#I did say it was a fixitfic

[idontknowreallywhy]

Resurface 34 - Redux

What went before - Tumblr / AO3

Previous chapter

Also if you never saw my short fic Composition which I snuck in between Presence and this one, it’s only 2,700 words in total but as the below references it a fair bit, you might want to have a quick look there.

Anyway, Earth&Sky in the storm time.

Um, second time’s a charm?

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Have you got a plan?

Scott’s run had lasted just over 135 minutes so far. According to EOS, he had achieved three new personal bests over some of the steeper segments of the Island’s well-worn tracks despite the relentless downfall making his footing treacherous. He laser-focussed on the familiar path ahead, compensating for the slip risk. He wasn’t a fool, well aware that he was likely to fall and turn an ankle or sprain a wrist or something similarly irritating if he didn’t concentrate and he didn’t have time for that. So he concentrated. Because stopping wasn’t an option. He couldn’t even ease up the pace yet. Because if he did, he’d have time to think and… and… no.

He couldn’t let that happen.

He’d let too much happen already today.

He hadn’t even tried.

Scott! Have you got a plan?

Not yet. But I will in a minute…

What if he’d said yes? What if he’d been quicker to think? Was there something he’d missed? Some way through…

Wait, Scott! We need more data. Wait?

If I can just get down there…

Please, Scott, listen?

He spluttered as a gust of wind blew the deluge directly into his face.

Could you listen?

He’d promised he would, so he had.

He had. He’d listened and he’d done nothing and…

Aaaaaaagh.

He growled, shook his head and pushed harder, trying to drown out the memory of his brother’s voice, of all the other desperate voices, with the harshness of his own breathing.

Just… run. Uciec.

Every life he’d failed to save since the very first, clawed at him from the sides of the track. So many of them now. He pressed on, trying not to step on their hands.

Listen!

Wait?

RUN. It was the only plan he had for now.

His pulse thundered in his head as, predictably, the brother he least wanted to see right now joined the trail just ahead of him and jogged easily alongside. The only surprise was that it had taken so long.

Scott pushed his speed up a notch and his quads screamed at him. Good. Focus on that. The rain provided enough white noise that he could almost ignore the sound of the second set of feet pounding along the track.

He counted his own steps under his breath:

Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight…

His pace slowed a little as the path sloped upwards more steeply, his breath little more than gasping now… nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen. Thirteen. Thirteen families torn apart. He staggered a little and immediately noticed but ignored the hand brushing his elbow. He pushed on.

Fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-thirteen-thirteen-thirteen-thirteen-thirteen…

All those people had believed in International Rescue. Believing for a miracle in blue.

Believing in him.

And he’d stood there… waiting… USELESS… and then it had all come down and it was too late and they were gone.

He hadn’t even TRIED.

“Scott, slow down. Please?”

No.

Can’t.

Uciec…

“Did that already. Didn’t turn out so well.”

“I’m sorry. But can we…”

“I need a minute.”

“You’ve had plenty, Scott it’s been…”

“You know best of course.” He regretted the snarling tone as soon as it emerged but he’d just have to add ‘being a good brother’ to the list of other stuff he’d already failed at today.

And when Scott Tracy started failing he really went to town.

His breath caught painfully in the back of his throat and his eyes blurred in a way he couldn’t blame on the rain streaming down his forehead. All those people. He hadn’t even tried… he hadn’t even…

With a hiss he shook his head and tried to blot it out. Something twinged in his thigh and he weaved slightly as he tried to shake it out. Of course little brother would have seen but he didn’t mention it and Scott ploughed on. The path turned and began to climb the shoulder of the caldera. Thunder grumbled away in the distance but he hadn’t noticed any lightning amongst the deluge.

“You know I was right, Scott!”

“THEY DIED! THEY ALL DIED, VIRGIL! GONE! JUST LIKE THAT!”

“AND YOU WOULD HAVE TOO!”

The unexpected volume finally brought him up short. Virgil didn’t shout…

But Virgil’s expression wasn’t angry. Scott turned away again, unable to process the agony in his brother’s eyes just then.

“Maybe I wouldn’t… there might have been something I could have done.”

