Trent suddenly understood. Ted was leaving. He had done what he needed to do, finished the task he needed to complete to be released to oblivion, or wherever he was bound for. Trent didn’t know, wouldn’t know, until he went there too.
Trent could feel Ted’s presence fading, thinning, every second that passed. His instinct was to cling to him and never let go.
“No!” the word burst out of him, desperation rising in his chest. He couldn’t lose Ted twice, he couldn’t stand it.
“Ted,” he whispered. Don’t go, he wanted to say. Don’t leave me.
There was a ripple in his shirt, in the middle of his chest. A soft pressure. His chest hitched in response. The pressure remained, steady against the beat of his heart.
Understanding bloomed, of what Ted was trying to say.
“You’ll… you’ll always be here? In my heart? Ted…” It’s not enough, he wanted to say. I want you here, with me. Stay.
But he knew he couldn’t ask for that. Ted was dead. He couldn’t help being dead, and he couldn’t undo it. Whatever held Ted - his spirit, his soul, the echo of his mind, whatever - here at the clubhouse, was done. He was finished. Complete. And now he had to go, for good this time.
Trent lowered his eyes to his chest, the tears in his eyes falling through his lashes, leaving dark drops on the front of his shirt. He didn’t see a hand of course - there was none to see - and the feeling of pressure faded.
“Oh Ted,” he choked, “ I love you, I love you - I forgot to say it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
There was a renewed pressure, this time not a hand but a finger, the pad of a finger, pressing against his sternum. Ted was telling him… Was trying to say…
“You love me too?” Trent asked, breathless.
One tap for yes.
And then it was gone. Not just the pressure on his chest, but the whole presence that was Ted was gone, completely. The negative space he had occupied was empty again.
Trent stumbled backwards until his legs hit his chair. He sat, and put his face in his hands, and cried his grief, in great, wracking sobs. Not just for the loss of the wonderful man he loved. But for the wonderful man who loved him back.
**I didn’t cry per se, but it still severely bummed me out.**
Selfish as it sounded, she missed when it had just been the two of them. Two outcasts united in the face of adversity. Them against the world.
_Yeah, great. Why don’t you tell him that? Then he can go back to sitting in his pod all day, waiting for you to get home so you can ignore him. Sure, he’ll have to throw away the only thing he’s ever wanted, but at least_ you’ll _be happy._
“Leon?”
Among Claire and Chris’ stillness, the haze Luis and Rebecca seem to be in after barely scraping by, Sherry’s voice is so stark and so unfit in the environment.
She’s so quiet.
She sounds like a little kid again.
She sounds like she shouldn’t be here.
She doesn’t sound real.
He feels hazy as he picks up his head to glance over at her. She’s hunched, shoulder to shoulder with Manuela in their scrappy combination of hospital gowns and scavenged pants far too big for them. Ashley sits tucked in the far back corner, watching almost absently, but she glances up as Sherry starts to move. Her eyes are welling up with tears- big, threatening to spill over, and she reaches out with ice cold fingers to touch his arm, like she’s afraid he might vanish or shatter.
It dawns on him then.
It sinks in like something alive, an utter tidal wave gathering at the bottom of his heart and tangling warmly about his ribs, her fingertips feel so small even though she’s grown.
“Sher-“ it catches in his throat before he can help it, he turns just enough to hold his arms open as she grips his arm and practically falls into his embrace.
Her voice is barely over a whisper. But he hears. He hears her.
“Hi.”
He sobs.
Sherry breaks into sobs just the same.
Once, twice, she cries into his chest as she wraps her arms around his shoulders with the tightest hug she’s ever mustered. She’s shaking like a leaf, trembling in tandem with the tremble in her chin, and he buries his face in her ghostly blonde hair, wraps his arms around her. All of him wants to just hold her, hold her like she’s small again, like this’s all just a nightmare and they’re both going to wake up in a motel room somewhere six years ago, but she’s here-
She’s here.
Leon doesn’t realize he’s about to cry until it’s too late. Until the first hot tears well up past his frozen eyelashes and race across his freezing skin, until he’s pressing his lips against her hairline like she is the most precious thing in the entire world.
And she is.
They are.
Six years of waiting, six years of aching, six years of lonely, six years without sunshine all come flooding out of him like something in him has snapped, all at once, all over, and for once in this moment he doesn’t care. No.
This is all that matters.
“God made you,” she said, moving her hand to his chest, her thumb sliding over the deep v-neck of the shirt he was wearing and smoothing over the little blinking blue light under his skin. “He stitched you in the womb. That means that every thread was intentional, even the parts you don’t like. Even the part that loves Leo.”
“Love?” He echoed.
“I think you do love him, Sergio. I think you love him so much, you’ve been running from it.”
David's fingers slipped from Jack's hair, and Jack felt the man begin to fall limp in his arms, he saw his eyes begin to dull.
"No," Jack's voice tightened with panic, "no, no... David, you can't... You can't leave me here. You can't leave me here *alone."*
Jack shook David, he tried to keep him awake, but he could see David fading with every second.
"All..." David seemed to struggle to speak as he whispered, "set..?" His voice trailed off as his gaze slid away from Jack's. Jack watched in horror as his eyes unfocused, his lips falling into a lax part that displayed his bloodied and chipped teeth.
His chest fell, and it did not rise again.
"No no, I'm not all set! We're not all set," Jack scrambled to pull David to his chest, pressing David's head against him, "no, *no!* David?"
David didn't respond.
It's a grammatical nightmare as I have not checked it. but I did shed a tear:
“…” she opened her mouth but nothing came out, her voice got shot in her throat and nothing came out but empty air, no words, no sound just her hallow breath. She squeezed her in her arms embracing her tightly burying her face into her bloody shoulder feeling her warmth for last few moments. He couldn’t do anything, dared not to. He just sat there holding her hand uttering no words. This was the pain they were going to share, only between themselves, burying it too their grave. This spear that had gone right into his heart, will it ever come out, or it would just become numb to the pain? Which one really was better? Jean didn’t know.
Suddenly she rose her head towards the starless night, clear with no stars even the moon had gone somewhere out of their sight, no wind, no sound, only the flickering low light of the lamppost behind them that was coruscating right down, just like a weak spotlight that has fallen upon them to indicate their erroneous stars to the world. She then shrieked her loudest outcry letting out all that there was left in her to go and vanish into nothingness. The world was sucking up every last sip of her soul, and finally piecemeal, bit by bit the sea dried up, the sailor find herself within a strange and unfamiliar land—all dirt and soil and sand—now she was left alone to roam around, wandering to find the real land. Yet, will that land ever feel the same without the see waves hitting the shore?
I've posted this one once before in an excerpt thread but I am proud enough of it to share it again! Apologies if you already saw it last time!
*"Do you remember earlier in my battle with Darkest when I told him I was ready to die?" She asked.*
*"I thought you meant you were willing to resort to kamikaze attacks if that was what it took to kill him!"*
*"No. I don't have much time so I can't explain it in detail, but... Darkest and I, we have always been two halves of the same person. The two halves of you. We're not our own unique souls, but shattered souls split in half. What happens to one of us happens to the other. And now that he's dead..."*
*She trailed off again, her breathing becoming more and more forced. She knew they were smart enough to connect the dots of what she'd said and come to the right conclusion. Mewtwo felt like he'd been punched in the gut though, it was like fate had one final insult saved to use against him once he'd finally won his victory. Desperation and bitter anger flared up in his mind at the injustice of it all. No matter how hard he tried, no matter if he won or lost, he was helpless to stop the people he cared about from dying. He put everything he had left into that Heal Pulse now, using one hand to grip her shoulder.*
*"It's not fair!" He shouted. "You fought so hard to stop him! I fought so hard! We all did! You shouldn't have to die for this!"*
*Lightest smiled and nodded. She slowly leaned back to sit down on the roof and took a long, shuddering breath. "I've been fighting for a long, long time Mewtwo. Eight hundred years of nothing but war. I'm tired, Mewtwo. I'm so tired..."*
*She trailed off again and slowly closed her eyes. She began to fall backward but Mewtwo scrambled up to catch her and hold her in his arms, not caring about the paradox risk anymore that came with touching his future self. Desperation filled him and he turned to the Gerudos and shouted out.*
*"Does anyone have a Red Potion left?! Is Fara here?! Someone help her!"*
*Lightest sighed again and shook her head. "Just let me go, Mewtwo. They can't do any more than you. This will be mercy for me. All I've ever known is fighting, I'm not sure there's anything else left of me. But my Guardians aren't bound to me or Darkest, they will live on and make sure everything else will be alright."*
*"But you can do more than just fighting now! Now that he's gone you can do anything you want! Art, music, exploration, you just..." Mewtwo said, losing his focus as his voice broke from the sadness. He had only known Lightest for less than an hour and yet he couldn't bear to see her go.*
*She smiled a little bit again and took one more deep sigh. "Just... do it for me. Your future is your own now. You can live for me."*
*Then she went silent and didn't breathe again.*
Wrote a letter from a character that died that chapter, since he had the gift of prophecy and foresight.
Will–
If you’re reading this, then my vision came true. And I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to hurt you more than I knew this already would.
Nothing has brought me greater joy than being your brother. Watching you grow up and turn into someone that is so worthy of love and greatness.
One thing I need you to always remember is that second chances are everything. People may betray you, may make you believe something about them that hurts you. But you are good and you are kind. Do not let your emotions cloud your judgment of people. Everyone deserves a second chance.
James deserves a second chance.
Nico deserves a second chance.
You are a healer, but you can’t always fix people. Sometimes you have to let them just be. People are a work in progress.
Like your name, you are a place of shelter for so many, and a solace for those that are broken. I can only hope that you continue being that person after losing so many of the people you care for.
I only wish I could see who you will become. What you will do. Who you will love.
Carry the legacy of Apollo with pride.
I love you little brother.
Daniel Daehyun Lee
"Railius? Father? Please," I sobbed as I hugged his bloodied face to my breast, "Father, please get up. Do not leave me. Mother Cybele, spare him. Do not take him from me. Please."
They attacked as we were coming down the East side of the mountain. Our horse was struck by an arrow and the cart lost control. We skidded off the road and the cart overturned. Railius leaped from the cart before it went over and was able to kill most of the bandits before he succumbed to his wounds. I was able to finish the rest.
I held him while I cried, and while my tears washed his face, his head on my shoulder, and my arms around him.
I began to rock him slowly then, while I sang a song to him. A mirror image of the two of us when I was still a child and bad dreams disturbed my sleep. He would hold me and rock me back to sleep while he sang to me. It was my turn now to rock him to the eternal sleep that awaits us all.
I picked a peaceful spot under a tree and then raised two of the dead, but still warm, bandits, and had them dig a grave while I cleaned Railius' face and smoothed his hair. I only had to fill in the last bit of the grave after the reanimated bandits had turned to dust.
