#I haven’t drawn for months. Wrote fanfic for even longer.

[mouinam]

Happy birthday to me.

Honestly, this birthday sucks.

[onionsaremeansstuff]

Can I request a Dean fanfic? Where he and the reader broke up and the reader finds out he’s pregnant with Deans baby (yes mpreg) and a few months later Dean finds out and tries to get back together with him. The reader didn’t want to be around Dean and advoided him as much as possible but Dean is determined to prove that he is fully committed to him and their baby and won’t stop until the reader and his child are his

after weeks, i wrote it! (sorry, for the 3th time)

sorry for the implicit Cas x reader, i wrote it and just noticed it later.

anyway hope u like it!

Pairing: Dean x reader

Gender: Male

Warnings: Yandere behavior, MPreg

Summary: Dean discovered that he have a son and he will do whatever it takes to get his child and you

I dont own the character or the gif

You were walking towards the motel room door. The rain mixed with your tears as it soaked you and your backpack.

Frustration, sadness, and anger formed in your heart as you remembered what had happened a few hours ago. 

How Dean had broken your heart and ruined your relationship as if your relationship was nothing to him at all. 

Upon entering the motel room, you sat in front of the door, your hands on your face as you cried and thought about what you were going to do now. 

What you were going to do without Dean, without your home, and without your friends. 

You didn't feel that your future would be a promising one. 

-

Weeks had gone by since you had left. 

Right now, your life mainly consisted of going out to buy something to eat, head back to your motel room and watch some cliche movie. 

Until one day, you woke up feeling sick to your stomach. 

'It must be the crap I ate for lunch or my body just decided to punish me for just crying.' You thought, as you vomited in the bathroom toilet. 

Unfortunately, this was a repeated cycle for you every day. Waking up in the morning and throwing up in the toilet. 

You even thought about eating healthier food, but it didn't help the vomiting problem. 

That's when you decided to call Castiel. 

You knew that you shouldn't be calling him since you were probably just sick which is something that everything human goes through, but you couldn't take it any longer. 

When you heard the sound of wings fluttering, you felt the angel wrap his arms around your body. 

"Y/N, have you been staying here all this time? You were gone for weeks and I was worried sick about you! Every time I asked Dean where you were, he ignored me and left the room." The angel said, tightening his arms around you. He pulled back from the hug to look you in the eyes, "Why did you disappear like that?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. 

You looked down at the floor and let out a sigh, "It's complicated, Cas but I need your help." 

"With what?" 

Lately, I've been feeling sick. Every day I wake up and I've tried everything to stop the sickness, but it won't go away. So, could you maybe, cure me?" 

Castiel nodded, and put two fingers against your forehead. 

"What the-" Castiel muttered after removing his fingers from your forehead. You were confused by the angel's reaction. He lifted your shirt up slightly and put his hand on your belly, rubbing his hand over it. 

"What are you doing, Cas?" You asked, feeling the angel's warm hand against your stomach. 

"This makes no sense," He spoke in  confusion as he removed his hand "This shouldn't even have been possible." 

You were starting to get a little scared, "Cas, what's going on?"

"Y/N... there's a baby inside you." 

You let out a laugh and punched his arm lightly, "Oh my God, Cas. You actually scared me for a second. Who taught you how to make jokes?" 

This is too funny. A baby inside you? A guy? Yeah, right.

"I'm not joking around, Y/N. There's a fetus inside you." 

"But, that's impossible, Cas. I don't have a uterus." You pointed out. 

"There is a baby inside your stomach. I felt a baby's presence when I was healing you." Castiel sat on the bed and mumbled words under his breath before disappearing and reappearing a few seconds later with a red-haired woman you recognized all too well. 

Rowena. 

"What's going on here? And why did you bring me to this hotel room, angel?" The witch asked. 

"We need your help." The angel said. 

"Cas, what are you doing?" You asked him. 

"Rowena, Y/N is pregnant and we don't know how it happened. Would you be able to find out?" The angel questioned.

"You could have just asked me for help instead of kidnapped me, angel." Rowena said, approaching you, "But, let's see what happened, shall we?"

Rowena started to speak words in a language you didn't understand while touching your stomach, "Ah, did you face a witch recently?"

"Yes, about three weeks ago." 

"Did she have a red book with a fish and goat drawn on it?"

"Yes." You answered. 

"I already know what happened!" The witch exclaimed, "That book is from an ancient coven that was very pure and strong, but extremely sexist. They did not accept women there." She sat down by your side, "To continue the purity of the coven they created spells to allow male pregnancy, thus maintaining the male-only lineage." She explained. 

"Okay, the story is cool and all, but what would that bitch gain from making me pregnant?"

"Spells can be completely different and just have the intonation of a different letter, dear. Maybe she tried some other spell but ended up doing this one in particular accidentally."

"And how can we get rid of it?" The angel butted in, wanting to help. 

"You can't. Trying to end the pregnancy would cause Y/N to immediately die." 

"Great. Just fucking great. I'm alone, emotionally unstable and pregnant. Oh, this is just fucking great!" You said sarcastically, throwing yourself on the bed. 

"I imagine that you would want to tell Dean the good news."

"What does Dean have to do with this? And besides, we're not together anymore." You replied, sitting up and looking up at Rowena.

"Ah, pity my dear. The spell allows you to become pregnant, but It still needs insemination, meaning the child is Dean's." 

"Just great." 

"Y/N," Castiel approached you, "I know you are scared and worried, but I will be by your side and will always accompany you at all times. If you want my help, of course." The angel offered, a hopeful look on his face. 

You looked at the angel and the hopeful look on his face made you feel like everything was going to be okay. 

"Thanks Cas. I really appreciate it."

---

During the following months of your pregnancy, Castiel remained by your side. Taking care of you and bringing what you needed. 

Even bought books on pregnancy and learning how to take care of the child. 

Rowena came by every month to check on you and the baby. You weren't close, but she knew what a pregnancy was like and wanted to help you, and she also wanted to know how the pregnancy spell worked, but you ignored the fact that you were her little lab rat. 

When the time came, Rowena prepared the spell to take the child out of you. Fortunately everything was painless and soon the baby was sleeping in your arms. 

"I'm glad everything went well," Castiel said, sitting next to you, "Have you decided on what to name him?" 

You looked at Cas in confusion before it dawned on you. You had completely forgotten to think of a name for the child. 

"He's a little angel." You commented,  "Nothing is more fair than receiving the name of one, too. Castiel, meet Castiel Junior." You smiled at him  

"M-My name? Why?" Castiel asked, fumbling over his words slightly in surprise. 

"You helped me with everything, Cas. If it weren't for you nothing would have worked out the way it did, so I wanted to name him in honor of you. The super protective angel." 

"Thank you so much, Y/N. I'm very honored, and I promise to always look after you both." Castiel kissed your forehead before getting up and fetching a bottle for little Castiel. 

---

Five years have passed since the birth of Castiel, or Castie which is what you called him. You moved to a small town and started a new life with your child, away from hunting and monsters.

Castiel still visits you both regularly at least four times a week, honoring his promise to take care of you both and honestly, you're happy that he did.  Looking after a child alone is really difficult.

It's been years since you had contact or heard from the Winchesters. Castiel just gives you news about Sam who you miss a lot. 

Everything was peaceful and you were finally happy. True happiness. 

---

"Are you sure this is going to be a case, Dean?" The angel questioned, "This city doesn't seem to be dangerous. Maybe we should go back."

"What's your problem with coming here, Cas?" The younger brother asked, "Ever since we told you the case was in this town you have been complaining." 

"It's nothing, I just don't think there's a case he-" Castiel couldn't even finish speaking because something or someone hugged him. 

"Papa Castiel!" The child said, "I missed you! Daddy won't let me eat chocolate anymore!"

Cas turned and saw Castie there. He  smiled and picked up the child. 

"Hello little me. I missed you too.  Where's your daddy?" He asked as the child hugged him, and the brothers looked confused. 

"Castiel, what the fu-" Before Dean could  finish his sentence, Sam put his hand over his mouth and looked at him with a disapproving look. 

"Castie! Where did you go?" The three heard a voice that sounded familiar. 

"Daddy I'm here. Papa is here too!" The child yelled back, letting his dad know where he was. 

You recognized Castiel's coat and soon calmed down before you saw that Dean and Sam were there, too. A lump formed in your throat as you approached them. 

"Hello Y/N." Castiel and Sam greeted simultaneously as Dean just stared at you. 

"Where have you been all this time, Y/N?" Sam asked and you could see that hurt look in his eyes. 

"I'm sorry I haven't talked to you in the last few years, Sam. I've been a little busy as you can see." You gestured to your son and picked him up. 

"Yeah. I can see that, but a text message wouldn't kill, you know?" He suggested, and you gave him an apologetic look.

"That's very true. I'll remember that next time, but I'll be taking my leave now. I don't want to disturb you or anything-"

"You are friends of papa and daddy! Come to our house! I have several toys!" He exclaimed excitedly.

"Castie, they are busy now." You said.

"Oh, we're not busy right now. And a place to stay would be great." Dean spoke up for the first time since being there.

"Yay! Come on daddy, they want to see my toys!" He spoke excitedly and you found yourself giving a defeated nod. You knew that something was about to go down and you we're not prepared for it.

You each went to your cars and went to your home.

---

Dean wasn't stupid.

You left him five years ago and now you show up with a 5 year old child who has the same eye color and freckles just like him.

He didn't know how it happened, but he knew the child was his.

And knowing that you hid it from him made him more angry then he cared to admit.

---

You were at your house, Castiel and Sam we're playing with your kid while you made coffee with Dean watching you.

"Papa, can you please get me my puzzle so I can play with the giant!" Castie asked, and you smiled at Sam's bitchface.

You went to Castie's room and were looking for the puzzle when you heard the bedroom door close and turned around to see Dean standing before you.

"Are you psychotic or something? How did you do that?" He pushed you up against the wall with his hand around your throat, "Is he a clone of mine or what?"

His large hand tightened around your throat, "What are you talking about, Dean?"

"The child. He's a copy of me. Did you do any sick spells to copy me?" He questioned, anger getting stronger and stronger.

The tightness in your throat made it difficult to even answer the question.

"Dean let him go, NOW!" Castiel's deep voice came out of nowhere and pushed Dean off you, "The child was the result of a spell, but not done by Y/N himself. He was a victim of the spell." The angel explained and Dean gestured for him to keep going.

Honestly, you would have rather let Dean continue to hate you than know the truth.

"Five years ago, Y/N was hit by a witches spell. The spell was supposed to kill him, but she mispronounced it and ended up casting an old spell that allowed male pregnancy. That's what happened. It wasn't his fault." The angel explained. 

Dean looked back and forth between you and Castiel and you could see pain, hatred, and sadness in his eyes. 

"Leave the room, Cas. I want to talk to Y/N alone." The hunter ordered and started pushing the angel out, or at least tried to. 

"I'm not going anywhere!" Cas stated firmly. 

"You can go, Cas. If anything happens, I know that you're only one prayer away." 

The angel looked at you hesitantly  before nodding and leaving the room. 

Dean closed the door and looked at you.

"We have a son and you never even thought of telling me. The child's father?!" He yelled at the top of his lungs angrily at you for not even bothering to tell him that he has a kid. 

You sighed, "Look, I didn't want to see you after what happened. I was already confused and stressed out about having a damn baby inside me." You sighed again, "I really don't want you here." 

He was so angry that he punched the wall and you flinched slightly, "Dammit, Y/N. He's my son for crying out loud!" 

"Oh, please. Your son my ass." You scoffed bitterly, "I raised him for the past 5 years with Castiel. If he's anyone's son, it's Cas's son." 

"No, Dean," You denied, "You were the one who made me leave you, or don't you remember what you said that night." You stalked forward towards Dean who stood right there in his spot, "Oh Sam, Y/N is just a temporary thing. A way to get free and easy sex. He is not who I want in my future. He is only there until I find someone I really love." You imitated  his speech from that night before walking away and sitting on the bed as Dean stayed silent. 

He rolled his eyes and let out a bitter laugh, "So this is it? You and Castiel? Did you leave me to be him?" That sentence through you for a loop and that made anger that you have been trying to hold in resurface

"I'm just doing what I always wanted. I  got out of the hunting life and your life, and I didn't want to add a baby on top of your plate." You got up and went to the shelf, picked up the puzzle for Castie, "You can go ahead and fuck some girl in a bar, marry her and have a perfect family." You opened the door and left the room wth Dean staring at the ground in regret. 

---

The rest of the day you and didn't speak to each other. He looked at you with a sad expression on his features, but you focused your attention on Sam and your son. 

Cas told Sam everything that had happened in the past 5 years and he offered help if you wanted it. 

Obviously, you accepted his offer and said that he could visit his nephew whenever he wanted.

You offered them the guest room and sofa for them to sleep on. As much as you didn't want to see Dean, you wanted to be able to get your relationship back with Sam.

---

The brothers solved the case in 3 days. They said goodbye and soon left after that. 

During their stay, Dean was restless and always seemed to be thinking about something, but you chose to ignore it and just pretend that the conversation between you two never happened.

---

Days have gone after the Winchesters hunt. Your boss for some reason asked you to leave for a few days. They would be disinfecting the building and you weren't complaining. After all, you could have more time with your son.

Castie had been a little weird in the last few days. He was more reserved and closed off a little. You saw him laughing now and then along with talking to himself, but when you asked him he said his only reply was that it was a secret. You just assumed it was something little children went through, but with your former life, who knows. 

You were in the kitchen, baking a pie. 

Castie, unfortunately was just like his dad when it came to favorite foods.  You just put the pie in the oven when you smelt something strange and vaguely familiar. 

Freakin' sulfur. 

You ran into Castie room where you saw the door was strangely closed and locked. You kicked open the door. 

You ran inside and saw a woman with Castiel on her lap. 

"The young child has Winchester blood inside him. He could be very useful." She turned to face you with her black eyes. 

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Just leave him alone, please." You pleaded. 

Castiel seemed to be sleeping on her lap while she pointed a knife at his throat. 

"Why should I? Winchester no-" A demon killing bullet went straight through her head before she could finish. 

"Y/N!" A deep voice called out to you, but you ignored it and ran to your soon and was glad to see that he was okay. 

"Y/N is everything okay?" You heard Dean ask and you nodded 

"Shit, that was too close." He exclaimed. 

"This is a perfect example of why I didn't want you to get too close to him. Now, he is a target. Demons and other monsters will be targeting him." You sighed. 

 "Y/N," Dean started, "I know this life is dangerous with everything that comes with being a hunter, but you'd be safer with me." He said and you rolled your eyes, "The bunker is the safest place on earth and-"

"I'm not going to raise my son with any connection to the supernatural world, Dean!" You exclaimed as Castie started to wake up. 

"Daddy? What happened?" He asked,  turning to face Dean, "Father? You came back!" He ran out of your arms and went straight to Dean's. 

"Father?" You questioned. 

Dean looked down at the ground as he ran his fingers through his son's hair, "I told him." 

You looked at him as if you wanted to kill him, and you kinda wanted to. 

In addition to putting your child's life at risk, he made his way back into your life. 

"He needed to know Y/N." Dean tried to reason in with you. 

"Daddy, father. You'll be together with me now, right?" He looked at you with puppy eyes

"Castie your dad and I have problems and I don't think it would be good for"

"We have problems that need to be worked out. Problems that I will overcome and I will not commit again."  Dean spoke proudly, as he took Castie into his arms. 

"Can we please daddy! Father told me that he lives in a fortress! It must be much nicer than our house! There must be lots of toys there!" Castie said excitedly and you wondered what toys could possibly be in a bunker. 

Trying to hide things from Castie didn't work out anymore. The supernatural world wants his head on a silver platter  now and you didn't know if you would be able to protect him by yourself now. 

You really didn't want to go back with Dean, but the bunker is a safe place and you would do anything to keep your son safe. 

You sighed, "Okay, we're going with him, Castie. Go get your things while I talk to your father, okay?"

“Okie dokie! "He happily picked up his toys as you and Dean made your way out of his room and into your room. 

"Just so we're perfectly clear, I'm doing this for him. Do you understand? I don't want us to go back to being how we used to be. Let alone stay in the same room as you. Got that?"

"If that's what you want, Y/N. But, I changed, okay? I have been miserable without you. You are the light of my life,  and I didn't want to admit it and pretended that you weren't important but, without you all I did was drink and-" 

"You used to do that all the time when we were in a relationship together. Seems that you haven't changed as much as you thought you did." You interrupted him, leaving the room to go help your son pack. 

Dean knew it wasn't going to be easy to get you back or even to trust you again. He expected it to be difficult. But, he would get there and he would win you back and would raise his son together with you. 

He had no limits when it came to getting you and son to move into the bunker to be near him and to get you back into his arms. 

Hell, he already hired a demon to almost kill his own son just to scare you. 

But, he didn't die and now you, and Castie are safe and would be living with him. 

The only thing he had to do now was get rid of that damn angel and he could finally have the perfect family he always wanted. 

[theclockworkmonk]

Title: Intermission

Summary: During the intermission of "The Boy in the Iceberg," Zuko and Toph are fed up with Aang and Katara's drama.

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Read on AO3

Read on FF.net

For Throwback Thursday, thought I'd post the first fanfic I ever wrote, back in August of 2013 (so excuse how...not good it is). The way Katara goes from rejecting Aang to kissing him with zero conversations in between always bothered me, so I wrote this scene that could have been a deleted scene in the episode, and to this day the type of fanfic I'm most drawn to is "missing" scenes that would have improved an aspect of the story. So awkward writing is what sucked me down this rabbit hole.