“Sometimes there is nothing that can be done, Scott. Even by us. Even by you.” Virgil’s voice was small now. And it shook.

Scott keened quietly and hugged himself in an effort to control the muscle fatigue shivers that were beginning. He slowly shook his head from side to side, as if denial might yet change the outcome.

Virgil’s arms appeared around him and held on tight. The rain continued to slam into the earth around them.

“Sometimes there is nothing that can be done.” He repeated softly.

Scott had already parroted these exact words to the GDF officer who had, as usual, turned up too late to be of any use. His heart hadn’t been in them. Where his heart had been at that very moment was in the clenched fists of the woman he could see over the uniformed shoulder. Whose eyes had pleaded with him to make it untrue. The wife of one of the local first responders who had been trapped in the mine as it collapsed. The raw agony on her face as she hung limply over the linked arms of two friends and howled was too familiar.

A freak avalanche obliterated all in its path. A sabotaged fighter jet exploded on the runway. A prototype spaceship exploded into atoms.

The second solid hour of pushing past his limit wandered over and presented its bill and Scott folded at the knees.

Virgil caught him and held him up, like he always did. Even when Scott was unwilling to admit it was required.

“We can’t save everyone Scott… you know that. Dad always said so.”

“I didn’t even try.“

“You would have if there’d been a chance. So would we all. That’s why we flew all the way there. That matters!”

Scott blinked the sweat-rain-weakness out of his eyes and glared at a rock.

No, not weakness. She always said so.

He kicked at the rock and missed.

He wrestled back control of his limbs and straightened up and but continued to avoid Virgil’s eye which took some doing because his he could feel his brother eyeballing him as determinedly as the amply muscled arms were holding his torso hostage. Scott pretended to himself that this was why he was struggling to catch a breath. The rainfall increased in intensity and the sound of it filled his ears with fuzz.

“One of the wives… she just looked at me and I… I had nothing. Nothing to say to her. Nothing.” His thoughts sped away from his control even as his brother restrained his body from chasing them. “But what could I say? We’re supposed to stop it happening! I’m supposed to try… Can… can you even imagine…” he dragged in a breath and tried to stop his head swimming as the nausea rose “… how they feel when we fail? To know the person who made their life make sense… who they exist for, is gone? Just like that?”

“I don’t have to imagine.”

Virgil’s voice was quiet and flat, but cut through the air like a scythe.

Scott‘s racing mind ran smack into a wall. The chill of the rain was nothing compared to the ice that suddenly crystallised in every vein.

He swore, silently - he had no breath left to make a sound.

How could he have forgotten?

Already?

It hadn’t even been two months since he’d held his tormented and terrified brother in his arms and sworn he’d do anything. The reason he’d stopped today, for the promise he’d made was the knowledge of what he’d driven Virgil to. And yet somehow as soon as the path between he and the trapped ones had disappeared, the guilt had driven it from his mind. He’d lost his way. Again.

The thunder rolled more insistently. This time the flash was bright enough to penetrate his scrunched up eyelids.

Even if he had the breath he didn’t yet have the words. So he dragged an arm out of Virgil’s vice grip and hugged him hard. Virgil sagged into the embrace and Scott shifted the angle of one leg such that he was better able to support his larger brother’s weight. He had nothing left for anything more. The fury was gone, leaving only a gaping chasm where the pent up energy had been.

Scott’s breath deepened and slowed as they stood there, propping each other up. Even here, even like this, his brother’s presence was soothing. Grounding. It always was. It was why Scott had been avoiding him… he hadn’t felt he’d earned that comfort today.

The storm was right on top of them now, the roaring and the flashing almost synchronous. The palm trees creaked and groaned, the rain slammed into their skulls and gushed down the rocky track. The sea howled and tore itself apart on the shore.

And yet all Scott could hear was Mom’s song. Not with his ears, he heard it in his bones as Virgil hummed quietly into his chest. Suddenly he was in the deepest pit again, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to hold on to anything but his brother’s voice calling him home.

Only this time, he could answer.

