s information that he doesn’t even think he has anymore. He can’t remember what they want. They scream it at him sometimes, they grip him by the collar and shove him up against a wall and demand it of him, but Scott doesn’t even know what they’re asking. He can’t understand anger.
“I’m awake,” he whispers near-constantly, intermingled with the occasional “I hate you” directed at his captors. Joey takes particular offense at that, shoves Scott’s face into a bowl of gruel (it’s drugged, he knows it’s drugged, he heard them say it’s drugged) and demands he eat. Scott refuses, takes the moment to slip into a micro-sleep. Joey always yanks him back by his wings to wake him.
“Just tell me,” fWhip whispers, well-rested and fresh. He rubs Scott’s cheek with his thumb. “Then you can sleep. Nobody’s coming for you, Scott. Nobody has any idea where you are.”
Scott sobs drily at that. Nobody’s coming. He’s all alone. Just him and fWhip and the guard and the shadows in the corner that are bundles of spindly spiders. He’s certain they move when he looks away from them.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” he admits, voice barely-there. fWhip smiles, eerily wide, leans in closer.
“Tell me where the End Portal is,” fWhip says, perfectly reasonable. “That’s all you need to do.”
Scott’s head falls to his chest. He’s up again in moments with a hoarse cry as someone pulls a handful of feathers out of his wing.
“I’m awake, I’m awake! Please, please, I’m awake. . . .”
fWhip sticks bloodied feathers into the pocket of his jacket. Scott watches, he thinks he watches, he doesn’t know what’s going on.
“Where’s the End Portal?”
The End Portal.
The one—no. He’s not supposed to say anything. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know what’s happening, all he knows is fWhip and the unending pain and he can’t sleep, they won’t let him sleep!
“Please,” he moans. “Please let me sleep. . . .”
“You can sleep—after you tell me where the End Portal is.”
He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.
Scott shakes his head, little twitches from side-to-side. fWhip’s face darkens, and Scott just doesn’t have the self-preservation to try to escape. His senses have been in overload for what feels like years and everything is misfiring constantly. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He just wants to close his eyes for a few moments.
“Twenty questions,” he begs, though he’s not sure why. “Please. How old am I? I’m fifty-five. No. Wait. They’re dead. Eighty. I’m eighty-two. I’m alive. Where’s the End Portal? No. Can’t tell you. Ask me a question.”
fWhip shakes his head. He steps away. “I really hate to do this, Scott,” he sighs, reaching for—grabbing—one of those accursed halberds. Scott shudders, knocks his chin into his chest several times. “Gotta . . . I’m awake . . . please. . . .”
The staff of the halberd smacks into his side and Scott shouts, cuts himself off. They keep hurting him, he doesn’t know why, he’s not even asleep and they’re hurting him. . . .
The staff hits his legs, his cut up feet, the delicate bones of his wings (something’s broken in one of them, something isn’t right), his face—Scott’s barely conscious; the only thing keeping him from passing out is the threat looming over him that if he falls asleep, everything will be so much worse.
“End Portal, Scott! Where is it?”
“I—I can’t—”
Crack! Crack!
“Where’s the End Portal?”
“Please—”
Crack!
“Tell me where the End Portal is!”
Crack! Crack! Crack!
“I can’t—Lizzie told me I can’t—”
Another hit, another terrible crack of wood against his bruised body. Then there’s nothing, and Scott squints through the haze of pain and beyond exhaustion to see fWhip leave.
He’s alone for the briefest of moments, during which his eyes fall closed and his chin hits his chest, but a rough kick to the stomach has him shooting back up.
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” he croaks. He can’t feel his fingers. The stone walls are dripping. Melting. There are spiders in the corners. There’s a strange laugh coming from the corner of his mind. He’s falling apart.
He’s not sure how long he’s alone with the guard, their only interactions his head falling and their weapon falling upon him. He’s shivering, gasping for air that seems just out of reach. He’s so hungry his head is going to split in half. He’s so thirsty he’s going to shrivel up. But mostly, he needs sleep, so desperately that his body is periodically shutting down, despite his best efforts to stay awake without reminders.
There’s a series of sounds that Scott’s grown to dread. The door to the dungeon clunks open. The stairs creak.
He looks up. Nothing.
That’s right. That makes sense. He must’ve—that must’ve been from earlier, a sound that hadn’t quite caught up yet. That’s fine. “I’m awake,” he whispers, more to remind himself than the guard.
