#Funny enough her early stuff is adjacent to kinds of music that he listens to in canon

[kittykatninja321]

Ok blorbo derangement won. Jason Todd coded Lingua Ignota lyrics. IDs included

songs in order: I Who Bend The Tall Grasses / For I Am The Light / O Ruthless Great Divine Director / Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow! / O Ruthless Great Divine Director / Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow! / I Am The Beast / Man Is Like A Spring Flower / Do You Doubt Me Traitor? / THE CHOSEN ONE (MASTER) / God Gave Me No Name / Spite Alone Holds Me Aloft / Do You Doubt Me Traitor?

[mychemicalxmen]

Unfinished Business

hey so I find crt’s recent interactions with the tua fandom to be sus as hell and it got me thinking about the most plausible way I could see him comin back in s3 and the conclusion I came to is a way-shorter and way-simpler version of whatever the hell this is so uhhhh here

2.9k, klave/klave-adjacent

... ... ...

“Is this really a good idea?”

Allison’s words are gentle as she stands in the doorway of Klaus’s room. Well, not his room, per se, but the grey-walled, undecorated space that would’ve been his bedroom in a timeline gone by. The Sparrow Academy doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of homey-ness. They’d ever-so-kindly granted the Umbrellas two nights’ stay in these cold cells while they gathered their bearings and prepared to face the new world they’d fantastically screwed up.

Klaus smiles at her question. “That’s hardly stopped me before, right?”

Allison rolls her eyes and drops her hands onto her hips. “I’m worried about you, okay?”

“Don’t be,” Klaus answers with a swatting gesture. “It’s been easy-peasy since I’ve dropped the pills. Parlor tricks. Did this song and dance tons of times for Madame.”

“Also, we need to unpack your relationship to ‘Madame’ at your earliest convenience.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow mischievously. “What happens in Dallas...!”

Allison sighs. “Okay, well, if things start to get, y’know, mega-spooky panic-time, you’ll just yell, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

“Hey.” Allison’s voice is suddenly calmer. Klaus’s gaze snaps up to meet hers. “You’re sure about this?”

Klaus lets himself breathe for a moment. Tension fights to seize his limbs. He’s really about to do it.

His first six months of sobriety were the absolute nightmare that he knew they would be. They were all the sleepless nights, trembling hands, emotional eruptions, and torturous visions that he’d predicted.

But at some point, his powers became less like a stubborn faucet, run by an on/off switch with not much in between. With time (and Ben’s encouragement), he’d come to better understand his link to the other side. He’d learned how to cut and re-engage the connection at will, how to find faces in the crowd, how to call one forth, and how to sleep peacefully.

Most nights.

“I’m sure,” he says solidly.

He checks himself over, tugging his brightly striped shirt into place, tucking in his dog tag, and running a hand through the hair he’d half-considered chopping off the second he made it home. When he looks back up at Allison, he‘s feeling a bit less brave. “Do I look alright?”

Allison nods with a little grin. “You look great.” God, he wishes they’d reconnected far before this Dallas fiasco. She just cares so much. “Good luck,” she says.

“Love you, sis.” He blows her a lazy kiss as she leaves and closes the door behind her.

He paces around the room, steeling himself for the process. Like he said, it’s no big deal. Easy peasy. Even with that hiccup with alcohol, he’s clean enough to pull it off. He shakes out the last of his nerves with a couple tiny hops before settling in the middle of the room.

He stands firmly, feet apart, and drops his head. He squeezes his fists and lets the energy start to crackle between his fingers.

With all the insanity of this timeline, he needs to know what happened in 1968. He needs to see Dave.

It’s tougher to contact someone not already in the room. He focuses everything he has, and the energy pulses faster and stronger. Come on, come on…

“Klaus?”

He looks up with a start.

There he is, standing four feet in front of him. Those torn-up fatigues. Those searching blue eyes. That curly mess of blonde hair he hasn’t seen for three years.

Dave.

Klaus can’t keep the dumb smile off of his face.

“Hey there, soldier,” he practically whispers.

“Hey yourself,” Dave says - happy, though clearly disoriented. “Guess you weren’t making up all that ‘future’ junk after all.”

Klaus’s affirmative laugh is airy. But when his eyes trail down to the cavity in Dave’s chest, his heart aches in regret.

His jaw aches too. What a week it’s been.

“I have... so much to ask you,” Dave goes on. “It’s been a long time.”

Klaus swallows. Here goes. The million dollar question.

“Uh… How long of a time, exactly?”

He unconsciously holds his breath.

Dave glances to the side. “...Right around when JFK was shot. Must’ve been ‘63?”

Klaus exhales and sits on the bed, face blank.

Dave is wincing at his own memories. “God, I was such a dumb kid, I’m so sorry that you—”

Klaus isn’t hearing him. He’s too caught up on that number. 63.

If the Umbrella Academy doesn’t exist, Klaus Hargreeves doesn’t grow up in the same home as Five Hargreeves. He doesn’t get kidnapped by assassins. He doesn’t get his hands on a briefcase. He doesn’t go to Vietnam.

If the Umbrella Academy doesn’t exist, neither does the Dave that fell in love with him.

His Dave is gone. Really gone. 

This Dave was the timid hardware store employee he’d tried to get through to, striving to save his life and instead locking in his fate a few days early. This Dave is still the same person as the other one was. Same upbringing, same interests, same compassion, same smile, same violent death. But...

“—a strange time for anyone. You know how it is.”

Klaus tunes back in to Dave apologizing for his cringey adolescence. “No, no, yeah, I get it, don’t worry about it.”

In the pause that follows, Klaus feels his throat tighten and hot tears threaten to drop down his face.

Within the same pause, Klaus realizes the obvious. Dave is a ghost.