And so Scott sung her lullaby to his little brother as the storm raged its way over their island and out across the Pacific:

You’ll soar through the sky

Or sail on the sea

And when you get home

That’s where I shall be

Go find your adventures

So fearless and free

I’ll wait for you always

As proud as can be

And if there is darkness

No hope you can see

My heart holds you safely

You’ll always have me

At the last line Virgil was gripping him so hard Scott could feel the skin bruising under his brother’s fingers.

“I am such a fool, Virg… I don’t deserve you.”

Virgil huffed a sigh.

“I’m sorry.”

“S’ok.”

“It’s not.”

“Was never gonna be easy. Thank you for stopping.”

“Thank you for asking me to.”

Virgil looked up at him, doing an impressive impression of a half-drowned puppy. But for once Scott’s heart didn’t melt at the sight of an adorable younger brother.

Instead it clenched with dread. Pale, heavily shadowed and his eyes dilated to almost black in the fast-fading light, Virgil seemed almost wraith-like.

This had to stop. He couldn’t keep doing this to them. He could see it so clearly now. The empty space in his chest where the hurt and the guilt and the rage and the despair and the fear had resided began to fill with a steely glow of determination:

He would burn the world to protect his family.

He’d do it without a second thought.

So why was he risking hurting them every time he tried to save it?

He kissed Virgil on the forehead then stepped out of the embrace to take his brother’s shoulders in his hands. Blue met brown and held them steady.

“I will get better at this. I promise. I… I don’t want to leave you guys. I swear it, Virg, please believe me. I never have. The only reason I didn’t give up and die back… back then was because I needed to get home to you. Because you called me home. I knew you were waiting for me. That hasn’t changed. It has never changed, not for a second.”

“Then… why?”

“I don’t knooow.” The bewildered schoolboy inside Scott betrayed his presence with a faint whine. “I don’t mean… It’s not… It’s just…” He took a shaky breath. “It’s hard for me to choose NOT to act. It’s hard to not TRY. It feels… I… I think I’m scared of the what if? What if I had done more… pushed a little harder and… it had turned out better? It’s hard to see the line where it isn’t worth the cost to try.”

“You can see it well enough when one of our lives are in the balance.”

“True… True. I guess because its the opposite? I’ve spent all my life worrying about how I can protect you all, so I have to restrain myself from stopping you going out there in the first place and… yes I know, I know…” Virgil’s single raised eyebrow said it all. “I’m the world’s biggest hypocrite.”

Scott sighed. Then shivered. His leg muscles sent a polite three-second warning.

“Could we sit down? I might have, um, overdone it a touch.”

“Who could possibly have predicted that?” There was a welcome undertone of humour in Virgil’s snort.

They landed inelegantly but side by side in the mud. Scott took his hand again and they rested a while, their clothes steaming gently in the warmer evening breeze that had pushed the storm ahead of it. A sprinkling of early stars peered through a gap in the diminishing cloud cover.

“I can see the line for you so I can learn to see it when it’s mine too. I’m going to keep listening, ok? Until you don’t need to tell me anymore.”

“Thank you.”

“But…”

Virgil stiffened.

“I need you to do something else for me too.”

“Anything.”

Scott considered his words carefully. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he had ten years prior and shackle his brother with an impossible vow.

“I need you to change your mission.”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“The task you gave yourself when you were small… to show me that… that I’m worth more than I thought. You have Virg, you always have been doing that but now I see things more clearly… well… I have to take that one on myself.”

Virgil’s hand shifted in his as the younger brother sat up straighter, Scott could sense rather than see the shoulders being squared.

“That makes sense. I can’t be your self-esteem for you. But I will make damn sure you keep making progress on it. Weekly mission status updates, minimum!”

Scott laughed quietly at the grin in his brother’s voice. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. And you have your own now too.”

“And what is that, Oh Great Commander?”

“If I’ve let Dad’s shadow shape me too much, you’ve let my… issues… shape you. I need you to find yourself again.”

Virgil tensed as if he was going to speak but no words came. Scott pressed on:

“You are so very much more than my keeper, Virg, but I’m worried you’ve pushed a lot of yourself to the side for me and I didn’t even see it happening. If I give you a break from being Scott’s 24/7 bodyguard and cheerleader, can you use it to give Virgil time to shine instead? I’d really love to see what might happen if you did.”