******

"Ow! What was that for?" Zuko rubbed his arm, suspecting a bruise would probably form.

Toph just smiled innocently. "That's how I show affection," she said as if she had just baked him a cake instead of physically assaulted him.

Zuko was glad Toph hadn't been with Aang, Katara, and Sokka back when he was chasing them on their way to the North Pole. They had given him enough bruises, lacerations, and concussions on their own. If Toph had been there, he'd probably still be eating through a straw.

"So, anyway, do you know where Aang is? I'm starting to worry. I told Sokka that this play wasn't worth the risk."

Toph just frowned, "Why are you asking me? In case you haven't noticed, this whole place is made out of the evil substance known as wood."

"I thought maybe you would know because he told you. Ya know, that's how the rest of us keep track of where people are."

"That sounds like a hassle," Toph said casually with a finger digging in her ear, "Anyway, Twinkle Toes is probably in the same place as Sugar Queen."

Zuko groaned for what seemed like the 12th time tonight. "Good. Maybe with them alone together they'll finally clear the air and allow the rest of us to move on with our lives."

"Hey, at least you just got here. Meathead and I have had to endure this drama for months."

"I honestly don't understand what their thinking is," Zuko sighed with his head in his hands, "At least you have the excuse that Sokka has a girlfriend."

Zuko saw Toph scowl a scowl that would even put Azula to shame. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, and unless you want a more symmetrical face, you don't either."

Zuko rolled his eyes, "Whatever. I was surprised to find out they weren't official yet by the time I got here. Especially after Katara straight up threatened to kill me if I looked at him wrong."

"Wait, what now? You serious?"

"Yeah, it was the first night I spent at the Air Temple."

"Nah, she was bluffing."

"Toph, I grew up with Azula. I got pretty good at spotting lies. Katara meant every word she said. And it got even worse when I would try to train Aang. He would always make up some excuse about how he needed to practice more waterbending, even though he's been working on that almost a year."

Toph grunted in agreement, "You don't need to tell me. Just as I was about to break through his earthbending block, Her Sweetness comes in all 'Oh, don't worry, it's okay, we can practice waterbending. Come on, let's go splash around in our underwear.'"

"Yeah, I've been thinking that if they just got it out in the open then he could concentrate again. That's why I've been getting closer to Katara. I thought maybe if I piss him off enough he would man up and push me out of the way."

Toph smirked in her very self-satisfied way, "I knew it! Though, you might want to tell Snoozles about that plan. He's been worried that you really were interested in her. I guess that explains the seating arrangements this evening?"

Zuko rubbed the back of his head and smiled guiltily. "Yeah, I made double sure to sit next to Katara, and for a second he actually seemed like he was going to grow a backbone. I was thinking 'Come on, this is driving you crazy, isn't it? Call me out, why don't you want me sitting here?' but he hog-chickened out again. And I've been doing this for a while. After I saved Katara from being crushed at the temple, I made sure to stay on top of her just a little longer than necessary, but that just made her mad at me rather than him."

"And your little field trip?"

"Well, no, that really was just me trying to help her. But me decidedly not inviting anyone else, not even Sokka, to come help find Yon Rha had something to do with my meddling."

"And plus, it certainly seems like the play is helping you," Toph laughed.

Now it was Zuko's turn to scowl. "I actually think I got more than I bargained for with that. I'm just certain that if he finally told her he liked her, they could move forward and not be stuck in this limbo."

Toph looked confused, "Oh, she knows that he likes her. Did no one tell you that? He kissed her on the day of the invasion. Twinkle Toes waited until everyone else was gone, but he apparently forgot that they were standing on a giant metal submarine. He's kind of stupid like that."

Zuko just sat back, re-thinking his efforts, that he apparently had been wasting, "Well….huh. I guess I was wrong. Maybe she doesn't like him that way."

Toph sniggered in the way she always did when people failed to hide things from her, "Oh, she likes him, Sparky. You don't enjoy a kiss that much unless you do."

"You can tell?" Zuko asked in an alarmed voice. Toph's semi-mind-reading abilities still creeped him out.

"Oh yeah, her heartbeat went through the roof and she apparently forgot how to breathe until Meathead reminded her that we had a nation to invade."

Now Zuko was downright angry now. "Well then why the hell are they still dragging this out!?" He asked, probably too loudly.

Toph smirked and raised one eyebrow. "I think the better question is why you care so much. I mean, I find the drama annoying, sure, but you're really going above and beyond." She nudged him in the side and winked, "could it be that our own resident Angsty McEmopants is secretly a hopeless romantic?"

Zuko elbowed her back, "I'll have you know that I care as his firebending teacher. Firebending is fueled by raw emotion and passion," he nervously tried to figure out a euphemism, "and I just, um, thought that if he had a particular something that invokes certain….urges, then it would give him a little boost."

Toph grinned again. "So you're hoping that Sugar Queen makes him hot in more ways than one?"

Zuko groaned. "Well, if you must put it that way, yeah. You've been hanging out with Sokka too much." He stood up, "I'm going to go find them to see if they do something stupid."

And, sure enough…

***************

Katara was a split second away from kissing Aang back when her eyes shot open

NO!

She pushed him away, trying to muster up some anger. "I just said I was confused!"

Aang simply looked down. He had the same look on his face as when she pulled him out of the Avatar state at the Southern Air Temple, and he had no choice but to accept that he was the last airbender.

"I'm going back inside." She had intended to calmly walk back into the theater, but she had to run to keep Aang from seeing her eyes watering. She burst through the doors and stopped a few steps in to try to get ahold of herself. That was when she heard the voice behind her.

"Katara, who exactly do you think you're fooling?"

She whirled around and saw Zuko standing behind the door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Had he been listening?

"Yes, Katara, I was listening. So I'll ask you again, who do you think you're fooling?"

She turned around with a scowl on her face, determined not to get roped into this conversation. If she couldn't talk about Aang with Aang, how could she with Zuko? "Mind your own business, Zuko."

"Katara, you're a very gentle soul. You're peaceful, compassionate, understanding, slow to violence. To the point of stubbornness, in fact, which is one reason you two deserve each other. Hell, you didn't even kill the man who murdered your mother in cold blood. And yet even now, I don't doubt that you would have one second's hesitation to end me if you thought I might hurt Aang."

"Don't paint me in that light Zuko," She couldn't help but smirk, "I would totally give you one second's hesitation. Probably."

"So why are you putting up this 'confused' act?"

She put her hands on her hips and scowled, "You don't know how I feel, Zuko! Of course I'm overprotective of Aang, he's my best friend, not to mention that whole only-hope-for-the-world thing."

Zuko raised a skeptical eyebrow, "Your friend, huh? That's funny, because it's not Toph you were homicidally protective of, nor your own brother, who would be a lot easier for me to hurt, need I remind you. And don't think that I didn't notice you getting angry when those actors had you saying that you think of Aang as a brother. That wasn't a look of concern about Aang getting his feelings hurt, that was you pissed because they got something wrong about you."

"Well aren't you just the mind-reader?" she asked with enough sarcasm to upstage her brother.

"No, I'm not. I don't have to be. Newsflash Katara, the entire group knows. Sokka, Suki, Toph, even Duke, Haru, and Teo knew about it. Hell, all it takes is watching a single one of your 'waterbending sessions.'" He said the last two words with air-quotes.

Katara looked away nervously and blushed, "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, to be fair, I'm not a waterbender, but none of my training sessions involved my teachers pressing up against me from behind to correct my stance."

"So, I was making doubly sure he had the proper form, what's your point?"

"My point Katara, that I had the waterbending scroll in my hand as you were doing it, and he was already doing it right. There was no 'correcting' to be done."

"Alright, FINE!" She almost shouted, "Maybe I have some feelings for Aang, but…he can't afford any distractions or confusions right now."

"Katara, don't think that I'm stupid enough to believe that you're stupid enough to believe that. In what way would knowing that the person he loves loves him back and is there for him be a distraction? What is a distraction, however, is this game you're playing. Why do you think I'm here? I don't care about your love life, but this uncertainty is keeping me from doing my job as his teacher. Even after we trained with the dragons, Aang has been too timid, too hesitant. Firebending requires lowered inhibitions and absolute confidence in oneself. Now I know why he's been like that. Because the one time he was completely open and bold in his emotions about the thing most important to him, you left it hanging there untouched for weeks. And now that you've full-on thrown it back in his face, he might get even worse."

Katara couldn't keep her eyes from watering anymore, "Well then he should get over it! Get over me! What's the point, Zuko? It's not like my love for him will protect him! What, is your dad going to be so moved by our love for each other that he decides not to try to kill him?" She slumped against the wall and sat down, hugging her knees as tears streamed down her face, "He died in my arms once already in Ba Sing Se. I can't lose him all over again."

Zuko came over, sat down and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Before I left to join you, I had a girlfriend back home. Her name's Mai. You've already….become acquainted with her."

"I'm better acquainted with her knives, but whatever."

"When I left, I left a note for her saying that we weren't together anymore. I thought ending our relationship would make her lose her feelings for me, so that if anything happened to me, she wouldn't be hurt. Sokka and I are still alive because I was wrong. Even though we weren't technically together anymore, she still loved me enough to go against Azula and save my life, and I still love her enough for that knowledge that she's rotting in prison eat me alive every single day. Hiding behind words and technicalities about where you stand can't change how you feel. It just adds the weight of things not said if something does go wrong."

He stood up. "I'm going back to the seats. Think about it."

Toph was the only one already back when he got back to the balcony. "Have you seen Suki and Meathead yet?" he asked.

Toph answered with a punch to his gut, "Only I get to call him Meathead. But no. Honestly, Sokka has probably gotten them both thrown out of the theatre for harassing actor-Sokka. Twinkle Toes or Sugar Queen do something stupid?"

"Both did, actually. I think I might have managed to get to through to Katara."

People started shuffling in to retake their seats. "I will say this though, this intermission has definitely been the most dramatic part of the play so far."

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

Too Daze Gone (Joe x Reader)

(Happy birthday to me! You’re all going to suffer. This is a little something that I wrote over 2 1/2 years ago based on a concept that I thought of three years ago; one of the first ideas I ever had for a Def Leppard fanfic. I made some very minor edits to it ((since I’m not 17 anymore)), and honestly, this is still one of my favorite things that I’ve ever written. But I know you guys are gonna have my head for it later...)

Prompt: It’s December of 1989. You and Joe are recently married, the world has now officially entered the post-Hysteria era, and- well...

-----

December 1989

The soft morning sunlight was seeping through the plane’s window right next to you. Joe’s head was resting on your arm, and you used your opposite hand to stroke his hair soothingly. He had one hand on his stomach, along with his green eyes closed and shut away from the world. The plane was flying steadily now, but your minds were anything but steady at the moment. There was so much to say, but no place or time to say it. It was almost as if you two were having a telepathic conversation; there was so much thinking between you both, yet nothing was being said.

“You alright, Joe?” the voice of a London guitarist broke your attention from the window. He’d strolled over to the seats where you and the man in question were sitting, and let his concern get the better of him.

There was far too much concern going around today, so Phil's question was rather unnecessary.

“Oh, he’s fine,” you answered sweetly, knowing that Joe didn’t want to answer, and also not wanting to give Phil any hint to your invisible nerves, “He’s just feeling rather sick is all.”

Phil sighed, “Ah, yeah, the turbulence wasn't the greatest.”

You decided to go along with Phil’s theory of why Joe wasn’t feeling well. After all, it was believable.

“Yeah, we haven’t been awake that long, either. You know how he can be in the morning. He’s just sick of the day, really,” you lightly joked. Today was not necessarily a good day for jokes. There was a deep, underlying sadness beneath the surface of everybody's tone no matter how much they joked around.

“Oh, so he’s got morning sickness, I see?” Phil joked along, trying to lighten the universally tense mood, “Well, congratulations on the pregnancy, Joe.”

Your heart jumped and you forced a chuckle at the statement. You felt Joe’s heart jump, too.

“Thanks, Phil,” Joe cracked a gentle smile for him as he walked away. You could feel how forced the smile was as Joe slowly reached out and squeezed your hand. He was definitely more worried than you.

“Shh, I know. I’m worried, too,” you whispered to him so quietly that you could barely hear yourself, “But we’ll deal with this later.”

~18 hours earlier~

You weaved your hands together with the utmost anxiety as you waited for Joe to get back from a small trip to the supermarket. As you waited, there was no stopping the racing thoughts in your mind. Once one thought appeared and rooted itself within you, it was impossible to keep it from rolling into a snowball of others. It was driving you absolutely mad on the inside. Keeping calm on the outside, however, came rather easily. It almost felt like second nature at the moment. Of course, you knew that was all going to change the second Joe got back.

Everything was going to change the second Joe got back.

When he did come back, you immediately stood up and went over to him, trying to be casual and lighthearted.

"Hey! How was the store?" came the greeting from you. Your voice was nearly on the verge of breaking from the tension of the whole situation.

"A fucking treat," he grumbled sarcastically, putting four bags down on the table, "The whole bloody place was packed, the service was piss poor, traffic on the way back, you name it."

You kissed him on the cheek for a few seconds in consolation, quickly making his small dimple appear as a result. Normally, it melted your heart to see him smile, but this time, it made it almost vibrate with worry. It hurt to see him happy now, since you knew it wouldn't last long.

He turned and put his hands on your waist, "I suppose it was worth it to get back to you, though."

You wrapped your arms around his neck, quickly pecked him on the lips, telling him, "You're too kind. Now let's see what you've looted up on-"

Desperate to distract both of you from each other, you turned to the grocery bags and started to pull the items out. You did it in a sped-up manner to keep your hands from shaking too visibly. You had no idea when to mention what had to be mentioned.

"I'll tell you what," Joe spoke up, his annoyance still audible in his voice, "The service down there was so fucking slow. Took me a half hour to get four bloody bags worth."

"I'll say you took a while," you impulsively decided to create a segue- any segue- that may get you closer to your fated subject. You blurted out "You’re late."

As he continued pulling out the groceries, he cocked an eyebrow, and asked without looking at you, "What do you mean I’m late?"

"Just, you're late, that's all," you shrugged, the anxiety overwhelming you more. It was getting close to the subject now.

"I'm not late," he chuckled, still not looking up or fully understanding you. You both often liked to joke and tease each other, so this wasn’t anything strange to him.

"No," you stated calmly, going completely motionless with fear, “But I am."

He didn't completely comprehend what you had said. He began to put away the groceries and asked you obliviously, "What do you mean you're late?" Late for what?"

You pressed on, remaining rooted to a motionless state and staring at him, "No, Joe... I’m late."

"You mean that this month you didn't get your-" he started off normally, but then paused as the penny dropped. He froze, and dropped the can he was holding. Your heart sank in your chest at his reaction. Now was the time to talk about it, and you could sense it wasn't going to be pleasant. Part of you began to think that this is how it might end for you two.

He turned around, looking almost mortified and whispered, "Oh my god... are you...?"

"I don't know..." you were shaking now, "I'm just assuming."

For a moment you both stood there, staring at each other, lost for words.

Another impulse suddenly arose within you, and you blurted out again with a wavering and worried voice, "I-I hope I'm not, Joe, and I know you don't want me to be, either, because now is not a good time for this to be happening! You’re at the peak of your career, and we’ve got the new album on the way, then you'll be on tour again- and-"

"Hey, hey, shh," Joe moved forward and put his hands on your arms, "Calm down... it's okay, it's okay. First of all, who ever said I didn't want this? You can't just assume that I wouldn't be okay with it... and I'm not mad- really, I swear! Second of all, this isn't set in stone yet. We'll have to find out if you are first, and if you are, we'll... then we'll make it work out somehow. Don’t think too much just yet; try to relax.”

You blew out a shaky exhale and muttered, “Yeah, okay...”

“Have you been sick?"

"No, but something just feels... off."

"How late are you?"

"About a week..."

"Have you been this late in the past, but gotten your period anyway?"

"Yes..."

"Then we don't know for sure," he kissed the top of your head, embracing you and reassuring, “So what if you're late? That doesn't have to mean anything! I'm worried, too, but we can't just jump to conclusions like this. I wouldn't even put the stakes at 50-50 right now. All this worrying is probably over nothing. You could just be overthinking."

You turned your head and attempted to look up at him to say, "But this is a child, Joe... if there's even a small possibility that this child exists, we've got to assume that it does... we can't just ignore it for too long."

"You've got a point, you've got a point, but just for a second, genuinely consider the possibility that you're not-" he didn't dare say the “p” word, "-you know..."

You sighed into his shoulder, fighting back against tears that wanted to fall, "Okay, okay, you could be right, but there's so much that might have to be done- we can't just put this off..."

"We can until we know for sure," he suggested, "If it's worrying you so much right now, then I'll run out to the corner store and pick up a test. We can sort this out once and for all. How long did you wanna wait before taking a test?"

"I don't know, I don't know," came the drawn out reply as a few tears spilled from you, "Maybe a day or two or three, but I'm just getting so worried that it might be true, I can't wait anymore."

"Okay, then you won't have to wait anymore," he tilted your chin up to give you a quick and thoughtful kiss, then wiped away your tears, "I'll run to the store quick and buy us a test. Is that okay?"

"Yes, please just do it. I'm sorry- you just got back from the store and-"

He laughed and squeezed you tighter, swaying with you in his arms, "Ah, don't worry about it; it's a necessary trip now."

"You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would."

"What'd you think I was gonna do? Leave you?" he chuckled lightheartedly, though he guessed exactly what you were thinking.

You faked a chuckle in reply, "Yeah, kinda... I had a lot of time to overthink everything."