Kiddos and grandmas, or anyone who’s achieved either nothing or everything that their life had to offer them, they get the window to move on right away. One-way ticket to the Great Beyond, or the next life, or whatever the hell it is. Ultimate FastPass, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200. Klaus has learned that spirits don’t tend to stick around on earth unless they have unfinished business. Sometimes they don’t even know what they need to do to start fresh, and that’s always the worst. Those souls become the bitterest, the loudest, the most tortured. Those were the ones who gave him hell in the mausoleum, with question after question that he couldn’t even begin to answer.

Dave seems to have managed okay. Probably spends a lot of time watching over his friends, his sisters, his neighbor’s cat. Klaus wonders what he could possibly have left to do.

“Major case of unfinished business you got there, huh?” Klaus asks. “Been waiting around, what, fifty years?”

Dave squints. “Well, it’s hard to feel it. Time works a little funny over here.”

“Right, of course it does,” Klaus recalls stupidly. He sniffles and swipes a hand under his eye as nonchalantly as he can. “Ah. Any idea what the little brat is waiting for you to do?”

Dave gives a tentative chuckle. “Brat?”

“Oh, Big G, the almighty, you know,” Klaus clarifies. “The bitch on the bike. I met Her once or twice. We’re not too chummy.”

Dave shows startlement, then shakes his head, acknowledging that this information should hardly faze him at this point. “Um. Yeah. Don’t know what She wants yet. Though She’s actually a cowgirl for me.”

“Of course She is.” 

And that’s the idiotic comment that causes Klaus’s voice to crack.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dave asks. He hazards a few steps closer.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

“No... Nothing,” Klaus stammers. He briefly covers his face and lets out a groan. “Ughhh, it’s going to sound crazy.”

“Really think you can beat ‘Time-Traveling Cult Leader with Prophetic Dog Tags and Tidings of Death’?”

“It wasn’t a cult,” Klaus mumbles in futility. He drops his hands and gives it his best shot. “The first time I met you - first time I met Dave - was in a totally different timeline, in 1968. That’s how I knew all that stuff about you. And you died the same way, except I was there the first time. The other time. The same time?”

“You and ...’Other Dave’.... fought together,” Dave offers.

“Yes!” Klaus confirms, relieved that he’s making sense. “Yeah, exactly. Which is why I tried to stop him - you - from going.” He indicates Dave’s abdomen. “And, obviously, I failed. But because of some stuff my family screwed up along the way, you never fought with me, so I remember a lot more than you do, and it’s all just...” He gestures helplessly. “A real kick in the dick.”

Dave tilts his head in a mix of sympathy and confusion. “That... does sound pretty crap.”

Klaus doesn’t expect it when Dave sits next to him on his bed.

“You want to tell me what I missed?”

“Oh, no, no, no, Dave, you don’t want that. That’s a long story.”

Dave shrugs. “I’ve got some time to kill.”

Klaus manages a smile. Talking will keep him from crying.

He tries his best to tell everything chronologically, but almost every step of the beginning requires some Hargreeves Family Lore that he reluctantly recaps as efficiently as possible. Dave is an exceptional listener. Always has been. He lets Klaus ramble on and on and asks little questions now and again to get a clearer picture. Klaus appreciates Dave’s effort to form a coherent narrative out of the scattered snapshots that time has left him with.

Klaus stumbles with pronouns. He makes a point to refer to His Dave with “him” as opposed to “you”, but he can’t help but slip a few times in the middle. Dave seems to understand.

Klaus tells him about the day they met. He waters down the Time Police part of the tale and focuses on what came after. Dropping into the tent at dawn. The casual conversation on the bus. The strange instinct that he got to stick around for a few days.

He tells him about soldiering. He tells Dave how focused and respected he looked on the battlefield. But he also tells him how kind he was to new recruits.

He tells him about their first R&R together in Saigon. He tells him about the vibrant bar and the strangest music and the secluded back hallway.

He tells him about the nights in the jungle they’d stayed up and dreamed up plans for when they’d go home together. He tells him about the day those plans fell apart. When Klaus runs out of story to tell, he just stops. Dave looks at him thoughtfully. Klaus can only imagine what must be running through his head. He knows it’s not judgement, or embarrassment, or anger, or loathing. Dave is too sweet for any of that.

Dave is too good for the rotten fortune that found him, time and time again.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus says.

“For what?”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t save him,” Klaus answers. He fumbles again. “You. Him? Young Dave?”

“I’m getting a headache keeping track of it myself,” Dave admits.

“You,” Klaus settles on. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Dave looks into him for a breath. Then, he reaches out and touches his arm. Klaus wants to dissolve into dust.

“I think I understand why I loved you,” Dave says.

A bittersweet laugh tumbles ungracefully from Klaus’s mouth. He tries not to draw attention to the new round of tears that spills over with it. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do.” Dave gives him the gentlest smile. “You shouldn’t be sorry. You tried so hard. I could’ve had more courage, fought back, ran away, something, but I just... wasn’t ready.” He glances down. “And I wasn’t going to be.”

Klaus’s hand closes over Dave’s on his arm.

“But I always remembered you,” Dave adds. “I always thought you were brave.”

“Goddamn, I was convinced I’d pushed your Big Awakening back a good two months, at least.”

“Far from,” Dave assures. His eyes crinkle with the flash of a memory. “I’m... not sure if I should tell you this.”

Klaus cocked his head. “Well, shit, Davey, now you have to.”

“I’m assuming Other Me told you something about Bill, right? Met in junior year, moved to Austin after school, always a bit of suspicion there...”

“Yeah?”

Dave’s face reddens slightly. “I mean, it wasn’t anything serious, but there were a few weeks when I was home, before this last tour...”

Klaus’s eyes widen. This was not an event on his timeline. He mocks outrage and pushes Dave’s hand away. “David Joseph Katz—!”

“The point is,” Dave poorly stifles a laugh, “I had hope. That it was gonna be alright, and that after this round, I’d be back in America for good, and I’d find my place.”

Hope.

