Sentinels and Guides: still the best AU, I'll fight you and your dad.

[heavypetting]

 

Sentinels and Guides are Known: 
A Sentinel!AU Shipping Meme

 

There are special people in the world: Sentinels--whose five senses are incredibly enhanced, sometimes to the point of overwhelming and who can easily lose themselves in fugue states--and Guides, the empaths with the ability to ground a Sentinel and focus them. Meant to be the protectors of the Guides, for every Sentinel there exists a guide that is their perfect match. In some universes, when matches are made, a Sentinel and Guide form a soulbond to fill the feeling of emptiness.

How easy was it for you to find yours? How are Sentinels and Guides treated in your universe? Or maybe you're one of the normal, unremarkable people. Do you fear Sentinels and Guides? Despise them?

 

Rules
1) Post with your character/canon in the subject header.
2a) Choose whether your character is a Sentinel or a Guide
or
2b) If you don't know or don't care, just leave it blank!
3) Information about Sentinels and Guides can be found here and here. Information on 'The Sentinel' which this meme comes from can be found here.

 

4) All the tagging! Have fun 8D

Prompts
oo1. The Meeting: 
How did you meet? Was it at an event organized specifically for finding your other half? By accident? Did you follow a mystical calling to them? Some other way?

oo2. The Bonding: 
Do Sentinels and Guides in your universe soulbond? How does it go down? Is there a ceremony or do you just retreat to the bedroom?

oo3. Rejection: 
Sometimes Sentinels or Guides propose a match but it's just not perfect. You don't feel the pull or maybe you think there is someone better or maybe you're already claimed. Maybe you were claimed and someone better came along?

oo4. Protection: 
Sentinels are meant to protect Guides, any Guides, but it's even worse when they feel their Guide is in danger. They go feral; blind to anything but stopping and killing whoever threatened their Guide or the bond. Maybe someone attacked your Guide or you haven't bonded yet and you feel threatened or maybe you're the one doing the threatening. Whatever the reason, Sentinels in a feral state are dangerous and only their Guides can stop them.

oo5. Lost: 
Sentinels often lose themselves in their senses. Either you're a Sentinel who has lost themselves or a Guide that has stumbled on one or a friend trying to draw them out. Unbonded Sentinels will find it hard to escape without a Guide. Or maybe you're bonded already which means you just need yours to come home.

006. Persecution: 
Sometimes normal people or the government fear the power of Guides and Sentinels. Guides are empaths, feeling the emotions and sometimes passing thoughts of others and it can make people feel violated. Sentinels often have enhanced strength, which can make them dangerous. So they scorn them, hurt them or in the case of governments, regulate them.

oo7. Death: 
Unbonded Sentinels and Guides eventually lose themselves to the empty cavern inside them. Torn apart from the inside by the feeling of something missing. Breaking the soulbond of a Sentinel and Guide is agonizing and horrifying, leading quickly to death for the remaining partner. 

oo8. Old-School: 
Guides used to be treated on the same level as slaves. Unable to work unless their Sentinel said. Not allowed out on their own. They used to wear collars and couldn't own land or inherit money. Maybe the old ways haven't completely fallen out of style. 

oo9. Unbonded: 
Nothing is worse than being an unbonded Guide or Sentinel. Always looking for your other half to fill that empty feeling but you probably have friends that aren't your match or who are trying to set you up with someone. Maybe you're skeptical about the whole love at first sight thing and haven't been looking.

o10. Wildcard: Some mish-mash of the above or anything else you can come up with!

Image from weheartit / original meme by imadeamistake 

Comments

[fiteme]

Steve held still for the taping, then gingerly took the painkiller from Thor's hand and popped it in his mouth and swallowed it down with the water. He winced again, but not at the pain or the pill.

"Today was really fucked up, wasn't it." He knew it wasn't their fault, not entirely, but whenever there was death involved, he couldn't help but blame himself.

[petrichorian]

He nodded, even as he squeezed the cool pack, listening to the crunch of it and waiting until it had started to cool against his fingers before laying it gently on Steve's hand. That done, he shifted over from the chair to sit beside Steve on the exam table, arm sliding around his waist. They both needed the contact, and he'd never been shy about giving it, even when Steve had been so about requesting it, though that had only been for a while at the beginning, when they were still getting to know each other.

"It was. But we don't have to do today again." There would be other bad days, certainly, there always were, but they wouldn't be this bad day, that was what really mattered.

