i binged both seasons of unsleeping city and i am OBSESSED with rickyesther now, they completely own me. anyways brennan didn't give me enough esther angst when ricky literally died before her eyes in the american dream battle so i wrote it myself! i hope you enjoy :)
xXx
Esther doesn't realize the devastated wail that ricochets through the stormbound extradimensional space is coming from her until Kingston's warm arms link beneath hers as her knees buckle.
"No," she sobs, tears flooding from behind a dam that has been stopped and barred and held her entire life—until now. Punctured at the sight of her mother and grandmother, shattered at the sight presently before her. "No, Ricky!"
From her knees Esther throws a series of jagged magic platforms in the air, glittering plates of blue and violet assembled in haste, not the spell she cast on Ricky but the feeling, the panic that chokes her chest and wracks her entire body as Esther is left shaking and shivering like the child she never had a chance to be.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she whispers, her voice splintering with her heart. "Please, it wasn't supposed to be like this!"
Ricky, leaping. His body surrounded by a radiant golden glow angels would envy. Shimmering white feathered wings appearing at his back, transforming his powerful bound into a graceful soar. The Questing Blade aloft at the ready. Marvel, awe, adoration blossoming through Esther's racing heart, unable to stop a hand from flying over her mouth as Ricky—her longtime love, her newfound life—flew with divine intent toward the American Dream.
Then: Ricky's head, turning. His eyes tracing the battlefield, flitting over and away from Esther to land with a faint glint of desperation on Kingston. Esther's racing heart hurdling over a series of beats at Ricky's words that followed.
"You got me if you got me."
Kingston's brow furrowing, Esther's eyes widening, Esther stumbling over her feet as she raced across the spinning deck toward the nearest of her holographic steps—
"Ricky! Ricky, wait, wait!"
Esther didn't know exactly what went on in the Hall of Heroes, her scrying spell only made it so far, but she's a damn fine wizard and knows exactly what it means for good people, good people like Ricky who never fail to put the safety of everyone else above their own, she knows exactly what it means for someone like Ricky to possess the Questing Blade and wield its protective might on behalf of the world—
You got it, kid. It's the sacrifice.
Then: Ricky's ax, colliding with and cleaving through the chest of the American Dream. A gleaming golden aura washing through the pocket dimension and holding each and every one of them, briefly, in a gentle embrace as warm as the perfect sip of hot cocoa, a radiant aura that licks over them all with tongues of divine flame. Esther stopping in her tracks, overwhelmed by a spiritual devotion that no other human could ever embody.
Then: what Esther never thought she'd see.
The light fading from Ricky.
Ricky's body going limp. Ricky, falling, falling, falling—
Now: Esther, weeping. Esther, on her knees.
Esther, hollower inside than she has ever been.
This is what she'd always feared. To allow herself to love is to allow herself to lose and the curse might be broken but sorrow still hurts. Those threadbare stitches that held Esther together her entire life are ripped out, one by one.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Esther says again, hiccuping a sob as tears still stream down her cheeks. But she's no fool: a curse so powerful as to transmute, no, to mutate the person she was capable of becoming is bound to cause aftershocks. Sorrow still follows Esther, still clings to her hair and nails, still chokes at every subatomic particle of her being.
For she is not divine. She is far too human.
Esther watches as Rowan's hands cover her mouth in horror when Ricky starts to fall.
"Can I… Take me instead!" she hears Rowan plead to the impossible stormy vastness that Ricky's glistering sacrifice had before managed to fill. "I've lived so many lives, don't take his!"
Warm hands pull Esther to her feet, and Kingston proceeds to give her shoulder a tight squeeze. "I've got him," he promises before sprinting off in the opposite direction of Ricky and Esther's chest seizes with panic because what is he doing, where is he going, Ricky needs him and Esther may be a powerful wizard but she's never dared to copy into her book healing spells from ancient Gramercy scrolls because healing is hope and healing is reassurance and healing does its damndest to be the antidote to loss and to learn how to heal would be to give herself permission to love which is the same as allowing herself to lose, to sacrifice, to grieve—
Esther has to do something. She can't just stand and watch Ricky fall.
As she turns to shout to Kingston, her eyes widen at the pulse of gold and green magic that reverberates from Kugrash and floods through the room, swirling into circles and spirals that all hark back to one singular concept: a cycle.
No, more than that, Esther realizes as the druidic shapes momentarily part threads in the surrounding storm. A neverending, ever-expanding cycle.