Klaus supposes hope is nice. It’s just not terribly helpful with the way things panned out. In the world where Dave still didn’t make it home. In the world where he’s stuck here, waiting for a way to move on. In the world where he’s still around to see how little good that hope did him. And frustration starts to churn Klaus’s stomach, even though he knows...

“...This really wasn’t your fault,” Dave says, reading him just as perfectly as he could in ‘68.

Klaus hadn’t noticed how long he’d fallen silent for. “I know,” he mumbles, and logically, he does. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less. There had to be a timeline out there where everything ended up alright, where him and Dave lived happily together just like they’d talked about, but he is never going to find it now.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “And I still love him. Christ, he made one of the deadliest shitshows in American history the only place I wanted to be. He made me the happiest that I’ve been in a long, long time. He made me feel so treasured. So... strong.”

When the tears return a third time, he stops trying to hide them. He carelessly wipes the heel of his palm across his cheek.

“I wanted to tell him all that,” he finishes. “He gave me something so special that I don’t think I’ll get again.”

A sob escapes Klaus. Dave patiently waits for him to work it out.

“I know I’m not him,” Dave starts, “But for what it’s worth, I think he’d know you still love him. I think it’d destroy him to be apart from you. But I don’t think he’d want you to destroy yourself.”

Klaus knows the spiel that’s coming, and so badly does he want to dismiss it all as disgusting cliche. But he also knows Dave’s sappy tendencies well enough to know that, in this case, it’s probably accurate. Hell, he’s hearing it from the man himself.

“If you couldn’t get back to him, I think he’d just want to know you were happy,” Dave says. “You know? That you kept moving and kept taking care of yourself. And kept looking for the kind of love you deserve.”

Dave shifts to face him more directly. His eyes are bright with intention. “You have so much life left in you. You deserve a new chapter.”

Klaus feels beaten and weary all over. His mind is finally slowing down to the present.

When Dave subtly opens up his arms, he eagerly takes the offer to wrap him in an embrace.

This is the last he’ll see of him. He can feel it. He tucks his chin over Dave’s shoulder and clings onto the fabric of his vest, eyes shut, trying to commit every sensation to memory.

Dave returns, lightly weaving his hand into Klaus’s hair. Klaus recalls with a weak grin that he knew Dave would be fond of the new length.

It’s safe and sacred and almost everything that he’d planned for on that day he’d desperately wandered the mansion halls, calling out for any help he could get, twisting a bundle of rope in his quaking hands.

He hears a whisper of a wind chime.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” Dave mutters.

The blue glow pierces through Klaus’s eyelids. He pulls back to look at Dave.

He’s crumbling apart, piece by piece, and drifting away. Bright light speckles the entire room.

“Klaus?” Dave asks. His voice is soft but threaded with slight fear. “Is this...?”

“Yeah, it is,” he answers. He tightens his grip on Dave’s arms. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me say goodbye.”

A beat passes. Then, understanding washes over Dave’s face. He pulls Klaus close once again, stroking his hair.

He presses a kiss onto Klaus’s forehead.

Klaus doesn’t watch him go. He only opens his eyes when his arms are at last empty.

Specks of glittering blue light still float through the air. Nothing else remains but the wrinkle on the bedspread where he was sitting. Klaus’s face still feels warm where his lips were placed just moments ago.

Klaus buries his head in his hands. “Allison,” He calls out. The sound is pathetic. He clears his throat and tries again. “Allie?”

He hears her heeled boots click down the hall. He can’t bring himself to look up when she opens the door. “You okay?”

“It’s over,” he summarizes.

“What do you need?”

A joint. A fist full of pills. Five shots of tequila. A good sock in the head so he can go back to that pre-Technicolor hellscape and tell that bitch on the bike what he really thinks of Her.

“Can you just sit with me for a minute, please?”

Allison closes the door and obliges.

They talk, slowly and softly, about absolutely nothing at all, while Allison smooths her hand against Klaus’s back. They stare at the cold tile floors together for a long time. Klaus asks if it would kill the Sparrows to hire an interior decorator.

[hydrospanners]

A-Z on the writing meme because I need to know absolutely everything immediately.

WELP okay but just remember you asked for what’s about to happen. meme is here. most of this is under a cut cause i’m longwinded as hell.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Um I absolutely was vibing to Lips by The xx when I wrote a wish your heart makes and you should too.

B. Who’s your favorite side-character from something you wrote?

I feel like the answer here is supposed to be Doc because he is not The Main Character in the game but also I have written about him and from his POV so much it feels unfair to call him a side character at this point. So instead I’m going to say this random woman named Cherita who was just trying to make a midnight snack for her pregnant wife from a little eggstra. I thought she had a lot of character for someone I pulled out of my ass for the sake of an outside perspective.

C. Get any good comments on your stuff this year?

I am thirsty for praise and I feel every single comment is a good comment but I think the one that sticks out to me is when I wrote a wish your heart makes someone said something like “if you like doc at all you have to read this” and I don’t remember who it was or where they said it but it really stuck with me!!! If that was you, thank you!!!!

D. Any drawings or pictures that had a big influence on your writing?

No!!! I feel guilty about this answer somehow but it’s true. I think it would be a fun challenge to try to write a piece of fic inspired by someone’s art so I may play with that idea next year (Editor’s Note: it was still 2k18 when I wrote the answer for this one) but for 2k18 the answer is no. :(

E.  Who’s your favorite main character you’ve written?

I feel like this answer is obvious but it’s my girl Rea. I’ve reincarnated her as an Inquisitor and a Pathfinder but the OG Jedi Knight is still my fave.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I won’t pretend that a lot of planning goes in to my fic. I normally only write short bits so it kind of goes like this: I have a concept, I write the bit I fixate on, and then it sits in my WIPs for five years until I get motivated during some Fictober or something to finally finish it.