"Well, would you leave me? Especially if I were in your shoes?"

It was your turn to squeeze him tighter (and laugh into his chest), "Joe, if you were in my shoes, I think we'd have a real problem."

"Oh, I know, I know- but apart from that- would you leave me?"

"Of course not..."

"Exactly. You wouldn't leave me, so I definitely won't leave you. You know we've always looked after each other, and I still plan on holding up my end of the bargain."

He kissed you again, longer this time, before softly assuring you, “I love you. Don't ever think that I’d abandon you to raise a child on your own, cos' it'll never ever be a possibility. I'll be here no matter what. Positive or negative."

***

Positive or negative, indeed, you told yourself as you wearily gazed out of the plane's window. You still weren't completely sure how to feel about the outcome of the previous day, but- as you told Joe before- you had to deal with it later. There were more pressing matters currently at hand. Your previous issue could wait for an extra day or two. The more serious problem that you all were on your way to currently needed the most attention. This particular problem also seemed to outline a theme for the past 24 hours; accidental life or accidental death.

~17 hours earlier~

You both sat on the bathroom floor in quiet anxiety. Your hands were joined in a world of worry. At the moment, it was impossible to tell who was more worried, since neither of you could bring yourselves to speak.

The longest two minutes of your lives were currently taking place. The test was sitting on the counter of the sink, and neither of you were counting down to when you could look at it again. Every now and then, a reassuring thought would come to mind that you were all worked up over nothing. After all, Joe was right; you barely had any evidence other than the fact that you were late, so you couldn't just assume the worst. On the other hand though, you couldn't help but feel that there was some impending doom about to come, almost like you felt it instinctively.

With you both being scared shitless at the moment (and not even trying to hide it), you sensed that deep down, both of you knew what the result was going to be. Neither of you wanted to admit it, though.

A few rooms away, the phone suddenly sounded off, shattering the tension and making you both jump. It was almost like a form of divine intervention to prevent you from thinking any more. Almost immediately, Joe lifted his hand away and quietly said that he'd answer it. He stood up and left, leaving you alone with a possibly huge revelation sitting on the counter a few feet away. However, that would no longer be your biggest concern, for you could easily overhear Joe talking on the phone.

"'Ello?" he answered before pausing and replying anxiously, "No, I really don't have a minute... I can't say, but I don't have time to chat. You alright, mate?”

There was an unnerving pause before you heard Joe ask, "Why?"

There was an even longer pause before he spoke again. Your heart was pounding more. That gut feeling that your lives were about to change for the worse grew enormously without warning. On top of that, you suddenly realized that it had been well over two minutes at this point. Your future awaited you now.

"Fuck... oh my god..." Joe's voice was a lot more quiet now, "...oh my god, is he...?"

Now, you began weaving your hands together, slowly growing more and more impatient and worried.

"Dammit," Joe said a little louder, "We'll we've gotta go, then. We've gotta go as soon as possible. What about Rick and Sav...? Alright, then. We'll meet you there tomorrow morning- I've really gotta go and tell Y/N right now. I'll call you in a bit. Yeah, alright... just try and calm down, mate- okay? See ya, then."

As soon as he hung up, you heard him rush back to the bathroom.

"Y/N, he huffed before he was even in the room, "Y/N, something's happened and we’ve gotta-“

He froze in the doorway upon seeing you now standing and completely covering the test in your hands.

"No," he moved forward and put a hand on yours, "Please don't look at it yet; something awful's happened and I don't know how much sudden news we can take at this point. Did you look at it?”

You shook you head, not breaking eye contact with him, "No, but now I'm too scared to take my hands off. What's happened?"

He came right out with it, "Steve's been found unconscious at a bar in Minneapolis. They took him to a hospital, he’s in intensive care and... and he’s pretty bad.”

Right then and there, you dropped the test in your hands with a gasp. You were speechless, but part of you couldn't help but ask, "Is- is he gonna make it?”

You suddenly saw tears in Joe's eyes when he answered, "I don't know... he won't die unless we knock some fucking sense into him! That was Phil who just called, and he sounded scared shitless..."

"W-well what are we gonna do? Is anyone going to see Steve?"

"We are. Tomorrow morning we're flying out with Phil, Mutt, Tony, and Peter."

"Wait, what about Rick and Sav?"

"They both can't make it on short notice. We're gonna have to give Steve a beatin’ over the head from them.”

Just like that, you forgot all about the test on the floor. Steve was dying, and that was enough to flood your mind. You wanted to cry, you wanted to hug Joe, you wanted to scream, and most of all, you wanted to see Steve and sob your brains out to him.

"He's never gonna get better, is he?" you quietly asked, not particularly looking for an answer. Joe shrugged and sighed, running his hands through his hair.

He coldly chuckled in a quiet voice, "Not unless we keep drilling it into his head that he's gonna kill himself!"

Hanging your head out of astonishment, you sat on the counter, realizing that this was the biggest blow to your lives since Rick’s accident.

At least, it would be until you saw the result of the test on the floor.

"Joe..." you whispered to him, staring down at your hands, "Should we look at the test? Should we wait until we get back?"

Joe did nothing more than stare at you, frowning nervously. He moved his own hands forward, placed them on top of yours, and took a deep breath.

“We’re only gonna be more worried if we wait... so we might as well settle things now.”

Joe slowly got on his knees, and felt on the floor for the test without looking at it. When he located it, he rose back to his feet, and brought the test forward. He kept it covered with all his fingers wrapped around it to conceal the verdict.

Blowing out a trembling breath, you looked at him as he did at you, and he gently unfolded his fingers from the test. You both simultaneously looked down to see the clearly marked result. In that second, you were fairly certain that life would never be the same.

In fact, you were positive.

***

“Now is literally the worst possible time to talk about this, Joe,” you whispered again so no one else on the plane could hear, “It can wait a day or two. We’ve got to worry about Steve first."

Joe nodded a little, agreeing with you, “Okay, I suppose it can wait.”

“Don't stress yourself out so much; it's literally making you sick. Besides, I’m the one who’s supposed to be sick,” you chuckled, “That’s not your job.”

“Oh shut up,” he laughed a little, “It really is the turbulence… and the fact that Steve’s… and you’re… and I’m surprised you’re not this overwhelmed.”

You sighed and turned your head towards the window, “Yeah... I’m really surprised, too. This is gonna be one hell of a story to tell this kid when they’ve grown up...”

“I feel sorry that their story had to start out like this,” Joe put another hand on top of your already joined hands with a guilty exhale, “With such bad timing...”

As you watched the illuminated clouds move on by the window of the plane, you couldn’t help but think that things truly would be okay at one point: like that maybe this wouldn’t be such bad timing after all. Things would all work out eventually. How far away that merciful checkpoint was, you’d never be able to guess.

***

Later that day, you found yourself sitting in a circle of people in a rather pleasant-looking and sunlit room. For such a nice day that it was, nothing about the day seemed to fit the mood the weather provided; the universe simply wouldn’t allow it. Now was the time for the serious matter you came for; you were desperately trying to help Steve.

“Steve, you’re scaring the shit out of us,” Phil read bluntly from his letter to his best friend, trying not to let soft emotion seep into his tone. He knew he needed to be stern, but caring towards him.

The whole time he spoke, you wanted to devote all of your attention to him and Steve, but soon found that you couldn't. The constant thought of your unborn child was first on your mind, and although you didn’t want that taking over your thoughts, it was beginning to eat you alive. You almost felt like you couldn't hold the secret back any longer, despite only knowing for a day. In any other circumstances, it would have been so much easier to keep it secret. Today, however, was the worst possible day, with the worst possible scenario.

Every now and then, Joe would look over at you to see how you were doing, and turn back to not be conspicuous to everyone else. You could practically sense his growing worry. Going on in this manner for so long was starting to make your own unstoppable thoughts bubble to the surface. You couldn't hold out for much longer, and was even starting to think outside the box about your while situation. Was being with child really a problem? Did it have to be a bad thing right now? Could you actually find a way to rip some positivity from it all and shed some light on this situation?

That's when it hit you.

When Phil was done his speech, some silent tears were shed by everyone in the circle (including Steve). Near silence commenced afterwards (which only reminded you that there was no distraction from your thoughts now). You reached out to Joe slowly, and took his hand in a tight grip without looking at him. While you felt his eyes on you, you didn't dare look at him.

"Has anyone else got something to say to add onto that?" Peter softly asked, looking around the circle. Your heart began to pound; an opening for you was coming.

Phil slowly began to comment, looking at his feet, "Well, there's nothing I can say to get the point across any more. We can beg and plead all we want but the point still stands, Steve. I know you're not a fan of us guilt tripping you to hell- but we don't want to beat you up; that’s not what we came here to do. We love you, mate... so it doesn't matter whether or not we guilt trip you by saying we're worried sick, or- or..."

"I'm pregnant," you stated simply, closing your eyes and squeezing Joe's hand. While you didn't see it, you felt Joe inhale and look at you instinctively. For the single day that you were aware of your condition, you and Joe had feared the "p" word, and avoided using it at all costs.

Phil didn't entirely comprehend what you said, and kept talking on, "Exactly, even if we said that-"

"No-" you sat up in your seat and opened your eyes, now shaking again, "I mean... I'm pregnant."

You looked over at Joe, who seemed tired, yet understanding. Your eyes went down to his hand as you corrected yourself, "We're pregnant."

All eyes were on you now, but no one had any inclination to speak for a moment.

“Are you serious?” Mutt broke the silence in astonishment, “You're fucking with us right now, aren't you?"

“She’s not,” Joe shook his head, still fixing his loving eyes on you.

Steve looked at Phil and stated coldly, "I thought you said you guys weren't gonna make stuff up to guilt trip me."

"Does it look like I'm making this up?!" you snapped at him, anxious and shameful tears brimming your eyes. You looked around at everyone, landing your eyes on Steve.

"So you're serious?” he asked softly, frowning as he flicked off ashes from his cigarette, “You really are pregnant?”

You nodded, trying to hold yourself together.

“When did you find out?” Peter inquired gently, coming off as the most calm member of the group.

Your voice began to break as you told him with a sad chuckle, “Yesterday... we were waiting for the result of the test right when you called, Phil...”

Phil's eyes lit up at your statement, and he apologized, "Oh- fucking hell... Joe... you even said you didn't have time to talk... and what I said on the plane this morning- must've only made things worse... guys, I'm so sor-"

"That wasn't your fault, mate," Joe smiled sadly, "There's no way you could've known."

"It was just bad timing," you stared at Joe's hand in yours, feeling him shaking as well.

No one spoke for a while after that; no one could think of the right thing to say. It seems you both had scared them all into silence (even more than Steve had). Everyone in the circle couldn't speak because they no longer saw you and Joe the same way. A minute ago, you were still Y/N and Joe. Now, you were mum and dad. The others didn't know how to speak to those strange new people just yet.

“Well, congratulations, for one thing,” Tony broke the silence with a soft smile. A few muffled chuckles and agreements went around the circle, but it wasn’t what you or Joe wanted to hear.

“No, no, that’s not the point,” you threw your hands out in frustration, “We never even planned on telling anyone today! Don’t you guys see how suddenly life can come and go? Twenty-four hours ago Joe and I didn’t even have a child, and now we do. Twenty-four hours ago, we didn’t even think that there was a possibility of you dying-“ you pointed at Steve, giving him your own furious input, “-and now there is. It’s just all so surreal, but no matter how bad the timing of your life is, there’s always time to fight for survival. And that's exactly what we need to get a grip on right now.”

Steve put out his cigarette at this point, looking as if he were genuinely listening to you now more than ever.

“And I guess timing was a real bitch to us today,” you put a hand on your abdomen for the first time since you found out, addressing Steve directly, “But I’d say now you’ve got a little bit more to fight for. Just think about this whole situation; it’s not exactly a tale to be proud of. If this story keeps getting worse, and this is how it ends for you- I don’t want that to be the story of Uncle Steve. I want our child to be born into a world where you're thriving- where they... where they actually have an Uncle Steve."

You had hit a nerve (or a soft spot, to say the least). Before you even realized exactly what you had said, everyone in the circle was crying, including you and Steve. Joe looked at you with his face smothered in tears, but smiling, no less.

The seven of you remained like that for a minute or two, absorbing what had really hit everyone hard, and quietly crying your brains out.

Steve didn’t raise his head to ask you with heartfelt astonishment, “...Uncle Steve, really?”

“C’mere, you fucking idiot,” you sprang to your feet at one point and rushed over to him, taking him in your arms as he stood to take you in his without the slightest bit of hesitation.

“I love you so much, Steve,” you sobbed into his chest, “And I will always care about you. You mean so much to me, and I know you’ll mean so much to the baby, too.”

One by one, everyone else in the circle joined in the hug, each of them murmuring their love to Steve in their own affectionate way. Once you were all broken up, Joe embraced you himself and kissed you over and over again.

“Hey, back off from her,” Mutt teased, “Haven’t you done enough?”

“I still can’t believe you knocked her up,” Phil sighed with happy disbelief, “That’s something we only ever joked about!”

“Yeah well, it doesn’t have to be seen as a joke anymore,” Joe put his hands on your hips and smiled, tearing up all over again, “I’m gonna be a dad...!”

Peter chimed in, “Now that’s a bit scary.”

“It’s not scary,” you chuckled, stroking the back of Joe’s head, “It’s exciting! Timing is a bitch... but I think I’m ready for anything time can throw at me, now.”

Reaching that point of acceptance was a day-long journey that you thought would never have a final destination. All was nearly well in that moment where you and Joe hugged with a seemingly-changed Steve standing by. Right then and there, the future seemed bright for everyone; including your unborn child. An eternity went by in those two days you were gone for, and even though the next day you found out that your test result was a false positive, and Steve only lived for about another year, that false positive seemed to be just what you all needed to keep the world at bay.

The end

[bookwrm99]

Salty and Sweet

Hi! So, I’ve never posted here on tumblr before.. being totally honest, I just made this account a couple months ago so I could read some *good fanfiction* (and I haven’t been disappointed). Just a heads up, the rest of this post is about a sensitive topic: anxiety and panic attacks. I don’t want to accidentally trigger anybody. :(