[fiteme]

Steve took the ice pack from Thor and held it against his hand. With yet another deep sigh, he leaned into Thor and tried to make himself relax more.

"I don't deserve you," he whispered. It was a thought he had frequently, but rarely voiced. But times like this, his walls were worn down, and he couldn't help it.

[petrichorian]

"Well if that was true we wouldn't be here right now." He turned to brush a kiss against the top of Steve's head, since it was right there and he could.

It was only a moment before he said something he'd considered more and more frequently as of late: "Come back with me. When I go." He'd originally planned on returning home for a week at most, long enough to catch up on things and get his visa renewed before coming back to continue his work with Steve, but in the past few months it had become increasingly obvious that while Steve thrived on being able to help people, this was not the right place for him to do so.

[fiteme]

Steve hummed softly in thought, then pulled away just enough so he could look at Thor. "Yeah? Do you think... would it be better over there? For us?"

It was something he'd been thinking about too. He hadn't wanted to ask necessarily, because it had felt a little bit like proving their naysayers right. But if it meant they could do better work, be of more help... maybe it was for the best.

[petrichorian]

Proving those people right, or at least letting them think they had, was part of the reason Thor hadn't suggested it yet, "It could be. Service for bonded pairs is compulsory there. But only for a year or fourteen months at a time, and like jury duty, once you've been called, you're returned to the bottom of the selections list."

He shook his head, "Which doesn't mean we'd be out of work, there are plenty of agencies, social support, security, all across the board, that we could easily find employment with and still do what we do here."

[fiteme]

"You really got that many pairs over there that you'd think we'd be looking for jobs?" He settled back into leaning into Thor. He was big, and warm, and a soothing presence. Even if they were just talking hypotheticals, it was nice to just sit and think about better futures.

[petrichorian]

There was a soft huff of amusement, "We wouldn't have to, wouldn't have to work at all while waiting for our draft to come up if we didn't want to." He shook his head, considering how to explain, "It isn't so much about the number of pairs as it is how crises are handled."

Another thoughtful little sound, "I will say there are considerably fewer of them there than here, and usually they're natural disasters, or things like search and rescue."

[fiteme]

Steve made a soft noise of understanding. "I gotcha." His uninjured hand came to rest on Thor's leg, and he picked a little at some debris stuck to it. "I think that might be nice."

He smiled a little and glanced up at Thor from where his head was resting on his chest. "You'll have to teach me the language."

[petrichorian]

He laughed warmly at that, arm curling just a little more securely around Steve's waist, "I think I can do that, though you'll have to be prepared for people to laugh and correct you. It's the way of things, no one means it maliciously, and most will tell you that you're doing very well as long as you try again."

A thoughtful sound, "We'll have to make sure you've got proper cold-weather wardrobe. Summer is colder than here, too, but it's comfortably so, not like the winters."

[fiteme]

Steve snorted softly. "I mean, that's just all part of learning a language, right?" People were still teasing Thor for some of his word choices, even though his grasp of English was probably better than most of the people they worked with.

"I like sweaters. And I bet you can do a pretty good job of keeping me warm." He grinned up at Thor.

[petrichorian]

"We'll make sure you have plenty of sweaters, and that I'm never so far away." Some kind of coiled tension that had been settled at the back of his mind, deep-set in his spine had started to unravel just talking about the possibility.

He leaned in again to press a kiss to Steve's temple, both brows lifting as he drew back again, "How long do you think you'll need to get ready? Not counting paperwork. We'll start that once your hand's healed enough to deal with it."

[fiteme]

Steve pulled away again, just a little, surprised. He was all in favor of the idea, but in his mind he was imagining months down the road at the earliest, not... as soon as possible.

But when he stopped to think about it, he didn't see why not. What was keeping them there? Honestly? It was just their friends. And as much as Steve loved them, he knew. He was miserable. And having their friends nearby wasn't alleviating that.

It was time for change. Something drastic. And their friends would understand.

"I uh... well." Steve chewed his lip as he thought, his gaze slipping off into the middle distance. "I can put in our two weeks' notice whenever. Aside from that, I guess... whatever Visa application I need to do, and packing, and telling our friends..." He focused back on Thor. "I think... a month? Maybe?" Did that sound reasonable? He'd never done anything like this before.