Then there’s a thunk, and the guard’s eyes roll up into the back of their head as they collapse.
And behind them, a sword raised in the air hilt-first in his hands, is Jimmy. Beautiful, glorious Jimmy.
“I’m awake,” Scott repeats, more to remind himself that what he’s seeing is as real as the guard on the floor and the spiders in the walls. His voice is almost entirely gone, and he cringes away, afraid of—of everything, but the way Jimmy’s face blazes with anger makes him feel safe. Jimmy’s here. Everything’s okay now.
“Scott,” Jimmy gasps, dropping the sword with a clatter that’s far too loud. Scott blinks for too long, and Jimmy’s in front of him, cradling his swollen and sticky face in his calloused hands.
“What have they done to you?” Jimmy mutters, before he appears to shake himself. “It’s all right, I’m here. I—I’ll get you home, yeah? Or—I’ll get you to my place, it’s quite a bit nearer—” Jimmy stands, and in moments the chain holding Scott to the bar releases and he crumples to the ground. He can’t even bring himself to lift his head.
“‘M awake,” he mumbles into the ground.
“Can you wa—oh, Scott. Your feet.”
They burn, the soles of his feet burn with open wounds but he tries to stand anyway. Jimmy stops him, holds him to the ground for a moment, before lifting Scott up and over his shoulder.
“I would carry you in my arms,” he grunts, standing, “but your wings are in rough shape. I can sort ‘em out, but anyone could come down here—regen on your feet, and—oh, your back—regen on open wounds, then if there’s anything I need to set I’ll do that and you can drink a health potion. . . .”
“Jimmy,” Scott breathes. Jimmy freezes where he’s about to begin climbing the stairs. “C’n I sleep?”
“Yes! Yes, of course, please do!”
Before Jimmy can say anything more, Scott is dead asleep.
-
Scott sits straight up when he wakes, crying out, “I’m awake! I’m awake, I’m awake!”
There’s no blow, though. Barely even pain, just some lingering aches. He looks around, blinking past the dryness of his eyes.
He’s in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. It’s quaint, paneled wood walls and a tie quilt over the mattress. Sunlight filters in through a window framed with floaty white curtains. The bedside table is roughly carved by hand, a glass of water sitting there.
Scott doesn’t drink it, his heavy head filled with memories of hallucinations and mean laughter. He swings his feet out of bed, winces when he puts weight on them. They’re bandaged, injuries pulling strangely and sharply on his skin when he stands. There are other bandages, he realizes—his wings are secured to his back in a way that isn’t quite right, one of his knees is braced, there’s bandages around both calves.
He’s hungry. By Aeor, he’s hungry, but he pushes it aside and instead focuses on the matter at hand—where he is, and what he’s doing here.
There’s noise. He’d thought it was silent, but from beyond the closed door comes the low murmur of hushed voices. He creeps toward it, body stiff and painful now that he’s walking. He rolls his shoulders experimentally, hisses at the swelling and the stinging pains present.
“—what I saw, and what I saw wasn’t a normal meeting!”
“Yes, but Jimmy—”
“No, you didn’t see him, you weren’t there—”
“Well, go get him! We want to talk to him—maybe he can explain!”
“He was being tortured, Lizzie. What else is there to explain?”
“You just tend to exaggerate, okay?”
Scott starts to push open the door, hoping to slip into the room relatively unnoticed. The door creaks loudly, though, and he freezes, door cracked in front of him, as the conversation halts.
There’s the padding of soft feet on wood, and then Jimmy’s there, easing the door open a bit more. And Jimmy, as always, is gorgeous.
“You’re awake,” he says, before Scott’s overworked brain can attempt to wax poetic, an adorable little crease between his brows.
“I’m awake,” Scott rasps reflexively, swallowing to try and ease the sting in his throat. It doesn’t work. Jimmy’s frown deepens and he gently pushes past Scott, to the glass of water on the table. Scott shies away when he brings it close, leaving Jimmy standing awkwardly.
“Is something wrong with it?”
Scott’s not sure how to express without a voice that he doesn’t know how long it’s been sitting there, how it could have been tainted by anyone while he was asleep. He points beyond the door. “Fresh?” he whispers. Jimmy nods, swaps which hand is holding the glass.
“Yeah, of course. Um, you’ve been asleep for around . . . fourteen hours? I think? You seemed pretty tired, though, so if you want to go back to bed. . . .”
Scott points again toward the door. “Lizzie?”