I’ve been having a really hard time in the past few weeks; there have been a lot of medical emergencies with my close family members in addition to some family drama. I love to write, though, so I’ve been using it as an outlet. I recently wrote a (decent?) Asra fanfiction that helped me to vent out a lot of my internal and external struggles, and I thought maybe posting it here would be a good idea, in case it helped somebody else going through a hard time too. It’s easy for me to forget that my anxiety is not a flaw, not to mention that I have a support system here for me when I do have my emotional breakdowns, and I have to be reminded of that a lot/need a lot of affirmation from my s/o and my close friends. Everybody deserves an Asra in their lives, someone who loves you for who you are and will always be there for you, in any capacity you need. This is not meant to be a one-size-fits-all anxiety; this is just a reflection of my own personal struggles, the physical symptoms I’ve been feeling lately and the fear I’ve been experiencing over my immediate family finding out about my social/generalized anxiety disorder. Please don’t take it as me saying “oh, this is what all people with anxiety experience”; everyone with anxiety experiences it in a different way. I imagine mine like a fingerprint: nobody else in the world experiences anxiety in quite the same way that I do. Sorry, the preface got a bit longer than intended. This fanfic is basically what I imagine Asra doing for an apprentice who experiences anxiety on the regular, primarily what would happen when they have their first panic attack in front of him. If you’re reading this and you experience anxiety, I want you to know that you are so incredibly strong for making it through each and every day with it and that I’m sending a lot of love your way. <3 Salty and Sweet- (tried to have it be a) GN apprentice x Asra Alnazar. 1.7k wc. TW: anxiety and panic attacks It took every ounce of willpower within you to remain behind the shop's counter, a customer-service smile plastered to your face. It had been growing all day: the need to hide, a tightness in your chest that brought tears to your eyes which you had to carefully hide and brush away, lest anyone catch on to the fact that something was not right. You felt too tightly wound, like you would snap any second, and the fear of breaking at an inopportune time simply added to the anxiety growing within you. You had no idea what caused you to feel this way: always on edge, the smallest blunder setting off a massive overreaction. It had been this way for as long as you could remember. In all actuality, “as long as you could remember” was only three years, but you suspected this had been a long-term problem based on the quantity of calming teas and herbal remedies your past self stashed in your private drawers. Asra was in the back of the shop with the last customer of the day, performing a tarot reading for them. You couldn't leave the counter unattended, so you straightened the wares within the glass case and behind the counter with incredible desperation. Anything to preoccupy yourself until you could escape to the privacy of the upstairs, where nobody could see you. How you had been able to hide it for so long, you weren't sure, but you felt somewhere deep in your gut that Asra suspected something wasn't quite right. He had never walked in on your episodes despite living together for so long, but sometimes when you had to make a quick getaway into a private space you could see the question in his eyes, the slight part of his lips as he thought about asking. You feared the day he found out about them, the way he would react, how he would think of you. Your heart ached at the thought and you shied away from the thought of his rejection, the thought of him thinking less of you for having such uncontrollable bouts of unprovoked fear. Apparently you had been able to hide it from him well in the time you had been together prior to your death; at least, you assumed so, because Asra never said anything to you about it. You silently prayed that today would not be the day he discovered the flaw in your design, though the weight on your chest was becoming more unbearable by the second and your composure nearly impossible to keep. Tears were flowing more freely now, and you did not trust yourself to speak, feeling the tightness from your chest spreading to your throat as well. You focused on taking slow, even breaths, counting from one to five with each breath of herb-laden air in and out. The lavender on the shelf behind you was doing nothing to calm you at this point, and you fought not to hyperventilate. You heard rustling in the back room, the sound alerting you to the end of the reading, and you quickly turned to face the wall behind you, busying yourself with straightening the wares for the fourth time in the past hour. You could hear the fabric of the curtain rustling behind you as it was drawn back, the footsteps of both Asra and the customer slowly approaching then passing where you stood. You dared not turn around, afraid of your own expression. Asra and the customer engaged in idle chitchat, slowly approaching the front entrance, opening the heavy wooden door. The cool summer night breeze blew in through the crack of the door, washing over you and stirring the fabrics and hanging herbs interspersed throughout the store. "Have a good night," Asra gently ended the conversation, following the customer out to extinguish the lantern and flip the "Open" sign to "Closed" before reentering the shop. "Well, that's it for today," Asra sighed, sounding tired. "You've had a long day too, (Y/N). Looks like your entire stock of echinacea is wiped out." You swallowed thickly, afraid of your own voice but not wanting to tip Asra off by not responding to his banter. "Yep." Your voice cracked at the end and your stomach dropped, the feeling in your chest overwhelming you as the rest of your panic hit you in a large wave. "(Y/N)?" Asra asked, worry evident in his voice. Gods. Why now? Your breathing was speeding up of its own accord, and your body began to shake uncontrollably. You felt gentle hands come out of nowhere to grab you by the shoulders and you jolted, like a wild animal cornered, causing Asra to freeze. "(Y/N), what's wrong? Please look at me." Your body froze in place, afraid to let him see you in your current state. Though Asra was loathe to touch you after how you responded the first time, his concern for you and the foreignness of the situation caused him to reach out and gently capture your chin, directing your gaze towards his face. His brows furrowed and the corners of his lips turned downwards as he saw the tears spilling from your eyes, and he slid his hand up your jaw to rest on your cheek, using his thumb to brush featherlight touches across your skin. Suddenly feeling lightheaded and dizzy, you abruptly grasped his wrist, feeling your legs buckling underneath you. Asra's eyes went wide, and he quickly stooped to wrap his other arm around you, catching you from your fall to gently lower you to the ground. "Shh, shh, I'm here." Asra murmured into your hair, sitting beside you and holding your shaking body close as you rode the wave of your panic. While the touch wasn't unwelcome, you hated to let him see you like this, and you dreaded the explanation you would have to give him for this sudden emotional breakdown. After what felt like hours, finally your breathing began to slow, the tightness in your chest ebbing away into a blissful numbness. With your tears slowing, Asra gently lifted your face to meet his, thumbs gently brushing away the tears lingering on your cheeks. Asra continued to gently hush you, resting his forehead against yours and looking deeply into your gaze with his beautiful purple eyes. "I'm here, my love." His voice was soft, like a caress, and though he didn't understand what was going on he was determined to provide you the support you needed. The two of you sat like that for a few minutes more, with Asra's fingers brushing away the salty tears from your face and his plush lips leaving sweet, gentle kisses to the hairline above your forehead. When you had calmed, Asra leaned back to look at you fully, the question dancing in his eyes and in the set of his mouth. "Should I make tea?" Though not the question you had expected, you nodded gratefully. Calming tea would do wonders for you in this moment. Asra slowly stood, bringing you with him, treating you as carefully as you would a newborn babe or precious china tea set. Leading you to the little table in the kitchen, he sat you down, then began bustling about, putting hot water on the stove to boil in the beat-up kettle and pulling your favorite tea to put in the teapot. While he worked, he silently glanced over at you on occasion, worry written all over his face. When the kettle began to hiss and scream, he pulled it off, pouring the boiling water into the waiting teapot to steep. Grabbing the nearest two teacups and rinsing them out, he brought them to the table along with the teapot, set between you on a thick, woven piece of cloth. "Are you alright to talk?" Asra asked cautiously, afraid to push but concerned about you. You looked down at your hands, taking a deep breath as your heartrate increased exponentially. "Yes," you started, then felt your throat close up as emotion began to overwhelm you again. "Please don't think less of me." "My love, I could never think less of you. You can tell me anything." Asra spoke with deep conviction, reaching across the table with his right hand extended towards you. You reach out and take it with your left, looking up at him with watery eyes. Then you spill over. You tell him everything, your constant bouts of panic, the self-remedies you found in your private drawers, the inevitability of an emotional breakdown every time the smallest social blunder occurs or deviation pops up to your carefully laid out plans. Asra listens to it all with patience and kindness in his eyes, though his brows are still drawn together in worry. You carefully sip your tea, afraid of Asra's reaction, despite the numerous displays of his support to the contrary. It was a worry you couldn't help. Asra smiled gently at you, raising your hand to his lips for a kiss. "I promise you that I will find you a more potent remedy. You should not have to go through life like that, my love, and I can't imagine how hard it is for you." His soft voice carried across the table to your waiting ears, and he took a sip from his own cup, finishing off his tea and setting it back down. "I will always be here to support you, (Y/N). I value the trust you have in me. I will never think less of you, especially not for something like this." Your eyes fill with grateful tears. His reaction was completely different from the one you had feared he would have, and you abruptly rise from the table, rounding it and throwing yourself into his lap, twining your arms around him and burying your face in the crook of his neck. "Thank you, Asra." You said, arms tightening. "I love you." "I love you too." The two of you sat still for a few minutes, enjoying each other's company, breathing in their scent. Then, slowly, your eyelids began to drift shut, Asra's heartbeat guiding you into a calm, dreamless sleep.

[phoxphyre]

10 Writing Questions Tag Game

Thank you @sbazzing and @vkelleyart for the tag! I’m loving reading everyone else’s answers. 

1. What’s your favorite genre to write?

Historical fantasy--I get really hooked on the research. I fell in love with history in school and then majored in Classics in college and have just...never emerged. I thought that might be different for fanfiction, but given that I’m now knee-deep in a regency AU...um, I guess not. 

For fanfiction, mostly AUs so far. I love canon desperately, but I think I’m too new to fanfiction to have developed the knack for finding “gaps” to fill with fic. Maybe it will come? 

2. Do you pull inspiration from real life, or do you pull things from other books/fan fiction you’ve read?

All of the above? The emotions are definitely drawn directly from my own experience, and my characters tend to have a lot of bits and pieces of myself and other people I know in real life. It’s hard for me to write something that feels “true” without putting myself into it. But the situations are all fantasy!

I saw a great interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda (one of my personal heroes) where he said that he has a lot of browser tabs open in his brain all the time. That rang true to me. I can only hope that I’m mashing all of those influences into something that feels new. In fanfiction in particular I’m still learning the norms around how much it’s okay to borrow from/be inspired by other people’s fics. 

3. Do you tend to write one-shots, short stories, or longer things?

Hahahahaha. *snort* I’m constitutionally unable to write short things. I was that person in school who had to cut literally pages from my papers, and then shrink the font size and narrow the margins. Even my short stories turn into novellas. My novellas turn into epics. My epics turn into...well, see answer 8 below. 

4) Do you prefer to write description or dialogue?

Dialogue! Internal monologue, too. Descriptions are harder for me and I end up having to go back and fill them in after the fact. 

One thing I love about writing for CO (versus my novel, which is based in a fantasy version of ancient Asia Minor) is that I get to write modern dialogue. Lord, how I have missed snappy dialogue. 

But then of course I have to go write a regency AU. Apparently I live to suffer.  

5) Favorite fic/book of all time?

Oh wow, it’s a long list. I reread a lot and there are a whole pile of books that are old friends at this point. Off the top of my head? 

Carry On and Wayward Son, obviously!

The Prydain Chronicles

The Blue Sword (and a lot of other Robin McKinley books)

Possession

Kushiel’s Dart

Tigana

Clockwork Angel

The Aubrey and Maturin books

The King Must Die

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

In Other Lands

I could go on...and on...

For fanfic: I’m new to the CO fandom and I’m still working my way through...well, pretty much everything! It’s a joy to read all of this for the first time. 

It’s way too hard to pick one favorite, but I have a special place in my heart for @vkelleyart‘s Light a Match Inside Your Heart, which is the first fic I ever read and pretty much the direct reason I’m here now.  

6) Favorite Trope?

Slow burn? Does that count? I have a soft spot for “romantic leads trapped in a conveniently private cave in the middle of a dangerous adventure.” Also time travel...I have grave doubts about being to pull it off myself, but it’s my favorite thing in the world when other people do it well. Looking at you, @sharkmartini. 

7) Are you the kind of person to work on more than one wip?

Three months ago I would have said I’m a strict one-project-at-a-time person, but fandom is already totally ruining that master plan! I have 2 Snowbaz WIPs plus my (sadly neglected) novel, and another fic poking around the edges of my brain. Two months ago I was worried that I would never have fic ideas. Whoops. 

I usually only actively write one thing at a time, though, partially because I don’t have time to do more, partially because I like to immerse myself in one story at a time, and partially because if I jump around too much I never finish anything (ask me how I know!). I usually only read one book at a time, too. 

8) How long have you been writing?

I’ve wanted to be a novelist for almost as long as I can remember. I wrote novels all through middle and high school, including an epic work called “Battle Maiden,” which I still have and which included the immortal line, “Why didst thou not tell me it was thy first time?” 

I’ve been working on my current novel off and on for almost 20 years (work, parenting and the rest of real life keeps getting in the way, but I love the story and characters). I’m on my third discrete draft and have high hopes for this one. I’ve been in the same writer’s group for years (which, fun fact, now includes two published novelists) and I’ve done something like 10 NaNoWriMos, mostly drafts of my novel but some other stuff for fun. Oh, and I write poetry in fits and bursts, but I almost never show it to anyone. 

I don’t think fanfiction existed when I was in school (the Web wasn’t a Thing until I was in college), but I wish it had. I’m pretty sure I would have gone deep. 

9) Do you tend to write more in the morning, afternoon, or evening?

Morning! I like to get up at 5am before anyone else is up and write over way too many cups of coffee. But with two young kids I’m trying to learn to snatch writing time where i can. 

10) Do you prefer to post and update your wip chapter by chapter or wait until it’s 100% complete before sharing it?

In theory, there are a lot of advantages to writing the whole thing first. In practice, I need the validation of posting as I go. I have my eternal novel for writing long internally consistent things that no one ever sees! I had a bad experience in a writing class in college and went for almost 20 years without showing anything to anyone, so I’m trying to unlearn that. Fandom is a way for me to practice sharing with other writers and artists. I’m so happy to have found you all! 

I’m so late to this that I feel like everyone has been tagged already. Trying to think of whose I haven’t seen yet. @sharkmartini? @krisrix? @warriorbeeofthesea? @knitbelove? 

[learned-foot]

I mean, ANYTHING you have fun thoughts about, but if you aren't sure, but I'd like to hear how you came up with the idea for Resilience, or just tell me what Peter's thought process was in Still Use Work. Ooh, and I liked how things escalated in And Again and Again -- how would that AU be if it was Tony in the time loop instead, do you think? ... you don't have to do all of this. :D

AHH. Okay, these are great questions, and you’re getting answer to all of them because I’m self indulgent like that :P

Still Use Work -- I thought about this a lot, actually. Because this entire premise is a little cracky, and really just an excuse for iddy porn, but I also wanted it to seem plausible to the characters despite that. That’s always my goal—this is fanfic, and a lot of what I write is tropey af, but I want it to be believable, too. And I felt like Still Use Work really pushed that boundary. That’s why I had Tony have so many moments where he acknowledged this whole premise is insane. It wasn’t meant as lampshading it, exactly, but I just didn’t think he would do this without a few “wait, WTF am I *doing*??” moments.

So, anyway, as for Peter. I don’t think the premise was entirely faked. He *had* tried hooking up with some people at college, and he *did* orgasm really easily. But what those hookups really did was convince him that no matter how hard he tried, the only person he really wanted to be with was Tony. That’s why he went to him: it was a roundabout attempt at seduction with a thin veer of plausibly-ish deniability.

I also think he was *pretty* confident Tony was interested before he even asked. He never would have, otherwise. But like…only *pretty* confident, you know? And as things progressed…well. On one hand, he’s smart enough to know Tony wouldn’t be doing this if he wasn’t interested, but OTOH, there was just a little bit of niggling doubt, because Tony kept it so strictly “professional.” You know the emotion where you have a huge crush on someone, and you’re *pretty* sure they have a crush on you, too, because they flirt, and they want to spend a lot of time with you, and all the signs are there…but then you question it, because they haven’t made a move to directly ask you out, or kiss you, or anything? And yeah, neither have you, but only because they haven’t, and roundabout you go, both not making the move? I feel like Peter was there the whole time. Like…Tony likes him. He KNOWS Tony likes him. He has to, he wouldn’t be doing this otherwise…except then, why won’t Tony just *say* that?

Which is why he is so ready to retreat back into his shell as soon as he thinks Tony is blowing him off. This is actually a dynamic I end up writing a lot, I think—Peter being *pretty* sure he’s reading Tony right, but ready to back off as soon as there’s even the slightest hint he’s wrong. We see him behave that way in FFH with MJ, and I think the tendency towards doubting what is right in front of his eyes would be magnified x100 with Tony, because no matter how obvious Tony’s feelings may be, there are so many reasons for Peter to doubt Tony would feel that way about him.

Thoughts on the other two below the cut.

Resilience is a fun example of why I like exchanges—because they can inspire me in completely unexpected ways. I’d been wanting to write something for downjune for a while because she wrote me the absolutely amazing The Leash. And while I knew I wasn’t going to be able to repay her anything nearly that long or involved, I wanted to do something, you know? And then I had a little extra time in the days leading up to Trick or Treat, so I decided to check out her prompts, and was drawn to two prompts: “came back wrong” and “sex to remain human.” It felt like those could combine in some way, but I wasn’t initially sure where I wanted to go with that at all.

I was also really, REALLY into Peter!whump at the time. I mean, I’m *always* into Peter!whump to some extent, but I feel like I go through thematic phases with my Starker writing. For instance, last spring/summer I was doing a lot of romance tropes—that’s when I did my “thinks it’s just a fling” duo of Under Someone Else and Expiration Date, plus whatever the fuck Breaking Point is. Around the time I wrote Resilience, I had just written Not So Bad, as long as it takes, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and was working on Feels Like Something and Far From Okay, so making Peter hurt was really on my brain. So I wanted to incorporate an element of that, too.

Because Trick or Treat is a Halloween exchange, my initial idea was to go more in the monster-y direction. I played around for a bit with the idea of Tony coming back vampire-like, with literally needing to suck Peter’s blood to stay alive/not go on a killing spree. But I feel like that’s a YMMV kind of thing, kink wise, and I wasn’t sure if downjune would like it. But that’s what got me onto the idea of Tony somehow needing something of Peter’s life force to stay human, or stay resurrected, or something along those lines, which turned to the idea of sex as restorative, which eventually kind of backed its way into the idea of “oooh, what if being around Tony is painful?” Because that way I could make Peter hurt and then make sex fix it!

And Again and Again—Great question! I think it would take a lot longer, honestly. I think Tony would be less likely to go to Peter for help, and instead think he could muscle through on his own, which would mean it would take him a lot longer to get to Strange and get an answer. Though maybe how it would happen was that at some point around month two he would have a breakdown and decide to go sweep Peter away from his internship for a day because he just wants to RELAX, and Peter helps him do that…

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Nightmare World

A Stitched Story

JSE Fanfic

WOW. OKAY, PRETTY SURE THIS IS MY LONGEST FIC EVER. INCOMING. FAIR WARNING. No, seriously, this came out really long. I haven’t compared it in length to others yet, but yeah. So here’s that warning for you. It’s just...this part had a lot of ground to cover and I’m pretty sure a lot of the impact would be lost if I split it up. So, you get extra-long story this time! Read all about how we finally get the good doctor back into action in this AU

Tagging @septic-dr-schneep for inspiring this AU with this post.

Read where it started: Stitched Together | Season One

Previous season two stories: No Strings on Me

Jack woke up to a piece of folded paper hitting him in the face. Actually, he’d already been sort of semi-awake, but the paper landing surprised him to full wakefulness. He opened his eyes and pushed away the paper to see JJ staring at him, already fully-dressed. He waved, then pointed at the paper and left, closing Jack’s bedroom door behind him.

With a sleepy sigh, Jack looked over at his clock. 12:30 pm. His sleep schedule had been messed up ever since he...got back. He didn’t want to fall asleep at night in the dark, so he stayed up way too late and slept in way too much. Chase also overslept now, but he actually went to bed super early. Trying to catch up on all the sleep hours he lost. Well, it wasn’t like either of them had any obligations anymore, since they still hadn’t gone back to their jobs. Technically, both of them were still missing persons cases. As much as Jack wanted for everything to go back to normal, he wasn’t sure how to explain to the police that he’d been kidnapped by a demon for a month until one of his friends somehow got magic, then the two of them proceeded to rescue their other friend from the demon’s control. So, they didn’t try at all.

Jack unfolded the piece of paper. There was a note written on it in JJ’s handwriting. Good morning Jack. I’m sorry for waking you up like this, but I believe I’ve found something important, specifically in regards to Henrik’s condition. If you would please get ready and meet Chase and I in the living room, that would be appreciated. ♡

When did he have time to find something? Probably while the other two were still sleeping, actually. Jack let his head hit the pillow with a soft thwump, taking a few deep breaths. He didn’t want to get up, but he supposed it had to be done. So he pushed into a sitting position and stood up, getting ready to start another day.

A shower, a change of clothes, and a bowl of cereal later, Jack walked into the apartment’s front room. Chase was already awake. That is, in the sense that his eyes were open and he was sitting on the couch. He looked still asleep otherwise, yawning and in pajamas. Jack noted that even though he otherwise wasn’t dressed, he was wearing his bandanna and wristbands. Understandable.