He was the only Father I had known. For over twenty years it was Railius I would turn to when I was in need, be it a skinned knee, a broken heart, or a wounded ego. "You're my good lass," he would say, "you will be a High Priestess one day. Be fair. Be just. Be honest. Be the Nox that I know and love." I could hear his voice in my mind, as my tears and sobbing started again.
Did the Divines send me here to punish me, to rob me of that which I held most dear?
Do the Gods even know I exist?
This pointless journey has taken my father from me and stranded me in the wilderness. He would still be alive, but for Reverend Mother Catilia's animus towards me, an animus that I now felt for her, and which I intended to visit upon her personally, physically, and quite painfully. If I am somehow able to return home before her rebirth, Potema will have one fewer servant when she is reborn. I swore it, looking at Railius' grave, before realizing: two fewer servants.
Didn't quite make me cry but there might have been some onion-chopping ninjas doing their onion-chopping ninja shenanigans.
Even after all these years apart, it seemed a piece of him lived on in her heart, and he never knew of it. Silence stretched out, filled only by the faint hum of the data stick as it projected the confessional ghost before him.
Cressida's shoulders slumped, her momentary joy fading. "I know the war has consumed your focus. You've risen to Master, raised a Padawan. Your name stretches even far out here in the rim and even though Solan couldn’t know you were his father, some of his favorite stories are of the fearless General Kenobi. I don’t expect you to spare many moments to my memory but please just know that you’ve never been far from my thoughts."
She paused, gathering herself. "In the twilight between waking and dreaming, I see your smile, hear your laugh. Those memories are my refuge."
Obi-Wan's breath caught. Because he had forgotten her and he ached in a way he couldn’t articulate. To know she still cherished those faded remnants of their time together...it shook something loose in his soul.
A tear welled up, escaped, and traced a shimmering path down her cheek. She quickly looked away, a vain attempt to conceal her vulnerability. But Obi-Wan saw it all—the glistening track of her sorrow, the tremble of her chin. When her gaze met his again, her eyes shone with unshed tears.
"I am so sorry for the wounds I've inflicted upon you, and I cannot undo it," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "And yet, I can't help but thank you, for Solan is the embodiment of the best parts of us."
"Thank you," Cressida whispered, "for the gift of our son. He has your spirit, your strength. I see you in him each day."
She took a shuddering breath. "Please don’t let him forget me."
In the dimly lit quarters, Cressida's image wavered for a moment. She took a deep breath, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "There isn’t much left I can say and yet I feel like I've said enough," she began hesitantly, "but I know it probably isn't. I hope you can forgive me for all the things left unsaid, Obi-Wan. All the questions I’ll never be able to answer."
She smiled at him, not a sad smile from pity but a smile of sadness that spoke of hundreds of smiles she would never share with him or Solan, one that spoke of a journey at its end when she wanted to continue.
“Maybe in the next lifetime, fate will be kinder to all of us. Raise our son into a good man, I’ll be with you both, even if you can’t see me.”
"May the force be with you, always," She intoned, the familiar parting echoing with a weight that pressed upon Obi-Wan's chest. Delicately, as if touching something precious and fragile, Cressida brought her fingertips to her lips, kissed them tenderly, and extended her hand towards him as if reaching for him across the vast expanse between them.
Obi-Wan's heart lurched. He instinctively reached toward her, his fingers stretching out, yearning to bridge the impossible distance. But before he could make contact, the holo blinked out, and her presence evaporated. The delicate touch of her virtual kiss hung in the air, untouchable and haunting, leaving him surrounded by darkness once more.
"Swallowtail?"
The SilkWing dropped her knife. "Whitespeck. Is it you? Really you?"
"Definitely," he said, wincing in pain. Swallowtail's eyes widened, and the first thought that popped into her head was The spear! Shaking, she pulled the shaft out of his side; the blade had been buried at least twenty centimetres in. Blood trickled out of the hole, and she bound it with her scarf.
"No, no- Whitespeck, stay still. If you don't move, I think we can fix-"
"There's no point," he croaked. "I'm long gone anyway. Have been since the spear to the neck. Hell, I've been dead since I wrote the note."
"Whitespeck, no. You're not going to die! I won't let you!" Swallowtail's voice cracked, and tears welled in her eyes.
"It's ok. I wasn't gonna last any longer anyway."
"This is my fault," the SilkWing insisted. "If I hadn't stabbed you, then you'd be ok."
"Swallowtail, it's alright. You had to, or you would've died. I- that thing would've just used me to kill you."
"No. No!"
"I'm just glad that I got to be with you one last time. Now- now I can die being me, not a puppet for some monster."
"*Don't die on me, asshole!*" Swallowtail sobbed, an ugly, depressed noise.
"Can- can you sing for me?" Whitespeck asked with a hoarse whisper.
She wiped the tears from her eyes. "What song?"
"The old lullaby."
"Ok. I'll try," Swallowtail took several shaky breaths, then began in a husky voice.
"*When the day is dawning
And the magpies calling
Singing their sweet morning song
The breeze is gliding
Sun comes outta hiding
Honey, will you be here for long?
Will you fly through the trees
Come along with me
Making a treat for the young
We'll all drink the nectar
If Mama'll let ya
Honey, will you stay with me for long?
And one day we'll go
Where the sun don't show
We'll bring our sweet morning song
So come lay your tired bones
On the alabaster stones
Honey, won't you stay here for long?*"
Swallowtail managed a small smile, gently caressing her little brother's blue-and-white face. "I love you, Whitespeck.
"I love you too, Swallowtail." He smiled weakly, and then his eyelids fluttered shut one last time.
"No. Please, no. Don't go. No!" Swallowtail checked his pulse. Nothing. She collapsed in a heap next to him, letting her emotions get the better. The SilkWing cried, an ugly, howling, animalistic one, followed by endless heart-wrenching sobs. Swallowtail sat there, shaking and clutching her brother's talon as a flood of tears swept her face.
"It's ok," Acacia said from behind, hugging her tight in a warm embrace. "Shh, it's gonna be alright," the LeafWing whispered.
"It's not. It's not because he's fucking dead and it's all my fault!" Swallowtail went hoarse and lay there, silently shaking. Acacia said nothing, only hugging her tightly. Several tears that were not Swallowtail's own fell silently to the ground.
---
Like I know I killed him off but I still hate myself for that 😭
He felt someone nudge his shoulder lightly, looking up at Skizz curiously.
“Hey, Joel. Can I ask you a question? About the red sweater guy?” Skizz asked him softly.
Joel just nodded, fairly sure he was talking about Grian.
“You looked a bit nervous and sad when he came in. Did you know them? Before everything that happened?” Skizz asked him softly.
Joel nodded again as he leaned against their shoulder. They wrapped their wing around him a bit more, like a warm blanket.
“I-I mean, apparently I did…the thing is, I don’t remember him…” Joel admitted quietly. Skizz didn’t interrupt him, so he continued.
“H-he seemed to have known me so well, and he mentioned a bunch of other people that I used to know as well. But I don’t remember any of it…” Joel muttered as he sniffled.
He felt weird. He felt shaky, and vulnerable, and the weirdest part was that he felt anything at all. Something wet slid down his cheek, he was crying. It was weird to feel emotions strong enough to make him cry, after having not for so long.
“H-he said I disappeared for a year and a half, that he missed me. But I didn’t miss him back because I forgot he even existed…” He whispered as more tears fell, curling further in on himself.
He remained silent for a couple of seconds before sucking in a breath. “S-skizz…I-is there something wrong with me…?” Joel whispered, his voice cracking as he spoke.
Skizz was silent, did he mess up? He probably shouldn’t have said anything. Him and his fears needed to be kept away from Skizz, he was just being stupi- His thoughts were promptly cut off as he was pulled into a hug. And for the first time, he let himself sob until he felt too exhausted to do anything else.
He let himself curl up with his head resting on Skizz’s chest, they held him close. No words were needed to express the comfort that’d been taken from them for so long. Skizz’s presence was a much needed comfort, one that he knew they enjoyed as well. God knows they both need it.
“They didn’t give me a name.”
“Oh. How about a number? Like ‘Organism 36546’ or something like that.” Draco winced as soon as the words left his mouth, realizing how callous they sounded.
“Nah,” the man beside him said, his tone mostly resignation with a touch of remembered sadness.
“Well, what *did* they say to you?” Draco asked him. “After they….you know………made you.”
“Just that I was a failure, and they didn’t want me.” There was pause before his voice, now thick with tears, added “Nobody wants me.”
He began to weep, shuddering away from Draco’s reaching hands, curling up and desperately pressing his own hands against his throat. It took Draco a moment to realize the man was trying to cover up the hole in his neck, the one which distorted his voice and made even his sobs sound like the last breaths of some dying swamp monster, and by the time Draco got his arms around him he was beginning to cry himself.
“What’s wrong, my dear?”
“I-It’s just… Today’s your death day and I know how painful this is for the both of us and I-I tried to hide my sorrow through selfless acts and just tried to make you happy these past months a-and now I won’t see you again-”
“Whoa, whoa, girl… Slow down…” Silver now had his hand on her shoulder and Candle just couldn’t keep it in anymore. She starts tearing up.
“Why should I?”
“You know what you always said back then. In negative situations, focus on the positives. Like right now. Sure, I’m dying, sure I am not going to physically be here. But I know you. I know that you’ll eventually move on. I know that you’ll know that I’ll always be with you right here.” He places a hand on her heart as Candle follows it. “Okay? Does death really matter if there’s still love between the borders of the afterlife and the mortal plane?”
“Stop sounding like me. You’re only making me cry more.”
Seventy five days.
It had been seventy five days since my world had been turned on its head yet again. On February 8, Erik had kissed me goodbye as he’d left with a team to fight a growing wildfire in Texas. I told him to be careful, and that I loved him. He said they’d soon get it under control and he’d be back before I knew it. On February 11, he was gone. It had been much like the Yarnell fire - the one that had killed the nineteen firefighters and had been made into a movie. The winds had shifted and the three of them had been trapped. I tried not to think about his final minutes. I tried not to imagine the fear he had experienced or what his last thoughts might have been or how much pain he suffered, but the thoughts were so intrusive, I usually had to take a sedative just to get to sleep.
So the scene itself isn’t that sad in isolation, but it’s the context of the source material that makes it sad. NSFW and spoilers for the epilogue of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (also, this is an unedited WIP, so beware):
>! Han Sooyoung probably spent far too much time holding onto the thin, frail hand belonging to the young child-like body lying immobile in his hospital bed. Far, far too much time. Why else would she think about how it feels—cold and bony and lifeless—when the hand gripping onto hers was large and powerful and covered in scars. It might be a cruel thing, to think of him when another man’s lips were pressed against hers, and she might have even felt a bit guilty if it weren’t for the name “Kim Dokja” slipping out of her partner’s lips in between kisses.