“And Joel. I didn’t tell them you were here—I didn’t want them bothering you—but they turned up a few minutes ago anyway and I started telling them what happened, but I don’t really . . . know. What happened. Do you feel okay—” Jimmy’s eyes flicker across Scott’s body— “seeing them?”
Scott looks down at himself, sees that his shirt is completely gone, replaced with bandages around his ribcage. His trousers have been cut away as well, creating fairly short shorts. He frowns at that, gestures to his legs with shaking hands. Jimmy sets down the glass, ducks into a closet Scott hadn’t noticed. He pulls out a long, green skirt, helps Scott step into it and pull it up to his hips when he finds that he can’t move his arms the way he wants to.
“I spread some regen on open wounds,” Jimmy explains as he assists, “but I needed you awake to drink the health potion, so I’m sorry if you’re feeling bad. I think there’s something broken in your wings, too, but it’s small and I don’t know how to fix it. And your shoulders are royally screwed up, but nothing that some time in an infirmary with healer magic won’t fix.”
Scott twitches his fingers, feels his shoulders pulse with angry heat. Yeah, that’s bad. What had Jimmy asked earlier? If he can see Lizzie and Joel.
He was kidnapped. Scott was kidnapped and he gave up information.
He needs to see them. Hungry, thirsty, tired, pained—it doesn’t matter. He needs to talk to them.
He points to the door again, flicks his wings. Jimmy’s right—something’s wrong with one of them, twinges of pain jerking down the left one. Jimmy understands, steps out in front of him and holds the door open.
Scott limps out, eyes on the floor. Twin gasps come from the living, a cut-off cry of his name. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to see Joel and Lizzie, face the shame of his appearance in the shock in their faces.
He carves a slow path to Jimmy’s sofa, sits gingerly on the edge of it. Jimmy appears at his side a moment later, presses a glass of water into his hands.
He can’t drink it. Old paranoia rears its head and he just knows the glass is contaminated, he knows there’s something in it that’ll mess with his head or make him deathly ill and he’d rather go thirsty than drink it and he’s so very thirsty he might cry—
“Scott?”
He looks up; Jimmy’s watching, gaze concerned. He hands the glass back. Jimmy takes it. “Is there—is it your shoulders? Can you not reach your mouth?”
Scott hadn’t even thought of that. He reaches his hand up to touch his mouth, finds it stiff and painful but not impossible. Jimmy tries to hand the glass back; Scott pushes it away.
Jimmy just filled it up. It’s untampered with. Still Scott knows that his anxieties won’t rest until he does it himself.
He reluctantly accepts the glass, stands with a groan, shuffles into the kitchen. From there, he grabs a different glass—one at random from Jimmy’s cabinet, one that no one would think to poison—and rinses it out several times before filling it up and returning to the sofa. Then he finally drinks, eyes fluttering closed as he relishes in the cool liquid reviving the desert of his throat.
The glass is half empty when he sets it down on the coffee table, stomach protesting even that small amount of water without any food. Then he wets his lips with his tongue, opens his mouth, and begins to speak.
“Jimmy—” he says, before being overwhelmed by a coughing fit. It tears at his still-raw throat, brings tears to his eyes. He blinks them away when he can finally breathe, takes another sip to soothe his throat, then continues hoarsely. “Thank you. For caring for me. As soon as possible, I will rid you of my presence and journey home.”
Jimmy starts to protest, but Scott cuts him off with a shake of his head. For the first time, he looks up at the silent Lizzie and Joel. They’re staring at him, almost horrified expressions painting their faces. Joel seems to take the eye contact as an invitation to speak.
“Smajor, you look terrible. Those bags under your eyes look big enough to carry my attachment issues.”
Scott can’t help a snort of laughter, rubs his face. It feels so good just to be able to move his arms again, ignoring the condition of his shoulders.
“Scott, what happened?”
He doesn’t answer Jimmy’s question. Instead he asks, slowly, “How long was I gone?”
Lizzie and Joel glance at each other uncertainly, but Jimmy immediately answers.
“Six days, about. You weren’t there the day after the wedding, and all your things were still in your suite, so . . . yeah, around six days.”
Six days. Six days awake, beaten and drugged and whipped. Six days of torture.
“Scott, what happened during those six days?”
Scott tries and fails to swallow back the lump in his throat, jerks his head a little. His skin is already itching with the feeling of being watched, someone making sure his eyes don’t close for longer than a few seconds.