It was too dark to see his brother’s face but the happy relief in Virgil’s voice was light enough for both of them:

“I’ll see what I can do.”

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Your honour, I finally fixed them.

3 more (shorter!) chapters to go by way of epilogue because I promised fluff and bunny ears and they will definitely happen. After all this progress I think they’ve earned it.

Oh and here’s the beautiful art by @lenle-g showing our boys in the rain 💚💙😍

Next chapter

[phe-purple-parade]

Just remembered when my hs lit studies class read Hamlet (that class was so fun, always had a laugh with those guys) and we chose roles 'cause we wanted to like act it out during readings (resulting in some hilarious moments, like when I had to drag my classmate 'off stage' after mime-stabbing him through a blanket another classmate held up)

Anyway I read for Hamlet because that's so gender (and no one else really wanted to lol) and I lowkey liked the girl who happened to be reading for Horatio (it wasn't a crush but I uhhh yk thought she looked good n was cool like she read Jane Austen and did her research project on how Audrey Hepburn influenced fashion n stuff and just,, I think if she had ever asked me out I wouldn't've declined but ultimately it was aesthetic attraction more than anything else. And she was v likely straight)

And so I couldn't really suggest that like,, Hamlet and Horatio are perhaps gay for eo or anything 'cause I wouldn't've wanted to make her uncomfortable or anything

Earlier that year almost our entire class agreed that Dorian and Basil from The Picture of Dorian Gray were gay and she was legit like 'oh, I didn't think of that' like this girl was surprised?? We're all here either outright saying 'they're gay harold' or generally agreeing but she just,, did not consider the gay subtext afjahdkfkl (our teacher was trying to palm it off with an alternative interpretation and like yeah screw amatonormativity and all but,, the context, man. Oscar 'The Homosexual' Wilde was definitely queercoding his characters during the repressed as hell Victorian era ok?? But this was a Christian school so.. but like. Legit one of the classmates I sat with wrote a Dorian x Basil fixitfic I can't). And I basically ended up saying to her 'your interpretation is totally valid.. but you're wrong' nOT THAT I MEANT TO SAY IT LIKE THAT BUT IT KINDA CAME OUT THAT WAY AND EVERYONE REACTED LIKE I'D SPAT A SICK BURN OOF NO GUYS I'M JUST NEURODIVERGENT

So yeah while I wished I was cool n confident enough, there was no way I could've made a flirty joke about Hamlet and Horatio with this girl (even tho I generally wanted to point it out)

[shadowdianne]

'Stripped Bare' by Alyson Stoner for SQ please and thank you 💕

[Stripped bare]

I remember being pumped for the Dark Swan arcand I have never made it a secret that I was fangirling before the damned 5thseason happened. However, while I never liked the route of splitting the queenfrom a narrative standpoint I was also very curious and very interested onseeing what or how Regina would be without a side of herself. Especiallyconsidering how powerful that side was. To be honest while I think Lana did anamazing job as always and you are kinda limited to the time one has on prewrittenscenes I always felt that they could have focused a little bit better on thefact that there’s something missing on Regina while the split is happening.Soooo, I guess this is one of many fixitfics I will ever write about that xd

Thanks twin, for the prompt

Set on: 6x04 with aside of s5 finale

Pre-relationship.

                                                        -Cutting the strings-

“I needyou to promise me you’ll do the same thing if it comes to that.”

“I won’t let it come to that.”

“Promise.”

Regina stared as Emma glanced away; nervousnessrolling off her as the sound of the waves crashing against the docks raised andfell above their words. Eyelids dropping, irises protesting against the twinklingwater, the brunette bit down on her bottom lip as she kept glancing at theblonde, at the way Emma swallowed once, twice, before looking back at her.Shoulders locked, Emma’s arms seemed fragile as she hugged her midsection, thedecision of a promise the older woman knew couldn’t be easy, weighing her down.

She could remember how she had felt the momentEmma had asked her to do the same; to consider blood and loss over optimism.The same kind of one that felt as if everyone around them shared in aninfectious cloud. There were no other possibilities, however, and she knew asmuch as the scent of the sea closed around her throat, foam almost hittingEmma’s boots while the blonde changed positions, magic crackling in silver andwhite.