Jack sat down on the other side of the couch. Chase blinked at him. “G’mornin’,” he mumbled.

“It’s like one in the afternoon, but good morning Chase,” Jack said.

Chase nodded, not saying anything back. On an impulse, Jack closed his left eye, activating that weird sort of vision that he still hadn’t figured out. The world turned black and white, and he could see the yellow light inside Chase’s chest. It had...had these sort of grooves in it, ever since they managed to break the strings connecting him to Anti. But every day, they were getting less...angry. Jack wondered sometimes if this weird vision let him see people’s minds, but then wouldn’t the light be in the head? He was still working on several theories.

A sudden appearance of a blue light made Jack turn his attention to JJ, who’d just entered the room. His light was a bit different too. When he wasn’t using his new magic, little discs of the same color tended to float around the light. Jack shook himself, then opened his left eye again, letting normal sight return. JJ was holding one of the magic books they’d retrieved from the shop a month and a half ago. He also had a pad of paper and a pen. They’d been trying to teach Chase sign language, but it was slow going, so they stuck with pen and paper for now.

“Hey, James,” Jack said. “So...what’s all this about? You said you found something?”

JJ nodded eagerly. He flipped through the book, stopping at a page near the end. He put the open book down on the couch in between Jack and Chase, so they could both lean over and read it. The writing was small, and there were some strange pictures, but the entry title was large enough to read easily: The Nightmare.

“What’s this?” Chase’s eyes were wide.

JJ dropped the pad of paper on top of the entry, letting the other two read what he’d already written. I was scanning through this book this morning, and found it had a section on other worlds, that sort of orbit our own like a solar system. Apparently this one is known as The Nightmare. It’s a world where your own dark thoughts and fears shape the environment, making it, essentially, just like a bad nightmare. Just one you experience while you’re awake. It’s said that the physical body cannot access this world, only the soul. When the body is left behind it will be basically lifeless, and the entry describes ones who are stuck in the Nightmare as having “empty, dripping eyes.” It’s said that in the past, black magic magicians would send the souls of their enemies there. I don’t know about you, but to me these facts seem to fit what happened to Henrik.

Jack looked at Chase, noticing he’d suddenly paled. He pushed the note aside and scanned the entry really quick. His finger traced a sentence, which Jack followed along in reading. ‘Some magicians may use crystals or flat, reflective surfaces as windows into the Nightmare, in order to spy upon those they’d sent there.’ “I...I think you’re right.” Chase shuddered. “But if that’s the case, how do we get him back? Can—can we even...?”

“There has to be a way.” Jack looked at JJ, who was already writing.

The only way out of the Nightmare is to create an exit, he wrote. But we can’t make an opening on this side and wait for Henrik to come out. From this world, you can only make ENTRANCES to the Nightmare. Exits can only be made from within. It’s why the Nightmare is such an effective way to get rid of enemies, if cruel. Any openings are one-way.

“So...” Chase tucked his arms in close, pulling on his wristbands. “You’re saying...we’d have to go in and get him.”

JJ paused, then nodded slowly.

All the color drained from Jack’s face. “We...we have to go—go to a-a-a dimension that’s designed to—it makes all our bad dreams come to life.”

Not just bad dreams, but bad experiences and fears too. JJ looked back and forth between the two of Jack and Chase, both of whom were pale and trembling. You don’t have to. I’m the one with the ability to open the entrance and exit, I can go on my own.

“No.” Chase shook his head. “No, no, you can’t go on your own. Nobody should go on their own. I—I can come. And—and Henrik is in there, and it’s my fault—stop shaking your head, I know it isn’t really but I still feel like it is, and—and if I can reverse this, I’ll...I’ll feel better about it.”

Jameson stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded again. He looked over at Jack with a curious head tilt. Jack stared back. He should want to help Schneep. He did. But...if he thought about travelling to a place that would deliberately take him back to his worst memories, back to what he worst feared...”I’m sorry, I just—I can’t,” he whispered. He fought the urge to rub his right eye. He’d had it back for barely two weeks, just half the time he’d been without it. He was still getting re-used to it.

“That’s okay,” Chase said softly. “I get it. You don’t have to make yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack muttered.

“It’s okay, Jack,” Chase repeated. He hesitated for a moment, the reached over and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Even though it wasn’t a lot, Jack knew it was hard for Chase to even do that much. The gesture melted his heart a little.

“Alright,” Jack said shakily. “Alright.” He looked up at JJ. “When...when were you planning to do this?”

JJ took a moment to write. As soon as possible, honestly. Just enough for you to get ready.

“That seems like a good idea,” Chase nodded. “I think...if I think about it too long, I might start having doubts. Just let me get dressed and stuff. Do you need anything? To make the entrance?”

JJ shook his head. It’s a surprisingly simple spell material-wise. But it may expend a lot of energy.

“Okay.” Chase closed his eyes, folding his arms. “I guess we’re really doing this, huh? Better sooner than later. Let’s go.”

An hour later, they reconvened inside the apartment’s guest room, where Schneep was still stuck. Chase had taken to sleeping on the floor in this room. His makeshift bed, created from loose blankets and pillows, now had a matching twin next to it. Jameson had explained that while their souls were in the Nightmare their bodies would be unconscious, unresponsive. So Jack had set up a place for them to lie down, so that their bodies would be safe and out of the way. Now, he was sitting in the chair next to the bed, watching Chase and JJ get ready for their journey. He couldn’t quite believe this was happening. It was...so fast. “You...you’re both sure?”

JJ nodded, eyes full of determination. Chase took a deep breath. “Yeah...yeah I am.” He looked at JJ. “So...how do we start this?”

Jameson lay down, gesturing for Chase to do the same, which he did. JJ then took a steady breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly. Symbols flickered into existence above the two of them, drawn in blue light. They organized into circles, one above Jameson and one above Chase, written in concentric ripples that slowly revolved around the circles’ centers. Around the edges of each circle, four blue triangles started glowing, pointing toward the circle. Jameson and Chase began breathing slower. They stopped fidgeting and moving, becoming completely still. Eventually, the runic designs dissipated. Jack leaned closer. Glowing blue tears were dripping from underneath both of their eyelids.

“Please come back safe,” he muttered, knowing they couldn’t hear him. He laughed a bit. “I...kind of expected more to happen there, honestly. But I guess you’re not gonna disappear or anything...”

He looked back toward the bed. Schneep was as lifeless as ever. “All of you better come back,” Jack said. “I don’t...think I could handle this on my own.” He took a deep breath, pulling his feet up on to the chair and hugging his knees close. There was nothing to do now but wait. Wait...and hope.

Chase didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t need to. The sight before him fizzled into existence, the way a dream might come into being. He was standing on a flat expanse of black rock, its surface littered with patches of black gravel, pebbles, and chunks of stone. It extended as far as the eye could see. There was no sky above, simply gray. Chase spun around. He couldn’t see anything, not until he made a full turn and saw Jameson fading into being, like a ghost. Also similar to a ghost, he didn’t quite look solid. Instead, he was slightly transparent. JJ looked around, stopping when he saw Chase. He gave him a wave.

“So this is it, huh?” Chase asked.

{I think it has to be.}

Chase yelped, stumbling away. “What just—did you hear that?”

JJ’s eyes widened. He looked frantically around. {I didn’t hear anything, is this something that just Chase can hear, or is my hearing going? Oh, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Already lost one way to communicate with people, let’s take the rest away.}

“Wait...” Chase blinked. “Wait, JJ. I think...I think I can hear you.”

{What? No, that’s not possible, he can’t be hearing me. Unless he’s picking up on my thoughts?}

“I think I am picking up on your thoughts, dude!” Chase’s words were all the confirmation JJ needed, whose eyes widened. “Look, this place...we’re not in our bodies right now, right? So I guess we’re able to communicate mind-to-mind.” Chase went silent for a second. He wanted to try...{So maybe I don’t even need to talk either?}

{Oh my god.} Jameson took a few steps back, hand clasping over his mouth in shock. {Oh my god, you can hear me. I can hear you. But wait!} He stopped. {If we’re not in our bodies right now, then...what are these?} He indicated himself, and Chase. {They look like us, but maybe they’re merely projections?}

“Maybe,” Chase shrugged. “Hey, in, like, movies and shit like this, the people are able to change their outfits and appearance. Do you think that...?” He looked down at his projected body. It looked just like him, wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing before entering the Nightmare, bandanna and wristbands included. It certainly felt real. He could feel the texture of his clothes against his skin. And he could feel the...maybe he could...change that? Get rid of them? But when he concentrated, wishing with all his might, his appearance stayed the same. {Oh...I guess...I’m stuck like this then.}

{This is the Nightmare, Chase.} Chase jumped, not realizing he’d somehow projected his disappointment. JJ was giving him a sympathetic look. {It’s not going to make life better for us. In fact, it’s probably going out of its way to make sure we’re not comfortable.}

“...yeah. That makes sense,” Chase sighed. “I just...got my hopes up.” He adjusted his bandanna. “So anyway. How are we gonna find the doc in here? I don’t want to be stuck here for longer than we have to be.”

{I’m not quite sure. Maybe I could try a tracking spell? I don’t know if it will work in here, but it’s better than nothing.}

“Yeah, you do that.” While Jameson closed his eyes and started concentrating on the tracking spell, Chase looked around. “Is...is it just me, or does this place look different now?”

There were trees now. Twisted, messed up trees with white or black bark. The ground was shooting out black grass and undergrowth was slowly growing into existence. The “sky” above was now shot through with squares of black and white, like—like static. And everything was eerily silent.

Jameson looked around. {The Nightmare is shaped by its inhabitants. It’s taking our memories and fears and creating a bad dream, if you will.}

“I’m not scared of a forest,” Chase muttered. “What about you?”

{They...make me a little...uneasy, yes. Deep dark forests, where all you can see are trees...and it looks like the Nightmare knows that.} More trees were popping up, closer and closer together. {Oh! Wait, I got it, it’s working!} The tracking spell had spun into being, a blue disc. It hovered in the air before setting off in a direction, a little faster than walking speed. {Come on, we can’t lose it!} JJ set off after it indicating for Chase to follow.

The monochrome forest was in full effect now, the trees so close that Chase and JJ could barely walk next to each other. Their white branches stretched high, lacing through each other to form a lattice that blocked out most of the sky above (which was now definitely static). Undergrowth reached up and grabbed at their legs, causing them to trip and stumble. When Chase tried to touch one of the tree trunks, the bark peeled and distorted, almost glitching. His hand started to sink into the tree and he barely managed to pull it out. JJ found he was walking much closer to Chase than the rules of personal space would dictate, but he didn’t care. His eyes darted around. It was getting dark beneath the trees.

“Where’s this thing even going?” Chase asked.

JJ shrugged. {Hell if I know. Last time I used it, I just followed it and it worked.}

“Wait, did you just say ‘hell’?” A smile quirked at the edge of Chase’s mouth. “I thought you didn’t swear.”

{...oh.} JJ looked faintly embarrassed. {Well, I don’t say the words, or didn’t, rather, but sometimes it’s hard not to think them, being surrounded by people who swear regularly.}

“I am so telling Jack about th—”

Crack!

The ground broke apart, chunks of black rocks falling away like something from a disaster movie. Below, there was nothing but an endless void. At the bottom there was static, just like the sky. Chase shouted, jumping away from the crack and into JJ, who stumbled with the surprise heaviness of having to catch him. Apparently weight was still a factor in the Nightmare.

There was only a moment of respite. After the first crack, more followed, sinkholes opening up, chunks of the forest falling away. Behind them, the ground collapsed, trees and their roots flailing into oblivion. {Run!} JJ screamed. Chase didn’t hesitate to follow his advice. All around them, the world was breaking apart, everything was crumbling and falling—

—until there was only chunks left.

It looked like they were standing on top of spires, which were anchored in the void. The ground was still black stone, with the occasional stubborn tree clinging to its pebbly surface. A few rocks floated freely in the air, like stepping stones across the sea of static. Not too far away, maybe half the length of a football field, the solid ground resumed, more endless black stone, forming rolling hills covered in long black grass.

“Oh fuck,” Chase whispered. Despite himself, he leaned over the edge, immediately backing up. “Oh fuck.”

{Afraid of heights, then?} JJ asked.

“Yeah. I didn’t think it was that bad, though.”

{Well, I hate to tell you this, but we’re going to have to keep moving.} JJ pointed. The tracker spell had been unaffected by the change of environment, and was keeping its steady pace toward the solid ground.

“I...okay.” Chase tried to move, but found someone had glued his feet to the ground. He looked at the floating stepping stones, the only way to get off their current spire and on the way toward following the tracking spell, and a paralyzing fear coursed through him.

{It’s going to be fine, Chase,} Jameson said reassuringly. {If it helps, get on your hands and knees and just crawl over the gaps.}

“Right. Right.” Slowly, Chase lowered himself to the ground, feeling a bit more steady now. “Just...take this one step at a time. No shame. Just go.”

Somehow, they managed to climb over the stepping stones and spires and back onto solid ground, whereupon Chase collapsed in the shin-length black grass. “I am...never doing that...ever again,” he said. “No more heights. Not even Ferris wheels. No more. I’m staying on the ground.”

{But you made it, at least,} JJ said encouragingly.

“Barely. Fuck. How are you so calm?”

{I just...have to focus on the bigger picture. It’s calming.} JJ scanned the area around them. {We were a little slow. The tracker’s far ahead of us. Do you feel up to walking?}

“Y-yeah, just...” Chase pushed to his feet, his legs a bit shaky. “Where’s the thing?”

{Just going over the next hill. Come on.}

They had just about reached the top of the hill when they heard the scream.

For a moment, they froze, looking at each other with wide, terror-filled eyes. They knew that scream. In unison, they burst into a run, cresting the hill and staring down into a slight valley caused by a dip between the hills.

The first thing they noticed was the beast. It looked something like a bear, but with a wolf’s head that had snake’s fangs in the mouth. Its fur was odd, mostly white, but every so often black interference and distortions would run across its body, and sometimes it would become just a static silhouette. It was running, black eyes locked onto its target that was sprinting across the valley. Said target was a man, with brown hair. Even though he was running as fast as he could, and even though the beast was half the valley’s length behind, it was easily closing the distance between the two of them.

“No!” Chase didn’t even think, just went, gravity lending him aid in his mad dash down the hill. His feet flew across the ground, and despite the long grass’s best efforts, he was not slowed.

He was only a few feet away when the beast finally caught up to its target, pouncing on the poor man and dragging him down with another scream. It roared in triumph, raising a paw that was covered in three-inch claws for the final swipe.

A blue circle came out of nowhere, slamming into the beast’s side with such force that it was actually knocked over. Lines of blue light dug into its hide, but it just roared, trying to make its way back to its prey. And so two more circles followed, piercing the beast, until with one final roar it collapsed.

Chase looked over his shoulder to see JJ not too far behind him, hand extended forward. His expression was one of complete and utter shock. Apparently he didn’t know he could do that. “Bro, that was badass,” Chase muttered. “Keep that in mind for the future.” He turned back around, covering the rest of the distance in a second. The beast’s target was still lying in the tall grass, arms flung over his face as if to protect it. Chase hesitated, then called, “Doc? Schneep?”

Schneep didn’t look much different that he had when he’d last seen him. After all, this wasn’t actually his real body, just a projection of his soul. It wouldn’t mimic any changes that happened in the real world. He was wearing the same clothes from before, and even his glasses. When he lowered his arms and looked around, Chase saw that his eyes were normal, blue, in this world. Eventually, those eyes noticed Chase staring, and locked on to him.

“Hey...” Chase said softly. “Schneep? Henrik?”

“Nicht wieder.”

Chase hadn’t known what he’d been expecting, but not that. Schneep was backing away from him, moving steadily backwards through the tall grass while never taking his eyes away. Chase blinked. “Doc...? Are you okay?”

“Nicht wieder.” Schneep shook his head. “Nicht wieder!” He suddenly picked up the pace, scrambling backwards in order to get as far away as possible from Chase.

“Henrik, it’s okay, it’s me!” Chase said, desperately trying to calm him down. He reached towards him, but Schneep just flinched away. “We’re here to get you out of this place.”

“Keine Tricks mehr!” Schneep shouted. “Halt dich von mir fern!” He backed away just a bit more, and suddenly the ground crumbled, stone turning into something more like sand. He sank right through it with an expression of surprise...and fear.

“Henrik!” Chase surged forward, but he was too late. The ground had re-solidified, and now there was a patch of blank stone in the field of grass. Chase could only stare at the spot, completely empty. He’d just found him, and then he lost him again. And he hadn’t even wanted to see him. In fact, he’d been afraid of him. What had he been saying? Chase had never really been one for languages. Wasn’t “nicht” something like “not”? Everything else had been too fast for him to pick up or recognize.

{Chase? Are...are you alright?}

He’d almost forgotten JJ was there. {I...don’t know,} he admitted, somehow not being able to say the words out loud.

{It’s...it’s going to be okay.} JJ forced some optimism into his mental voice. {You can’t die inside the Nightmare, so we can just use the tracking spell to find him again.}

“Well. After we used the spell the first time we ran into a creepy forest, an earthquake, and the stepping stones of doom.” Chase stared up at the static-filled sky. “Those are some high odds against us.”

{Well...} JJ frowned, then brightened with an idea. {Oh! So, this place takes our worst fears and turns them against us. Maybe if we tell each other what we’re afraid of, we’ll have a better chance of predicting what’ll happen next.}

“Maybe.” Chase shrugged.