“They wanted information,” he starts, and the lump in his throat swells bigger as a tear slips down his cheek. He can’t look anyone in the eyes when he chokes out, “And I gave it to them.”
#empires smp#esmp#empires smp fanfic#scott smajor#jimmy solidarity#mcyt#trust au#mas writes#this is so long#it's abt twice the length of the other trust parts#like. 9k some words??#we'll be back to regularly scheduled miscommunication angst next piece :)#idk i just haven't written a torture dungeon type thing in a long time#since like. 2019 i think#anybody remember mutually beneficial?#in my wip folder this fic is called 'ayo you wanna do shrooms'#this really should have been two parts i just could not for the life of me find somewhere to split it#anyways these fic titles come from the gambler by kenny rogers#and the line for this title doesn't matter as much as what it means with the following line#like alone it doesn't mean anything#but both lines together was too long of a title#anyways lmk what you think!#love you guys
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Coddling Colonizer Guilt
"Performative diversity is when MAWS features a Native American variant of Lois Lane in the multiverse episode only to end the season on a Thanksgiving episode."
...is something I like to joke with my friends as a shorthand for referencing MAWS' squeamish approach to politics while still trying to reap the clout of "diverse representation". I want to get my thoughts out there and perhaps start a discussion over why this feels off.
Some disclaimers: Firstly, I'm not Native American. Understand this is an observation I'm making from an outsider perspective with no personal authority. I'm just a disappointed Asian Lois Lane fan. Secondly, I know the MAWS crew/creators had no malicious intent in any of these (what I consider) poor writing decisions. I'm simply here to challenge and analyze these narrative and visual choices.
MAWS takes a fairly controversial take on Superman mythos so far. Unlike Superman's historic roots as an allegory for Jewish immigrants with Clark coming from a Kryptonian socialist utopia (leading the imperfect people of Earth to a better tomorrow), MAWS chooses instead to reimagine Superman as a descendant from a planet of "alien invaders". If the leaked(?) concept art (warning potential spoilers for s2) is to be believed, Clark is the direct descendent of the leaders of the "Kryptonian Empire". Supposedly gone are the parents of Superman being scientists that warn of the destruction of their home planet- instead we have the "proud, loving, brilliant" "leaders of the Kryptonian Empire".
While we don't know if this is the direction the show is going in, there are already cryptic hints of it being planted and thematic elements set up that point to it being a possibility. Clark had spent a majority of the season wondering what/who he is (being incapable of talking to Jor-El's hologram because of a language barrier) only to find out his supposed origins in episode 9. He's devastated learning that he's an alien invader and, once he regroups with his friends, angsts about believing he's a weapon sent from Krypton to invade Earth. Asian-Lois Lane and Black-Jimmy Olsen assure White-passing-alien-man Clark Kent that he's different and not like other colonizers. Clark ultimately saves the day, proving he's an exception. It's curious then that the season ends on Thanksgiving.
As I've mentioned before, MAWS is exhaustively squeamish with getting political. Whatever happens in the show that resembles "themes" is quickly contradicted with very little consistent internal logic. One minute Superman is supposedly a threat that "wipes out good American jobs", should "go back to where he came from" and Lois makes a hope speech about how we shouldn't treat people who "are different" and "don't look like us" (??) with cruelty (so Clark's an immigrant going through xenophobia?) and the next he's a redeemed colonizer (a more prominent thematic arc). One minute Clark is "different" and scared of being othered- likened to a gay couple and allegorically closeted, and the next his friends call him out for being a lying liar for not disclosing his marginalized identity within a week (the narrative frames Lois and Jimmy as being in the right). This show's writing is non-committal with what it wants to say, and largely goes on vibes. That is to say I don't think the writers intended for the themes of colonizer guilt to accidentally tie into Thanksgiving as a set piece for their final episode.
I'm sure the reason the writers chose Thanksgiving as their final episode is because it's "relateable". Half the episode is dedicated to slice of life family reunion shenanigans and the dang turkey still not being cooked through. But in choosing Thanksgiving, the writers told on themselves here with their biases. The existence of Thanksgiving implies the existence of genocide (of Native American people) by colonists in the MAWS universe. And yet Black Jimmy Olsen doesn't know what racism is (Mallah and the Brain give him a judgmental stare as Jimmy admits he can't relate to being violently marginalized) and Asian American Lois Lane doesn't understand immigration and xenophobia (constantly being entitled to Clark's immigrant identity, being incapable of comprehending why he would keep it a secret, because secrets are lies). The MAWS crew wanted a "relateable" set piece but in doing so ended up reinforcing the historical revisionism the holiday entails. A foreign colonizer sharing a meal with his friends of color on Earth, whose culture, history, and identity are all white washed.
