small_grasshopper_celestial
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last man to die by small_grasshopper_celestial
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Movies 2020 2025)
07 Jun 2026
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Nicky’s brow had been furrowed, and in another life, Joe would have been seated next to him on the sofa, and not nearby in an armchair, and in another life, Joe’s thumb would have brushed Nicky’s soothingly, and in another life, where they were not broken by the loss of Quynh and the reward of Sebastien, Joe would not be bitter and Booker would not kind in his sadness. But this is the only life Joe has ever had, and so Joe is bitter and Booker is kind in his sadness, and it is this that makes Joe want to swim across the Mediterranean until he is dragging himself onto the shores of Palestine again. Maybe if he had been a better man, all those years ago, maybe if he had never killed in the first place, Allah would not have given everyone Joe has ever loved such grand pain.
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In which Quynh's disappearance ruined all of their lives, in more ways than one. One day, perhaps, they will all find their ways back to one another, but before they can do that, they have to find Booker. -
los de entonces by small_grasshopper_celestial
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Movies 2020 2025)
22 Jan 2026
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“And so I will love you?”
Quynh considers saying more than she already has and decides it will all come out eventually. Andromache is the one who asked, anyway.
“For the rest of your life. But it will not be an easy thing.”
Andromache tilts her head to the side, waiting for Quynh to go on.
“You will get older, and I will get younger. And then, one day, I will not know you, the same way that you do not know me, now.”
Andromache shakes her head. “You are feeding me tales.”
But Quynh can see that she believes her. “If I was feeding you tales, then you would have killed me before I had even gotten two words out.”--
In which Quynh moves backwards through time, death after death. She and Andy fall in love anyway. It's not an easy thing.
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Andy’s heart stops. All the blood leaves her face and rushes directly to her ears. The only thing she can hear is the sound of it pumping through her veins. Copley and Nile are both studying the photo closely, but Andy hardly notices them, even right beside her. All she can see is the blood, the look on her face, the tremble in her jaw as she died –
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She is almost four thousand years old – there is quite little that feels older than her in this world, but Discord feels older. She feels ancient compared to Quynh, especially with all of the knowledge she holds that Quynh does not. “You have been withholding it from me, a carrot to keep me here so that you do not have to find a stick. It is hard to punish someone who has lost so much, is it not?”--
For five years, everything goes smoothly. Five years of Booker in exile, five years of Nile on the team, and five years of Andy grappling with her newfound mortality.
But, like every other plan they've ever had, it has to go to shit at some point, and go to shit it does.
AKA the sequel we deserved, rather than the one we got. -
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She takes another drink. It’s almost sour in its potency. She licks her teeth and stares out the window some more, eyes drifting across the dirty street. There’s a tavern not too far from here. She’s already drunk, doesn’t need the alcohol. But she needs to feel something, anything, and unfortunately, throwing herself out of the window is a good way to get noticed.
Andromache sighs and downs the rest of her cup. She sets it down on the night table and ignores it when it clatters onto its side and rolls just to the edge of the surface and stops. Frozen in time, almost, on the cusp of falling but not yet given all the way over.Or: Two scenes, one hundred and fifty years apart. A study on Andy and Booker, and their monumental failings as partners.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 4,636
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 17
- Hits:
- 170
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lay me in my grave (as you have lain in yours) by small_grasshopper_celestial
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
04 Jul 2025
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Strange, Andy thinks, the way the courses of her life and Nile’s are pulling them in opposite directions, granting them this brief junction for however many more years Andy can eke out, before they are separate again, left to have lived the vast majority of their immense lives without one another. Andy thinks, desperate for the briefest of moments, that she needs more time for this, for Nile, more time to guide her, to prepare her, more time to carry the weight that has been breaking her back for millennia so that Nile can live without the pressure on her spine. She understands, finally, why her mother cried as she went. Andy thinks she might, too.
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Or: Andy and Nile through the years, together, and apart. A story about mothers and daughters, about scholars and warriors and countless gods. About faith.
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"I saw the others left," Quỳnh says, and Andy's breath catches.
How long has Quỳnh been watching? How many times has Andy not seen her? How many times has she failed Quỳnh?
"Where did they go?" Quỳnh continues.
"Mission," Andy says. "I'm—"
She doesn't know how to say it.
"I always go first," she settles on. "And they keep throwing themselves in front of me."
OR: in which Andy stays behind while the team runs a mission, and she doesn't believe her eyes, at first, when Quỳnh finds her.
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Linea Alba (line between our halves) by quynndestructable
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movies 2020 2025)
23 Jan 2026
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“Why did you start drawing?” Nicky asks, as if the question had cost him some earlier shyness, and he has just decided he would rather pay than continue to owe.
“Because my hands were restless,” Joe says, not bothering to be clever. “Because I needed to tell the world it could not decide the shapes of things without me. Because it was the only way I knew to talk back to beauty and not be punished.”
Nicky exhales a small, rueful breath. “I started with a church,” he says. “Not because I believed. Because I liked the quiet. The way the light was something you could measure and also not measure.”
“You still like the quiet.”
“Yes,” Nicky says. “Though I am learning to like certain kinds of noise.”
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“I think I am a mistake,” Nicolò confesses.
“I thought God didn’t make mistakes.”
“You tell me.”
Andromache nudges his shoulder. “I do not think you are a mistake.”
“If there is to be a man to walk the world for thousands of suns, let it be a man like Yusuf,” Nicolò says. “A man who understands the weight of the sword, who trades in kindness, loyalty and honor. A man who can find beauty in a simple sunrise.”
“And what of a man like you?” Andromache asks.
“There are already too many men like me in this world,” Nicolò answers. “And we can cause more than enough damage within a mortal lifespan.”
Andromache is silent next to him. Somehow, Nicolò knows she understands. For as old as she is, she has likely seen far too many men like him already.
They stand in silence for a few minutes before she asks, “Do you love him?”
Nicolò ponders for a moment. “I do not think love is enough.”
Nicolò di Genova has lived a long life. He has much to show for it, but somehow still nothing at all.
This is Nicky's companion piece to 'Beautiful Ghosts'. 'Beautiful Ghosts' should be read first (but likely not imperative).
Series
- Part 2 of Beautiful Ghosts
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He’s just about ready to doze off—his ritualistic pre-dinner, thirty-minute nap—when, suddenly, Ilya says, “Huh. Interesting.”
Shane cracks one eye open. “Hmm?”
“Oh, nothing, малыш,” he replies, though his brows are furrowed when he says it. Shane’s even more curious now.
“No, really, what is it?”
Ilya must lose some internal debate; a deep sigh leaves his body before, wordlessly, he turns his phone to Shane.
The bright light makes him squint, still not used to Ilya and his affinity for both using the light-mode feature and turning the brightness in his phone to a maximum. He forgoes scolding him when, after his eyes have adjusted, he reads: Metros acquires Fil-Canadian Rivera; second Asian player in franchise history after Hollander.
At first he thinks, oh, that’s my name. Shane hasn’t seen his name mentioned remotely near the words ‘Montreal Metros’ ever since he transferred to Ottawa three years ago. Then, and this is when it finally dawns on him, Shane thinks: second?
Series
- Part 5 of a collection of hollanovs
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when you leave here by Idday
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types
10 May 2026
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“It just feels like such a nothing story," Shane says. "But my mom’s so fucking... worked up about it.”
Ilya watches him. “I think,” he says carefully, “that your mom is also the parent of a teenage boy who played on that hockey team. And not just the manager of a person who is being asked for comment on a bad story. Yes?”
...
(Shane was fifteen years old when he moved to Sarnia.)