{I’m going to start the spell again now.} The circling blue light began to gather again. {I do wonder what the deal was with that beast, you know.}

“Schneep’s afraid of wild animals,” Chase explained. “Anything with claws and teeth that isn’t a pet, or sometimes even is.”

{See, that’s the thing about fears. I bet that beast wouldn’t even exist if Henrik wasn’t afraid of animals like that. Tracking spell is up again.} The disc started off, slower this time. {It must not be too far, if the spell is this slow. Come on.}

They followed it through the field of grass, going up a hill and down another before the ground leveled out. “So. Fears, huh?” Chase said. “I...well, you saw I’m not a fan of heights. Also not the best with thunderstorms. You?”

{They all seem rather childish,} JJ mused. {I’m not a fan of the dark, or of blood, and, well, after March I developed a fear of needles.}

“That’s reasonable.” Chase nodded. “I...I don’t like eyes anymore. Like, the idea of being watch—” He stopped. Not only stopping his sentence but freezing in place. He looked around. “I could’ve sworn something was...” He shook it off. “Never mind.”

{What was it?} JJ asked.

“Nothing, I just...I thought—” He felt it again. This time he spun around wildly, looking for anything in the area that could have caused it. “I...it’s nothing. It—it has to be nothing.”

{What’s nothing?} The concern in Jameson’s voice was evident.

“It—it feels like something is—” Chase stumbled to the side with the force of the next pull. “What the fuck?!”  He looked down at his hands. The string. The length of green string had somehow slipped out from under the wristband on his right hand. And one of the blades of tall grass had wrapped around it, not in a way that could be explained as an accident. He stared at the grass as it pulled.

“No! Let go of me!” He yanked his wrist backwards, only to fall forwards, nearly toppling over, when the grass responded with a yank of stronger force. He gritted his teeth, doing his best to take deep breaths. His heart was pounding, remembering. No, this wasn’t the same thing. He wasn’t going to let it happen again. He grabbed the loose string with his other hand, trying to wrench it away. But the grass renewed its efforts, other blades joining in, twisting around the string and pulling down. “JJ! Help!” His voice broke.

Once Jameson realized what was happening he immediately jumped in, grabbing Chase’s arm and helping in this demented tug-of-war. But it wasn’t enough. The grass was creeping up the string, until suddenly it hopped over to Chase’s other wrist, digging beneath the band until it pulled out the other loose end and started tugging on that one too.

“It’s not enough!” Chase gasped. He blinked away the water in his eyes, he needed to see right now. He planted his feet firmly against the ground, but then he felt something wrap around his ankles. He looked down. It wasn’t the grass doing that. The ground had grown hands, and they were pinning him in place. “Stop it!” he shrieked, trying and failing to shake them off. “Jameson, please! Help!”

Jameson tried again, this time aiming to grab the strings away. But his hands passed right through them. His eyes widened, and he tried to pull Chase’s arms away, only to pass right through them as well. What was happening? He tried to mentally reach out to Chase, to explain, but Chase showed no reaction. He was just staring at him with tears in his eyes, wondering why he wasn’t doing anything to help him in his struggle. Jameson froze, paralyzed for a split second before reaching out towards Chase, his hands passing right through. He couldn’t—he couldn’t do anything. He could never do anything.

With a yelp, Chase was pulled forward, landing on his hands and knees among the grass. More hands sprouted out from the ground, grabbing his arms, making his skin crawl. “Stop! Stop it! Please!” They were a lot stronger than him. One reached up and pulled his bandanna off, wrapping around his neck, in an almost gentle manner. The tears were flowing freely now. “Jameson—anyone! Help!” Chase gasped.

He was trying, he really was. But every time Jameson tried to pry the hands away, or drag Chase away from him, he slipped right through, like he wasn’t even there. All he could do was watch. No, no there had to be another way. There had to be something he could do besides just reach out and try and slip and fail, he had to do something, he had to do something—

There was a burst of blue light. It radiated outward in a series of concentric circles, each wave breaking apart the black grass and the black stone. It didn’t last more than a few seconds, but when it was over, JJ and Chase were in the middle of a blank circle of black rock, the air around them shimmering with particles of blue. Chase was laying on the ground, curled up and shuddering with tears. JJ was still standing, though he quickly knelt by his friend’s side. He hesitated for a split second, then placed a hand on Chase’s shoulder. Chase quickly flinched away, and JJ yanked his hand back, but a wave of relief crashed through him anyway. Whatever had happened must have ended. {Chase...?} JJ called. {Chase, I’m here. It’s over now.}

“It’s over now,” Chase repeated. “It’s over now. It’s over now.” After a few moments, Chase sat up. He picked up his bandanna from where it had fallen and retied it around his neck. He tucked the loose strings back under the wristbands. “That...I...I can see why this place is the Nightmare. I didn’t...”

{Didn’t even think about that,} JJ finished. {Me neither. I suppose I was thinking rather...shallowly, when I thought about worst fears.}

Chase wiped his eyes. “We gotta get Schneep out of here. He’s been here for...what, three and a half months? Fuck, dude. We have to.”

{I lost the tracking spell.} JJ looked around. The disc was nowhere in sight. {I can make another one, but...}

“How did you do that, though?” Chase asked. JJ looked confused, so he continued. “That thing, right there. You, like, stopped everything.”

{I...don’t know.} JJ stared into the static sky. {It was just...something that happened, when I thought about how much I should be doing to help you. That seems to be how this new magic of mine works. Its primary concern is to help others, specifically those I consider my friends.}

“Well, that’s cool, I guess.” Chase shrugged.

{If I’m going to have a magic geared toward a single purpose, there are worse purposes to aspire to.}

“But...okay, if that’s how it works...” Chase bit his lip as he thought. “Could you...maybe find some way to, like, teleport us to where Schneep is? Instead of having to walk across this hellscape?”

JJ blinked. {Maybe...} He closed his eyes. It couldn’t be too hard. That’s what his magic is for, after all. And if they could find the doctor instantly, they could help him easier. JJ took a deep breath, placing his hands flat on the rocky surface of the ground. Almost instantly, circles began pulsing blue around them, gently spreading color through the stony landscape. The two of them felt the ground shift, and then it gave way. They fell for who knows how long, but eventually they landed on a hard surface with an oof-inducing thump.

Chase stood up first, taking in their new surroundings. They were...uncomfortably familiar. A long hallway of black walls, red lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling providing the only illumination. The sound of static crackled through the air. It looked and felt like an simpler version of the halls in Anti’s lair. Chase shuddered. At least this one didn’t have eyes.

JJ clambered to his feet. {Well. Where to now?}

“Well. Left or right?”

{The static is coming from the right.}

“That way, then.” If this place mimicked fears and bad memories, then there was nothing that fell into those categories better than Anti. And static was a side effect of him, so it seemed like a safe bet.

But as the two of them walked toward the static, they began hearing more than just the white noise. There were...voices. In the static. They sounded angry, and...familiar. Eventually, the hallway opened up into a dead-end square room. Chase and JJ stopped in the doorway, processing the sight before them.

Schneep was in the center of the room, on his knees. He was bent over, and his arms were wrapped around his head, hands pressed to his ears. Around him were vague static silhouettes, the shape of a human. Sometimes they’d flicker and become an actual person. The static in the room was deafening, but it couldn’t drown out the angry voices, each of which came from one of the silhouettes.

“D͏i̸e̸!͡”

“Di̡e ̵i̧n͢ a̵ fir͞e!”

“Yóu'́r̡e ̸w̧e̴ak.”

“Y̵ou'́r̴e a ͟f̡ai̴l̡u̷re̵!̕”

“All ̶y̧ou͠ do is h̷u̧r̀t͡ p̶ȩople̛!”

“Es tut mir Leid.” Schneep sounded like he was sobbing. “Es tut mir Leid!”

{Chase...} JJ said hesitantly. {That’s your voice.}

Chase nodded slowly, listening to the silhouettes—which, he now recognized, were him, if he’d been filled with static.

“Dr͝ow͏n ̶an͠d̨ d̵ię!̨”

“L̶ia͡r.”

“T̴r͢ait̵o̸r̨.”

“M͞uŕd̀e̸r̛e̕r̵.”

“Es tut mir Leid, es tut mir Leid!” Schneep wailed. “Bitte vergib mir!”

{I don’t understand. What’s—}

“He shot me,” Chase remembered.

{He what?!}

“It—it was Anti’s plan,” Chase explained. “Anti can’t go after people unless they’re mentally weak. And he thought Schneep was pretty mentally strong, so he thought...that the best way to get inside his head was to make him feel guilty. Like...like if he shot one of his best friends. So, he made a plan to trick him into doing that.” Chase fell silent. “I think he thinks he killed me.”

JJ looked absolutely stunned at this news. {I...I didn’t know.}

“Of course you didn’t.”

{Why didn’t you tell Jack and I?}

“Because...I don’t know.” Chase closed his eyes. “Because this is why I think it’s all my fault, and you’re both so insistent on saying it’s not that it would feel...it would feel like a ‘ha, so there’ moment. Then you would instantly try to say it’s not, and it would feel...hollow. Like you’re reassuring a kid.”

{Chase.} Jameson’s tone made Chase open his eyes again. {Our reassurances are not hollow platitudes. It was Anti’s plan. And he used you for it. It. Is. Not. Your. Fault. But...I can see how you can think it was. So, in that case, if you wish to make everything right...} Two blue circles spun out of nowhere. {Then I think doing something like this will do just that.}

Chase stared at him. Then his eyes hardened. “Well, then. You’re gonna do the stop-everything thing?” JJ nodded. “Then do it.”

Jameson turned away from Chase and back toward the room. The circles grew in brightness, lines of runes shooting outward. Then they flew forward, bursting and filling the room with blue light. When the light faded, the silhouettes were gone, and so was the static. Schneep was left in the same position as before, slightly rocking a bit.

Chase ran into the room, JJ right behind. The two of them knelt next to Schneep, who had his eyes shut tight. Chase hesitated for a moment. He didn’t want to say anything, that would no doubt have a negative reaction after what just happened. So instead, he slowly reached out and wrapped one arm around Schneep. The contact made him bite back a crawling, itching wave of discomfort, but fuck it. He could handle a minute for his friend.

It seemed to work. Schneep relaxed, if only a little bit. He slowly blinked open his eyes, though he didn’t take his hands away from his ears. The first thing he saw was JJ, sitting next to him. JJ gave a little wave, a flutter of the fingers. He didn’t say anything either, maybe because Schneep would’ve freaked out at hearing a voice in his head.

Schneep tilted his head, eyes narrow. Wary, suspecting a trick. He realized that someone must’ve been holding him, and craned his head backwards. Upon seeing it was Chase, his eyes widened. His mouth opened, but nothing came out except for a strangled squeak.

“It’s fine,” Chase murmured. “It’s fine.” And he didn’t say anything else.

After a tense moment, Schneep seemed to realize Chase wasn’t going to shout at him like the silhouettes had. He slowly removed his hands from his ears, still bracing for a sudden attack. Still nothing. “Es tut mir Leid,” Schneep muttered.

Chase knew that one. He was pretty sure it meant something like ‘I’m sorry.’ “It’s okay,” he said. “I forgive you.” Because that was what Schneep needed to hear. Even if what had happened had all been a trick, he still felt guilty for it. So, it was time to ease that just a bit.

Schneep crumpled. He leaned against Chase, burrowing his face in his shirt. Chase didn’t move. He was afraid that if he did, his screaming instincts would take over and he would push Schneep away. And nobody wanted that right now.

After a few moments, Schneep pulled back. “We’re going to take you home,” Chase said. “Are you ready to go home?”

Tears instantly welled up in Schneep’s eyes. He nodded.

“Alright, then. JJ? You ready?”

Jameson nodded. He lay down on the floor, and Chase and Schneep followed his lead. A similar runic design from making the entrance appeared above each of them, though now the runes were different, and the triangles pointed outward. There was a flash of blue light, and the Nightmare was empty.

They’d entered the Nightmare at a little after two in the afternoon. It was now approaching six, and Jack still hadn’t moved. Well, he’d gotten a snack and grabbed his phone, but that was the only time. He was afraid that if he wasn’t there, something could happen to them. He didn’t know what, but when dealing with Anti anything was possible.

He was starting to worry, but then the blue light appeared. At first a gentle glow, outlining all of their bodies. Followed by an increase in intensity, then a flash. Chase flew into a sitting position, gasping. He took a few deep, shuddery breaths, then grabbed the nearest blanket and wrapped it around him. JJ sat up a bit slower, shaking his head. He brushed away the remains of the blue tears that had appeared when they’d entered the Nightmare. He looked at them curiously, then shrugged.

“You’re back!” Jack gasped. “What happened? Did you...?”

A small sound, halfway between a whimper and a groan, came from the bed. Jack stiffened, then spun around in the chair. Schneep was blinking his eyes. The static was gone, it was just regular blue, and he was blinking. His hand came up, slowly, trembling, and wiped away the last of the static tears. Unlike Chase and JJ, they’d left a permanent mark. There was now scarred lines, mimicking the shape of tears, following the path the static had taken. But he was—he was awake.

“Hen?” Jack asked, almost scared to say anything. “H-Henrik?”

Schneep’s head rolled towards him. “...Jack?” His voice was hoarse and rough, but he’d said something.

“Henrik!” Jack grabbed Schneep’s hand in excitement. “You’re back! Oh thank fucking god, you’re back! Oh my god!” A massive weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. Breathing was a bit easier now.

“Jack.” Schneep squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them wide again. “Something is wrong. Something is wrong.”

Jack’s smile faded a bit. “What’s wrong?”

“I cannot—I cannot see you.”

His heart stopped. Jack could only gape for a moment. He looked back at JJ and Chase, still sitting on the floor, but they looked as shocked as he was. “You...you can’t?” Jack asked. “Can you...see anything at all?”

Schneep hesitated for a moment. “Statisch.”

You didn’t have to know German to figure out what that meant. “And that’s—that’s all you can see?”

Schneep nodded. “It is everywhere.” His eyes were moving, rapidly darting back and forth and up and down. “I cannot—I can hear, I can feel, but I cannot—where am I?”

“You’re in my apartment,” Jack said. “Do you...do you know what happened?”

“Chase—”

“I’m right here,” Chase piped up. He climbed to his feet, walking over to stand next to Jack. “You missed an epic rescue mission.”

Schneep laughed hoarsely. “I can tell, I can tell, your voice is back. You are...” The small smile he’d gained dropped away again. “Chase, I had—I had very strange dreams. I am—I’m sorry.”

“They weren’t dreams,” Chase said sadly. “It’s...a long story. Maybe JJ can write out an explanation and we’ll read it to you. He’s a lot better at explaining things. And I told you I forgave you, didn’t I?”

Schneep’s eyes got watery at that. “Thank you,” he whispered. Then, after a moment of silence, he started to move. “I need to sit up.”

“I don’t think you can, dude,” Jack said. “You haven’t really moved in, like, four months.”

“Four—?!” Schneep choked. “What happened? Did my muscles, did they waste away?”

“No, don’t worry, we all took care of that,” Jack said reassuringly. “Mostly JJ. Speaking of which...” Jack turned around. “Stop sitting on the floor and get over here! This is a tender moment you need to be a part of!”

JJ chuckled at that, standing up. He walked over to the other side of the bed and grabbed Schneep’s other hand, giving it a tight squeeze.

Schneep closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “There is nothing here,” he muttered. “And that is good.” He opened his eyes again, though he might as well have kept them shut. “What happened while I was asleep?”

Jack grinned. “Well. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

[theawkwardterrier]

2018 fic roundup

Buffyverse

well tell her that I miss our little talks So Hurry Up and Lose Me, Hurry Up and Find Me (Again) Here We Are, Trapped (But Is It a Trap If I'm With You?) To All Our Histories Which Haven't Yet Happened

MCU

But A Walking Shadow Out of the Frying Pan Hand in Hand, Side by Side to walk to where you are sleeping To The Neighborhood Oh, But Aren't You Already My Darling? By Those Who Show Up Stitch Together In Spirit of the Season Childhood Friends

Veronica Mars

not just about being new (it’s about a change)

1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?:

Still not predicting, but probably around the predictable amount? I've gotten a little longer, I think, but I'm writing fewer stories overall, and I've really fallen into a few specific fandom categories - haven't added a new one in a while.

2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:

Dick/OC. Dick/anyone was a surprise. I'm generally frustrated and uninterested in Dick, so taking him on as a main character - when typically he's been a side role in my fic at best - is unexpected. I was just really drawn to the prompt.

3. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?

I'm really proud of To The Neighborhood. I like the POV, I think the character flowed well, it has a particular tone throughout, and everything is built using small details without info dumps. And I'm always a big fan of domesticity too - sweet, settled life is always a joy for me to write!

4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

It's weird to say at this point, but I think I've been playing around with AUs a little too much. Here We Are, Trapped (But Is It a Trap If I'm With You?) and Hand in Hand, Side by Side are really prime examples of this: they aren't just timeline changes or ways of placing the characters in similar roles in non supernatural settings, they are way, way big and entire AUs. I really like them conceptually - ya girl loves a good (or not good!) romcom - but they are really quite out of the ordinary. I guess I learned that I kinda don't care - I wrote it because I liked it, and I had fun with it!

5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Nah. I finished my Woman Borne sequel, which was the goal I had set at the beginning of last year, and I'm probably just going to resign my work on my too ambitious Chase/Cameron fic, so I'm good.