I would like to challenge this idea that Thanksgiving is somehow the "relateable" choice. Why pick this holiday? Why not celebrate Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning (as some Native Americans do)? Why not pick any Jewish holiday as a nod to Superman's creators (ignoring this version's colonizer interpretation for a second)? Why not pick Lunar New Year, a holiday celebrated by many people including Koreans (Seollal in South Korea)? It could've been another fun opportunity to showcase Lois' heritage, and create a fusion of cultures from Jimmy and Clark's families. At its most non-political and secular, why couldn't they pick any weekend? This is what happens when a show doesn't consider its world building and setting in a holistic way. MAWS will nod to xenophobic rhetoric, portray allegorical queer marginalization, and make the vaguest nods to systemic bigotry (Prof Ivo displaced a whole neighborhood! Yet we never hear from those figurative displaced people). But it does nothing to discuss any of that on a deeper level. Its characters of color don't know what racism is and Thanksgiving is just a fun family reunion, guys.
All this and they had the audacity to sneak in a Native American Lois Lane in the multiverse episode?? Why is she, out of all the Lois Lanes in this screencap, the only one in full traditional wear? Why isn't she in a smart casual business fit like Black Lois and STAS white Lois? Would she not have been recognizably Native American to the non-Native audience otherwise? Isn't this tokenizing? Do you think she has a xenophobic dad in the military like Korean American Lois does?
But that fits MAWS' approach to diversity, doesn't it? Surface level cultural nods, maybe make Lois wear a hanbok one time, and let the audience eat it up. Never mind that both Korean American Lois and Native American Lois have been stripped of their culture and history in every other aspect.
I use the word "relateable" a lot here, but I think the important question to ask is "relateable for who?". 'Immigrant' is too charged a word, so MAWS universalizes Clark's marginalization to "being different". Superman isn't even an immigrant in this version, that was all a smokescreen for the twist that he's actually a descendent of colonizers! Being wracked with colonizer guilt is way more relateable to the white audience than being an immigrant, surely. Thanksgiving is more relateable than celebrating any culturally specific holiday our "diverse reimagining" could have represented. Characters of color being functionally white (in a way that doesn't threaten middle America) is way more relateable. MAWS is a show that doesn't want to delve into Native American history. It would rather put a Native American Lois hologram on a pedestal and call it a day.
#ramblings#jesncin talks maws#media criticism#includes discussion of that leaked(?) concept art btw so warning for potential s2 spoilers#this is long but I wanted to provide context as I talked#hope yall enjoy! and also pls be nice!!#jesncin dc meta
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canary curse things. thinking about canary curse things
i'm hesitant to say the canary curse has been broken—what, no, of course it has been, jimmy died second instead of first, and the canary curse is all about dying first— okay hear me out i swear i make sense
my thought is that patterns can change. patterns aren't always static ones. just because something new happened this time around doesn't mean the pattern's been broken, it may have just changed its rules a bit.
joel had a pattern of having no true allies up until double or limited life, where it instead became a pattern of being isolated, for example
now, before we get into the canary curse specifically, let's talk about some other patterns
scott and martyn tend to drag themselves as well as their allies up the leaderboard. they both tend to outlive their allies. grian tends to kill his allies. ...i feel like i should put more here but that's all i can think of right now
now, the way i see it, is scott, martyn, and jimmy in particular all have some sort of weight to them. positive meaning they drag themselves and their allies up the leaderboard, negative meaning the opposite. scott and martyn have a positive weight, whereas jimmy has a negative one.
what i think's happened here is that martyn and jimmy's weights have tugged on each other, and as a result, martyn turned yellow and red first instead of much later on, and jimmy died second instead of first.
jimmy's pull is strong, i think, and so he tends to die first every time. just because he tends to die first every time doesn't make that a rule, though - it just makes it a pattern, one that's been broken. the pattern that hasn't been broken, though, is jimmy being one of the earliest to die, and jimmy dragging his allies down the leaderboard with him.
jimmy died first in 3rd life, and dragged scott down to 10th, and scott finally turned yellow right before jimmy died. jimmy died first in last life, and dragged mumbo down with him, and they were a similar color pretty much the whole time. jimmy died first in double life, and dragged tango down with him. jimmy died first in limited life, and joel died quickly after. jimmy died second in secret life, and dragged martyn's color down with him.