I will say I do have serious designs to finally finish the second chapter of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one as that one is a little more complex than stuff I usually write. I have plans to do some kinda flashback-y thing that finally lays out The Velaran Backstory in clear and obvious terms after years of hints and tidbits I’ve been peppering through my fic. I also have a thing planned and kinda partly written about the first instance of horrific violence in the lives of all the Knight’s companions. Also I have a long series of AU vignettes that glimpses into universes where Rea is a Sith or Kira never made it off Korriban or Rusk remained a pacifist or where Rea never joined the Jedi after losing her family the second time. Stuff like that.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Structure? I’ve been really working on trusting my reader to bridge some gaps and not letting myself get caught up in details that are important for me to know to write the next part but that don’t necessarily need to be in the story. I think I’ve really tightened up my game where trimming the fat and staying focused are concerned.

H.  How do you write? Paper, pen, computer? Music, no music?

My fic writing process is very different from when I am trying to write original stuff and is even kind of different depending on the mood I’m going for? I always write fic in Google Drive cause I write fic from a lot of different machines and need the easy cloud saving.

My ideal condition for fic writing is listening to instrumental music or ambient sounds playing through headphones either in a coffeehouse or the library or when I am at home completely alone. Angst and smut are best written at night with the lights low and warm. Comedy and fluff are best written in the late afternoon/early evening after one single alcoholic beverage (any more than and one I am drunk and no longer capable of writing).

Realistically though, I usually write in whatever time I have. Mostly at work. My job requires me to sit at a desk and wait for things to happen. Since I start work at 5am, things usually aren’t happening. Even with me going out of my way to create new work for myself and excel at what work I do have, I have a lot of downtime. I spend it writing fic. I get interrupted too much to have the focus I need for original writing, but fic writing is much easier so mostly I write my fic at this bland little desk under the terrible fluorescent lights with lots of noise and interruptions, occasionally playing a thematic playlist very quietly in the background.

I.  What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

This is a very tough question. Surprisingly, I published a lot of things that I really liked? ([not pictured: me high fiving me for finally allowing myself to state that I like my own writing]) I think I’ll go with when the wicked play if I have to pick just one. Relative to my other work I think it’s very structurally sound and thematically focused and pretty efficient with its characterization and imagery without ever getting too sparse. Also I’m a slut for examining the commonplace nature of violence and brutality in the Star Wars universe.

J.  What are the best jokes you told this year? Any jokes you thought were funny that people didn’t catch? Vice-versa?

I’m gonna say the pun I used as the title for bars and stripes. Honestly the whole fic is a joke and I like it and I don’t care if anyone catches it or not because I know that I am hilarious and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

K. Who have you killed this year? Why did they have to die?

No one, I think? I don’t think I even mentioned any specific off-screen deaths except for shit from the decades old Tragic Backstories. Not even Valkoriate. I’m not an especially murderful writer, maybe because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of that kind of loss in my own life. Mostly I write about things that are somehow adjacent to my own emotional state/journey. That’s why I fixate a lot on the weight of duty and moral philosophy and the nuances and complications of relationships, of how you can hurt someone and be hurt by them and still love them and how messy yet fulfilling the whole thing is. Thankfully--for me--not a lot of grieving the dead in there yet.

L.  Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Pretty sure it’s Rea. Maybe Doc because of the Docember thing I squeezed in at the last second but I’m still pretty sure it’s Rea. Pretty sure it always is.

There’s a particular kind of release I get from writing her because her whole sloppy person is a part of me that doesn’t often see the light of day. I won’t say she’s aspirational because I like who I am and I don’t have any special destiny or Force powers or anything to save me when the consequences of living like she does catch up. But there are pieces of her that I admire, pieces that are still part of me that I have a hard time expressing, and spending time with her gives me a little more strength to unlock those dark musty corners of who I am, I guess? Writing Rea makes me a little more bold, a little less apologetic, a little less prone to overthinking and anxious fretting and a little more prone to doing. She makes me feel strong enough to ask for the things I want and confident enough to feel like I deserve them.

Also she is a damn good time, even when she’s falling apart.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Of course I do. I could ramble for hours about the story behind any single one of my stories. Aren’t all of us creative types like that??? Don’t we all love to talk about what we were going for and why we made the choices we did??? What we liked and what we think needs improvement??? Why we wanted to make the thing we made in the first place???

I could ramble about this for hours and honestly the possibilities are overwhelming so I am not going to go into any detail and just say yes. Obviously I am willing to ramble about the story behind every single story I’ve published but there’s 63 of them so if there’s something specific you want to hear about you’ll have to ask about the specific one!!!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

Nothing will ever be “never got written” until I am dead and unable to write. I am still going back to WIPs from 2014. I am rewriting garbage exercises I wrote in 2013. I like to think everything in my WIP folder will eventually be moved to my Published folder and I am going to keep thinking that until I am physically incapable of writing.

O. Do you believe in outlines? Show us one!

I believe in them very much and yet I do not practice them usually. I rely on them more with my original work which is longer and more involved and doesn’t already have a convenient structure to follow in the form of 300000 hours of video game. Most of my fic is really short, just a single scene or so. I usually start out by writing the moment that inspired me to write the fic and fill in the before and after. I do have an outline for the second half of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one but I don’t really want to share it for something that isn’t written yet!

P. What are your pet peeves in other people’s work?

This question makes me kinda uncomfortable so here we go with some disclaimers: I write the stories that I want to read or that I really need to tell to satisfy something inside of me and I assume other authors do the same. I don’t want to say anything here that might have a chilling effect on someone exploring some idea they really need to explore, even if it’s tired or cliche or offends my own tastes. Writing is very personal and I think everyone should tell the stories they want to, whether anyone else likes them or not.

That being said, I am always desperately wishing for more media about close, intimate friendships and familial bonds. As someone who isn’t interested in sexual or romantic relationships, it makes me weep basically every time I read a story about characters who are friends or family that give that kind of relationship all of the value and weight and nuance that you see romantic relationships getting. It is a very special kind of feeling to see that it is possible for people to value what I have to offer them as much they might value someone who will romance them and sleep with them. It is very validating to see the possibility of emotional intimacy with people outside of romantic/sexual partners.