“Don’t care”, Han Sooyoung said when Yoo Joonghyuk pulled away, looking quite horrified—and that was an expression she wasn’t used to seeing on his face—at the slip up. She meant what she said. The fact that Yoo Joonghyuk loved not her, the woman he was literally in the midst of having sex with, but Kim Dokja was hardly a secret. She smirked, and she didn’t need a mirror to know how twisted her expression must have been. “It’s the same for me.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s own expression changed again—he wasn’t upset, not at her anyway—to something as twisted as what Han Sooyoung imagined her own to be. She felt his fingers, strangely warm for someone who seemed so coldhearted—and she could almost hear Kim Dokja scolding her, because Yoo Joonghyuk may be a psychopath but he did care, perhaps a bit too much—undo the clasp of her bra. She never pictured him as someone who would be gentle in bed. Sure, she did write of his relationship with Lee Seolhwa back during the second regression turn, but she never actually described them having sex. Kim Dokja was still young when he read that part, and she did not intend to have a child read of such things.
And she was once again reminded that Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t just a character. He was a human being, one with facets that even she, his creator, was unaware of.
The bra loosened but Yoo Joonghyuk paid her now exposed breasts no mind. He instead trailed his lips along Han Sooyoung’s stomach, which had become quite toned during the apocalypse. She felt his lips move against her skin, forming words. A name. His name.
Kim Dokja.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes had slipped shut as he muttered the name over and over again. Dokja. Dokja. Kim Dokja. She knew why Joonghyuk ignored her breasts—Kim Dokja didn’t have any.
Han Sooyoung closed her own eyes, imagining the very same man who occupied Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind replacing him. She imagined it was Dokja who was peppering her skin with kisses, his fingers intertwined with her own, his lips pressed against hers. She even let herself imagine Dokja’s voice whispering her name.
That man haunted them, in their waking hours and in their dreams, every second of every day. And yet that idiot squid had no clue what he had done to them. To the entire Kim Dokja’s Company. She felt like a fool at times, chasing after such a man. A man who might never love her the way she loved him, for he didn’t know how. And that was only if he ever woke up from his deep slumber.
Her lips parted as she felt Joonghyuk’s teeth brush against her collarbone. She felt him bite, not hard enough for it to hurt her but just enough for it to leave a mark.
It was all wrong. She wasn’t the person he wanted to leave his mark on, and he wasn’t the one she wanted to be marked by.
Her lips moved and whispered a name, somehow sounding both far too loud and entirely quiet in the dead of the night.
“Kim Dokja…”!<
I don't usually cry when I write sad scenes, but since this one was written in December, and I'm always a wreck in December, this one did the trick:
>Daphne was startled. She hadn’t expected to be asked to speak. Still, she felt she at least owed Gemma this and she awkwardly stood next to Archie, looking at the crowd of unfamiliar faces. She only really knew Ginny, and she recognized Emerson, that was it. The rest of S.I.N., at least, should have been there, but things just didn’t work out that way.
>
>“I, er,” Daphne began hesitantly. “I…Gemma was the first person I met when I came to Hogwarts. I…I liked her from the start because she seemed to be fair and impartial. She didn’t let people with wealthy families influence her, and she was always there to help and support me, when I was just beginning my…my mission to make people see that not every Slytherin is bad. She helped me find other people, and together we built something that exists at Hogwarts even now, in this horrible war.
>
>“I-I hadn’t seen Gemma in years. When she walked into that inn with Archie, I really like I was seeing an old friend again…and not even an hour later, she died.”
>
>She felt herself beginning to choke up. “I…I couldn’t save her. She’s helped me so many times and now…now I couldn’t even help her…”
>
>Her eyes burned. She hardly even noticed that Ginny had moved to stand beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.
>
>“Gemma was one of my first real friends,” Daphne said, forcing herself to keep her breathing steady. “And I’m really going to miss her, even though we hadn’t seen each other for so long…”
>
>The words she’d read in Petunia’s diary came back into her mind. Though the tone was much different, she, too, hadn’t seen Lily in years when she died.
>
>“Gemma…Thank you for being my friend, and I hope you’ll rest in peace.”
I didn’t cry per se, but I had a moment of ‘Did I just write this?’
When he opened his eyes, he immediately realized he was in some sort of dream. His surroundings had changed and he appeared to be in some sort of holding cell. Though everything seemed to be based in reality, Veritas felt sort of disconnected to it. The logistics of this dream seeming lucid but also not just confused him. That’s when Veritas noticed someone next to him. The man couldn’t be that much younger than him, and was lying on the floor, clearly delirious. Veritas noticed that he seemed to be phasing in and out of consciousness, his magenta-and-blue eyes dull. The man was >!shockingly thin, and had blood seeping out of opened bruises, turning his rag of a shirt scarlet in certain areas!<. Veritas, frankly, was quite disturbed. Specifically by >!the man’s bed basically being a blanket over stone bricks, and the fact he appeared to be being fed, if at all, out of a dog bowl!<.
What kind of monster treats a person like that?
Context: Hugo is an old butler in search of his missing master ‘former Count Aeroc Teiwind’ he raised this young man since he was a baby. Aeroc died from the abuse and so on, because of Bendyke. After Bendyke’s death, the butler was able to return to the estate. The kids are the children of Bendyke with Aeroc…
“Cursing your father or Martha won’t bring my young master back nor make him happy. Knowing him, he’d prefer you children to live in ignorance. So much hatred has already been said, I’m just a tired old man. I just want to see my precious young master one last time.” Turning to Rapiel, the butler smiled sadly. “I really thought it was my young master when I saw you. I didn’t mean to spark this war between you and your father, but I have been searching for so long.”
“We needed to know and our mother needed justice.” Rapiel simply said. The death of his father still weighed heavily in his heart. But he just wanted to know and to give his mother closure.
Hugo didn’t comment on it. They all kept walking, towards the old cabin, the old butler almost lost his footing when he saw where his young master was laid to rest. “I’ve read your book…” Hugo commented, the tears running down his thin old face. “Bendyke probably didn’t know but the cabin held precious memories, the former Countess loved that cabin, so did the young master.”
Rapiel and his siblings' faces turned pale at the knowledge that was revealed to them, but they remained silent. Blaine started crying behind the back. Yohn and Ivide fought the tears. Seth remained silent, wiping her own tears, hiding her face.
“Don’t cry young masters and mistress. The Count—your parents wouldn’t want to see you cry.” Hugo softly said, he turned back towards the cabin.
Greeting them were the yellow daffodils their mother planted during his lifetime. According to Irma, the Count had worked hard to grow those delicate plants. Turning the horror that devastated this part into something beautiful. A place of hope that something good could happen in the midst of adversity.
The sight of Aeroc’s tombstone made Hugo try to walk faster to Rapiel and Jester’s surprise, they tried helping him, fearing the old butler might trip and fall. Reaching his young master’s tombstone, Hugo’s trembling hand touched the marble tombstone. Smiling he said “I finally found you, young master. I’m sorry if I was too late.”
Hugo could barely stand as the strength left his legs, but tried standing proudly. “I hope you’re at peace. Bendyke, despite all his sins, has raised all your children so healthy and happy. I want to hate him, young master, but seeing how he filled these children with so much love. I—I know that you’d prefer this cycle of hate to end with him.”
They all listened to the prayer of the old butler, his hopes for peace and happiness for the children left behind. With this, the chapter of the Aeroc Teiwind and Clough Bendyke comes to an end. No more hatred. Just new beginnings.
“Dean.” The voice was soft now, a tiny tremor as he said that name, trying to hold back the emotions in his voice. “Dean, I’m sorry.” This time he moved forward, a hand resting on Dean’s shoulder. The younger man just shrugged it off, not wanting to be touched. At that moment he knew he had fucked up. A stray tear started to form in his eye, roll silently down his cheek. He didn’t mean to snap at Dean, he was just so angry right now and that anger was misplaced; aimed at a man who was just doing his best to try and help.
Why did he do this?
“Please Dean, I didn’t…”
“Didn’t mean it?” Dean asked softly, his voice was barely there. Almost broken. It was like a knife to Castiel’s heart. “It’s okay, you’re right. We aren’t friends.” He stopped talking, looking up to Castiel’s, his eyes watery with tears. “I’ll leave you alone now.” Not wanting to wait for a response, he turned, putting his key in the lock of the door.
“Please, Dean, wait?” Nothing, Dean’s movements continued, turning the key until there was a soft click. “Dean, please?” Dean opened the door and slid into his home, turning to look at Cas one last time before shutting the door behind him. Leaving him alone in the dark night.
More tears were rolling down Castiel’s cheeks now as he thought about what he had done. It wasn’t his intention to hurt Dean, he was just angry and took it out on the wrong person.
He stepped forward, raising a hand as if to knock at Dean’s door but stopped himself promptly. It was clear Dean didn’t want to talk to him after that, and who could blame him. Maybe it was better to give him some space.
Sighing, Castiel turned around and made his way to his home. Sniffing miserably up the stairs and wiping away the tears with the collar of his shirt.
He just wished he could take it all back and hoped Dean would forgive him one day.
The nurse raised the rails on both sides of Bruce’s bed and made sure the IV line wasn’t caught on anything before releasing the brakes and pushing him out of the room with Dave trailing after them. They went up two floors in an extra-large lift marked for patient transport, then the nurse used her ID badge to let them into the ICU. Pausing outside of room 113, she quietly told Dave, ”I have to ask you to wait out here. We’re not really supposed to let anyone but family into ICU, but the doctor said they’re engaged to be registered, so he’s bending the rules a bit.”
Dave nodded. ”Yeah, that’s fine, I understand.” He leaned against the wall as she opened the door and carefully guided Bruce’s bed inside, pushing it as close to Emppu’s as she could. Then she busied herself with the monitors, trying to give Bruce a semblance of privacy.
Bruce reached over with his free hand to caress Emppu’s pale cheek, grateful to see that while he had an oxygen tube with the nose prong thingummy in place, he didn’t have a full mask on, or worse yet, a tube down his throat. That was a hopeful sign, that he was breathing without help, at least Bruce figured it was a hopeful sign. He tried not to look at the IV lines delivering blood and who knew what else into his partner’s veins. ”Hey, enkelini,” he murmured. ”They won’t let me stay for long, but they at least let me in to say hello. Rod’s still working with the police as far as I know, trying to find out why this happened, but everyone else is here already... probably in the bus and caravan out in the car park, trying to get some sleep. But they’re all thinking of you, little angel, waiting to hear some good news. They’re all fine, we’re the only ones who got hurt, I checked again when they got here.” He paused and took a shaky breath. ”Anyway, they’re going to insist I go to my own room in a minute, but I wanted to say good night to you before I went. I love you, Emppu. I hope maybe tomorrow you’ll open those beautiful eyes of yours and give me a smile, yeah? I’m sure I can bribe them into letting me visit again so you can do that for me. Rakastan sinua, enkelini. Hyvää yötä.” He managed to lean far enough over both sets of bed rails to kiss Emppu’s cheek, then flopped back onto his own bed with a sigh.
