quillthrillswriting

[quillthrillswriting]

interest check for a kataang olympics au fic???

i've started writing it but considering that it's mostly for me (i'm making both aang & toph rock climbers because i love climbing hehhehe) i'm now wondering whether people would actually enjoy reading it 🤨

[quillthrillswriting]

sokka would make a great tv talent show host with how constantly unimpressed he is

My favorite brand of avatar screenshots

[quillthrillswriting]

⚛︎ ˖  ⌬ quantum entanglement ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪

───── 𖦹° (love, theoretically - ali hazelwood) 𖦹° ─────

Elsie wasn’t quite sure how to communicate the magnitude of her gratitude without shifting their dynamic from mortal enemies to something…else.  

She meant to thank him, in a way that would be normal for a TA to speak to her fellow TA, in a way that was perfectly normal and unassuming so that she could move away from Jack’s brief moment of human-ness, but all that came out was “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

She meant to make him smile, meant to maybe soften the hard lines of his face into something that looked slightly less neutral toward her, but instead, she watched a wave of tension roll through the muscles of his jaw, watched his navy sleeves shift and strain slightly as he crossed his arms over one another.

“Right,” He said softly, and his tone was civil on the surface, but at the same time, cold , so much colder than the friendly one he had offered Ivy. 

A few more moments passed, and Elsie felt like the Titanic, facing against the icy chill of the towering iceberg and certain death. “...Okay, did I do something, or…?”

 The sounds of shuffling and flipping pages began to calm and quiet, the clatters and rustling ebbing as Jack and Elsie straightened, feeling the attention of a class teeming with first years suddenly shift entirely to them as the clock hands turned and ticked their way to eight o’ clock sharp.

“Did I?” Jack's eyes flicked to her in the few moments before the overlapping background sounds dissipated entirely, and even if he kept his face neutral, his tone, the way he emphasized “I”, was anything but. Her lips parted and she felt her eyes widen, her jaw loosen in surprise. 

He turned back to the lecture hall, and his next words were barely a mutter as he leaned past her to adjust his laptop and pull up the slides she’d watched him go over a million times in the last forty-five minutes. Her eyes didn’t leave his face, and when he spoke,  his lips parted so briefly that she was could have been convinced he hadn’t spoken at all, if it hadn’t been for the little look he tossed at her back over his shoulder, his gaze locking so closely with her that she was sure she couldn’t have looked away even if she tried. 

“You tell me , Elsie.”

-ch2 (released), quantum entanglement, by quillthrills on ao3

[quillthrillswriting]

I was watching clone wars last night and I had a realization.

[quillthrillswriting]

what if jack & elsie from love, theoretically met as rival undergraduates, and were forced to co-TA a first-year physics class? (excerpt)

˗ˏˋ content warning- implied smut/ sexual content ˎˊ˗

word count: 1.7k (taken from a 17.2k word (and counting!!) fic)

The tail end of Jack's words faded away, drowned out by the rising irritation Elsie struggled to fight off as she reached for the handle and stepped into the room demurely, professionally, as if she wasn’t about to bite Jack’s head off. 

But instead of having the common decency of looking even a tad bit guilty, Jack offered a small smile, as if he hadn’t looked at her with nothing but cold indifference since the month before. “As I was saying, Elsie is of a different opinion, and as I’ve said numerous tim-”

“I certainly am.” Her tone was cold, her eyes pinning Jack.

“Right,” said Leo, the boy Jack had been talking to. His green eyes darted between his two TA’s, clearly picking up on the sense of animosity that hadn’t been there a few moments before. “Um. Thanks. I’ll, um, email you. If I have more questions.” He gestured behind him at the two guys who now looked rather fearful of Elsie’s lazer-eyes. “We all will. And thank you, for the term. And the TA-ing.” All three nodded like terrified sheep, then bolted for the door, murmuring in hushed tones and sparing quick glances over their shoulder until the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind them.

Elsie whirled to Jack the moment that they were alone. “What was that?”

Jack stiffened, his tone indignant. “You’re asking me? Elsie, I’m not the one who came storming in looking like you hate the sight of me.”

“I only hate the sight of you because you hated the sight of me first!” Elsie felt childish, as if she was pointing fingers at a boy that had stolen her favourite preschool toy, rather than a man who had submitted the most evil paper of all time to a journal years before and seemed to hate theoretical physics for no good reason. 