There had been a second of hesitation back atthe roof, with the realization that she could destroy what she had come todespise; nerves flooding her system as the death that had come to be a secondskin to her - ropes robbing her of the ability to speak, to decide aside fromthe persona she had once used with pride- stuck to the back of her throat. Shehad remembered Emma’s pain that night; the split second in where the otherwoman had said that she would now be the Dark One; no need to offer a salvationto someone who did not want it anymore. She had felt helpless back in Camelot,weak, but she had been able to see, for a split second, less than a moment, thelogic behind Emma’s words. Even if those hadn’t been for her.

She had felt attached to a second part ofherself with hot iron and prayers whispered out of her mother’s lips. Futurepages written in an ink stolen to the dreams the woman who had raised her had.She had followed the steps that had been pointed at her -even when she hadn’t wantedto.

Which had been the reason why, when presentedwith the opportunity, she had taken it. No matter the price she had glimpsedshe would need to take. Now, standing too far from Emma, she thought on thosemoments once more, in the way Emma had looked at her. She would be there, shehad promised she would, but she had looked away at the last possible second,magic already coursing through her and pain burning everything else away.

Lowering her head, chin tucked, Regina let hereyelids fall, breathing into the sea’s wind as the cracking sound of the dockstold her, way before than she let her eyes open once more, that Emma had movedcloser.

And she had and so she stood a few meters away;cautionary space between them still. Regina couldn’t quite remember when thathad begun to happen. There was not a moment in where she could remember thechange. Only that it had happened.

Green eyes shining, the blonde had her headtitled as she eyed her, hair battling against the wind, gold halo coloring theair around her hair where her dirty white magic met the air.

It was maybe because of that, because of thepainful realization that she felt lost and trapped in something she had walkedin hoping for redemption and freedom, because of the way Emma kept eyeing her,silent but stubborn in the way her lips were set in a fine line, that Regina fellher own lips part, words already escaping her throat before she was able toswallow them once more.

What good a half-made admission would make?

“I shouldn’t have taken it.”

Emma blinked, posture changing, shouldersunlocking as she let arms fall limp at her sides, fingers brushing against thefaux leather of her jacket. Everything in her felt too sharp and Regina blinkedaway in pain as she took into the way her lungs seemed to already be filleddespise her need to breathe.

She had changed that night. She had transformedperhaps, cut away from the most acerbic side of her personality. She hadthought it to be a good exchange at the very beginning; drunk into the idea ofher not needing to listen to a voice she had felts hers but not anymore. Nowshe realized that she missed it; missed the edge the Queen gave her even if therage felt as a forever empty void, needed to be filled. A kind of hunger thathadn’t been hers back when she had been a child. Because it hadn’t been hers;it had never been about her. She had merely picked the mantle, covering herwounds with it while hoping for them to not get infested.

Raw and open, she almost recoiled as Emmalooked at her own left hand, at her fingers, before she took yet another steptowards her; the scent of the sea dimming as the magic washed over her,surrounding Regina’s ankles, waist, chest, before it dissolved in a myriad ofparticles; the mental ropes around her chest disappearing completely as shetook a deep breath. The kind of one that made her feel dizzy but awake.

“That’s not what we should focus on.”

Emma’s words were true: Regina knew it. Thiswas not the moment for her to have self-doubts regarding something thatcouldn’t be fixed, not anymore. Yet, anxiousness was already growling at theback of her head, replaying thousands of moments in where there had not beenanything else but darkness: a blind clarity on the way she had burned.

“But I shouldn’t have.”

She wasn’t entirely sure where theself-deprecation was coming from, or the way she felt younger as well as olderas she truly was. There were other voices within her, voices she had been ableto pretend they weren’t there while the Queen roared: the naïve version ofherself, the impetuous side of her, the meek, the tender side of her. Not theones drenched in the Queen’s colors but on hers.

Weren’t those merely party tricks of someonewith a title that didn’t fit anymore?