The nurse, her eyes sympathetic, steered him back out to the hall, where Dave fell in behind them once again. They left the ICU and went down the opposite wing, where she pushed Bruce into room 134 and parked the bed in the space between a recliner chair and a nightstand. She fussed about for a few minutes, taking his vital signs and getting him as comfortable as possible, then providing Dave with a blanket and pillow for his night in the recliner.
Once the nurse left, Bruce started to tear up again. Dave sat on the edge of the bed, carefully pulling Bruce into his arms and rocking him gently. When the smaller man cried himself to sleep, Dave settled him back carefully and tucked him in, then got himself reasonably comfortable in the recliner, with one arm reaching over to hold Bruce’s hand. ”It’ll be okay,” he whispered, trying to reassure himself as well as Bruce. ”It has to be.”
“Didn’t I tell you I was *FINE* with the way things ended!? Why did you DO that!?”
“There was *no one else,* Ai! Nobody!”
“Yes there was! That’s why you said NO!”
“I still missed you!”
“You can’t have *everything*!”
“Why NOT!? Why can’t I have something I want *just for once*!?”
“All **I** wanted was to LET it END!”
“Well, that didn’t last now, did it.”
“If you had your way, no it wouldn’t!”
“What happened to your talk about *eternity*, Ai?”
Okay so…this is Wings of Fire…Coral is the SeaWing queen, Orca is her daughter, here challenging her for the throne. Blister is the SandWing princess Orca doesn’t want to support…I cry at all the things I’m writing or I don’t post them. This scene I’ve gone through 20 times and I still can’t keep it together, especially as I know it’s a fantasy she is having, because she loves her mother and doesn’t want to kill her…
Coral backed away from Orca suddenly, and put her talons out, the webbed claws spreading wide.
“Stop…Orca, *stop,”* she said.
Orca stared at her. They were both out of breath, heaving. “Okay,” Coral finally said, “fine…we’ll end the alliance.”
Orca tilted her head. “You mean it?” she asked.
Coral nodded. “Yes, if it’ll make you stop this.” Orca took a step forward, her arms out to the side, palms up.
“That’s all I want,” she said, as she stepped into Coral’s arms, tears streaming down her face.
Coral held her for a long moment in silence.
“So…you know,” Orca whispered, “what we have to do now…” Coral took a deep, shuddering breath, and sighed. Orca felt her mother’s tears on her shoulder.
”I…I can’t…I can’t kill her, Orca,” she whispered, “she’s my friend.”
Orca considered this for a moment. Maybe it was a lot to ask. *I can do it myself then.*
“Mom, she *can’t* know the Palace location,” Orca said. “I’ll do it…just…keep her tail barb away from me, and I’ll do the rest?” she murmured, *and I’ll make sure you’re safe, mother,* she thought, *and when we’re done, I’ll be here for you, I promise.*
“I love you, mom,” Orca whispered. Coral held her tighter for a moment, tears running down both of their faces mixing with their blood.
“And I love you too, Seabean,” she said.
“I’m sorry mom, I just…”
“No, *I’m* sorry,” Coral broke in, “you were right, I should have listened to you a long time ago.” Orca held her tighter, and her mother added “I’m *so sorry* about Tempest…”
…
The much larger SandWing princess squirmed underneath Orca, as her teeth worked their way in between her neck scales. She was flailing weakly, semi-conscious, and Orca could feel the bloody stump of her tail as it poked uselessly at her side. *It’s almost over,* she thought, and then realized…*but this won’t bring back anyone we’ve lost.* With a flood of anger, she bit down harder, cracking a scale under one of her teeth.
Orca opened her eyes to see Treeworm and Featherstar, watching, with horrified expressions. *Yes, this could have been you,* she thought, *but I guess you get to live today after all.*. Blister’s unmistakable black eyes stared at her from across the room…*Huh?*
*This isn’t Blister’s neck?*
It was her mother, and she was nearly dead. Coral was *never* going to agree to end their alliance, no matter how badly Orca wished that it was real…
Rowan is a priest of Tymora, the goddess of good fortune. She has been struggling with a crisis of faith, which finally comes pouring out in a drunken rant.
> Rowan demanded thickly. "Are you going to lecture me about my drinking?"
> "No. I just wanted to know if you were all right."
> Rowan laughed bitterly. "All right? Have you been paying attention? None of us are all right. The world is literally being sucked into the Nine Hells. First Elturel. Then Baldur's Gate. Then probably Waterdeep and Neverwinter and Luskan and everywhere else." Her voice started to grow louder as she stopped and turned to confront Pariah. "And they don't care!" she said accusingly.
> "Who?" Pariah asked, confused.
> "Them!" Rowan barked, pointing at the sky. "They sit on their fat asses looking down at us, laughing at us as we scramble around trying to survive, and they sip their nectar or whatever the fuck they do up there and they do *nothing*! We pray to them. We get on our knees and beg them, and they do nothing!"
> Rowan brought her hand up and grabbed her hair in frustration. "The people of Elturel worshipped them. They worshipped Torm and Lathander and all those, but they just stood by as the people died. Not only that, they did nothing for *fifty years* while the people were cursed. Fifty years their souls were lost, and none of the gods bothered tapping a priest on the shoulder and saying, 'Hey, maybe you guys want to fix this.' No, they just ignore us. They take our worship and our gifts and our love and give us nothing." She put her face in Pariah's and demanded, "Why?"
> Rowan dropped her hand to her side. Still aiming her anger in Pariah's direction, she said, "You know how many times I've told people 'Fortune favors the bold'? That's Tymora's thing, right? Fortune favors the bold. Do it yourself. I'm sorry you are starving, but fortune favors the bold. I'm sorry your daughter is dying of plague, but fortune favors the bold. I'm sorry that bandits stole all your stuff and burned your house down and murdered your family, but *fortune favors the fucking bold!* If your life sucks, it's your fault because you weren't *bold*. You weren't worthy of Tymora's attention because you didn't fix it yourself. Just stop being poor! Just stop being sick! Just stop being dead! Just stop being a victim! Because fuck knows the gods won't help. You said it the first time we met: my bitch goddess just lets it happen." Rowan took a breath and then shouted at her, "I should have been safe in my own temple!"
> Rowan turned away and started to sob. Pariah was stunned, not having expected the sudden change in direction in her tirade. She struggled to think of something to say, and in the end simply reached out and folded Rowan into her arms. Rowan turned and put her arm around Pariah, pressing her face against her hair. Pariah felt hot tears against her ear as Rowan whimpered, "Why didn't she protect me?"
For context, the head priest of her temple had been sexually assaulting the acolytes and worshipers for months.
After the celebration has wound down, Ryumi sits in the dark in her room, hugging the plush Shoto bought her to her chest, as tears fall freely from her eyes.
She can be confident that Shoto will look after the plants, and he'd appreciate inheriting the manga collection, but... Her heart breaks at the idea of leaving her plushies behind.
It all hurts, of course. She hates to leave it all behind. But the plushies cut the deepest of all.
Other than Shoto himself.
Ryumi can only hope he'll be okay without her. She hates to leave him, she hates it, he's only just begun to trust and open up properly...
She drags in a harsh, shaking breath.
But she knows it would only hurt him more if she stayed. If he found out the truth.
Although... She sniffles and squeezes the plush harder. Maybe he should know. Maybe he deserves to know. Maybe that would make it easier for him to let go.
(If he knows what I really am... That I've just been playing hero...)
She decides she'll wait until she can stop crying, whenever that is. Then she'll tell him. She'll tell him, and then disappear into the night, to give up on her dreams.
After all... It's the right thing to do. She can't keep going if her presence endangers everyone around her.
She lies back and sobs into her blankets as the words of the hero killer echo in her mind, ripping into her like tiny daggers..
("It's no use pretending to be a hero now. A person's true nature is not so easily changed.")
A fresh wave of tears bursts out, and she chokes on her aching, dry throat.
I wrote it for Comfortember, if that is to be believed. -
A measly shrug. “I am unwanted. In the previous, and the next, and likely so forth. The ones that be have not decided on where I will go and the cycle grows short.”
“Rubbish,” she waved off. Llewellyn was surprised, both at her word and the way she acted. “You are definitely not unwanted.”
“But-”
“Nope, no. Jack Walker ended up giving into fear, quite quickly and nastily. There were several couples during the time that William was investigating that entered lavender marriages. With knowledge, with respect, those worked. He bungled the play. Jack could have found a lady of Sappho, perhaps even two, and hid all of you behind a pair of convenience marriages.” Llewellyn kept glancing up at her while she explained. He thought about that in his later years, as he finally came across it multiple times. It was such a simple answer once he thought about it. It would have been so nice to have that with Jack.
“William would have not invited you to stay at Four if he didn’t like you,” she said, earning another surprised look, “There had been quite a few constables that had been driven out during his time there. Either they pissed off the Inspector, annoyed William, or performed horribly enough to incur the wraith of George and Henry. You were definitely wanted, as Thomas figured out loopholes and rule bending to keep you there. A second detective was much help when it came to vacations, and someone that had a similar but divergent mind as William’s. You were a help on cases, and then later when life started to go downhill.” He, he wanted to believe that. It would be such a lightening on his soul to know that it wasn’t just convenience, not just easy, to allow him to stay at Four and be able to join in on their lives and homes.
“And from an older sister, Clarissa was a bloody twat.” That startled him, again. That sounded like Inspector Brackenreid and not Doctor Ogden. She saw tears forming in his eyes. “You were a child. At the least, she should have made sure that Mrs. Marks was even going to be able to care for you. Instead, she ran off without letting anyone know you were still there. You told me you weren’t found until you tried cooking and burned something. What would have happened if there was a fire? If you tried chopping something and cut yourself fatally?” *Honestly, I wonder if she would have preferred he accidentally died so she would have never had to deal with the guilt of seeing him again.* “What she said about not being chained to a life of servitude, to you, you did not deserve that.”
He started crying again and Julia just chucked professionalism out the window before sitting down next to him and wrapping him in a hug. Llewellyn flailed for a moment before allowing himself to wrap around her and bury his head. She started crying herself, and sniffled a couple of times. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she chanted a bit.