But I would never want anyone to feel bad about or stop writing their romances and their smut. That stuff speaks to people and that’s what fic is about. Telling the story that speaks to you. I want everyone to write what they want to write and if that leaves gaps, well that’s why I started writing fic in the first place. There was a story I needed to read and no one had written it yet, so I did it myself.

TL;DR Genfic & friendfic & familyfic is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me, but no one should write to satisfy other people. Always write for yourself first and foremost.

Q. Quote three bits of writing you read his year. Can be your writing, or not.

I keep little quotes everywhere--index cards and sticky notes scattered among all my belongings, snippets on my phone, untitled documents on every cloud service there is, random word docs hidden amongst my many hard drives--but the only ones I can find right now are from @meonlyred‘s Dark Horse so please enjoy three bits from that fic that I loved:

They remained sitting on the floor, Rossa leaned against him, eyes staring into the distance. Her silence might as well have been weeping.

I just love how I can feel the vacant, numb quality of her despair in this line. How it feels more poignant for its lack of drama.

“You're an idiot and I hate your hair,” Jonas said over the rim of his glass.

I mean.... Do I need to explain this?

He had never believed in happily ever afters. Not for him, at least. But the cruelest thing about being with Rossa was that he had begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

Closing his eyes, Theron didn’t expect to open them again.

This little snippet still punches me in the gut no matter how many times I read it. It’s so relateable and so Theron and so painful.

R. If you had to rewrite one of your stories from scratch, which one would it be? What would you do to it?

I don’t think I’d rewrite any of them? At least half of my fic has been completely rewritten once or twice before it ever gets published so I mostly have it out of my system before anyone else sees it.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

a wish your heart makes. It may also be the saddest thing I wrote this year which I consider an achievement. (I was asked for smut but I literally do not know how to write just smut without anything else going on in the story.)

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

The importance and nature of family (it is what you make it and not what you were born with! but sometimes you get lucky and get to choose the one you were born with!)! The cost/impact of violence and war! Failure and coming back from failure! The nature of what is right and what is wrong and how much responsibility any one individual bears for the moral direction of their society!!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that didn’t include at least one of these concepts and most of my stuff deals heavily in at least two of them.

U. Any stories that took a abrupt u-turn from where you thought they were going?

Yep! I was trying to make a stupid joke about a haircut when I started making take back what the kingdom stole but in working my way backward from the joke I ended up with a heartfelt exploration of my character’s past emotional trauma, her character growth, and the nature of friendship and forgiveness.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

I don’t know that I would necessarily call the sensation pleasing but, once again, the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one was probably the story that made me feel the most, that I was the most connected to. It hit on every single one of the themes I find compelling and I really got to play with telling the story in the white spaces, which is something I really love. I’ve been working a lot on trusting my readers and not over-explaining and I think this story really saw the impact of that work, stylistically. It’s peak self-indulgence honestly.

W.  Who are your favorite writers?

Does this mean like authors of original published works or fic writers????? How am I supposed to choose???!!!! Either way my reading habits this year have been abominable. I have really been going through some shit, lifewise, (not bad shit but emotionally consuming and time consuming nonetheless) and I had to let the reading go a little bit.

I have been really into NK Jemisin though. Her stories are complex and challenging and there is so much poetry and power in the straightforward way she tells them. I also was obsessed with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The characters were so textured and real with such clear voices and the relationships and ideas were so complex and compelling, yet the story never got weighed down by the heft of the subjects. She has a very light touch as a storyteller that makes her work so easily digestible without making her tale any less impactful or profound.

As for fic…. I’ve got about forty million fics bookmarked, waiting for me to get around to reading them and I am the worst kind of person because I have not yet read any of them. I’m behind on reading one of my very favorite fics right now. I think I’ve read a total of like ten fics this year and straight up probably only read that many because I was doing a bit of beta’ing.

I’m gonna do better in 2019 and I’ll get back to you on all the good shit I’ve read then.

X.  What’s your least favorite work of this year?

crapshoot. It was a really old concept that probably would have been better as visual art than a fic but my artistic talents were too limited so I wrote it instead. It could probably stand a little more meat and a lot more polish, but I don’t have the time to try and turn every goofy image in my head into a fictional masterpiece.

Y. Why did you write? For fun, for a friend, for acclaim?

For fame and fortune obviously. It’s why most of my fic is about a super popular ship in an enormous fandom.

Or, y’know… not. I write for fun and because I have to. Because there are stories inside of me I want to tell, ideas I feel compelled to explore, things I need to say. It doesn’t matter if anyone else hears them or likes them; I need to get them out of me. Also it’s a really great way to work through my own emotional turmoil at a safe distance, so I can engage with what vexes me without being consumed by it.

Z. If you could choose one work and immediately finish it, what would it be? How would you end it?

the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one. It’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written probably but it means a lot to me and if I knew how it ended I would have finished it months ago. D:

[jungnoir]

funny habits;

⇢ summary:  "You’re my new neighbour and wow man, you have some really weird habits."  ⇢ this wasn’t what you were expecting to find out over an exchange of homemade cookies. for this request from this prompt list.

⇢ relationship: chae hyungwon/reader.

⇢ genre: cat hybrid!au, supernatural, fluff.

⇢ words: 3.9k

⇢ warnings: prehensile tails. cat hybrids.

a/n: I really wanted to try my hand at a hybrid au at least once in my life, and this prompt screamed something cute so~ originally this was a drabble request but then i almost hit like 4k so!!!

You really liked living in the apartment at the end of the hall. Ever since you’d moved to the not-so-shabby complex in the middle of your college career, you had found it funny that not once had anyone occupied the only apartment next to yours. You had been living in that very building since you were nineteen years old, and here you were now at the ripe age of twenty-three, still enjoying that almost impossible luxury. Your rent wasn’t terrible, your neighbors across the hall were quiet, and you could be as loud as you wanted without fearing the tenant next door would hear. It came in handy some nights, when you lost yourself in a marathon of nostalgic music or “ooh”’d and “aw”’d watching Your Name for the hundredth time. You never got noise complaints from anyone else on the floor anyway.