martyn, though, doesn't die yet, because of his positive weight. he's often tugged further up the leaderboard, and so while jimmy may drag his color down and martyn ends up first yellow and red, martyn still manages to stay afloat.
martyn is stubborn is the thing, lmao. he stays alive out of spite and just because he wants to, and so he does, and he makes sure he does. now that the stakes are higher and one wrong move could mean losing everything, he's being a lot more careful than he was earlier on.
and let me just reiterate for a second - he's stubborn. once he's got an idea, he's locked onto that idea until he gets it done or literally can't anymore. martyn will drive himself up the wall before he gives up on something and even then he'll need convincing or more likely a distraction. he didn't give up on ren in third life til he died and couldn't do anything anymore. he didn't give up on trying to kill scott in last life til he died and couldn't do anything anymore. he didn't give up on getting a diamond chestplate in secret life until he got it despite how much it cost him in the end. outside the life series, even, i'm rewatching rats right now- martyn will try to climb a wall over and over and over until he gets it or something gets in the way. he'll be texturing a model and complain to chat about how painful it is and still decide to spend the next hour and a half getting the damn thing done even though he should've logged off for bedtime 2 hours ago. (yes martyn i am calling you out, enjoy)
and so martyn doesn't die! he's yellow first, he's red first, and all other red names die, but martyn doesn't. because yeah, maybe he's impulsive, but he's in this for himself and himself alone and there's no way in hell he's dealing with a wither and a warden that's just killed three people. (he did try and steal the kill though. martyn do you remember what happened last time you tried to steal the kill, you fell into the void and died)
jimmy isn't as stubborn. jimmy's a lot more forgiving, a lot more lenient, and as much as he's being more aggressive this season, he's reckless about it and impulsive and his reputation isn't helping him here.
jimmy lets things happen to him. as upset as he might act about it, he never actually does anything about it, and it gets him killed. he's afraid to break the rules, he's afraid to make people uncomfortable or upset or hurt, he starts genuinely tearing up at the thought of pulling a bait and switch on skizz, and that's the kind of thing martyn does on a daily basis lmao
jimmy is forgiving and passive, martyn and scott don't forget so easily and aren't afraid to make people upset, grian's somewhere in between.
#solidaritygaming#jimmy solidarity#inthelittlewood#martyn inthelittlewood#secret life smp#trafficblr#secret life spoilers#secret life smp spoilers#canary curse#the canary curse#scott smajor#joel smallishbeans#i guess. they're mentioned#c:/sgos/talking#we could do some really cool celestial object analogies here probably#like gravity stuff#maybe orbits#somebody think about that please#slsmp#slsmp spoilers#slsmp jimmy#slsmp martyn#secret life jimmy#secret life martyn#c:/sgos
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His Dangerous Wife » LA Knight
plot: la knight's wife comes to even the odds against the judgement day
pairings: wrestler! reader x la knight
warnings: none tbh just fluff
a/n: there isn't enough la knight stuff on here and that makes me sad :(( wrestling last name is kingley bc i love it
It was quite chaotic backstage, making it almost impossible for Y/N to locate her husband. But she found him after a few minutes of searching. He stood with John Cena who was also his tag partner for Fastlane. Y/N didn't have a match, seeing as she was literally returning from an ankle injury that happened at SummerSlam when she lost her championship to Iyo Sky. Y/N Kingley was a crowd favorite, as was her husband LA Knight, but not many people knew they were married, or even together. They lived a very private life so it made sense.
Tonight, she was set to return to help her husband even the odds against the Judgement Day which sparked a future fued between herself and Rhea Ripley. Though LA Knight didn't know of this. "Darling, do you know where Izzy is? I can't find her." Y/N asks, grabbing his attention. Izzy was her best friend, the woman also known as Azalea Evans, the younger sister of Chris Evans and one of the best women's wrestlers. She was also engaged to Rhea Ripley. He furrowed his brows, shaking his head, "Nah, but she should be somewhere around here. Probably with Rhea."
"I think I seen her talking to Cody in catering earlier," John adds. Y/N smiled gratefully, "Thank you. I will see you two later, alright? Good luck with the match darling." She pressed a quick peck on his cheek before quickly making her way towards catering, finding Azalea indeed with Cody. Y/N took a seat at their table, "one thing I do not miss about being back is getting lost backstage all the time." Azalea chuckles at her complaint, "honestly, I'm pretty much used to it."