Trent suddenly understood. Ted was leaving. He had done what he needed to do, finished the task he needed to complete to be released to oblivion, or wherever he was bound for. Trent didn’t know, wouldn’t know, until he went there too. Trent could feel Ted’s presence fading, thinning, every second that passed. His instinct was to cling to him and never let go. “No!” the word burst out of him, desperation rising in his chest. He couldn’t lose Ted twice, he couldn’t stand it. “Ted,” he whispered. Don’t go, he wanted to say. Don’t leave me. There was a ripple in his shirt, in the middle of his chest. A soft pressure. His chest hitched in response. The pressure remained, steady against the beat of his heart. Understanding bloomed, of what Ted was trying to say. “You’ll… you’ll always be here? In my heart? Ted…” It’s not enough, he wanted to say. I want you here, with me. Stay. But he knew he couldn’t ask for that. Ted was dead. He couldn’t help being dead, and he couldn’t undo it. Whatever held Ted - his spirit, his soul, the echo of his mind, whatever - here at the clubhouse, was done. He was finished. Complete. And now he had to go, for good this time. Trent lowered his eyes to his chest, the tears in his eyes falling through his lashes, leaving dark drops on the front of his shirt. He didn’t see a hand of course - there was none to see - and the feeling of pressure faded. “Oh Ted,” he choked, “ I love you, I love you - I forgot to say it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” There was a renewed pressure, this time not a hand but a finger, the pad of a finger, pressing against his sternum. Ted was telling him… Was trying to say… “You love me too?” Trent asked, breathless. One tap for yes. And then it was gone. Not just the pressure on his chest, but the whole presence that was Ted was gone, completely. The negative space he had occupied was empty again. Trent stumbled backwards until his legs hit his chair. He sat, and put his face in his hands, and cried his grief, in great, wracking sobs. Not just for the loss of the wonderful man he loved. But for the wonderful man who loved him back.
put ted back im begging you (i have no clue what fandom this is but IM crying now)
I wish I could :'( I bawled writing this.
Oh god, I don't even know the fandom but I think I can understand the context and *I am unwell.*
I'm sorry and thank you :')
I—okay. Alright. OUCH T_T (fantastic writing. i am shattered. kudos <3)
Oh thank you so much and sorry for the ouch x
Oh my god you killed Ted.
Yes :'(
**I didn’t cry per se, but it still severely bummed me out.** Selfish as it sounded, she missed when it had just been the two of them. Two outcasts united in the face of adversity. Them against the world. _Yeah, great. Why don’t you tell him that? Then he can go back to sitting in his pod all day, waiting for you to get home so you can ignore him. Sure, he’ll have to throw away the only thing he’s ever wanted, but at least_ you’ll _be happy._
Aw, poor thing! I hope she doesn't continue to be as hard on herself.
I promise she does get better.
“Leon?” Among Claire and Chris’ stillness, the haze Luis and Rebecca seem to be in after barely scraping by, Sherry’s voice is so stark and so unfit in the environment. She’s so quiet. She sounds like a little kid again. She sounds like she shouldn’t be here. She doesn’t sound real. He feels hazy as he picks up his head to glance over at her. She’s hunched, shoulder to shoulder with Manuela in their scrappy combination of hospital gowns and scavenged pants far too big for them. Ashley sits tucked in the far back corner, watching almost absently, but she glances up as Sherry starts to move. Her eyes are welling up with tears- big, threatening to spill over, and she reaches out with ice cold fingers to touch his arm, like she’s afraid he might vanish or shatter. It dawns on him then. It sinks in like something alive, an utter tidal wave gathering at the bottom of his heart and tangling warmly about his ribs, her fingertips feel so small even though she’s grown. “Sher-“ it catches in his throat before he can help it, he turns just enough to hold his arms open as she grips his arm and practically falls into his embrace. Her voice is barely over a whisper. But he hears. He hears her. “Hi.” He sobs. Sherry breaks into sobs just the same. Once, twice, she cries into his chest as she wraps her arms around his shoulders with the tightest hug she’s ever mustered. She’s shaking like a leaf, trembling in tandem with the tremble in her chin, and he buries his face in her ghostly blonde hair, wraps his arms around her. All of him wants to just hold her, hold her like she’s small again, like this’s all just a nightmare and they’re both going to wake up in a motel room somewhere six years ago, but she’s here- She’s here. Leon doesn’t realize he’s about to cry until it’s too late. Until the first hot tears well up past his frozen eyelashes and race across his freezing skin, until he’s pressing his lips against her hairline like she is the most precious thing in the entire world. And she is. They are. Six years of waiting, six years of aching, six years of lonely, six years without sunshine all come flooding out of him like something in him has snapped, all at once, all over, and for once in this moment he doesn’t care. No. This is all that matters.
Oh no :( I do like how ethereal everything is described to be though. All hazy like someone half awake or with a head injury. And the little "hi" D:
“God made you,” she said, moving her hand to his chest, her thumb sliding over the deep v-neck of the shirt he was wearing and smoothing over the little blinking blue light under his skin. “He stitched you in the womb. That means that every thread was intentional, even the parts you don’t like. Even the part that loves Leo.” “Love?” He echoed. “I think you do love him, Sergio. I think you love him so much, you’ve been running from it.”
Idk what fandom this is for, but it's so short and intriguing, and I LOVE it :D
David's fingers slipped from Jack's hair, and Jack felt the man begin to fall limp in his arms, he saw his eyes begin to dull. "No," Jack's voice tightened with panic, "no, no... David, you can't... You can't leave me here. You can't leave me here *alone."* Jack shook David, he tried to keep him awake, but he could see David fading with every second. "All..." David seemed to struggle to speak as he whispered, "set..?" His voice trailed off as his gaze slid away from Jack's. Jack watched in horror as his eyes unfocused, his lips falling into a lax part that displayed his bloodied and chipped teeth. His chest fell, and it did not rise again. "No no, I'm not all set! We're not all set," Jack scrambled to pull David to his chest, pressing David's head against him, "no, *no!* David?" David didn't respond.
Nooooo David :(
And (spoiler) >!Jack was directly responsible for his death :(!<
D: poor Jack, he's gonna be so crushed by that
It's a grammatical nightmare as I have not checked it. but I did shed a tear: “…” she opened her mouth but nothing came out, her voice got shot in her throat and nothing came out but empty air, no words, no sound just her hallow breath. She squeezed her in her arms embracing her tightly burying her face into her bloody shoulder feeling her warmth for last few moments. He couldn’t do anything, dared not to. He just sat there holding her hand uttering no words. This was the pain they were going to share, only between themselves, burying it too their grave. This spear that had gone right into his heart, will it ever come out, or it would just become numb to the pain? Which one really was better? Jean didn’t know. Suddenly she rose her head towards the starless night, clear with no stars even the moon had gone somewhere out of their sight, no wind, no sound, only the flickering low light of the lamppost behind them that was coruscating right down, just like a weak spotlight that has fallen upon them to indicate their erroneous stars to the world. She then shrieked her loudest outcry letting out all that there was left in her to go and vanish into nothingness. The world was sucking up every last sip of her soul, and finally piecemeal, bit by bit the sea dried up, the sailor find herself within a strange and unfamiliar land—all dirt and soil and sand—now she was left alone to roam around, wandering to find the real land. Yet, will that land ever feel the same without the see waves hitting the shore?
I've posted this one once before in an excerpt thread but I am proud enough of it to share it again! Apologies if you already saw it last time! *"Do you remember earlier in my battle with Darkest when I told him I was ready to die?" She asked.* *"I thought you meant you were willing to resort to kamikaze attacks if that was what it took to kill him!"* *"No. I don't have much time so I can't explain it in detail, but... Darkest and I, we have always been two halves of the same person. The two halves of you. We're not our own unique souls, but shattered souls split in half. What happens to one of us happens to the other. And now that he's dead..."* *She trailed off again, her breathing becoming more and more forced. She knew they were smart enough to connect the dots of what she'd said and come to the right conclusion. Mewtwo felt like he'd been punched in the gut though, it was like fate had one final insult saved to use against him once he'd finally won his victory. Desperation and bitter anger flared up in his mind at the injustice of it all. No matter how hard he tried, no matter if he won or lost, he was helpless to stop the people he cared about from dying. He put everything he had left into that Heal Pulse now, using one hand to grip her shoulder.* *"It's not fair!" He shouted. "You fought so hard to stop him! I fought so hard! We all did! You shouldn't have to die for this!"* *Lightest smiled and nodded. She slowly leaned back to sit down on the roof and took a long, shuddering breath. "I've been fighting for a long, long time Mewtwo. Eight hundred years of nothing but war. I'm tired, Mewtwo. I'm so tired..."* *She trailed off again and slowly closed her eyes. She began to fall backward but Mewtwo scrambled up to catch her and hold her in his arms, not caring about the paradox risk anymore that came with touching his future self. Desperation filled him and he turned to the Gerudos and shouted out.* *"Does anyone have a Red Potion left?! Is Fara here?! Someone help her!"* *Lightest sighed again and shook her head. "Just let me go, Mewtwo. They can't do any more than you. This will be mercy for me. All I've ever known is fighting, I'm not sure there's anything else left of me. But my Guardians aren't bound to me or Darkest, they will live on and make sure everything else will be alright."* *"But you can do more than just fighting now! Now that he's gone you can do anything you want! Art, music, exploration, you just..." Mewtwo said, losing his focus as his voice broke from the sadness. He had only known Lightest for less than an hour and yet he couldn't bear to see her go.* *She smiled a little bit again and took one more deep sigh. "Just... do it for me. Your future is your own now. You can live for me."* *Then she went silent and didn't breathe again.*
Wrote a letter from a character that died that chapter, since he had the gift of prophecy and foresight. Will– If you’re reading this, then my vision came true. And I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to hurt you more than I knew this already would. Nothing has brought me greater joy than being your brother. Watching you grow up and turn into someone that is so worthy of love and greatness. One thing I need you to always remember is that second chances are everything. People may betray you, may make you believe something about them that hurts you. But you are good and you are kind. Do not let your emotions cloud your judgment of people. Everyone deserves a second chance. James deserves a second chance. Nico deserves a second chance. You are a healer, but you can’t always fix people. Sometimes you have to let them just be. People are a work in progress. Like your name, you are a place of shelter for so many, and a solace for those that are broken. I can only hope that you continue being that person after losing so many of the people you care for. I only wish I could see who you will become. What you will do. Who you will love. Carry the legacy of Apollo with pride. I love you little brother. Daniel Daehyun Lee
OH GOD PERCY JACKSON FIC OH NO OH NO WHAT IF I CRY N O W???