“Well then,” Jack breathed out, and Elsie was hit with an overwhelming feeling of anger that he dared to try to be the bigger, more mature person. “You must be glad to finally call it quits on our “truce”, considering that this is the last time we’ll ever need to interact in a professional capacity.” His air quotes were decidedly sharper than what was probably necessary to communicate his point. 

“W-what?” Elsie faltered, a bit of her bravado leaving her at his words. 

“It’s the last lab. The exams are over. We’ll mark them, email them to each other to cross-check, and then you’re free to block me on LinkedIn and run away screaming if you see me on campus, if you so choose.” His words were joking, but his tone was not. 

“Right. Of course.” Elsie lifted her chin, aiming to look imposing, but whatever Jack saw in her expression must not have convinced him.  “Looking forward to it.”

Instead, he shook his head, grinning in a way that made her want to prove him wrong. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t looking forward to it.” Two strides of those long legs and he was there, invading her space. She breathed in, couldn’t help it, and she held that breath, as if releasing it would shatter the fragile tension building. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he lingered for half a second longer than needed, one arm reaching between the two of them to gently tug the box Elsie was gripping onto out of her hands. 

Elsie was distracted by the motion, her eyes lingering on the way his muscles shifted underneath that distractingly ice-blue collared shirt he wore. He had the box in one hand, the same box Elsie had lugged across campus with both hands and great deal of difficulty only minutes before. 

Those arms Elsie had been unable to take her eyes off of all term, usually dusted in chalk or straining the seams of a Henley, tensed as he placed the box slowly on the desk next to them, biceps flexing, and Elsie was suddenly acutely aware that Jack could likely easily lift her up and pin her against a wall.

She was suddenly quite certain that she would deeply enjoy that.

And once the thought occurred to her, she couldn’t stop. Images flooded her mind, clouding her judgement and sending a soft blush blooming across her cheeks. Her and Jack. Against the wall, on the desk, legs hooked over shoulders. She hated him, she did, but she couldn’t deny there was something about him, a sense of gravity that tethered the two to one another. She’d spent all year trying to deny it, but here, knowing this could be the last time they needed to see each other, it was too much to hold back.

“If I didn't know better,” Jack continued, those eyes blazing as if they could see every last one of Elsie’s fantasies and wanted nothing more than to recreate every last one, “I’d think you were dreading it. I’d think there’s still something more you want from me.”

Elsie didn’t say a word. She held his gaze, as if breaking off their eye contact would be announcing the sort of thoughts that were running through her mind, and shook her head slowly, her breath hitching.

“Then am I wrong?” His tone indicated that he believed himself to be anything but. It was a challenge, clear as day. 

“You always are.” Elsie’s voice was breathy even to her own ears, pitched slightly higher with a lilt that hadn’t come out before. 

“Right.” Jack extended one hand, and Elsie’s eyes were drawn to it like a magnet. The size of it… he could probably wrap both his hands most of the way around her waist, and she swore for a moment she could feel the ghost of his touch trailing over her. “Then it was a pleasure teaching alongside you, Miss Hannaway.” The way he lingered on the word pleasure… Was she imagining things, or did the heat in his gaze reflect her own? Were the thoughts running through his mind mirroring hers?

She fixed her gaze back on Jack’s hand, suspended in time between the two of them. It was as if the universe itself was holding its breath, waiting for Elsie’s choice to send it spiralling off into two parallel dimensions , a lá the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Elsie knew there was a universe in which she did nothing more than curtly accept Jack’s handshake, in which this moment precisely was the end of Jack and Elsie. In that universe, Elsie would become a theorist and Jack would become an experimentalist. They would join separate labs under separate advisors, write theses on distinct topics, and twenty years from now, Elsie would see Jack across the room at some academic conference and wonder what might have become of them in the other universe where she’d been bold, where she’d acted just once for herself and not for the sake of anyone else.

Jack was still gazing at her, looking as though he was holding himself back with the last trembling thread of his restraint for reasons she couldn’t possibly grasp. There were a million reasons why Elsie should have felt restraint herself, but all of her wanted nothing more than to throw caution to the wind and pull him in by that perfectly pressed ice-blue collar. Could he feel it too? The universe, waiting for Elsie to halve it, waiting for her to decide which stream of time she would remain in? 