"You would think because I've been wrestling for 20 years that I would be used to this, but I am definitely not." Y/N mumbled, picking up a brownie from Izzy's plate. Izzy chuckled before glancing at the television where LA Knight's match with Jimmy Uso was coming up. Cody cleared his throat, "so, how do we feel about Jade signing with WWE?" Izzy and Y/N were former AEW wrestlers so they knew Jade quite well. Though they had actually never faced Jade yet. They knew how she felt with all the top tier treatment because that's how they were treated when signing with AEW having been originally WWE stars.
"I'm really excited about it actually. I'm super happy for her. I can't wait to face her." Y/N said, she was always happy for any of the wrestlers who got signed to other companies. Izzy nods in agreement, "Me too. She actually called me after she signed so I'm really excited for her. We're supposed to train together soon." Cody nods with a smile, "I feel the same way. I'm excited to see what she can do here."
"His match is starting so we should head to the gorilla." Izzy stood up, the three of them left towards the gorilla where the Judgement Day and Jey Uso were at. Izzy was quick to greet Rhea whilst Y/N was watching the monitors. LA Knight obviously wins, but then Judgement Day comes out, standing on the ring apron, leaving Knight and Cena outnumbered. Jey Uso was the first to come out, sliding in the ring though they were still very outnumbered. Cody's music hit, he was quick to come out.
Rhea jumps on the apron next to her boys, signaling that they weren't gonna back down. That's when Y/N's music hit. The crowd went crazy, obviously not expecting her to show up at all, let alone for a situation such as this. "It's Y/N Kingley! She's back! What a surprise!" Michael Cole' expressed. Y/N strutted out, Rhea's face dropped at the sight of her. Meanwhile, her husband was in disbelief, a small grin tugged at the corner of his lips. "Rhea is in disbelief! Y/N has expressed her frustration with the Judgement Days attempts to recruit her best friend Azalea Evans!" Corey Graves explains.
"That and the fact that the Judgement Day is targeting her husband LA Knight," Cole points out. "Her husband?! She's married?!" Cody Rhodes and John Cena sat on the middle rope for Y/N to step through, the Judgement Day seemingly conflicted now. She walks past her shocked husband to come face to face with Rhea, a grin on her lips. "Still wanna fight?"
The boys behind her grin as Rhea makes the guys stand down, claiming it wasn't worth it. Paul Heyman takes Solo's hand, signaling him to fall back. Unfortunately for them, Y/N wasn't a patient person. She threw the first hand, knocking Rhea off the apron, the boys are quick to join in the brawl. She grinned, leaning against the rope as Cody and Jey Uso both do separate dives out the ring, knocking down the Judgement Day and Jimmy.
Rhea drags Y/N out of the ring, going back in forth with her as Solo stepped in the ring with John. Y/N was quick to fight off Rhea, throwing her into Dom as LA Knight took care of Solo. LA hits JD with a BFT, then Jey hits him with a super kick before Cena performs a five knuckle shuffle. Y/N slides in the ring as Cena continues to perform an AA on JD. Cody whips off his belt throwing it into the crowd before hitting JD with a crossrhodes.
The boys turn to her, basically offering up JD if she wanted a go at him. She laughs, shaking her head but they insisted. "Come on! It can't hurt! Well not for you at least." Cody says. Y/N chuckled, giving in the crowd cheers. LA Knight offers his hand, she takes it, using it to jump off the rope and perform a clean moonsault onto JD. "And a perfectly done moonsault from Kingley!"
"Yeahh!" LA Knight cheered, taking her hand and pulling his wife up. "That was fun!" She cheered wistfully, high fiving Jey, Cody, and Cena as LA Knight kept a hand on her waist. The crowd cheered as Cody raised Y/N's hand proudly, "Our wonderful savior!"
LA pulled her closer so she could hear better, "You didn't tell me you were coming out." Y/N chuckled, "cause it was a surprise darling. Did it surprise you love?" He laughs lightly, nodding like it was obvious, and it was. "Surprised me so much I could kiss you right about now." He jokes, also being partially serious because he really wished he could kiss her.
She shrugged lightly, "you can kiss me, I don't mi-" she was cut off by his lips pressed against hers and very loud cheering from the fans. He didn't waste a second kissing her, not caring about the thousands of fans watching. She chuckles softly pulling away, quick to remind him that they were still in public. "Come on, let's close up." Y/N climbs the top rope, doing her normal taunt as LA Knight, Jey Uso, Cody, and Cena all followed behind her.