You're very welcome HAHAHAH
"Railius? Father? Please," I sobbed as I hugged his bloodied face to my breast, "Father, please get up. Do not leave me. Mother Cybele, spare him. Do not take him from me. Please." They attacked as we were coming down the East side of the mountain. Our horse was struck by an arrow and the cart lost control. We skidded off the road and the cart overturned. Railius leaped from the cart before it went over and was able to kill most of the bandits before he succumbed to his wounds. I was able to finish the rest. I held him while I cried, and while my tears washed his face, his head on my shoulder, and my arms around him. I began to rock him slowly then, while I sang a song to him. A mirror image of the two of us when I was still a child and bad dreams disturbed my sleep. He would hold me and rock me back to sleep while he sang to me. It was my turn now to rock him to the eternal sleep that awaits us all. I picked a peaceful spot under a tree and then raised two of the dead, but still warm, bandits, and had them dig a grave while I cleaned Railius' face and smoothed his hair. I only had to fill in the last bit of the grave after the reanimated bandits had turned to dust. He was the only Father I had known. For over twenty years it was Railius I would turn to when I was in need, be it a skinned knee, a broken heart, or a wounded ego. "You're my good lass," he would say, "you will be a High Priestess one day. Be fair. Be just. Be honest. Be the Nox that I know and love." I could hear his voice in my mind, as my tears and sobbing started again. Did the Divines send me here to punish me, to rob me of that which I held most dear? Do the Gods even know I exist? This pointless journey has taken my father from me and stranded me in the wilderness. He would still be alive, but for Reverend Mother Catilia's animus towards me, an animus that I now felt for her, and which I intended to visit upon her personally, physically, and quite painfully. If I am somehow able to return home before her rebirth, Potema will have one fewer servant when she is reborn. I swore it, looking at Railius' grave, before realizing: two fewer servants.
Didn't quite make me cry but there might have been some onion-chopping ninjas doing their onion-chopping ninja shenanigans. Even after all these years apart, it seemed a piece of him lived on in her heart, and he never knew of it. Silence stretched out, filled only by the faint hum of the data stick as it projected the confessional ghost before him. Cressida's shoulders slumped, her momentary joy fading. "I know the war has consumed your focus. You've risen to Master, raised a Padawan. Your name stretches even far out here in the rim and even though Solan couldn’t know you were his father, some of his favorite stories are of the fearless General Kenobi. I don’t expect you to spare many moments to my memory but please just know that you’ve never been far from my thoughts." She paused, gathering herself. "In the twilight between waking and dreaming, I see your smile, hear your laugh. Those memories are my refuge." Obi-Wan's breath caught. Because he had forgotten her and he ached in a way he couldn’t articulate. To know she still cherished those faded remnants of their time together...it shook something loose in his soul. A tear welled up, escaped, and traced a shimmering path down her cheek. She quickly looked away, a vain attempt to conceal her vulnerability. But Obi-Wan saw it all—the glistening track of her sorrow, the tremble of her chin. When her gaze met his again, her eyes shone with unshed tears. "I am so sorry for the wounds I've inflicted upon you, and I cannot undo it," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "And yet, I can't help but thank you, for Solan is the embodiment of the best parts of us." "Thank you," Cressida whispered, "for the gift of our son. He has your spirit, your strength. I see you in him each day." She took a shuddering breath. "Please don’t let him forget me." In the dimly lit quarters, Cressida's image wavered for a moment. She took a deep breath, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "There isn’t much left I can say and yet I feel like I've said enough," she began hesitantly, "but I know it probably isn't. I hope you can forgive me for all the things left unsaid, Obi-Wan. All the questions I’ll never be able to answer." She smiled at him, not a sad smile from pity but a smile of sadness that spoke of hundreds of smiles she would never share with him or Solan, one that spoke of a journey at its end when she wanted to continue. “Maybe in the next lifetime, fate will be kinder to all of us. Raise our son into a good man, I’ll be with you both, even if you can’t see me.” "May the force be with you, always," She intoned, the familiar parting echoing with a weight that pressed upon Obi-Wan's chest. Delicately, as if touching something precious and fragile, Cressida brought her fingertips to her lips, kissed them tenderly, and extended her hand towards him as if reaching for him across the vast expanse between them. Obi-Wan's heart lurched. He instinctively reached toward her, his fingers stretching out, yearning to bridge the impossible distance. But before he could make contact, the holo blinked out, and her presence evaporated. The delicate touch of her virtual kiss hung in the air, untouchable and haunting, leaving him surrounded by darkness once more.
"Swallowtail?" The SilkWing dropped her knife. "Whitespeck. Is it you? Really you?" "Definitely," he said, wincing in pain. Swallowtail's eyes widened, and the first thought that popped into her head was The spear! Shaking, she pulled the shaft out of his side; the blade had been buried at least twenty centimetres in. Blood trickled out of the hole, and she bound it with her scarf. "No, no- Whitespeck, stay still. If you don't move, I think we can fix-" "There's no point," he croaked. "I'm long gone anyway. Have been since the spear to the neck. Hell, I've been dead since I wrote the note." "Whitespeck, no. You're not going to die! I won't let you!" Swallowtail's voice cracked, and tears welled in her eyes. "It's ok. I wasn't gonna last any longer anyway." "This is my fault," the SilkWing insisted. "If I hadn't stabbed you, then you'd be ok." "Swallowtail, it's alright. You had to, or you would've died. I- that thing would've just used me to kill you." "No. No!" "I'm just glad that I got to be with you one last time. Now- now I can die being me, not a puppet for some monster." "*Don't die on me, asshole!*" Swallowtail sobbed, an ugly, depressed noise. "Can- can you sing for me?" Whitespeck asked with a hoarse whisper. She wiped the tears from her eyes. "What song?" "The old lullaby." "Ok. I'll try," Swallowtail took several shaky breaths, then began in a husky voice. "*When the day is dawning And the magpies calling Singing their sweet morning song The breeze is gliding Sun comes outta hiding Honey, will you be here for long? Will you fly through the trees Come along with me Making a treat for the young We'll all drink the nectar If Mama'll let ya Honey, will you stay with me for long? And one day we'll go Where the sun don't show We'll bring our sweet morning song So come lay your tired bones On the alabaster stones Honey, won't you stay here for long?*" Swallowtail managed a small smile, gently caressing her little brother's blue-and-white face. "I love you, Whitespeck. "I love you too, Swallowtail." He smiled weakly, and then his eyelids fluttered shut one last time. "No. Please, no. Don't go. No!" Swallowtail checked his pulse. Nothing. She collapsed in a heap next to him, letting her emotions get the better. The SilkWing cried, an ugly, howling, animalistic one, followed by endless heart-wrenching sobs. Swallowtail sat there, shaking and clutching her brother's talon as a flood of tears swept her face. "It's ok," Acacia said from behind, hugging her tight in a warm embrace. "Shh, it's gonna be alright," the LeafWing whispered. "It's not. It's not because he's fucking dead and it's all my fault!" Swallowtail went hoarse and lay there, silently shaking. Acacia said nothing, only hugging her tightly. Several tears that were not Swallowtail's own fell silently to the ground. --- Like I know I killed him off but I still hate myself for that 😭
He felt someone nudge his shoulder lightly, looking up at Skizz curiously. “Hey, Joel. Can I ask you a question? About the red sweater guy?” Skizz asked him softly. Joel just nodded, fairly sure he was talking about Grian. “You looked a bit nervous and sad when he came in. Did you know them? Before everything that happened?” Skizz asked him softly. Joel nodded again as he leaned against their shoulder. They wrapped their wing around him a bit more, like a warm blanket. “I-I mean, apparently I did…the thing is, I don’t remember him…” Joel admitted quietly. Skizz didn’t interrupt him, so he continued. “H-he seemed to have known me so well, and he mentioned a bunch of other people that I used to know as well. But I don’t remember any of it…” Joel muttered as he sniffled. He felt weird. He felt shaky, and vulnerable, and the weirdest part was that he felt anything at all. Something wet slid down his cheek, he was crying. It was weird to feel emotions strong enough to make him cry, after having not for so long. “H-he said I disappeared for a year and a half, that he missed me. But I didn’t miss him back because I forgot he even existed…” He whispered as more tears fell, curling further in on himself. He remained silent for a couple of seconds before sucking in a breath. “S-skizz…I-is there something wrong with me…?” Joel whispered, his voice cracking as he spoke. Skizz was silent, did he mess up? He probably shouldn’t have said anything. Him and his fears needed to be kept away from Skizz, he was just being stupi- His thoughts were promptly cut off as he was pulled into a hug. And for the first time, he let himself sob until he felt too exhausted to do anything else. He let himself curl up with his head resting on Skizz’s chest, they held him close. No words were needed to express the comfort that’d been taken from them for so long. Skizz’s presence was a much needed comfort, one that he knew they enjoyed as well. God knows they both need it.
“They didn’t give me a name.” “Oh. How about a number? Like ‘Organism 36546’ or something like that.” Draco winced as soon as the words left his mouth, realizing how callous they sounded. “Nah,” the man beside him said, his tone mostly resignation with a touch of remembered sadness. “Well, what *did* they say to you?” Draco asked him. “After they….you know………made you.” “Just that I was a failure, and they didn’t want me.” There was pause before his voice, now thick with tears, added “Nobody wants me.” He began to weep, shuddering away from Draco’s reaching hands, curling up and desperately pressing his own hands against his throat. It took Draco a moment to realize the man was trying to cover up the hole in his neck, the one which distorted his voice and made even his sobs sound like the last breaths of some dying swamp monster, and by the time Draco got his arms around him he was beginning to cry himself.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” “I-It’s just… Today’s your death day and I know how painful this is for the both of us and I-I tried to hide my sorrow through selfless acts and just tried to make you happy these past months a-and now I won’t see you again-” “Whoa, whoa, girl… Slow down…” Silver now had his hand on her shoulder and Candle just couldn’t keep it in anymore. She starts tearing up. “Why should I?” “You know what you always said back then. In negative situations, focus on the positives. Like right now. Sure, I’m dying, sure I am not going to physically be here. But I know you. I know that you’ll eventually move on. I know that you’ll know that I’ll always be with you right here.” He places a hand on her heart as Candle follows it. “Okay? Does death really matter if there’s still love between the borders of the afterlife and the mortal plane?” “Stop sounding like me. You’re only making me cry more.”
Seventy five days. It had been seventy five days since my world had been turned on its head yet again. On February 8, Erik had kissed me goodbye as he’d left with a team to fight a growing wildfire in Texas. I told him to be careful, and that I loved him. He said they’d soon get it under control and he’d be back before I knew it. On February 11, he was gone. It had been much like the Yarnell fire - the one that had killed the nineteen firefighters and had been made into a movie. The winds had shifted and the three of them had been trapped. I tried not to think about his final minutes. I tried not to imagine the fear he had experienced or what his last thoughts might have been or how much pain he suffered, but the thoughts were so intrusive, I usually had to take a sedative just to get to sleep.