She didn’t move when Emma closed the few inchesthat had still been separating them. There was no point on such a thing afterall: she craved it in the same way she wished for everything, for every stringthat kept her moving, to disappear. Not strong enough to say a thing, she letthe blonde’s arms envelop her in a quick –far too quick- hug. The kind of onethat made her want to disappear into.

“You brought me back.” The words, whisperedagainst her temple made her dig her nails onto her palms; anger rising withinher; the colder burn of what she was used to making her shiver.

“I’m not asking you that.”

“I know.”

Emma moved away just as Regina let her headrise, the hairs at the nape of her neck standing as she watched at the blonde’sdetermined face, at the way the cupid’s bow was shaded thanks to some cheekysunrays that jumped over the surface of the water a few feet away. There was astretched moment there, another missed opportunity Regina didn’t know how toread or if she ever had been able to. Still open, still raw and hurting, shesighed again and let the younger woman nod twice before taking a final stepback. The one that made her scream inside, hoping for a question and an answershe was not going to take or give.

“If it comes to it I’ll be there.” Emma’sghost-like touch still warmed her despite them not being in close proximity anylonger and Regina drowned on the memory of it as she listened to the blonde. “ButI’ll be sure it doesn’t.”

There could be many things there, many wordsRegina could have said. She didn’t.

The Queen had trapped her. That much was true.

But she had also freed her and so, as she nowstood at the very limit of the precipice, she realized she couldn’t quite fall.Not any longer.

[deathofthetext]

thoughts on rose lalonde?

IM MAD ABOUT ROSE LALONDE STILL

i love her. i love her So Much.

the thing about homestuck is that i read it when i was fourteen, and then i never reread it. so a lot of my opinions are very basic I Love Rose Lalonde opinions rather than Extensive Thoughts About Her Character And Arc opinions. which is one reason ive been wanting to reread it! i have a Homestuck Reread Twitter at @homestuck_sorry but i havent updated it in half a month; however, i Am Going To Reread Homestuck. i should post more on tumblr about it - i always get kind of weird and squirrely abt Making Tumblr Posts bc i have weird standards for myself, but like. its fine.

i love rose lalonde. as a kid i was “smart” (as in i read a lot of books) but really quiet and like. socially stunted. i really loved rose lalonde when first reading homestuck partly because i latched onto every Smart Girl character. since first reading homestuck ive had… a lot… of personal revelations about like, familial neglect, and the grief and anger what has to do with it. ive also grown a lot, very literally - its been over half a decade, and im now Decisively Older Than Her, which changes my perspective a lot! i think when i first read homestuck i was probably kind of in awe of rose’s self-expressiveness: having interests and feeling very strongly about them and Actually talking about them to other people was really… wild to me. at the time. and her having a contentious relationship with her family and actually expressing that… again. wild. 

im really excited to reread homestuck and get to that good good content! i think ive gotten to some of her logs but shes not in the game yet. i need to get there and see her Fuck Shit Up i love  her. i love that she has.. an arc… about Grief And Anger And Fucked Up Parent Shit. i think itll be really interesting to reread that now that i like… Can Read, because i developed the skill of “reading” at like age four but developed the skill of “being able to have and somewhat articulate opinions about the things i read” at like. age nineteen-twenty. whoops. 

ok tho if im saying “rose lalonde has an arc about” i need to qualify that: im mad about rose’s arc just getting fucking Dropped at the end of homestuck. i realize that homestuck was a fucking Monster of a narrative and like, i understand why hussie just kind of was like fuck it im done, but also like. rose lalonde is a goddamn Icon and youre gonna do her dirty like this??? what the fuck. god. 

actually i think one of the reasons i was like ‘i gotta reread homestuck’ was that i was kind of like Hey What IF I Wrote Homestuck Fixitfic which….. i might do LMAO. i will probably at the very least make vague plans or even more specific plans for. something. idk. 

i think i did have the concept ‘what if rose got the meta rewrite powers instead of john’ which i do like a lot still even if i dont quite recall EXACTLY what went down near the end of homestuck. so i guess look out for that in a couple of years once i finish actually reading it (joke. but also. given the pace im rereading at… Possibly Not Joke)

anyway thanks for this ask it revitalized my Fuck I Gotta Read Homestuck Again urges lmao.