In that other universe, Elsie took that handshake, turned her heel, and bit her tongue, but in this one, Elsie was tired of denying this force that had drawn the two together since their eyes had locked in that first-year class.

In this universe, Elsie pushed away Jack’s hand, tugged him to her by his collar, and pulled her lips to his, kissing him with everything she’d held back for the last year. They fit together better than anything she could have ever imagined, as if every single atom in each of their bodies had been designed to forever be this close. She was so lost in it for a moment, the softness of his lips, the muscle beneath his button down, that she almost didn't notice that she wasn’t being kissed back.

Almost.

Elsie pulled back sharply, eyes wide, her breath coming much more rapidly than required to sustain her pulmonary system and subsequent dependent structures. Her eyes flitted upward, blinking nervously as if closed eyes could shield her from Jack’s ire. Jack hadn’t kissed her back. How had she read things so wrong?

Jack’s eyes were dark, his chest heaving, his expression shellshocked, and Elsie felt her guard slam back down as she raced to smooth things over, at least as much as one could when one kissed their co-TA non-consensually. “I am so- I mean- sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it, and- and if you want to submit a complaint to Ash, you would be well within your rights t-”  She expected concern, or confusion, perhaps a polite why or even worse (and probably well deserved), a more impolite what the fuck.

What Elsie didn’t expect, couldn’t have expected, was Jack’s own breaths coming even heavier now, his chest heaving, his eyes blazing and animalistic in their desperation. 

“Finally,” he breathed, cutting her off, and his voice was rough with years of unspoken words and now-released restraint. He was looking at her as if she generated her own sort of gravitational pull, as if he couldn’t help but keep his eyes burning into hers, couldn’t pull his hands away from her waist. She was suddenly all too aware of them, the way his grip hadn’t ceased when hers had, the way his touch was sending warm heat pooling within her as his gaze dipped lower still.

Jack pulled her back in, and she could hear a growl deep in his throat, could hear him respond to her touch, could feel him pressed against her. His arms wrapped around her, and suddenly, she was on the desk, Jack between her legs, his lips on her throat. She could hear herself whimpering, rolling her hips as she desperately sought any kind of friction. Jack wasn’t giving it to her, probably because he was evil and generally horrid, or maybe because he was seemingly absolutely determined to memorize the feel of every single part of her.

It wasn’t absentminded touching, no. The way Jack gripped her, ran his hands just under the hem of her skirt, trailed just along the gaps in the lines of her button-down blouse, it was nothing short of sinfully intentional. His eyes were dark, roaming over her without abandon between kisses, and she could feel the heat of his gaze, needed to feel more, needed to be closer. 

-ch9 (not yet released), quantum entanglement, by quillthrills on ao3

[quillthrillswriting]

them summed up PERFECTLY and you can't change my mind

[quillthrillswriting]

⚛︎ ˖  ⌬ quantum entanglement ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪

───── 𖦹° (love, theoretically - ali hazelwood) 𖦹° ─────

⊹  ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖  ⌬ ⋆   ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ᴊᴀɴᴜᴀʀʏ, ᴏɴ ᴀ ᴘᴀʀᴛɪᴄᴜʟᴀʀʟʏ ᴄʀɪꜱᴘ  ᴇᴀʀʟʏ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴛ ᴄᴀᴍᴘᴜꜱ ⊹  ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖  ⌬ ⋆   ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖

Elsie knew in her logical, university-level scientist brain that her friends had just roped her into calling a truce with Jack a mere month ago, and yet, as she sat across from him so early in the morning that the sun had not yet begun to shine, she found herself seriously debating the merits of using the collar of his ridiculously ornate Christmas sweater to throw him across the room. He hadn’t done anything particularly that insufferable since they’d begun their meeting a mere half-hour before, and it only served to stoke the flames of her fury, like an already-blazing fire provided with an abundance of carbon-based accelerant. It would make her life significantly easier if he would just say something patronizing, or even just mildly cold, given her some sort of ammunition to rush back to her friends with so that she could continue to justify their little version of the Cold War, but she should’ve known that Jack would never be so kind as to just hate her properly. 

Instead, he had been cordial and polite in his stupid Christmas sweater. Worse still, he’d been downright gentlemanly, going so far as to offer to pay for her tea and pulling out her chair. His stupid curls were winding around the arms of his glasses and his collared shirt just barely poked out from that soft blue neckline and she could swear that the snowman on that offensively cheery off-season sweater was smirking at her. 