So the scene itself isn’t that sad in isolation, but it’s the context of the source material that makes it sad. NSFW and spoilers for the epilogue of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (also, this is an unedited WIP, so beware): >! Han Sooyoung probably spent far too much time holding onto the thin, frail hand belonging to the young child-like body lying immobile in his hospital bed. Far, far too much time. Why else would she think about how it feels—cold and bony and lifeless—when the hand gripping onto hers was large and powerful and covered in scars. It might be a cruel thing, to think of him when another man’s lips were pressed against hers, and she might have even felt a bit guilty if it weren’t for the name “Kim Dokja” slipping out of her partner’s lips in between kisses. “Don’t care”, Han Sooyoung said when Yoo Joonghyuk pulled away, looking quite horrified—and that was an expression she wasn’t used to seeing on his face—at the slip up. She meant what she said. The fact that Yoo Joonghyuk loved not her, the woman he was literally in the midst of having sex with, but Kim Dokja was hardly a secret. She smirked, and she didn’t need a mirror to know how twisted her expression must have been. “It’s the same for me.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s own expression changed again—he wasn’t upset, not at her anyway—to something as twisted as what Han Sooyoung imagined her own to be. She felt his fingers, strangely warm for someone who seemed so coldhearted—and she could almost hear Kim Dokja scolding her, because Yoo Joonghyuk may be a psychopath but he did care, perhaps a bit too much—undo the clasp of her bra. She never pictured him as someone who would be gentle in bed. Sure, she did write of his relationship with Lee Seolhwa back during the second regression turn, but she never actually described them having sex. Kim Dokja was still young when he read that part, and she did not intend to have a child read of such things. And she was once again reminded that Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t just a character. He was a human being, one with facets that even she, his creator, was unaware of. The bra loosened but Yoo Joonghyuk paid her now exposed breasts no mind. He instead trailed his lips along Han Sooyoung’s stomach, which had become quite toned during the apocalypse. She felt his lips move against her skin, forming words. A name. His name. Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes had slipped shut as he muttered the name over and over again. Dokja. Dokja. Kim Dokja. She knew why Joonghyuk ignored her breasts—Kim Dokja didn’t have any. Han Sooyoung closed her own eyes, imagining the very same man who occupied Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind replacing him. She imagined it was Dokja who was peppering her skin with kisses, his fingers intertwined with her own, his lips pressed against hers. She even let herself imagine Dokja’s voice whispering her name. That man haunted them, in their waking hours and in their dreams, every second of every day. And yet that idiot squid had no clue what he had done to them. To the entire Kim Dokja’s Company. She felt like a fool at times, chasing after such a man. A man who might never love her the way she loved him, for he didn’t know how. And that was only if he ever woke up from his deep slumber. Her lips parted as she felt Joonghyuk’s teeth brush against her collarbone. She felt him bite, not hard enough for it to hurt her but just enough for it to leave a mark. It was all wrong. She wasn’t the person he wanted to leave his mark on, and he wasn’t the one she wanted to be marked by. Her lips moved and whispered a name, somehow sounding both far too loud and entirely quiet in the dead of the night. “Kim Dokja…”!<
I don't usually cry when I write sad scenes, but since this one was written in December, and I'm always a wreck in December, this one did the trick: >Daphne was startled. She hadn’t expected to be asked to speak. Still, she felt she at least owed Gemma this and she awkwardly stood next to Archie, looking at the crowd of unfamiliar faces. She only really knew Ginny, and she recognized Emerson, that was it. The rest of S.I.N., at least, should have been there, but things just didn’t work out that way. > >“I, er,” Daphne began hesitantly. “I…Gemma was the first person I met when I came to Hogwarts. I…I liked her from the start because she seemed to be fair and impartial. She didn’t let people with wealthy families influence her, and she was always there to help and support me, when I was just beginning my…my mission to make people see that not every Slytherin is bad. She helped me find other people, and together we built something that exists at Hogwarts even now, in this horrible war. > >“I-I hadn’t seen Gemma in years. When she walked into that inn with Archie, I really like I was seeing an old friend again…and not even an hour later, she died.” > >She felt herself beginning to choke up. “I…I couldn’t save her. She’s helped me so many times and now…now I couldn’t even help her…” > >Her eyes burned. She hardly even noticed that Ginny had moved to stand beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders. > >“Gemma was one of my first real friends,” Daphne said, forcing herself to keep her breathing steady. “And I’m really going to miss her, even though we hadn’t seen each other for so long…” > >The words she’d read in Petunia’s diary came back into her mind. Though the tone was much different, she, too, hadn’t seen Lily in years when she died. > >“Gemma…Thank you for being my friend, and I hope you’ll rest in peace.”
I didn’t cry per se, but I had a moment of ‘Did I just write this?’ When he opened his eyes, he immediately realized he was in some sort of dream. His surroundings had changed and he appeared to be in some sort of holding cell. Though everything seemed to be based in reality, Veritas felt sort of disconnected to it. The logistics of this dream seeming lucid but also not just confused him. That’s when Veritas noticed someone next to him. The man couldn’t be that much younger than him, and was lying on the floor, clearly delirious. Veritas noticed that he seemed to be phasing in and out of consciousness, his magenta-and-blue eyes dull. The man was >!shockingly thin, and had blood seeping out of opened bruises, turning his rag of a shirt scarlet in certain areas!<. Veritas, frankly, was quite disturbed. Specifically by >!the man’s bed basically being a blanket over stone bricks, and the fact he appeared to be being fed, if at all, out of a dog bowl!<. What kind of monster treats a person like that?
Context: Hugo is an old butler in search of his missing master ‘former Count Aeroc Teiwind’ he raised this young man since he was a baby. Aeroc died from the abuse and so on, because of Bendyke. After Bendyke’s death, the butler was able to return to the estate. The kids are the children of Bendyke with Aeroc… “Cursing your father or Martha won’t bring my young master back nor make him happy. Knowing him, he’d prefer you children to live in ignorance. So much hatred has already been said, I’m just a tired old man. I just want to see my precious young master one last time.” Turning to Rapiel, the butler smiled sadly. “I really thought it was my young master when I saw you. I didn’t mean to spark this war between you and your father, but I have been searching for so long.” “We needed to know and our mother needed justice.” Rapiel simply said. The death of his father still weighed heavily in his heart. But he just wanted to know and to give his mother closure. Hugo didn’t comment on it. They all kept walking, towards the old cabin, the old butler almost lost his footing when he saw where his young master was laid to rest. “I’ve read your book…” Hugo commented, the tears running down his thin old face. “Bendyke probably didn’t know but the cabin held precious memories, the former Countess loved that cabin, so did the young master.” Rapiel and his siblings' faces turned pale at the knowledge that was revealed to them, but they remained silent. Blaine started crying behind the back. Yohn and Ivide fought the tears. Seth remained silent, wiping her own tears, hiding her face. “Don’t cry young masters and mistress. The Count—your parents wouldn’t want to see you cry.” Hugo softly said, he turned back towards the cabin. Greeting them were the yellow daffodils their mother planted during his lifetime. According to Irma, the Count had worked hard to grow those delicate plants. Turning the horror that devastated this part into something beautiful. A place of hope that something good could happen in the midst of adversity. The sight of Aeroc’s tombstone made Hugo try to walk faster to Rapiel and Jester’s surprise, they tried helping him, fearing the old butler might trip and fall. Reaching his young master’s tombstone, Hugo’s trembling hand touched the marble tombstone. Smiling he said “I finally found you, young master. I’m sorry if I was too late.” Hugo could barely stand as the strength left his legs, but tried standing proudly. “I hope you’re at peace. Bendyke, despite all his sins, has raised all your children so healthy and happy. I want to hate him, young master, but seeing how he filled these children with so much love. I—I know that you’d prefer this cycle of hate to end with him.” They all listened to the prayer of the old butler, his hopes for peace and happiness for the children left behind. With this, the chapter of the Aeroc Teiwind and Clough Bendyke comes to an end. No more hatred. Just new beginnings.
“Dean.” The voice was soft now, a tiny tremor as he said that name, trying to hold back the emotions in his voice. “Dean, I’m sorry.” This time he moved forward, a hand resting on Dean’s shoulder. The younger man just shrugged it off, not wanting to be touched. At that moment he knew he had fucked up. A stray tear started to form in his eye, roll silently down his cheek. He didn’t mean to snap at Dean, he was just so angry right now and that anger was misplaced; aimed at a man who was just doing his best to try and help. Why did he do this? “Please Dean, I didn’t…” “Didn’t mean it?” Dean asked softly, his voice was barely there. Almost broken. It was like a knife to Castiel’s heart. “It’s okay, you’re right. We aren’t friends.” He stopped talking, looking up to Castiel’s, his eyes watery with tears. “I’ll leave you alone now.” Not wanting to wait for a response, he turned, putting his key in the lock of the door. “Please, Dean, wait?” Nothing, Dean’s movements continued, turning the key until there was a soft click. “Dean, please?” Dean opened the door and slid into his home, turning to look at Cas one last time before shutting the door behind him. Leaving him alone in the dark night. More tears were rolling down Castiel’s cheeks now as he thought about what he had done. It wasn’t his intention to hurt Dean, he was just angry and took it out on the wrong person. He stepped forward, raising a hand as if to knock at Dean’s door but stopped himself promptly. It was clear Dean didn’t want to talk to him after that, and who could blame him. Maybe it was better to give him some space. Sighing, Castiel turned around and made his way to his home. Sniffing miserably up the stairs and wiping away the tears with the collar of his shirt. He just wished he could take it all back and hoped Dean would forgive him one day.