6. From my past year of writing, what was…

Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:

But A Walking Shadow. I'm not afraid to say how sad I am about this. I'm really, intensely proud of this story: the writing is good, the characters are good, it's lengthy (for me), it's chapter fic, it's part of a universe I've already worked on, there's action instead of just Emotional Talking - it felt like I did everything right, and it still didn't make a difference.

Most Fun:

Hand in Hand, Side by Side probably - I like Steve/Peggy and a Virtue/Moir AU for them was a blast to write. But I actually had a lot of fun with a bunch of them!

Most Disappointing:

By Those Who Show Up is a little too liberal wonky - too much political talk, not quite enough emotional buildup. To All Our Histories Which Haven't Yet Happened is also a little exhausting and repetitive in concept and would have probably been better if there were more substance between the little stories, but I really like the title, so that helps it out.

Most Sexy:

Steve and Peggy end up in a bed and kiss there in Oh, But Aren't You Already My Darling? so ha ha ha, that is extremely sexy!

Hardest to Write:

They kinda ended up in either the "it took four days from beginning to final edit" category, or the "I'm afraid I might just be writing this for the next several years" one this time around. I took a lot of care with But A Walking Shadow, and I stopped writing Childhood Friends for a while to work on other stuff and there was a point where I couldn't make In Spirit of the Season not incredibly depressing and a piece of Peggy character assassination, but most of my Buffy fics were like this (well tell her that I miss our little talks was the exception - that's why it's listed as posted like three weeks before the rest of them).

Most Unintentionally Telling:

As I was writing In Spirit of the Season, I literally said aloud, "I think I might have something weird going on internally with motherhood."

Choice Lines:

From But A Walking Shadow:

The force of her fingers, the directness of her gaze: for a moment he fears that she is about to kiss his mouth with the desperate confidence he’d felt before he’d boarded Schmidt’s plane. But instead, she leans up and presses her lips beneath his ear. He shivers; he always does, there, and she knows that.

He just can’t think of the noise and the flames, the collapse, when his mind and heart and guts weigh so human inside him.

The anger is worn and so tired inside of him.

"I don’t want to kill you,” says the man, pushing the words out. The soldier's arm, built to last, built to kill, shakes at the thought that he will die gasping. “And I don’t want to die. And I can’t bring you to meet my family like this.” His frame trembles. His eyes are magnified, wide as the stars.

There is such future and fragility in yet.

He remembers the way she fit in two hands the first time he held her, how she sometimes trips downstairs and curls up sleepily in his lap when he comes back from a run early in the morning. He loves her so much. Finally, he hugs her. “Have a good day, sweetheart,” he says, and lets her go.

From to walk to where you are sleeping:

“Enough is enough,” she tells herself most mornings, when she wakes up gritty-eyed and already teary from dreaming. “Enough is enough,” when she wants to tell Steve about her day, when she spots hair like his from the corner of her eye, when she has another lonely cup of tea at her table, when she wants just a bit of his optimism to drive her onward. “It was two years out of more than twenty, it is time to be done with mourning, enough is enough.” And then one night she opens her eyes into the darkness of her bedroom and tells herself, “Enough.”

He is here, he is here: what fragile and disturbing joy.

She watched so many good people die - not just Steve, not just her brother, but the boys who came from her home village, and the sweet air force pilot she’d kissed on the New Year of 1940, and the lady who’d sold ice cream through the Blitz and been suffocated by an improperly constructed Anderson shelter - and perhaps she doesn’t have to turn her grief out of doors and lock herself up.

From To The Neighborhood:

For a moment, she regrets not having one of those emergency call buttons that her daughter Joan (Dr. Oglethorpe hasn’t been allowed to call her Joanie in years) recommends when she makes her monthly call from Columbus, or at least a cellular phone.

From Oh, But Aren't You Already My Darling?:

Steve rests his hands on her wrists, so gentle, and she wants to cry. “Peg,” he says quietly, “can you maybe track me down a pair of pants? I know my legs aren’t really working yet, but I’ve had enough of showing off in a hospital gown for one lifetime.”

From By Those Who Show Up:

“Hell yeah,” says Bucky. “I was over there ten years and only lost an arm. Six months of doing this with you and I’ve basically lost my life.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m thinning up top, Steve, I swear to God.”

From well tell her that I miss our little talks:

(Note to self: start organizing things on the kitchen calendar. Note to self: get a kitchen calendar.)

There's basically cartoony whistling sound, like her optimism is Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff.

She hugged a pillow against her chest. She’d sign him up for a couple of community college mailing lists; maybe sitting in the back of some dense philosophy class would remind him why college wasn’t for everyone, or at least distract him. Her luck: he’d get all nerdy enthusi-Angel and just double down on the college fun talk. She really missed him. “Anyway,” she recalled herself. “I’m thinking maybe going all in on the spick and span could have something to do with you turning the dial up to Angel on the Broodometer.”

"....You’re allowed to think that you’re worth more than him, even if he was the one with the pulse.”

From So Hurry Up and Lose Me, Hurry Up and Find Me (Again):

Also, Angel has to be worried about being ‘busted, and not just in the Dust way.

How glad she is for him, knowing what he’s been through, knowing for herself how frightening it is to dangle unsupported and exhaust yourself hoping for a loving hand.

When Willow is like this, firm steps and a commanding voice, closed eyes as she puts a hand on the last sorcerer's shoulder, it’s hard for Buffy to hold in her mind Willow shy and sweet at sixteen. But then Will nods to Buffy, and without a thought, Buffy fells the robed woman. They’ve both changed. Neither of them will ever be sixteen again.

From Here We Are, Trapped (But Is It a Trap If I'm With You?):

“No. I’m counting on you to do the right thing for everyone, even if it might happen to include you.” 

From To All Our Histories Which Haven't Yet Happened:

“He was younger than I am now, and older than you would want to be.” 

From Childhood Friends:

Peggy, who had spent the afternoon she received the letter holding the hand of a boy - and he had been a boy - as he screamed and screamed toward death, had delayed replying, as she had not been able to summon a response to such grievances for nearly a week.

That she had spent her childhood at this very house with her dresses in a hopeless muddle and her knees insistently grass-stained, and that Steve had recently seen her in both a wrinkled nurse’s uniform after a night shift and indifferent mourning crepe below a tear-stained face, made her only more determined to put her best foot forward in this encounter.

...and Peggy concentrated on the feeling of his hand in hers, on the heat of him through his jacket, and felt despair and grave hope.

But her husband, who remembered a similar expression on his own mother’s face when he had professed his intention to marry Amanda, upon hearing whose surname even Charles II would have replied “Whom?” pulled her toward himself once more and said only, “Let them dance.”

[distressindisguise]

Ranking My Jarchie Fanfiction

I’ve been in the Riverdale fandom for a long time so I’m going to start this off by stating that in the very beginning, the main ships were Beronica and Jarchie. Crazy right? Bughead wasn’t really a thing. Now, there are barely any Jarchie scenes in the show but I still write Jarchie fanfiction on wattpad here.

I love writing reviews and just writing period and after re-reading my fanfiction for the first time in months, I’ve decided to write a brutally honest review. So let’s begin.

5. Meadow Of Flowers

For some reason, this is one of my most popular fics. Though it always seems that way right? The things you write that you’re most proud of never get the recognition you think it deserves, but the things that have been slapped together hastily seem to do very well. A. K. A the fanfiction writer’s curse.

Here are the good things: the idea and the plot started off great. It’s a cute, clear concept. It’s not complex or hard to comprehend. The prep draws flowers on the goths notebook, the goth surprises the prep by drawing more flowers, and the prep tries to get to know him so he creates a tumblr and messages him anonymously. The text messages sent between the two are funny. It’s a good laugh, something to snicker at when you’re bored and have free time. The characters are really interesting. Archie has an infectious attitude and watching Jughead try to deal with it is equally as entertaining.

Here are the bad things. The plot loses itself somewhere in the middle. All of a sudden Jughead has an ex girlfriend that comes back in town and his father is the leader of the Mafia or some while crazy crap like that. There becomes too many irrelevant characters. None of the rest of book actually has to do with the main concept, the meadow of flowers drawn on a piece of paper that brought them together. I really don’t know how that concept got so lost. But even still, it garners up tons of reads. For what reason? Probably because of the text messages. Archie’s dirty pick up lines and Jughead’s insertion of memes are probably the only thing that keeps readers coming back.

The writing also extremely lacks. It’s a dialogue based book. There’s not much substance there. It’s literally all quotes. Definitely not my best work. I’d say it’s my worst. I cringe when people tell me they love it so much.

I haven’t updated the book in months and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever going to. If anything, I’ll delete all of the wild chapters and keep the text messages. This fic is the definition of the cringe side of Wattpad and I promise you my other fics are nothing like this trainwreck.

4. Treehouse

Treehouse is my only ongoing fanfiction. It’s probably going to be my last Jarchie fanfic. I’m not sure if it’s my last fanfic on Wattpad though. I’ll have to see. I’m kind of over the Riverdale fandom and the show if I’m being completely honest.

Jughead and Archie spend a summer in the latter’s treehouse getting to know each other, but once they get back to school the story gets twisted into a lot of dirty rumors. Jughead wants to forget what happened, but Archie wants to further their relationship.

Good things: Characterization. Jughead is fem! In this book. He’s bubbly, innocent, and an all around strong character. He’s an activist, a vegan and a super inspiring person. He’s extremely lovable. It’s easy to support and fall in love with his character. I wrote Jelly Bean, his sister, older in this book. She’s also a dynamic character. She has her own issues as well. The book doesn’t just focus on Jarchie, it focuses on Jelly Bean’s problems, Archie’s problems, Betty’s problems, and my OCs problems individually. Their lives all intertwine and that’s another aspect that makes the book great. The writing is good and the storylines are relatable.

Bad things: Because there are so many storylines, the book drags. I’m often left to wonder what the actual plot is. There’s no climax or end goal. It’s more like a look of the lives into each person, which isn’t a bad thing, but it causes the story to feel slow and sometimes meaningless. There are currently 19 chapters written and published, but it feels as if there’s much less because nothing has been accomplished and nothing has been destroyed yet.

Despite that, I do think it’s an entertaining read and in terms of writing, I think it’s easy to follow and easy to love.

3. Circumlocution

My readers like to call this book Hell.

I am usually a fluffy fic writer. My books do tend to have angst, problems that need to be solved that eventually work out, but this is not one of those books.

Jughead and Archie dated in high school until Archie left one day out of the blue. Jughead never got a call, never got an explanation, but was instead left to deal with his miserable life without one of the people who made it bearable. Archie comes back to Riverdale a year later, finds Jughead at a bar, and offers to take him home on a long, awkward, emotional car ride into the unknown.

Good things: the plot is amazing. There’s very few settings, the most used one being the car, so it’s easy to follow. It’s structured, the chapters flashback to a couple of years ago so the reader can piece together what happened to Jughead while Archie was gone and what happened to Archie after he left. The flashbacks give a glance to both sides of the story as the characters stay clueless to the whole truth until the very end. It’s my shortest, most consist fic, numbering in at 25 chapters and a heartfelt epilogue. The writing was done very well, every emotion is felt. The anxiousness, the tension, the hatred, and the hint of affection they both still had toward each other are displayed well. There are subtle clues dropped to allow the reader to guess what happened, and little details start to make sense at the very end.

Bad things: even with that “glowing review” there are some shortcomings I think. I’m also very picky about my own work by the way, so in reality these fics may not be as bad as I’m making them out to be.

Because there’s very few settings, I think sometimes the setting does get lost. I think the car could be described more. I think the mentions of the road could be used. Maybe I’m fussing, but there’s lots of times where there’s just conversation and the reader assumes that it’s in Archie’s truck because that’s where they last were. Still, I think there should be reminders instead of just still dialogue. For instance, how much moving around can you do in a car? The only other locations are pit stops to get food. The rest of the locations are in the flashbacks, which don’t really play a huge part to the story itself.

I also think that maybe the book is too dark at times. One thing that I hate about wattpad, is the number of dark fanfics written by 12 year olds who romanticize topics like depression and self harm. I didn’t romanticize the topics, but they’re there and I tried to be respectful and treat them with the seriousness that needed to be there. There’s physical abuse, substance abuse, self harm, it’s a lot. It’s why my readers call the book hell, because it’s a lot of emotions at once, especially when you grow so attached to two characters and grow to vouch for their relationship to work out in the end.

My favorite part of the fic is the epilogue because it shows someone reaching out, getting help, and trying to get better. Its the right approach.

My book is also called hell because of the ending... but I’m not going to spoil that for you.

I just think that the mood in the fic could be lighter in some aspects. There needs to be more breaks for happy flashbacks, or more light hearted conversation. Sometimes I feel as if the transitions are too quick. Jughead could go from yelling at Archie to slowly easing up when they reminisce about the past, but I think the shift should be more gradual. Still, in terms of plot/structure/and writing, it’s my best fic. Hands down. So why is it at number 3? Let’s see.

2. Nameless

Maybe this is where my bias steps in.

In reality, this would be tied with my number 1 choice because this is one of my favorites, though I don’t think it’s technically better than circumlocution in terms of plot. This is another book that drags on for longer than it’s supposed to.

Nameless didn’t have a name. He was 17 Years Old. He didn’t talk to anybody but his social worker. He didn’t show emotion. He spent his days reading and coming up with names until one felt right, for the boy had amnesia after a terrible accident that separated him from his parents and his old life. Archie comes around, and soon he learns to stop viewing with the world with indifference and hanging onto the past.

Good things: Characterization yet again. I’m very good at characterization. Although the Riverdale characters are not mine, I’m very good at giving them their own unique personalities to fit my plots and ideas. Nameless is obviously Jughead, but his character is so complex. My favorite thing is watching him grow as a person throughout the book. He seriously learns how to love, how to deal with people, and how to accept himself and what he has. Watching his relationship grow with his adoptive parents and his adoptive siblings is just as amazing as watching his relationship grow with Archie. I think that the writing is done well, though there is some things left unanswered in the end that I ended up explaining in my final author’s note. The plot is consistent as well.

Bad things: Like I mentioned earlier, I do think it drags on. Some scenes are definitely unnecessary and there’s some chapters that can be scraped out. There’s no reason for why there needed to be 60 chapters.

As a fanfic writer though, I think it’s safe to say that most of the time fics are filled with a lot of irrelevant chapters for fluff. They’re fillers, sure, but most people read for the fluffy scenes of a relationship. Chapters like that are also important for live updating a book. Sometimes it’s just easier to throw in a filler to give readers what they want in order to work on plot centered chapters. It’s something I’m conditioned to, but something that isn’t really a pro when writing a real book, which is something I want to do. Maybe I’m giving myself too much crap for this, but eh it’s definitely something that needs fixing.

Another thing that needs work would probably be my tendency to introduce characters and forget about them. One of my original characters, Jay, was a big part in the middle of the book, but then he slowly faded away and wasn’t brought up again until the epilogue.

1. Aberration

Here it is. My first Jarchie fanfic. My pride in joy. Look at the love this fic has been shown? My goodness. 116k. It’s probably my greatest accomplishment. This is my favorite fic and guess what?

It’s total bias.

But let me get into why this is good first. (Jughead being asexual is the best part)

This book is a coming of age story. It’s probably my only fanfic that takes place in the actual Riverdale Universe. All of my other fics are AU’s with the only connection to Riverdale being their names. It starts with Jughead and Archie at 4 years of age and goes up to age 27 with an epilogue at age 33. That being said, I can’t give you a specific plot summary because sooooo many problems arise and so many problems are solved throughout the years. It’s a glimpse of their life, and it’s beautiful.

Good things: sticking to canon. (In the beginning at least) Jughead is just as lost, confused, and edgy as he was in season one. (I say season one because Jughead in season 2 felt like a whole different character and I feel like the writers kind of ruined him. There’s such thing as character development but I think they went overboard. Anyways, that’s a different story.)

Their childhood is written as I envisioned it. There’s canon conversations, like Archie’s proposal to Betty when they were kids. It’s sweet.

Besides sticking to canon, I do a good job of sticking to parallels since there’s such a wide range of events and incidents going on. I think it shows continuity in the characters from when they were 10 to when they were 20.

Not only that, but the plot is just all around entertaining. There’s always something to aww at, something to get mad at, something to laugh at, something to cry at. It’s emotional, watching them grow up and go through all sorts of things. The problems that arise are real coming of age problems. People lose friends, make new ones, go through identity crisis, deal with loss, deal with stress, deal with home issues. It’s all there and very real. It’s raw. I love that. The character development is also amazing. Watching little kids turn into strong men and women is really interesting and fun to watch.

My favorite part is that Jughead is ASEXUAL.

I did so much research. When I found out that Jughead was supposed to be asexual in the show, I took my chance and ran with it. I did my best to represent the asexual community in this book. It’s what makes it so unique. It’s why this is my favorite. I get lots of dms about how this helped people figure out how they identify or get trough what they were feeling. I’ve put resources to the AVEN website, a safe community for asexuals. I did my best and I love the product. I love that I’ve helped people. This really is why this is my number one. Besides that representation, Kevin Keller is gay, Archie is bisexual, Liliana (my og character) is Hispanic, and my other og character, Aaron, is African American. Everyone loves my OCs in the book, especially Jackson. Representation to me is soooooo important. It’s one thing that I really nailed.

Another thing that I love about this book is that my development as a writer is so obvious. As the chapters go on, I get better and better. I start to fall into a style, and it’s so enjoyable to see that reading it again. The chapters get more descriptive, the grammar starts to improve, and the plot starts to get more complex.

However, in terms of technical aspects, it’s probably one of my worst written fics in the beginning. Still not as bad as Meadow of Flowers, but close.