Of course, all of this had to change sooner or later, and it seemed it would be the former when you awoke to something thudding against the wall adjacent to your bed, the thudding continuing long until you’d been roused out of your fitful sleep and into a grouchy mood. At first, you had wondered if the sound was misplaced and instead coming from the hallway, but there was no denying that there was someone in the room on the other side of your wall, and your grouchiness melted into a dramatic panic. Someone couldn’t possibly be moving in, could they?

Pulling on the nearest sweater and pair of pokemon slippers by your bed, you were furiously raking a brush through your hair to make yourself look at least a little less like you’d just woken up before you were out your front door. Your fingers twiddling, you took in the scene to the left of your door, and it seemed all your worst nightmares had somehow decided to come true. There were boxes upon boxes littering the hallway, and you watched as uniformed men took each box and more pieces of miscellaneous furniture through the door to the apartment next door, blissfully unaware of your heart dropping into your stomach when you realized you definitely weren’t still dreaming, and this stuff was definitely still happening.

Before you could even fathom a coherent thought, something tall and lithe began slinking its way toward you, only becoming noticed by you when you heard someone clear their throat.

Oh. Huh. Was it bad you weren’t nearly as opposed to the events happening loudly behind you anymore?

There stood a man, definitely not a mover by the looks of it, with eyes droopy that stared at you with curiosity. His tall stature easily towered over you, but you noticed he was still hunched, and you could only imagine how he might look if you stood him up against a board of wood or something. Aside from his height, he had wispy auburn hair that curled around his head just right, stopping halfway at his ears and adorably looking like it needed a cut, but not so much in an unattractive way like it might’ve looked like on someone else. His whole aura was exuding an alluring appeal, and that wasn’t even including the fact that in the face... he was drop dead gorgeous.

“Ah, morning,” the man started in a groggy voice, sounding very much like he had just woken up, even dressed and styled to the nines in a draping black trench coat that just barely revealed a black sweater and skinny jeans underneath, “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to introduce ourselves until a little later, but I guess they woke you up.” 

Nodding slowly, the man smiles sheepishly, and you swear your breath is stolen for a cliche moment. “I heard no one’s lived next door to you for the last few years. I hope you weren’t too fond of that fact before.” 

The stubborn girl in you wanted to say yes, I was very fond of that fact thank you, you sleep killer, but you also felt that’d be a pretty horrible way to start off your reluctant neighboring, so you decided instead to shrug and give a half-hearted laugh, “Not at all.” You lied between your teeth.

“I promise I won’t be a bother. I mainly sleep all day, and when I do sleep, I sleep like a rock. I’m sure you could be as loud as you want and I wouldn't hear a thing.” He swears, and part of heartbroken you nearly rejoices at the thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a neighbor, or at least this kind of neighbor. 

“I swear I’m not usually loud anyway,” you lie once more, “definitely not a night owl.” “I’m not very good friends with birds anyway.” He answers back quickly, and then pauses as if he’s said something so utterly stupid in his own mind that he can’t believe it. You laugh anyway, though a little confused rather than amused. 

“Too loud? Chirpy?” You offer, watching him shuffle a bit in place.

He offers back a small smile, thankful you at least found something of a joke in his words, “Just... I prefer those creatures for food purposes only.” 

Before you can share your opinion, a mover walks up behind the stranger and asks for him to point out where he’d like his couch to be placed, and he’s quickly turning to you with a remorseful look, “Sorry, I have to go. It was nice meeting you...” He holds out, letting the mover guide him back to his front door.

“(Y/N)! And you?” You call, catching a glimpse of his hair shuffling a bit on the top of his head. 

You think it’s a brush of air from inside his apartment, or maybe just your eyes playing with you, but your attention is dragged back to his face when he smiles and calls back, in an equally loud enough voice, “Chae Hyungwon!” 

Moments later, he’s inside his home, and you’re staring after where he once was, a peculiar feeling bubbling in your chest. You’re not sure what intrigues you about the odd handsome man, even when you head back inside to enjoy the rest of your Saturday morning watching cartoons and listening to the voices on the other side of the wall. By the time dinner rolls around, it has settled down and you barely hear a peep from next door, and you think maybe, just maybe, Hyungwon wasn’t kidding about being a quiet person.

You’re in the middle of chopping celery at the stove, a pot of boiling stew’s scent making your stomach growl in want. You're moments from dropping the chopped green veggies into the soup when the news alert comes on TV, the bright and lovely weather woman greeting you and the rest of Seoul with her usually cheery demeanor. Her voice filters like honey through the speakers of your TV, and you listen passively as you begin to stir your dinner. 

“...The city enjoyed nice and quite hot weather today with a high of 35C. For all of you who stayed indoors today, it might not have looked it, but it was quite the scorcher...”

Your stirring gradually slows until your hand comes to a full stop mid air, hand hovering with your ladle surrounded in a pool of tasty smelling beef and potato stew. Looking over your shoulder and toward the TV in the living room, you find that, truly, there were the numbers “35” in large, bold print on the side of the screen right next to the weather woman.

The only thing running through your mind is why your new next door neighbor was wearing a thick, black trench coat in the middle of scorching hot weather like it was any other winter day.

The second time you see Hyungwon, it’s been three weeks since he moved in.

You find it odd that not once had you been able to see your new neighbor, no matter how often you stayed in on the weekends or how early you left for work on the weekdays. You never caught glances, just heard the door next to you opening and closing, and even with the all the speed you possessed in your body, you were never fast enough to even glimpse the sleepy looking neighbor. The most you’d caught was the tail end of his trench coat, something you were still itching to ask about to this day.