“Elsie?” Those different- colored eyes were peering at her strangely through those horn-rimmed glasses, speckled with brown and black in a dappled tortoiseshell pattern. His blond hair shifted slightly, and Elsie was briefly reminded of an Australian Shepherd. “Elsie?”

She wondered briefly whether it was anti-animal of her to so intensely loathe a man who so closely resembled a breed of puppy. Malcom would certainly think so- while his area of interest was centred in cellular biology, he spent practically all of his free time volunteering at animal shelters to make up for the anti-pet policy that was firmly in place in the apartment he shared with Olive and Ahn. She imagined the furious back and forth she and him would have had were she to bring the topic directly to Malcolm, but the laugh that materialized at the thought was quickly stamped out by the jolt of shock that ran through her system when she registered that Jack was attempting to directly address her. 

-ch6, quantum entanglement, by quillthrills on ao3

[quillthrillswriting]

oh this is SO exciting i've always wanted to do one of these!!! 🥹 also @sycamoreseventeen ditto on the kpop demon hunters thing i've been singing every single bit of that soundtrack nonstop and i think all of my roommates definitely hate me at least a little for it

currently watching: my adventures with superman (for the third time 😀)

currently reading: the chemistry of familiar objects and the irresistible urge to fall for your enemy:) (fun fact i'm up to 60 books read this year so far!! i am a big reader if you couldn't guess from the whole writer blog thing hehe)

last song: add up my love by clairo!! she's for sure going to be on my top spotify artists this year

last song you sang out loud: she won't go away by faye webster<3

currently craving: frozen mango i am literally never not craving frozen mango

coffee or tea: TEA. i really just cannot get behind the taste of coffee 😔

earbuds or headphones: ooh depends on the occasion:) earbuds are usually my go to when i'm out & about, but over ear headphones are for sure what i reach for when i gym/ read/ do anything on my laptop

last place i went other than home: the beach!!!

favourite crisps flavour: i am very partial to sun chips original flavour or sour cream & onion chips:))

colors that look good on me: most of my closet is light colors! i wear a lot of white, pink, and light green:)

currently working on: my ali hazelwood fanfic called quantum entanglement!! :D its a cute little enemies to lovers about two physics nerd academic rivals who are forced to co-TA a physics class, and it's been super fun to write:)) i'm also working on my kataang fic the teenager in the iceberg, and some things that will hopefully (🤞) be ready for kataang week!!

tags: @coconutsaiyan, @likehercules, and anyone else who wants to join in:))

tag game!

tagged by my beloved @sideguitars (tumblr PLEASE LET ME TAG THEM IT ALWAYS MAKES IT HARD)

tagging: @psithurism-symphonies @purereflectionsworld @sycamoreseventeen @feeisamarshmallow @masterandcommander25

@run-for-chamo-miles @cactusdragon517 @yojfull @tiekawaititi @glamorouspixels and anyone else who wants to do it! also no pressure to do this, obviously for those uninterested

currently watching: honestly, my recent How I Met Your Mother rewatch has been such a comfort. Before that it was Friends and Frasier. I tend to bop around in long stretches, never going 100% in order. It's just comforting to watch happy people be friends. HIMYM is also ridiculously good at continuity and joke-telling, in a sort of Brooklyn Nine-Nine way, which I have always adored.

Currently reading: I am VERY slowly reading Leaming's biography of Kick Kennedy and Sarah Bradford's biography of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, whose name is so long because I MUST include each component. It is imperative to understanding JBKO to understand that each last name is a huge part of her life.

Last song: seven by natalie jane!

Last song you sang out loud: hmmm. that's a good one. I don't really sing aloud anymore, because I used to worship every week and was never really, like, a good singer then? idk.

Currently craving: embarrassingly, I'm trying to become friends with an acquaintance that I think much more about than they think about me. This has been an entirely embarrassingly ordeal and I've known them for years without ever really talking to them. But, hey, I believe in doing it for the story. and I think you should tell people you love if you love them!!!!

Coffee or tea: ahahaha, my liver is a really good organ but cannot metabolize caffeine (I always feel compelled to compliment my liver because, well, it is doing SO MUCH WORK and I rarely thank it aloud. Organs are one of my special interests, I guess you'd say.) So I'll say herbal tea. But usually I just like water. I don't like it when drinks stain things, which is part of my whole "I don't want to leave marks" thing.