Shaun was quick to drag her into the locker room the second the show was over. Not even giving her a chance to talk as he showered her with kisses. "Shouldn't we go to the hotel first?" She chuckles, pulling away. "What? Scared of a little locker room sex, doll?" He teased, rubbing her sides as he held back to urge to tear her clothes off.
Y/N sucked in a breath, "fuck, you know what that name does to me." He smirked, pressing a kiss to her neck as she pushed him towards the showers. "I should save your ass more often if this is the reward I get in return."
"Yeah."
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The Bad Boys and their soulmates
(Someone already made something like this but i wanna write my own lmao.)
“Etho.” Joel nearly spat out the name like it was poisonous. It no longer came with a soft gaze, but rather his own reflection in pitch black sunglasses. Joel’s bangs covered his eyebrows, and his mouth was set in an indifferent line. How was Etho supposed to read him like this..?
“Hi Joel!” Etho greeted anyway, his voice chipper and smiley. “I’m likin’ the leather vest. It really works for you.”
Joel huffed, his sword disappearing from his hand. He didn’t blush, like he used to when Etho would compliment him, only kept the same guarded expression.
How dare he keep playing with my emotions like this! Joel quietly seethed. Etho was being cruel– pitying him. Joel clenched his fists. He knew he never meant anything to Etho, they had been stuck together. So why, oh why, did Etho have to keep hurting him like this?
“Etho,” Joel tried again, his voice darker this time, “once I hit red, you are done for.” It was both a threat and a promise.
Etho smirked, nothing innocent in his eyes. “Hmm.. you gonna ravish me with charged Red passion..?” He teased. He knew Joel didn’t mean it like that, but he was desperately hoping it would break whatever wall Joel was trying to build between them.
Joel didn’t even react. At least, that’s how it seemed to Etho. Joel’s insides were burning, with excitement or anger he wasn’t sure. He scoffed. “Just watch your back.” He nearly growled.
The air was charged with buzzing static, and Etho hated it.
*****
“Jimmy!” Jimmy heard his name being whisper-shouted. He glanced at his two teammates asleep in the triple bed. If it wasn’t them, then who would be calling for him in the middle of the night??
“Jim!!” The voice spoke again, a little louder. Jimmy’s sleep-deprived mind raced through the list of server members, trying to think of who could possibly need him. He huffed quietly, figuring it was someone looking for an easy prank target. Until..
“My rancher, are you up there..?”
It was Tango.
IT WAS TANGO!!
Jimmy bolted out of bed and nearly sprinted to the edge of the roof. He peered over the edge, and sure enough, there was his rancher, looking cute and very dapper in a red button down, black waistcoat, and matching black bowtie.
Jimmy smiled brightly and jumped down, water bucket in hand. He landed (not-so-gracefully) in front of Tango, instantly running up and tackling him in a giant bear hug.
Jimmy couldn’t fly here, but his wings wrapped around Tango, encasing him in a golden yellow double hug. He buried his face in the blaze’s neck, melting when he felt Tango start to purr. His tail curled around Jimmy’s ankles, just as gentle and soft as it’s always been.
Timmy and Tango had agreed not to team this season, but that didn’t stop them from missing each other.
*****
They made peace with their desert a long time ago, but they both knew they’d never have that same connection again. Especially after Grian’s.. choices in Double Life.
Scar stared up at the stupid woodland mansion, flint and steel in hand. He was still bitter. Maybe he should be going after Big B too, but Grian.. how could he just do that to him..? Sure, things weren’t the same as in Third Life, but did he really mean that little to Grian?
“Scar..?” He heard a whisper from the tree line. He whipped around, seeing the very avian he’d just been thinking of. Though, Grian didn’t look the same here. The white button down he’d taken to wearing under his sweater was gone, taking away the nice little nod to Mumbo that Scar liked to think of it as. He had a leather jacket, too big and too edgy for him. The dark glasses on top of his head were odd to see against his normally fluffy blond hair.
Grian didn’t look right like this.. without a red and white poncho and sand goggles.
#trafficblr#hermitshipping#limited life#trafficshipping#double life#etho#ethoslab#joel smallishbeans#smallishbeans#smalletho#boat boys#jimmy solidarity#tango tek#solidaritek#team rancher#rancher duo#grian#goodtimeswithscar#gtws#scarian#desert duo
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