It was only one particularly hot Saturday that you had finally worked up the courage to face your neighbor head on, your curiosity having bested you into making an absurd amount of cookies - all for the purpose of having a good reason to ring his doorbell.

So here you were, standing with your best piece (read: only piece) of china stuffed full with as many chocolate chip goodies as possible, saran-wrapped and picture perfect in front of your neighbor’s door. 

You’re quietly rehearsing exactly what you want to say to him besides “I made some cookies! partly because I’m worried you don’t leave your house often enough to get food and also because I’m a nice neighbor!” when a cold breeze brushes your exposed ankles, and when you look from the cookies and up to the door before you, you see it’s cracked a smidgen, allowing a lone brown eye to peek out at you from the darkness of the apartment. You blink, holding the plate that much tighter, and try to swallow the lump in your throat when the eye doesn’t leave your form for a second. 

“Can I help you?” Hyungwon’s gravelly voice asks you from the dark, and you start to wonder if maybe you’ve roused him from sleep. He had said that’s usually what he does all day anyway. 

Instead of feeling bad, you hold the cookies out and put on your best smile, “I accidentally made too many cookies and thought you might like some. Can I come in?”

You can hear Hyungwon suck in a breath, like he’s seriously debating whether or not to let you come inside, and your suspicions start to gather and pile. You had already been feeling a bit iffy about a neighbor that supposedly slept all day everyday, and his elusive tendencies had begun to make your assumptions grow and grow, and now he couldn’t even simply say “now’s not a good time”?

You’re about to ask him what’s wrong when he abruptly pulls the door open, revealing himself dressed in a pair of baggy black sweats and a cream sweater, one shoulder of it hanging off and exposing his sharp collarbone underneath. His hair is a mess, obviously bedhead, and his expression is nothing if not sleep-angry, but he still steps back and allows you space to move into his nearly pitch black apartment, and you move forward before your mind can tell you to simply leave the cookies and your curiosity at his front door.

When you’re a good few steps inside, the door closes, and you’re encased completely in darkness. 

“Uh, H-Hyungwon?” You ask into the darkness, cursing the fact that you could barely see a foot in front of you. Your grip on the plate tightens all the more. 

“Mm.” He hums from somewhere to the right of you, a good enough distance away not to make you panic, but you still couldn’t keep track of his whereabouts for your life. In your apartment, every step you took made a definite sound. If a burglar broke in through the kitchen, you’d know before they even passed the fridge. Yet, here, Hyungwon’s steps were miniscule, almost nonexistent, almost cat-like.

“I can’t really see... can you turn on a light or... open a curtain? I mean, it’s noon.” You laugh nervously. Your palms begin to sweat and you’re sure even those with 20/20 vision couldn’t navigate their way around a place this dark and not bump into something at least once. 

 A sigh fills the room, a little closer than you expect, and then the room floods with lamp light. 

For... whatever reason, your eyes are focused on a spot where something long, skinny, and furry wags its way behind Hyungwon’s back, the boy poised over a lamp a few steps away from where you stood in front of his couch. You let out a sudden yelp at the sight and the cookies go flying, your hands losing grip of the plate from your sweaty hold.

It happens at the speed of light, far too quick for you to comprehend even with Hyungwon being so close by. One second your cookies are falling to the floor and you’re falling backwards, and the next, you and the cookies are stopped mid-air.

Hyungwon’s appeared before you with a soft huff of effort, arm wrapped securely around your back and holding you as close to his front as possible in fear you might fall and hit your head on the wood floor below. His eyes are wide with surprise and fear, and in the moment, you swear your mind is playing tricks on you because Hyungwon’s pupils look way different than they had the day you’d first met him and even when he had opened the door to let you in. What once were warm, brown, human eyes were now bright green (almost glowing?), and his pupils were practically slits as they focused in on your surprised expression. The longer you looked into those green eyes, the pupils evened out once more, and the green irises darkened until they were the brown you remembered. On top of his head, between the mess of strands, you swore you could see two very small, cat-shaped ears poking out from underneath, twitching this way and that as you caught your breath.

If that didn’t freak you out, the fucking tail balancing your plate of cookies behind Hyungwon’s back sure did.

With another squeal, you push yourself away from Hyungwon, his arm retracting without a fuss, even if the panicked expression he wore spoke volumes. You took the quickest strides you could to get to the front door, shooting Hyungwon (and that tail!) one more terrified look before slipping out of the apartment and slamming the door behind you. 

For the rest of the day, you could feel the ghost of Hyungwon’s arm around your hips, mind unable to shake the look of those feline eyes no matter what you did.

The next time you see Hyungwon, you’ve accepted that maybe, somehow, you had hallucinated the tail.

He’s ditched his trench coat when you catch him uncharacteristically before he can disappear from sight one day. He still dresses loosely, with baggy sweats like the ones he wore that day, but he’s traded in his sweater for a white tee, and he looks pretty normal from where you’re standing, keys clutched in hand, coming home from work a little late.

He stands in his doorway as if he’s waiting for you, eyes finding yours the moment you’ve exposed yourself down the hall. He doesn’t move from his spot leaning against his doorframe, just watches you with a lazy look as you tentatively make your way toward him. The window at the end of the hall lets in the orange, fading light of the sun, and it makes the tawny hair on his head look red as you approach. It looks so soft, so... familiar. 

Images of the tail flash through your mind again, and you shake your head to rid yourself of them. 

When you’re within reaching distance, eyes locked with his for the majority of your journey to your door, he smiles minutely and speaks, “Coming home awfully late.”

“You know when I come home?” You don’t hide the suspicion in your voice when you ask, much too concerned with trying to locate that certain odd appendage of his, if it was around anywhere.

Hyungwon shrugs, “I have good hearing when I’m awake. I just so happen to hear you rustling around next door at five everyday, so I’ve come to memorize your schedule.” 

“Is that how you manage to avoid me?” “Partly.” He doesn’t even try to lie, lips pursed with a look that tells you he’s only a little sorry, and that little bit isn’t enough to be satisfied with. 