Earbuds or headphones: Earbuds! Headphones make my ears feel hot.

Last place you went other than home: doctor's office! It was a bit awkward but very nice. And the sun was gorgeous, and the sky was blue, and it's always a nice excuse to get out of the house.

Favourite crisps flavour: sour cream and onion. There are also Asian flavors of crisps I haven't had in years, but I think... I think I used to really like chicken?

Colour that looks good on you: I think lots of colors look good on lots of people! I'm a very big fan of maroon, dark blue, dark green, and pastels. I'm also obsessed with plaid and floral print. So, also bright red and beige plaid and light green / black / blue florals.

Currently working on: Oof. Additional therapy, finding a job, taking a break from archiving podcasts because it was exhausting, a fanfic about a shapeshifting seagull, WRITING MORE FANFIC, going outside more, brushing my teeth more

[quillthrillswriting]

[quillthrillswriting]

i need to go back to my roots and write a good one shot. writing multichapter fics has me forgetting that i could totally be writing one shots as well they take so many less planning-out-overarching-plot brain cells

[quillthrillswriting]

⚛︎ ˖  ⌬ quantum entanglement (ch4) ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪

───── 𖦹° (love, theoretically - ali hazelwood) 𖦹° ─────

Jack was somewhat preoccupied with glaring daggers at Elsie Hannaway, who he had barely been able to look away from since the moment she had walked in on those teetering tall heels, strung between the arms of Olive and another girl Jack didn’t recognize. He had been in the middle of a conversation when the three had walked in, and Jack had immediately gone to tease Adam upon seeing that he had accidentally matched costumes with Olive, only for the words to die on his tongue the moment that his gaze drifted to the girl on her right.

Elsie. With tall heels, and long legs, and a tiny little short black shift dress, and cat ears. Elsie. With drawn-on sleek, feline features on one side and drawn-on neon bubbles on the other. Elsie. With a softly blooming smile on her face that died and withered and darkened as her gaze passed over him. 

Dressed as Schrödinger's Cat, famously both dead and alive, all at once.. How fitting. She was, after all, simultaneously the most agreeable girl in the entire Physics department and the bane of Jack’s entire existence. 

This party was meant to be an escape, a refuge from Elsie, and yet, she found him even here. Jack took another long sip of ice water, eying the shot Adam held in his hand and wishing desperately that his own drink was made of pure vodka.

“Yes?” Adam asked distractedly, and only then did Jack recall that he had just addressed him moments before. The taller man lifted a bulky black glove to his Kylo mask, adjusting it as if his matching Rey across the room could see right through him.

“ Talk to her.” His words were blunt, but Jack’s tone was nothing but sympathetic. He owed at least that much to Adam, considering that Holden Rodrigez, the one who would usually talk some sense into the two of them, was off in a corner making out with who knows who. “Even if she doesn’t remember you.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Adam’s tone was nervous, uncharacteristically unsure for the man who had one of the most formidable academic records in the school’s recent history. 

“Then you start fresh.” Jack’s gaze drifted over Elsie, yet again , against his own free will. “Trust me, history is a hell of a lot harder to deal with than the lack of one.” 

Across the room, as if she’d heard him, Elsie leaned over to the friend Jack didn’t know, whispering something before stalking across the room, straight for him. And yes, Jack meant stalking . Something about the way her strappy heels cut through the crowd made him feel the heat of her focus more than he ever had. Beside him, Jack was vaguely aware of Adam throwing back a shot and clapping him on the back in an uncharacteristically frat-boy-ish manner as he strode past him, his own path mirroring that of Elsie’s. 

Jack stayed rooted in place. He wasn’t sure he could have moved even if he wanted to. Elsie’s gaze had him pinned. Still, her gait seemed increasingly off as she got closer and closer. Her last few steps seemed to jumble together, and all at once, she was in his arms. Warm, and real. A bit too drunk, the scent of sickly sugary fruity cocktails mixed with the sweet honey and old-paper scent that had haunted him over the last handful of months. 

Jack wrinkled his nose at the syrupy scent as it assaulted his senses.

