10 Works by Cosmic_Retribution
Listing Works
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first love and remembrance by Cosmic_Retribution
Fandoms: 3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series
27 Jul 2023
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Summary
He’d already had half a mind to pack it up and head off to the desert, at that point, had come across it in his travels already and had the idea in his head that controlling the sand was his best bet at carving out a place for himself in this world. As the days passed and Grian stayed, Scar kept finding excuses to stay in his orbit, kept talking his way into more of Grian’s time. He savored every mischievous smile, oh, he hung off Grian’s every word. They just clicked, and for a while everything made sense.
Suddenly his daydreams of running off to the desert started leaving space for Grian’s small silhouette, without him meaning to.
Suddenly, the daydream wasn’t really so much about the desert as much as it was about a future where he got to keep Grian with him, despite the odds.
Maybe that should have been his first warning sign.
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On the morning he dies, Scar picks flowers.
Series
- Part 2 of never our blood on this sand again
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Summary
The Red King’s men erupt into stammering and chaos, and none of it matters. Grian sinks down beside the body. He doesn’t feel it. The blood rushing in his ears blocks out all the rest, numb with shock and wracked all at once with the nameless enormity of a grief he can’t bring himself to swallow. They were so close to making it out of this, he doesn’t understand, it— it wasn’t supposed to go like this. Martyn’s calling his name somewhere a thousand worlds away and it doesn’t matter, he can’t hear it anymore. He could almost laugh. It feels so unfair, but how was this ever not inevitable? All he can do is stare at the frozen half-smirk on Scar’s face and the blood dripping from a wound that shouldn’t have killed him and it isn’t real, this can’t be real. None of this is happening.
They were meant to see tomorrow. He’d been so certain. He can’t breathe.
His vision goes white, and he doesn’t feel anything anymore.
And… he opens his eyes, back in the desert.
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There's got to be a way out of this game that doesn't end in losing him.
(The world won't let Grian go until he finds it.)
Series
- Part 1 of never our blood on this sand again
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Summary
The Watchers had seemed so nice, is the thing. So… disarmingly hospitable.
When they’d set out for the ruins, they’d gone in search of some magical beasts reportedly plaguing the area, according to the flyer they’d taken. What they’d found instead was an empty city and a group of mages and scholars studying… something. They’d been cagey about what. Certainly not the history of the place— the Watchers arrived long after the fall of Dogwarts, content to live and work inside the city’s corpse with no special reverence for the grave it lay ruined in. They had no stake in its fall, or its future, or the preservation of its once-hallowed legacy— but its bones, certainly, served as protection enough for their studies.
The beasts were the only thing troubling the Watchers’ work, or so they’d said. Strange, then, that Grian and his party never once saw a trace of them.
How long after, until his friends realized Grian was gone? That they weren’t safe?
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Two decades ago, the city of Dogwarts met its demise. Today, a traveler meets a god wearing the mask of a merchant, looking for a miracle.
These two things are not as unconnected as they appear.
Series
- Part 1 of stained glass sunlight
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there's a room where the light won't find you by Cosmic_Retribution
Fandoms: 3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series
16 Jun 2022
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Summary
“You don’t understand,” Grian hisses, “how this game works, Scar. You’re red. I’m not. Got it? All of our little—” he breaks off for a moment to stifle a laugh, half-mocking, half-hysterical, “our past alliances are all meant to be forfeit.”
“Details,” Scar shrugs.
“No! Not details! That’s how it works! I’m stupid for coming here, do you get that? Scar, you’re supposed to kill people!”
“Yeah, well,” Scar makes a dismissive hand gesture, “I’m not, uh, I’ve never really been much of a murderer. N- Not my style. And it’s you, so,” he says, as if this explains everything.
The problem, he supposes, is that it does.
“Stop it,” Grian says. “Stop. Stop. We have never been allies. I’ve, I can count on one hand the amount of times you and I have ever met that ended well at all—”
“Why are you scared?” Scar asks abruptly, his tone friendly but his eyes piercing. Grian can’t breathe.
He can’t afford to play this game. He can’t afford to let Scar know he’s playing at all. It’s too late, though. He’s already catching on.