“If it makes you feel better,” he says, “I avoid everyone in the complex. Comes with being a hybrid.”

His admission halts any of your doubt and leaves you staring wide-eyed at him, mind somewhere between “oh shit” and “I told you so”. Hyungwon seems to notice too, because he politely smiles just as something moves behind him, something under his shirt lifting the fabric even as his arms lay still at his sides. The familiar auburn colored tail sneaks its way out from behind his back and bends as if waving at you in its own way, and his ears follow suit from underneath his hair, curling in your direction. The fact that you’re seeing both again, clear as day, makes you instinctively reach out to touch, and surprisingly his tail meets you halfway, brushing just along your palm before retracting. 

The fur around it reminds you of the cat you’d had back in high school, only much softer than her fur had been. When you look back at Hyungwon, his smile is still there, but it’s more timid than before. Almost... worried. “You’re a... cat hybrid. I didn’t know such thin- people existed.” 

Hyungwon raises an eyebrow at you, “We’re usually pretty good at keeping it a secret. Unless we’re startled out of our concentration to conceal our hybrid sides. What you see everyday... if I concentrate hard enough on it, I can look like a human, like I would if the other side of me didn’t exist.” He says, and as he speaks, his eyes casually shift from brown to green, green to brown, the pupils changing shape and size with every other word, hypnotizing you with the beauty of it. “But unlike other hybrids, I’ve never been quite good at hiding the bigger things, like my tail. Which is why-”

“-the trench coats,” you finish, “...I don’t know what to say Hyungwon... if you guys keep it a secret, why did you let me into your house that day?” 

At this, Hyungwon laughs a bit, shyly looking away from you, “Ah... to be honest, I wasn’t going to let you in... but I’m a sucker for sweets.”

You’ve got to be kidding me, you think to yourself, he’s adorable.

“I’m not gonna lie, if all it takes to diffuse your resolve is sweets, I’m going to be very concerned for you from now on.” You tell him, biting your lip to hide your blooming smile. You fail, royally. 

The cat hybrid hums and his bare foot brushes against the floor back and forth, eyes flickering up to meet yours, the brown fading some as he looked at you, “You’re gonna worry for me? I hope that means you like me, then.”

You quickly turn to hide your face in the crook of your elbow, feigning rubbing your nose as you blame the heat outside for making your cheeks so warm because no, of course not, he’s not making you blush. There’s... there’s no way, right?

A simple touch of your hand to your burning cheek silences your thoughts very quickly.

“I don’t dislike you. I can promise you that.” You say once you’ve regained some composure.

The boy looks at you from underneath his lashes for a few moments before pushing himself off the doorframe (and you try to ignore the attraction you feel when his tall form looms over you, swaying side to side like a sleepy cat. Heh, things made sense now), “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t tried to rip my tail from my body or ran away screaming again yet. That’s usually the general reaction in my case.”

You can see in his eyes, though he tries to hide the gaze with hooded eyelids, that not only had those things happened before, but they hadn’t been painless experiences either. You wonder if maybe the reason he pulled his tail from your grasp so quickly was in fear of the former thing. If so, your heart aches to think about it.

Instead, you close your hands behind your back and sigh, “I don’t think it has hit me yet. Maybe because I’ve had a nine hour work day and missed lunch just to make it home now and not later.”

Hyunwon’s eyebrows knit together in quiet concern, “Uh, fuck, you should go eat. I’m sorry for keeping you.”

“S’alright. I’m actually glad I got to talk to you. My curiosity was killing me-” Your stomach growls mid-sentence and you look down in embarrassment, hand reaching to your stomach as if it would quiet it down somehow. Hyungwon looks you over before gently raising a hand and guiding you toward your apartment door. His push isn’t the only thing; your stomach is calling for sustenance, preferably a frozen pizza in the oven and a bag of potato chips to hold you over while you waited. Your stomach grumbles again at the thought.

“See you, (Y/N).” Hyungwon tells your tired form, your hands already taking out your keys to unlock your apartment door based off muscle memory.

You wave a sluggish hand to him and slip inside, the need for food seeming a priority above all else in the end.

That night, when you’re laying full and in bed, your mind is playing different fantasies over for you, tempting you with what exactly you’ll dream about next. A tail appears in your memory. Your eyes shoot open the same time you utter into the quiet night, “Holy shit.”

Your doorbell rings bright and early the next day, waking you rudely from your well enjoyed weekend sleep-in. Your body is tangled in sheets that provide you little warmth, but you cling to them desperately as the coolness of your apartment settles into your sleepy bones. All you want to do is rest a little longer, but knowing full well a little longer would turn into hours longer, and whoever or whatever was at your door this early would surely be here this early because it was important... right?

Ugh. Screw adulthood and having to get the door.

Tiredly, you drag yourself from bed to slip on your Gengar slippers, rubbing at the sand in your eyes to make your vision at least a little better. You follow the familiar path out of your room and down the hall, taking the turns around your furniture with half closed eyes, expertly avoiding knocking your shin into your coffee table (it had happened many a time before. never got less painful) as you pass it. 

You peek an eye out through the peephole, finding no one standing outside or anywhere near your door. You sleepily try to think of what you’d ordered off Amazon within the last week or so, but nothing comes to your memory. You hope to God something is there at least, because if some kid in your building was playing ding dong ditch at eight in the morning, you were going to have some serious problems. 

You lazily unlock the front door and peer outside, only to blank at what lays on the floor before you. It takes you a few moments to recognize the pearly gleam of the plate, washed to perfection with a small white paper folded on top of it. Suddenly very awake, you crouch and scoop up your china, picking the paper up and flipping it open to read the dark chicken scrawl inside.

- the cookies were great. call me next time you make another batch :)

And scribbled underneath Hyungwon’s note is his number, the realization igniting that familiar curiosity related to the cat hybrid boy all over again.