[petrichorian]

He nodded, "My visa is up for renewal in about four months, a little over. So we have a minimum time frame and an outer time frame, and anywhere between the two will work, yes?"

It really was a question, because as far as he was concerned, the sooner the better, but he didn't want to rush Steve, and, truthfully, didn't want to rush himself either, since he hadn't been planning on even starting his preparations for another few weeks.

With Steve coming along, and perhaps permanently, there would be more preparation to be done, but he found that he was actually looking forward to it all, even the paperwork.

[fiteme]

Still chewing his lip, Steve slowly nodded as he thought it over. It was a lot. It was a lot more than he thought he'd be dealing with today, but now that he was facing it, he didn't want to back down from it, tired as he was.

"Yeah." He focused back on Thor with a small smile. "I mean we can at least try it out for a year or whatever and see what we prefer, right?" He shrugged. "And if it doesn't work out, and we don't want to come back here, we can fuck off to... I don't know. Nicaragua or some shit."

[petrichorian]

"I'm reasonably sure the coffee there would kill us both." He replied, utterly matter-of-fact about it, though there was amusement dancing in his eyes, and ease practically pouring off of him, "But we can always bum around Europe for a while, I haven't seen most of it. I went to Italy once, when I was a teenager, but that's it."

He made a thoughtful sound, almost a purr in the back of his throat, "Though I should probably tell you, I'm reasonably famous back home." And not just for being a former Olympian, which was the part Steve already knew.

[fiteme]

Steve cocked his head in interest. From the tone of Thor’s voice, he wasn’t referring to the Olympics thing.

“Well now you gotta tell me. Famous for what? They that big into the Olympics over there?”

[petrichorian]

He laughed warmly, lifting the ice pack away from Steve's hand so he could check the swelling and make sure Steve's skin wasn't too cold, replacing it again a moment later as he answered, "Some are, the same as here, though it's a much different sort of national pride."

He shook his head, "But no, it's not just that, I also did modeling for a time, not runway and not stock photos, but print advertisements, you'd probably be able to find them online."

[fiteme]

Steve laughed in return. "Modeling? Why'd you never tell me?" He pulled out his phone with his good hand, ready to do a search. "Any underwear photoshoots?"

[petrichorian]

"Oh almost exclusively." He replied easily, the warm amusement still simmering under his tone, "Or if the ad was for flannel shirts, I was only wearing underwear with it. They knew what they were doing."

He shrugged, "And I never mentioned it because it was never important." That was really what it came down to, Steve wouldn't have to make do with pictures of him since he had the real thing, and there were few enough people in the US who knew him as anything other than a foreign Olympian from a few years back.

[fiteme]

Steve laughed again, delighted, and pulled up an image search. He grinned as he scrolled through the pictures. "Oh, they absolutely knew what they were doing, holy shit." They were very good pictures. With his artist's eye and first-hand experience with the real thing, he could easily tell where they used photo editing and photography tricks to emphasize certain things and erase others, and that was a little upsetting, but not so much it overtook the glee he had at seeing so many pictures like this.

"God, you look so young in most of these. How long ago was this?"

[petrichorian]

Steve's obvious delight made it worth it. It had been a hell of a day, and while this didn't erase that, it did help counteract some of the gloom.

He laughed at the question, shaking his head and using two fingers to tilt Steve's phone down to where he could see it, "Ah, anything strictly in black and white was anywhere between a year and about six months before I started Olympic training in earnest, and anything in color is from about six or eight months after, but went on for longer, about a year and a half."

[fiteme]

Steve let out a soft whistle. He was quiet for a moment as he looked through the pictures. "So why'd you stop? What led you to give this up and switch to... you know, this?" He gestured at the room around them.

[petrichorian]

"Better pay, more security, didn't have to turn down offers to go out for drinks on the weekend if I didn't want to, could eat ice cream again, I really missed ice cream." He ticked these points off on his fingers as he went, "Helping people is definitely on the list, but after ice cream." That part was mostly a joke.

"I really only picked it up as a way to pay my way through training, both times. Still a little surprised it worked a second time. But I guess having a medalist shilling your long-johns actually works better than just some guy."

[fiteme]

"Ice cream is definitely very important." He looked down at his phone one last time before closing the search and putting the phone away. "Well. I'm glad you made it here, however it happened. Would've been hard to run into you if you hadn't." And if they hadn't run into each other... well Steve had no idea what would've happened to him.