“Were the cocktails good enough to justify the hyperglycemia, at least?” He watched as Elsie’s glare only grew at his casual mention of her diabetes. It had been her best kept secret up until she had passed out late at night a handful of weeks before in the library. Jack had only found her in time because she’d intentionally taken his typical study spot just to get under his skin, a particularly evil habit of hers that he was suddenly grateful for as he helped her adjust her insulin levels until she had recovered enough to hate him for it. 

“For your information, as an adult, and a very capable scientist, I am more than capable of adjusting my insulin accordingly.” She turned up her whisker-painted nose haughtily. 

“But not capable or adult enough to keep your friends informed on your health?” From the way Elsie flushed red in irritation, Jack knew that his barb had hit the mark- he clearly remained the only person within the radius of their university who was aware of her diagnosis. Her lips parted, itching to retort, but he only raised a finger, tired of fighting her after years of doing nothing but bickering. “Please, Elsie. You’re drunk, and I’m well aware that you hate me. You don’t need to remind me.” His gaze fixed on a point behind her, and Elsie turned to watch alongside him as Adam and Olive danced, the latter looking up with a smile on her face that lit up the entire room. 

Jack could only assume that underneath his mask, Adam wore a corresponding tiny half-grin.

“You’re the one who made it my mission to dislike you,” Elsie huffed, bringing his attention right back to her, “seeing as you hate what I hold dearest in this entire world.”

Jack couldn’t bite back his tongue quickly enough to soften his rebuttal. “What, hiding your feelings from everyone around them and subjecting me to every last one?”

Elsie refused to dignify his words with a direct response. “Besides, you’re as drunk as everyone else here. You must be, considering that you usually never bother saying more than one or two words to me at once.” 

“Hate to burst your bubble, but I’m just as sober as I am every day in the classroom.” He tipped his class of water against her long-stemmed glass, grinning widely at the chance to be right. “So no, I’m not drunk.”

“Are too,” Elsie scowled.

“Now who’s the adult?” Jack crowed, throwing back another sip of water before lightly easing Elsie’s sugar-rimmed margarita out of her hands and setting it on the table behind them. He expected her to fight back, to snatch at the table and run back to her friends so that she could spend the rest of the night cursing his name, but she did none of that.

Instead, Elsie tipped back her head and laughed, the sound like the clinking glass of beakers settling into a wooden storage frame, and Jack was hit by the thought that perhaps she was slightly more drunk than he had accounted for. 

-ch4, quantum entanglement, by quillthrills on ao3

[quillthrillswriting]

⋆✩ W.I.P: my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder ⋆✩

───── ⋆ ───── ⋆⋅ (anidala) ⋅⋆ ─────⋆ ─────

word count: 1.0k (unfinished excerpt)

“Padmé, I could never hurt you.” Anakin's tone was desperate, pleading, his eyes blazing with intensity. “I did this for you. I… these past months, every time I closed my eyes, I saw you die, again and again. What that did to me…” he trailed off, running his metal hand through his tousled hair even as his other hand still reached for her. “And now you’re here, and I can bring you back. I have the power to. I don’t- we don’t have to live in fear, not any longer.” His tone was all bravado, spoken like someone who truly fancied himself emperor of the galaxy, and she simply couldn’t take it.

Padmé felt tears gather in the corners of her eyes. Pinpricks of saltwater sent rivulets of the previous night’s smoky kohl streaking down her cheeks, and as she raised a hand to run along her cheekbone, the prominent marks on her wrists left from the restraints churned her stomach all over again. Hands shaking, she leveled her gaze with his, lifting her chin in that queenly gesture that had been trained into her since fourteen years old. 

“How could I ever look at you without fear again?” She intended for the words to be scathing, ablaze with her wrath, but instead, it was as if she was pleading, begging for him to offer her some sort of solution that could preserve everything just as it had been between the two of them. It was warring within her, the desire to keep him and the desire to flee from him almost equally strong, and it terrified her more that even after all she’d seen, all he’d done, that boy from the meadows of Naboo still stood before her.

“You’ve forgiven me before,” Anakin pleaded, his tone desperate. Gone was the flash of anger. She wished she could see him as pathetic, but all she wanted was to go to him. “You can forgive me again.”