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Remembering is the prize, or curse, of the victor. Grian doesn't take well to being haunted.
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Summary
No, he thinks, that can’t be right, I’m hearing things, but the ground heaves again and when the dust settles the traitorous sound could not be clearer. He can’t quite make out the words. He needs to get out of the vault. He needs to— Why? Why Mumbo? What on earth is he doing with Scar, of all people, Mumbo who ran against him and not so long ago that the loss doesn’t still taste faintly bitter, Mumbo who is Grian’s own best friend—
(And wasn’t Scar, not so long ago, whispers something poisonous in Grian’s mind, that the loss doesn’t still sting?)
No. No. This is not a line of thought he has time to entertain. He needs to focus. But the thing is— it wasn’t supposed to be this way, right? How was Grian meant to know? It was only ever meant to be a joke, and they were both meant to be in on it. How was he to know, when he’d sown the first spores, how deep and how far the roots of this thing would spread?
He’d never wanted to see what Scar would do with power, is the thing. He’d just wanted them both to go home.
It was only ever meant to be a joke. No one is laughing anymore. No, Grian’s terrified. -
Eye of the Beholding by Cosmic_Retribution, librius
Fandoms: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
06 Nov 2021
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Summary
“He just showed up the other day for the first time in, so far as I can tell, ever, and no one thinks it’s even a little bit weird? Something’s not right.”
Martin paused for a moment.
Jon was, of course, hoping in vain that his pointing it out would bring some sudden revelation, and then the two would set out with some half-brained scheme to Expose Michael For What He Really Was. They would go and tell Tim, who would tell Sasha, and it would be rather like old times: the four of them charging recklessly into something bigger than they understood, and coming away with some wild memory of their recent escapade, or something new and terrible and grand to ponder, or the truth, or whatever it was they went looking for.
But Martin just said, “Jon, are you sure you’re feeling alright?” and Jon sighed.
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There is something in the tunnels underneath the school.
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Summary
Eventually Jon finishes up with the dishes, and comes to join him. “Thank you for breakfast,” he says. “That was… very nice of you. I’ll have to repay the favor sometime.”
“You could repay me by giving me my jumper back,” Martin says lightly, not meaning it in the slightest.
“Hmm, no, I don’t think I will,” Jon replies, and Martin just laughs. Jon leans into his side, and Martin snakes an arm around him, closing his eyes and enjoying the simple comfort of his presence.
He wants this to be forever, he thinks suddenly. He wants to spend every morning like this, wants to never have to leave Jon’s side again, wants to wake up every morning and know with complete certainty that he will not have to face this day alone and that he never will again.
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The world does not end for Martin in The Lonely. In fact, it's rather the opposite.
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He thinks of Crowley tenderly draping a blanket over his shoulders and encouraging him to put Agnes’s final prophecy down and come get some well-earned rest. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to decipher it tomorrow, Angel, he had said. Plenty of time. Aziraphale’s throat constricts.
The flames are too close, too close, too close. He feels the heat in his bones, and his hands are trembling. His whole body is rigid with it. It’s not quite anger, it’s not quite hate, he decides, that peculiar feeling consuming him.
It’s greater than anger.
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Alternate universe where, despite failing to heed Agnes's final prophecy, Aziraphale and Crowley survive their sides' respective punishments. Subsequently, Heaven and Hell come to the only logical conclusion: Aziraphale has Fallen, and Crowley has been Redeemed. This is a nightmare scenario for Aziraphale-- surely this must be some sort of cruel cosmic joke?-- but then again, he has never been one to question God's Ineffable Plan... -
I've waited ten long years just to look in the mirror by Cosmic_Retribution
Fandoms: Kingdom Hearts
12 Feb 2019
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There’s concern in his voice, so you quietly take a deep breath, in, out, and banish the static from your throat.
“I’m alright,” you say, and it’s as true as you can muster. “Let’s talk, then.”
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Roxas and Ventus have a talk about their nearly identical appearances. -
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Summary
When he was younger, the Prince said something to Papyrus that would stick with him for years to come, and when he told him he would be his friend, he never stopped meaning it.