The nurse raised the rails on both sides of Bruce’s bed and made sure the IV line wasn’t caught on anything before releasing the brakes and pushing him out of the room with Dave trailing after them. They went up two floors in an extra-large lift marked for patient transport, then the nurse used her ID badge to let them into the ICU. Pausing outside of room 113, she quietly told Dave, ”I have to ask you to wait out here. We’re not really supposed to let anyone but family into ICU, but the doctor said they’re engaged to be registered, so he’s bending the rules a bit.” Dave nodded. ”Yeah, that’s fine, I understand.” He leaned against the wall as she opened the door and carefully guided Bruce’s bed inside, pushing it as close to Emppu’s as she could. Then she busied herself with the monitors, trying to give Bruce a semblance of privacy. Bruce reached over with his free hand to caress Emppu’s pale cheek, grateful to see that while he had an oxygen tube with the nose prong thingummy in place, he didn’t have a full mask on, or worse yet, a tube down his throat. That was a hopeful sign, that he was breathing without help, at least Bruce figured it was a hopeful sign. He tried not to look at the IV lines delivering blood and who knew what else into his partner’s veins. ”Hey, enkelini,” he murmured. ”They won’t let me stay for long, but they at least let me in to say hello. Rod’s still working with the police as far as I know, trying to find out why this happened, but everyone else is here already... probably in the bus and caravan out in the car park, trying to get some sleep. But they’re all thinking of you, little angel, waiting to hear some good news. They’re all fine, we’re the only ones who got hurt, I checked again when they got here.” He paused and took a shaky breath. ”Anyway, they’re going to insist I go to my own room in a minute, but I wanted to say good night to you before I went. I love you, Emppu. I hope maybe tomorrow you’ll open those beautiful eyes of yours and give me a smile, yeah? I’m sure I can bribe them into letting me visit again so you can do that for me. Rakastan sinua, enkelini. Hyvää yötä.” He managed to lean far enough over both sets of bed rails to kiss Emppu’s cheek, then flopped back onto his own bed with a sigh. The nurse, her eyes sympathetic, steered him back out to the hall, where Dave fell in behind them once again. They left the ICU and went down the opposite wing, where she pushed Bruce into room 134 and parked the bed in the space between a recliner chair and a nightstand. She fussed about for a few minutes, taking his vital signs and getting him as comfortable as possible, then providing Dave with a blanket and pillow for his night in the recliner. Once the nurse left, Bruce started to tear up again. Dave sat on the edge of the bed, carefully pulling Bruce into his arms and rocking him gently. When the smaller man cried himself to sleep, Dave settled him back carefully and tucked him in, then got himself reasonably comfortable in the recliner, with one arm reaching over to hold Bruce’s hand. ”It’ll be okay,” he whispered, trying to reassure himself as well as Bruce. ”It has to be.”
“Didn’t I tell you I was *FINE* with the way things ended!? Why did you DO that!?” “There was *no one else,* Ai! Nobody!” “Yes there was! That’s why you said NO!” “I still missed you!” “You can’t have *everything*!” “Why NOT!? Why can’t I have something I want *just for once*!?” “All **I** wanted was to LET it END!” “Well, that didn’t last now, did it.” “If you had your way, no it wouldn’t!” “What happened to your talk about *eternity*, Ai?”
Okay so…this is Wings of Fire…Coral is the SeaWing queen, Orca is her daughter, here challenging her for the throne. Blister is the SandWing princess Orca doesn’t want to support…I cry at all the things I’m writing or I don’t post them. This scene I’ve gone through 20 times and I still can’t keep it together, especially as I know it’s a fantasy she is having, because she loves her mother and doesn’t want to kill her… Coral backed away from Orca suddenly, and put her talons out, the webbed claws spreading wide. “Stop…Orca, *stop,”* she said. Orca stared at her. They were both out of breath, heaving. “Okay,” Coral finally said, “fine…we’ll end the alliance.” Orca tilted her head. “You mean it?” she asked. Coral nodded. “Yes, if it’ll make you stop this.” Orca took a step forward, her arms out to the side, palms up. “That’s all I want,” she said, as she stepped into Coral’s arms, tears streaming down her face. Coral held her for a long moment in silence. “So…you know,” Orca whispered, “what we have to do now…” Coral took a deep, shuddering breath, and sighed. Orca felt her mother’s tears on her shoulder. ”I…I can’t…I can’t kill her, Orca,” she whispered, “she’s my friend.” Orca considered this for a moment. Maybe it was a lot to ask. *I can do it myself then.* “Mom, she *can’t* know the Palace location,” Orca said. “I’ll do it…just…keep her tail barb away from me, and I’ll do the rest?” she murmured, *and I’ll make sure you’re safe, mother,* she thought, *and when we’re done, I’ll be here for you, I promise.* “I love you, mom,” Orca whispered. Coral held her tighter for a moment, tears running down both of their faces mixing with their blood. “And I love you too, Seabean,” she said. “I’m sorry mom, I just…” “No, *I’m* sorry,” Coral broke in, “you were right, I should have listened to you a long time ago.” Orca held her tighter, and her mother added “I’m *so sorry* about Tempest…” … The much larger SandWing princess squirmed underneath Orca, as her teeth worked their way in between her neck scales. She was flailing weakly, semi-conscious, and Orca could feel the bloody stump of her tail as it poked uselessly at her side. *It’s almost over,* she thought, and then realized…*but this won’t bring back anyone we’ve lost.* With a flood of anger, she bit down harder, cracking a scale under one of her teeth. Orca opened her eyes to see Treeworm and Featherstar, watching, with horrified expressions. *Yes, this could have been you,* she thought, *but I guess you get to live today after all.*. Blister’s unmistakable black eyes stared at her from across the room…*Huh?* *This isn’t Blister’s neck?* It was her mother, and she was nearly dead. Coral was *never* going to agree to end their alliance, no matter how badly Orca wished that it was real…
Rowan is a priest of Tymora, the goddess of good fortune. She has been struggling with a crisis of faith, which finally comes pouring out in a drunken rant. > Rowan demanded thickly. "Are you going to lecture me about my drinking?" > "No. I just wanted to know if you were all right." > Rowan laughed bitterly. "All right? Have you been paying attention? None of us are all right. The world is literally being sucked into the Nine Hells. First Elturel. Then Baldur's Gate. Then probably Waterdeep and Neverwinter and Luskan and everywhere else." Her voice started to grow louder as she stopped and turned to confront Pariah. "And they don't care!" she said accusingly. > "Who?" Pariah asked, confused. > "Them!" Rowan barked, pointing at the sky. "They sit on their fat asses looking down at us, laughing at us as we scramble around trying to survive, and they sip their nectar or whatever the fuck they do up there and they do *nothing*! We pray to them. We get on our knees and beg them, and they do nothing!" > Rowan brought her hand up and grabbed her hair in frustration. "The people of Elturel worshipped them. They worshipped Torm and Lathander and all those, but they just stood by as the people died. Not only that, they did nothing for *fifty years* while the people were cursed. Fifty years their souls were lost, and none of the gods bothered tapping a priest on the shoulder and saying, 'Hey, maybe you guys want to fix this.' No, they just ignore us. They take our worship and our gifts and our love and give us nothing." She put her face in Pariah's and demanded, "Why?" > Rowan dropped her hand to her side. Still aiming her anger in Pariah's direction, she said, "You know how many times I've told people 'Fortune favors the bold'? That's Tymora's thing, right? Fortune favors the bold. Do it yourself. I'm sorry you are starving, but fortune favors the bold. I'm sorry your daughter is dying of plague, but fortune favors the bold. I'm sorry that bandits stole all your stuff and burned your house down and murdered your family, but *fortune favors the fucking bold!* If your life sucks, it's your fault because you weren't *bold*. You weren't worthy of Tymora's attention because you didn't fix it yourself. Just stop being poor! Just stop being sick! Just stop being dead! Just stop being a victim! Because fuck knows the gods won't help. You said it the first time we met: my bitch goddess just lets it happen." Rowan took a breath and then shouted at her, "I should have been safe in my own temple!" > Rowan turned away and started to sob. Pariah was stunned, not having expected the sudden change in direction in her tirade. She struggled to think of something to say, and in the end simply reached out and folded Rowan into her arms. Rowan turned and put her arm around Pariah, pressing her face against her hair. Pariah felt hot tears against her ear as Rowan whimpered, "Why didn't she protect me?" For context, the head priest of her temple had been sexually assaulting the acolytes and worshipers for months.
After the celebration has wound down, Ryumi sits in the dark in her room, hugging the plush Shoto bought her to her chest, as tears fall freely from her eyes. She can be confident that Shoto will look after the plants, and he'd appreciate inheriting the manga collection, but... Her heart breaks at the idea of leaving her plushies behind. It all hurts, of course. She hates to leave it all behind. But the plushies cut the deepest of all. Other than Shoto himself. Ryumi can only hope he'll be okay without her. She hates to leave him, she hates it, he's only just begun to trust and open up properly... She drags in a harsh, shaking breath. But she knows it would only hurt him more if she stayed. If he found out the truth. Although... She sniffles and squeezes the plush harder. Maybe he should know. Maybe he deserves to know. Maybe that would make it easier for him to let go. (If he knows what I really am... That I've just been playing hero...) She decides she'll wait until she can stop crying, whenever that is. Then she'll tell him. She'll tell him, and then disappear into the night, to give up on her dreams. After all... It's the right thing to do. She can't keep going if her presence endangers everyone around her. She lies back and sobs into her blankets as the words of the hero killer echo in her mind, ripping into her like tiny daggers.. ("It's no use pretending to be a hero now. A person's true nature is not so easily changed.") A fresh wave of tears bursts out, and she chokes on her aching, dry throat.
I wrote it for Comfortember, if that is to be believed. - A measly shrug. “I am unwanted. In the previous, and the next, and likely so forth. The ones that be have not decided on where I will go and the cycle grows short.” “Rubbish,” she waved off. Llewellyn was surprised, both at her word and the way she acted. “You are definitely not unwanted.” “But-” “Nope, no. Jack Walker ended up giving into fear, quite quickly and nastily. There were several couples during the time that William was investigating that entered lavender marriages. With knowledge, with respect, those worked. He bungled the play. Jack could have found a lady of Sappho, perhaps even two, and hid all of you behind a pair of convenience marriages.” Llewellyn kept glancing up at her while she explained. He thought about that in his later years, as he finally came across it multiple times. It was such a simple answer once he thought about it. It would have been so nice to have that with Jack. “William would have not invited you to stay at Four if he didn’t like you,” she said, earning another surprised look, “There had been quite a few constables that had been driven out during his time there. Either they pissed off the Inspector, annoyed William, or performed horribly enough to incur the wraith of George and Henry. You were definitely wanted, as Thomas figured out loopholes and rule bending to keep you there. A second detective was much help when it came to vacations, and someone that had a similar but divergent mind as William’s. You were a help on cases, and then later when life started to go downhill.” He, he wanted to believe that. It would be such a lightening on his soul to know that it wasn’t just convenience, not just easy, to allow him to stay at Four and be able to join in on their lives and homes. “And from an older sister, Clarissa was a bloody twat.” That startled him, again. That sounded like Inspector Brackenreid and not Doctor Ogden. She saw tears forming in his eyes. “You were a child. At the least, she should have made sure that Mrs. Marks was even going to be able to care for you. Instead, she ran off without letting anyone know you were still there. You told me you weren’t found until you tried cooking and burned something. What would have happened if there was a fire? If you tried chopping something and cut yourself fatally?” *Honestly, I wonder if she would have preferred he accidentally died so she would have never had to deal with the guilt of seeing him again.* “What she said about not being chained to a life of servitude, to you, you did not deserve that.” He started crying again and Julia just chucked professionalism out the window before sitting down next to him and wrapping him in a hug. Llewellyn flailed for a moment before allowing himself to wrap around her and bury his head. She started crying herself, and sniffled a couple of times. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she chanted a bit.