Storm Shadow and Goody (commission)

[northstarfan]

 Storm Shadow and Goodnight by whereverbillygoes 

The sight of endless, open sky without the tether of a mission… after months of being restricted to The Pit, it was a heady rush, almost enough to make even Storm Shadow giddy. He could walk away if he wanted to. He was certain the Joes expected him to. They could all go back to their old roles of hunters and hunted. No more grating tolerance of each other, no more enduring another clan in which he was the outsider. It would make all their lives easier.

Sand gritted against Goodnight’s boots, tugging Storm back to the moment. Storm tossed the canteen to Goody without looking back. He idled his way through sai holds and kept the stars in his sights. He wouldn’t need the weapon to overpower one out-of-practice soldier. They both knew that. It hadn’t stopped Goodnight from driving him out here and giving him all the space he’d been lacking for so long.

“So. You come up with a plan for after this? Or is making Snake’s life interesting as hell the whole plan?” Storm Shadow glanced back at Goodnight and wished he hadn’t. The uncertainty on the man’s face, the look of knowing he was gambling with his heart just by asking the question, was too sobering for the moment.

Storm shrugged and looked back at the sky. “This is good for now.” No commitment. No capitulation. But he didn’t have to see Goodnight’s face to know he’d be content with that.

A snippet for the Magnificent Seven/GI Joe fusion I’ve been idling along with (with massive encouragement from lazaefair and the PoFi crew). It’s all bits and scraps right now, but a hell of a lot of fun. And whereverigobillygoes   did such an awesome job of translating Goody to a new setting! Love it!

Comments

[lazaefair]

You should archive our comments from the Pillowfort post here, too.

[northstarfan]

Yep, it's on the to-do list.

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

God, the way Vati rendered Ethan Hawke's perpetually worried eyebrows is destroying a small piece of my soul. And I love, love, love how Storm cannot help but be indulgent with him.

[northstarfan]

I feel like Goodnight just... perpetually confuses Storm in some ways. In good ways. Like, that opening scene where I initially have Goody pulling a gun on Storm? By the time Flint comes to collect Storm, the two of them are sitting across from each other in Goody's 30-year-old Airstream, with Goody offering him beer. And OK, Storm figures the guy's just ignorant. This will change as soon as the rest of the Joes fill him in on who he is. Nope! He still just keeps on with the friendly interest (and not-so-well-hidden desire, which is even more confusing). And by the time we get to the scene above, Storm is probably confused about his own reactions a bit because... he doesn't do reassuring. Or attachments. (Somewhere, Nanika and Dorje both have inexplicable coughing fits.) But he just doesn't want Goodnight upset.

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

It’s bad strategy to alienate allies in precarious situations. That much is true. What he’s confused by is that he...actually feels upset, on an emotional level, when Goodnight’s upset. (It’s also pretty clear to everyone else after a while that he feels happy when Goodnight’s happy. Oh, Storm.)

[northstarfan]

Exactly. And that he goes out of his way to *keep* Goody happy and on the level (more or less). Goodnight is a kind of comfort Storm's never had before, Storm is the anchor Goodnight needs.

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

Definitely explains why he disappears after the kidnapping incident, though. With the life he's led, and the constant reinforcement over and over that he's not worth loving - isn't the kind of person who can be loved - compounded with the tactical reality that Goodnight has now become a ginormous red flag emblazoned with "EASY LEVER FOR MANIPULATING STORM SHADOW" means a freak-out of the titanic proportions really only possible for incredibly suppressed men who only express emotion as varying degrees of rage is super inevitable.

[northstarfan]

Exactly. 50% of his whole "I have to leave; I'm a danger to you" fleeing into the night is that he just doesn't know how to deal with realizing he has such an obvious weak spot. (The other part is that one of the people he'd be trusting to watch out for Goody shot him in the fucking back.) It's not until Roadblock gives him the choice to either stay and train Billy or go back to being an "apprehend on sight" type that Storm starts thinking Goody is something he could maybe, somehow, have on a long-term basis.

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

It takes him a while to get there, but when Storm Shadow decides to commit? He fucking commits. Goodnight doesn't even mind the leash and collar jokes (at least from friends; everyone else gets a mild eyebrow raise and a steady sniper's stare calculated to abruptly remind them of just how high his confirmed kill count is) because their relationship really does evolve into a form of ownership. Yes, on a deep level Goodnight owns Storm's heart and loyalty too, but on most perceptible levels, Storm's the one who marks Goody up, who takes care of him, who takes possession of him. Because Storm doesn't know how to do attachments other than what's been modeled for him all his life: either freakishly intensely close, or hateful enmity. Not much in between.

No emotionally mature relationship in which the participants are well-adjusted adults who maintain psychological and social spaces independent of each other so they don't become unhealthily codependent for Storm and Goody, no sirree!

[northstarfan]

Goody protests! He was just fine on his own for the year Storm was on the run! Just because he slept with a bolt-kit under his bed, just waiting for that goddamned idiot to realize Goody was ready to take off into the wild blue yonder with him at a word...

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

He had three go-bags: one in the trailer, one in the truck, and a small one he carried with him everywhere he went.

“Always be prepared,” he shrugs when he casually lets this slip (much later, like a year and a half later) to Sam.

“Goody, there have got to be bylaws somewhere that forbid you from citing the fucking Boy Scouts when you’re explaining the exact extent of your obsessive infatuation with a goddamn ex-COBRA ninja.”

“Now, Sam, obsessive’s such a strong word.”

“He packed lube in those go-bags,” Storm contributes, because he’s an actual troll under that perfect haircut.

Sam’s reaction is that Captain Malcom Reynolds gif where he opens his mouth to make a point, realizes he has no point, and shuts his mouth looking dismayed and chagrined. Dismagrined. Chagrimayed. :)

[northstarfan]

(Congratulations, I am dead. XD You're chatting with a corpse.)



Storm has absolutely no room to troll. He could have gone right to the Joes after plucking Billy out of the CRECHE Project. It's not like he forgot where the base was. But no, he had to ask Goodnight back into his life in the most dramatic manner possible. Annnnd also because he wasn't 100% sure what kind of reception he'd get going back to the Pit solo. Or if they'd even let Goody know he was back.

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

I mean, if your emotionally fraught reunion isn’t attacked by ninjas, did it even really happen?

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

Heh, I enjoyed when Lapin’s Modern AU Red Harvest referred to Billy/Goodnight as a codependent disaster of a relationship, and GI Goodnight/Storm are really not bucking the trend here.

[northstarfan]

I am... so annoyed at how few comments that 'fic has so far, seriously. IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD!



And yes, these two are fucking broken. Goody according to his choices, Storm by another's design. But at least their jagged edges line up.

[northstarfan]

lazaefair

It's super good, but Red/Teddy Q are a bit of a NoTP for me - it's just super inexplicable, not even a whiff of canon interaction or character justification, and kind of comes off to me as "pair the spare up with any other random pretty face we can scrape up in the vicinity". Not helped by the fact that I have a low opinion of Teddy Q in general and I like to pair my faves up with people I think actually deserve them, which definitely disqualifies poor TQ.

So I enjoyed that first chapter a lot - exploring a third iteration of PTSD so outstandingly - but I can read the writing on the wall and if it's going to be mostly Red/Teddy Q in subsequent chapters I'll just dl;dr out of there.

[northstarfan]

I'm not a fan of Teddy Q. Mostly, he's just... such a non-entity. And he gets so woobified by the fandom, that it really does get on my tits, especially given his treatment of Billy. But in this case, I'm willing to take him as a means by which to find out more about this iteration of Red.