Her better judgment snaps her attention away from the mystical flashing images that surround Kugrash—or rather, the dozens of images that Kugrash embodies. Esther's eyes remain trained on Ricky as he seems to fall in slow motion.
His angelic wings do not flap, but their layers of feathers grasp at the air, increasing his drag.
Even from afar, Esther can see the way Rowan's jaw clenches, and she knows exactly what she needs to do, sprinting harder than she ever has in her life to get in perfect position beneath the Faerie Queen of New York.
From behind, Esther hears a familiar old man's grunt as another body slams into his, followed by a squawk of apology from the one and only Vox Phantasma. In the next seconds, when the ground rumbles with the rage of a volcano, Esther remembers how to hold herself, conjuring a set of miniature hovering platforms beneath her feet that keep her afloat as the weary stone cracks and groans and turns beneath her.
Esther keeps her eyes trained on Rowan Berry all the while, Rowan Berry whose eyes perpetually sparkle with mischief and whose fingers currently spark back and forth between puppet strings and rose gold teleportation magic.
"Hold on!" Esther hears Willy roar, and within seconds Pete is flying up through the air past her, eyes glowing icy blue and fingertips blistered with frost as he is hurled toward the American Dream. She does not see exactly what follows, but the blast of frigid wind that rushes through her bones is explanation enough.
"Your turn!" Willy's voice booms behind Esther once more as she keeps sprinting forward, and now Kingston goes flying, stumbling but managing to catch himself on a vibrant indigo platform and now, and now—
Now Esther is in position, arriving at the edge of the spinning deck with perfect timing as Rowan starts leaping from holographic step to holographic step toward Ricky. Esther blinks back tears from her eyes and centers herself, calling forth years of arcane knowledge she has internalized in place of emotion before she lets hope surge through her.
She throws up a final platform beneath Rowan.
"You got him!" she yells, voice breaking, and she swears Rowan winks at her before launching her rejuvenated body off the last step, tackling Ricky in midair and surrounding them both in the sparkling embrace of a Dimension Door.
As they disappear in a puff of glitter, Esther hears a warm, borderline overconfident voice echo in her heart—Who am I to stand in the way of true love?
Ricky and Rowan appear in another puff of magic at Kingston's side. Above, Sofia glows with the red orange gold of a New York sunrise and the green blue silver of phantasmagoric dreams as she executes a perfect spin kick that sends the frozen flame of the American Dream back through the Golden Door before she falls into the waiting arms of Em. The Gray Orphan's jet black eyes shimmer as they cast out their arms, sealing the door shut with an echoing boom. Kingston kneels and presses glowing hands onto Ricky's chest, some kind of ethereal CPR, and once those angelic wings start to fade Esther doesn't even wait to see Ricky take a full breath before releasing a burst of teleportation magic that takes her straight to his side.
The Esther of a few hours earlier would never have dared, but the Esther of now lets tears fall freely down her cheeks as she cradles Ricky's head in her lap before leading down to press a searing kiss to his lips, a motion Ricky eagerly—if surprisedly—returns.
When Esther pulls away, Ricky gives her a smile both dazed and devoted as his hands rise to her waist, and God if Esther doesn't melt into his worshipping touch then and there.
"You damn heroes," she says, her voice breaking weakly once more. Esther sniffles and wipes her eyes. "Sacrificing everything for everyone."
Despite the wounds that still carve into his body, Ricky reaches up effortlessly to brush a stray tear from Esther's cheek. "Anyone would have done it."
Esther swears she's going to combust with love for this man, this good, good man who embodies selflessness and hope and futurity and all those traits Esther had never dared to fully let herself witness, let herself admire, let herself adore until now.
"I doubt that," she says, and she smiles at Ricky. "But even if anyone would have… You did. That's the difference."
This time, Esther doesn't let Ricky respond with more of his bashful humility, instead capturing his lips in a fierce kiss once more.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, Esther thinks again as Ricky sits up and she lets him hold her tightly against his chest. Her curse wasn't supposed to be broken. Ricky wasn't supposed to have fallen through blood and storm. She wasn't supposed to have fallen for Ricky. But it is what it is, Esther knows, and what it is…
Is love.
xXx
follow me on tumblr at thinkingisadangerouspastime for more rickyesther brainrot! this is the first fic i've written in over a year and i hope to have many many more ideas for them before fantasy high junior overwhelms me in figayda feels