“My forgiveness isn’t blind, Anakin.” But hadn’t it been? Hadn’t she allowed him to get to this point? The sand people, his comments on the validity of forced harmony, the way his anger had flared each time he was called young or rash. Padmé felt guilt rush over her, followed by more anger, and grief that threatened to break her entirely. “It can’t be, not anymore. I won’t. You-” and her voice broke, a wave of grief washing over her once again as she struggled over the words, “You tried to kill Obi-Wan. I watched you do it.” Seeing the anger in his eyes at her accusation, she staggered backwards, her hands falling to her stomach as if the act could protect her child from the implosion of their family. Her voice was venom now, pure steel. “I won’t let you near them. I can’t trust you, Anakin. I can’t.” She hated herself for how familiar that name was, the way it rolled off her tongue even as she told the love of her life that she wouldn’t allow him to be a father to their children. 

“I did not kill Obi-Wan.” Anakin sounded so angry, so unlike the Ani she knew. That tone… it thrust Padmé into memories of the fight she’d witnessed, the way he’d aimed to harm, the things she’d heard before she’d been dragged into his ship.

“Even if that is true-”

“-It is,” Anakin interjected, voice rising still, the temperature of the room simmering to a boil.

“You still tried!” She finally let herself shout, the pounding in her skull reaching a fever pitch. “I can’t trust you, Ani! I told you that you had gone somewhere I could not follow, and still you dragged me alongside you, expecting that to change. It is set in stone. No number of Jedi you spare could ever take back the younglings, Ani.” Her voice broke on the word. Her nickname for him, saved for stolen moments between sheets and whispered between hidden kisses, now flanking an accusation of murder. Her fury flared brighter for what he’d done to them, how he’d ruined it. How she’d forgiven the signs. She kept going. An entire army’s worth of clones still wouldn’t have been enough to hold back her wrath. “And what would you have done if Palpatine had ordered me dead?”

Her words hung between the two of them, suspended in time.

“What then, Ani?” She pressed it, pushed things just a little further. Her hands reached for her stomach once more, a flutter of kicks reaching back to greet her, and nearly sank to the floor as the enormity of the situation struck her once more. “What if he’d ordered you to kill… us?” Anakin’s eyes tracked downward, the line of his jaw hardening as her meaning sunk in. 

“He wouldn’t.” His voice was rough, his eyes faraway, as if mapping out all that he would do. “I’ll kill him before that could ever happen. Padmé, you don’t understand- Sith can have attachments. We can be together, raise our child, mold our galaxy into what is best for them and us! My love-” He extended a hand and she shirked back as if his touch was sure to burn her. Devastation reflected in his gaze at her fear. He kept his hand there, between them, his robot limb tucked out of sight, as if he was willing her to believe in the humanity he still possessed, and yet, the dark suit of metallic armour he wore now was proof of just how little of the Anakin she knew remained. 

Her eyes shimmered with tears, looking up at that look of boyish hope against the backdrop of a cold Sith medical room. Had she done this? Preached peaceful solutions and accepted nothing less from everyone but the most important man in her life? Had her soft spot for Anakin shifted into a blind spot? Was he worse for it? 

And what did it make her, that she knew all of this, and still wanted nothing more than to take his hand and pull him to her?

author's note: this is a little excerpt of my current WIP!! i've literally never written a single star wars or anidala fic EVER but i recently rewatched the prequels, got this idea, and decided to try it out:))) this is definietly a draft version, so hopefully i can smooth out the dialogue and fix typos at some point soonish<3 my ao3 is linked here if you do want to stick around for this to come out:)) thank u sm for reading, hopefully u enjoyed<3!! the basic idea of this fic is an au where after his battle with obi-wan, anakin brings padme back to palpatine, and padmé grapples with whether it is worth it to try to break him from palpatine's influence, all while palpatine attempts to scheme ways to throw a wrench between them knowing that padme is anakin's last and strongest tether to his old life. essentially, "i can fix him" but... can she 🤨 is it even worth trying at all 🤨

also @beeisnotdead u said you'd love to be tagged when this is posted!! still a WIP so far of course but i thought i'd tag u regardless:)<3

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ik i said before that anidala were super divorced in the rebel padmé au, but let's be real, nothing's ever that simple with these two

(commission info // tip jar!)

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writing my first anidala fic and the biggest struggle so far is trying to figure out how MUCH less evil i should make anakin

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they are best friends

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oh he wants to be promoted soooooo bad

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THIS DRESS AND HAIRPIECE IS EVERYTHINGGGGG

funny thing, the senator danced with a jedi all night during the senate ball.... they must be really good friends.