Bad things: First of all, it’s written in present tense. That’s not totally against writing rules, but it’s unconventional and it’s more common for stories to be told in past tense. Again, I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was my first time writing in third person. It was my first time taking a crack at storytelling in years.

The grammar is awful. Because it’s in present tense, my tenses and verbs are sort of messed up at times. It feels awkward. And if it’s not that, it’s the fact that I for some reason can’t spell for my life. It makes for some very embarrassing typos like “he pressed a quick piss to his forehead.” I also didn’t know that whines and wines were two very different things.

...

I used wines as a verb for most of the book. If I was writing in past tense, I probably would’ve caught onto that mistake 100 chapters ago.

That’s another thing, the book is actually 100 chapters long. Despite that though, it doesn’t really drag like the other books do because there’s a new problem that comes along with every age. There’s not many dead spots, but some people do lose interest in it after the two graduate high school which is around chapter 60 I want to say? There’s a table of contents in the beginning that separates the chapters by what grade of school they’re in and by age. It’s convenient. You’ll need it if you don’t feel like sitting through elementary school Jarchie. Or maybe you don’t like college Jarchie and you want to skip to adult Jarchie. I’m telling you, it’s convenient.

But back to the grammar thing, I didn’t know that most quotes didn’t end with periods at the time, and that’s a huge problem that doesn’t get corrected until maybe my fourth book. All the dialogue had periods at the end instead of commas. For instance:

“But you said I could,” Jughead whined.

^That’s correct.

However, this is what I did:

“But you said I could.” Jughead wines.

^That basically sums up how bad the grammar is throughout.

Though technically imperfect, it’s definitely still a good read. The plot is amazing. 116k reads should tell you that it’s worth the read if you can get past those mistakes. Although I’m being hard on myself about it now, no one really noticed it. If they did, they never called me out on it. Honestly, writing on Wattpad has low expectations so just separating paragraphs correctly boosts your writing into the good category. Honestly that’s my biggest pet peeve. I used to do it too, but I can’t read a book that has huge paragraphs of dialogue without a separation between which character is saying what. It gives me headaches.

There’s tons of mistakes in this book, trust me. However, I think I’m going to leave the mistakes there. I want to look back on it, pisses instead of kisses on foreheads and all.

Anyways, I spent a good few hours writing this review and I doubt most people are going to read this but it’s going on my blog because it’s an honest evaluation.

Honorable Mention

That sixth book you see in the first image? The one with the flowers on the cover? It’s called Alphabet Jarchie and it’s my ongoing one shot book. I take a word from every letter of the alphabet and write a one shot about it. Obviously I can’t really rank it with my fics, but the one shots are helping me cut to the chase in my writing, and I think my ideas are pretty good. So if you don’t feel like sitting through my longggggg fanfics (though they are pretty enticing but this is me being harsh) you can check out my one shots.

This was fun.

DistressInDisguise x

Again, you can find my works here or under my username @DistressInDisguise on Wattpad.

[moiraineswife]

002 for elucien please 3>

002 | send me a ship and I will tell you: (bc i am slowly sailing away from acotar but i am always a slut for elucien...even if this is super late bc I’m garbage) 

when or if I started shipping it: Actually, I think I accidentally made myself ship it many, many moons ago. When i wandered blindly into this fandom shortly post-ACOMAF there was...a fair amount of Lucien hate floating around (those were Dark Days) and I, being the loud-mouthed, insufferable bastard that I am, took issue with this and made many grumpy posts to the effect of ‘Lucien is a tortured abuse victim, stfu’. Fortunately the hate has mostly died down but when it was Strong elucien was fairly deeply unpopular because people felt that Elain ‘Deserved Better’. I got miffed about that too, so I made a little headcanons post for elucien and just...some nice thoughts and it all kind of....spiralled out of control from there and I made myself aggressively ship them. And that was mostly just me for a little while but then @valamerys appeared (bless u claire) and the rest is history.  

my thoughts: Right this is going to be less ‘thoughts’ abt Elucien and more ‘thoughts’ (read: salt) abt fandom’s response to them post-acowar but I just.....I don’t understand why everyone thinks that they’re doomed and sunk in ACOWAR? No, genuinely, I don’t, like...just timeline wise...Them being canon by the end of ACOWAR didn’t actually make a huge amount of sense, like it would have taken a LOT to get that to happen (especially when spin-offs that would almost certainly, if not focus, at the very least touch on, Elain and Lucien’s relationship post ACOWAR) And if you look at it in a timeline wise and compare it to feyrhys...they’re actually further ahead than they were?? ACOMAF picks up what, three months-ish after the end of ACOTAR? Rhys knows Feyre is his mate for that entire time and does nothing about it. At the beginning of that book Feyre is with, in love with, and actively engaged to another man. They have a damn wedding ffs. It takes months for Feyre to get over Tamlin and to recover from her trauma of her Making, her abusive relationship, and what happened UtM. it takes weeks and weeks before Feyre and Rhys have so much as a friendly conversation with one another. It takes months before there are any romantic feelings, and then it takes even longer for them to actually get together. I think the events of ACOWAR take place in around a month, maybe. If you compare that to feyrhys’s timeline, Feyre is a month into the Spring Court, engaged, with two months to go until her wedding/her meeting Rhys again. At this same point, Elain and Lucien have met, talked with one another, helped one another in their own ways, acknowledged the mating bond between them, shown themselves willing to get to know one another, and it ends with Elain inviting Lucien to come to Velaris and stay there with her. Elain, by the end, also seems much more like her old self, she’s much more in control of her abilities, she wants to grow things and create again, she feels much more full of hope. Lucien, too, is moving on from his toxic past, he has left Tamlin, he is living in the Night Court, where he was invited by Elain, he and Elain now have the time and space and freedom to get to know one another, and it’s only a month into their knowing each other. I have...No idea why this fandom is so certain that there’s no hope for this ship like ??? They’re mates and they haven’t even begun to explore what that means to them because they were busy, you know, having their own lives/plots/obstacles/trauma to overcome first but ???? Anyway. 

What makes me happy about them: They make so much goddamn sense fight me.  I think one of the biggest draws to this ship is that they are mutually so good for one another. I think that they both bring out sides to the other person that need to be drawn out a little. Elain teases out some softness and warmth and gentleness in Lucien, and there’s a lot of that in him, he just doesn’t often feel safe enough around anyone to be that way with them; but he does with her. And Lucien brings out a little of Elain’s spirit, a little of her fire, a little of her fierceness and that deep, unyielding strength that’s always hidden away beneath the surface gets brought to the top and it’s perfect. And I enjoy it even more because of the parallels involved in this thing: Lucien draws out of Elain what he is on the surface, witty, charismatic, fiery and wilful. and Elain draws out of Lucien what she is on the surface: gentle, kind, compassionate, and good. They bring out the best of each other but they also reflect the best of themselves and I just...Could live for years on the sustenance provided by these delicious parallels tbh. And I think there’s an aspect of hope in there with both of them as well, with them being together, I think they bring that to one another. For Lucien, Elain was a flickering light at a point where his life had rarely been darker. She was something worth fighting for; but unlike Tamlin or any of the other situations Lucien has been in, Elain is something that I think makes him fight for himself. Because she’s his mate, and will ultimately make him happy and that’s an end goal there, he’s fighting for their happiness...but in the interim, in the time it takes between then and now...She makes him fight for himself, too. He leaves his toxic position at Spring, he comes to Night, he finds purpose during the war, a role that he takes voluntarily under his own initivative (born from Elain’s visions btw) to help. He’s doing things for himself. He’s bettering his life and his world for himself, and Elain’s mere existence encourages that in him and it’s just like....Yes, okay, give Lucien someone that makes him strive to better himself and his situation, okay good, thank you. But I think that Lucien embodies a little bit of hope for Elain, too. It’s maybe not as obvious or as immediate in canon as it is for Lucien but...It’s there. The first time Elain leaves her room is to go to the library where Lucien is. Lucien suggests having a healer brought to her. Lucien tries to help her through the bond, and gets a reaction out of her. Elain seems constantly to be seeking the sun, and to be seeking Lucien as well. He is one of the very few things that she actually responds to after her making, he is one of the few people who makes her react a little more like her old self. And he is the one who shows faith in her, and her visions, and offers to journey thousands of miles and put himself in danger because he believes in her. And I think that Lucien...Is the future, for Elain. Whether or not Elucien ends up canon, these two are undeniably driving forces in the others’ stories and arcs. Elain is still in love with Greyson and still traumatised by her making but Lucien is the one certain thing about her future now. Whether she accepts or rejects the bond it is something to move towards, something she will have to confront, something that definitely exists and pulls her away from the past and towards the future. This pairing is just...So fucking underrated and it frustrates me because there is so much here and it gets so overlooked and so drowned out by other ships with louder voices in the fandom and it’s a shame, because it’s a little diamond in the rough, there’s so much potential in here and I live for it tbh.

What makes me sad about them: THEY’RE SO GODDAMN UNDERAPPRECIATED IT BOILS MY BLOOD. 

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Uhh, Elain being with Azriel while Lucien gets forgotten. I’M SORRY I’M TOO FULL OF SALT. And tbh the only Elucien fics I read are Claire’s and...Claire writes them better than sjm soooooooooooo nothing annoys me. 

Things I look for in fanfic: Claire. That is all. 

My kinks: Ehehehehehehe (CLAIRE THIS IS ALL UR FAULT AND U KNOW IT) I think I will just direct u to this fic that Alicia and I wrote. Sums it up rather well, I feel. 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: They can be in a poly relationship with Andras or nothing at all :) That is my final word on the matter. (no it’s not, I’m here for Cassian/Lucien and Elain/Mor bc Gay) 

My happily ever after for them: Happily mated, in a big house in...a court of their choosing, that has a very large garden that they can sit together in and watch their children run around playing together :) 

[a-proud-fangirl]

Her Box of Letters

For Royai week day 5 - Letters

Summary:  After her mother's death, Riza clings onto her box of letters. (FFN)

Rating: T

Word Count: 1,460

A/N: Soooo this is somehow connected to chapter 6 of my other fanfic, Between the Lines (and oh shit I haven't updated that for a year ugh I promise I'll try to update it someday haha). And my first idea was that it is either Roy or Riza who would write letter but I have a feeling that a lot of us shippers would write it that way haha so I decided on having a somehow different take :) Anyway, please let me know your thoughts!

It has been almost a month since the death of Riza’s mother. Roy noted the sudden change of atmosphere in the house – it became gloomy. That drastic change somehow made it harder to breathe inside. The tulips she planted in the garden (oh how she loved those flowers) already wilted and died. He missed the smell of the pies and chocolate muffins that she usually bakes for Riza and him. Roy looked up to her like she was his own mother, and the fact that she’s dead is more than depressing.

The atmosphere was not the only thing that changed in the Hawkeye house. Even its tenants underwent sudden changes. Riza, for instance, became more quiet and reserved. She stopped reading books and hanging out with him, preferring to be alone. She began calling him Mister Mustang instead of Roy, even though he reminded her lots of times not to call him that. At twelve years old, she replaced the role of her mother in the household. She bought recipe books just so she could learn how to cook. She cleaned every room in the house – except for Master Hawkeye’s. Roy helped her whenever he wasn’t busy studying alchemy.

He would never understand what she feels right now. She was closer to his mother than Master Hawkeye. Her mother was the person she loved the most, the only person she can open up with. Riza once told him that she wished she was the one who got the disease, not her mother. Father would want that, we weren’t that close anyway. Those words never stopped ringing in his head. Seeing how Master Hawkeye acted nowadays, Roy hated feeling that Riza’s right.

Master Hawkeye, Roy had observed, began treating his daughter more like she was a stranger. They didn’t have a decent talk since the burial. He never left the house; he basically became a prisoner in his own room, only stepping out of it to use the bathroom. The only person he talks to was Roy, and it was only about alchemy. Riza had never forgotten to bring him meals three times a day, but afterwards she wouldn’t be allowed to enter his room anymore. He was always angry at her even though she did not do anything wrong. There was even a time when he threw the bowl of soup Riza prepared for him at her head.

“Goddammit, why do you look like her?!” Master Hawkeye yelled. Riza took a step back, afraid that her father might hit her. “I don’t want to see your face; you always remind me of her!”

Roy stood frozen in his place. He glanced at Riza, her hair sticky and wet from the soup that was thrown at her by her father. Her hands were clasped together. She looked like she was about to cry but no tears fell from her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking at her father in the eye before picking up the broken pieces of the bowl and leaving his room. Roy had never wanted to hit someone so much in his life.

“No offense, Master,” Roy started to speak. “But that was way over the line! Riza is still your daughter, and she is doing everything that she can to stay by your side. You are not the only one-”

Master Hawkeye turned to look back at him, anger and despair evident in his eyes. “Would you shut your mouth?” he spat. “You are just my student; you have no right to interfere with our family’s issues.”

“Family, huh?” Roy scoffed.  He cannot believe this man. “Oh, I’m sorry. I am not aware that you still treat her as your daughter.”

Master Hawkeye held his gaze at him before speaking. “Get out,” he growled, pointing his finger at the door.

“Gladly,” Roy replied as he picked up his books and headed towards the door. “And before I forget to tell you, Master,” Roy stopped in his tracks. “I know how badly you needed the money. But the next time you lay a hand on her again, I will leave. And I will take Riza with me.” Roy was able to close the door behind as soon as a book hit it with a thud. He breathed a sigh of relief - he didn’t realize that his heart was pounding so fast.  It wasn’t common that a fifteen-year-old boy threatens a forty-year-old man.

He found Riza sitting on the third step of the stairs, her hair was damp. A box was placed on her lap and she was reading something – he guessed it was a letter.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” she said softly as he sat down beside her. She must’ve heard his conversation with his father. “I somehow understand where he comes from. I look like Mom.”

Roy shook his head. “He has to be called out. What he’s doing isn’t right, Ri. He’s not the only one who’s mourning.”

Riza sighed in reply, as she continued to read what’s on the paper. Curiosity got the best of him - Roy peeked at the box from her shoulder. Riza noticed Roy’s eyes trying to look at its contents. “If you’re curious, you can just say so.” Riza chuckled as she handed him the box.

To my daughter, the label of the box read. With his curiosity piqued, Roy took a paper inside the box and read it.

Riza,

This box contains more than a hundred letters I have written just for you. I know that I wouldn’t be able to live much longer, and I’m sorry for that. But, always remember that I have never left you. I will always be by your side. I hope that these letters will make you feel that I am still with you. Don’t read them all in one sitting. Open them at the appropriate time, okay dear?

I love you.

Mom

Roy blinked, trying his damn best not to cry. He returned the note back to the box and took a bundle of letters from the box.

“Don’t open it,” Riza reminded him, her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown.

Roy raised his hands in defense. “Of course I wouldn’t! I would just read the labels.” Riza seemed contented with his answer that she went back to reading.

Turning his attention back to the letters, he marveled at how Riza’s mother was able to write more than a hundred letters while she was bedridden. Open when you’re stressed out, you’re bored, you’re having a bad day, you need a pep talk, you’re not sure what to do, you’re thinking about the future, you’re thinking about me, you need courage, you feel alone, you’re feeling romantic… These are a lot of letters, Roy thought it was awesome – a hundred and more different kinds of letters. Few letters were already open; most of them were still sealed. He looked at Riza’s hand, she was holding two envelopes.

Open when you’re missing me and Open when you don’t feel loved.

Roy averted his eyes. He hates feeling helpless whenever RIza is sad. He wanted to do something, to say something, but he couldn’t think of any that can help uplift her mood. He returned the letters in the box and handed it back to Riza.

“I don’t want you to feel like you aren’t loved,” he was shaking as he spoke – he doesn’t want to look like an idiot. “I love you, Ri.” As he saw Riza raise one of her eyebrows, the implication of those three words dawned on him. He blushed furiously. “N-no, no, no, not like that,” Roy said, shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him. “I didn’t mean it like that; it’s not like how a man loves a woman in the novels we read, not like the-”

“I get it, Roy,” Riza cut him off. “I understand. Now will you please stop explaining yourself before this becomes more awkward?” She tried to hide her smirk, but she failed.

Roy scoffed, “Are you mocking me right now?” He noted that Riza called him by his first name again, and he smiled inwardly.

Riza rolled her eyes, and then her face became serious back again. “Thank you, for being here with me.” She hugged her knees. “I still miss Mom. I want her back. I know that she wrote these letters to make me feel like she’s not gone, but I wanted to see her alive again.” She sighed, tears forming in her eyes.

“We can’t bring her back, Ri,” Roy pointed out, placing his hand on her back. “But don’t worry, I won’t leave you.”

She turned her face to see him, determination present in his face.

“Never,” he said.

[quickspinner]

To Those Who Wait

A DA:I Fanfic

Another piece resulting from this post.

With the Inquisition disbanded, and the Inquisitor headed back home to her clan, Cullen is afraid he’s missed his chance. All he can do is confess his love, and hope she comes back to him.

He had waited too long to confess his feelings for her, feelings that had grown from admiration to affection to utter infatuation, that had deepened into a feeling he had no word for other than love. Yet duty and fear had held him back, kept the words behind his teeth until they stood at the gate saying their farewells to the last of the Inquisition soldiers drifting out of Skyhold in the wake of the Inquisition’s dissolution. He had looked at her and known that if he did not speak, she too would walk out of those gates, and be lost to him forever.

Though she hadn’t spoken of it to many of them, he’d known, as did Cassandra and Dorian, that she intended her return to her clan to be a temporary measure, that she felt she could not return after all that had happened and resume her place as the Keeper’s heir without causing dissention and upheaval that could fracture the clan.

Even were her position uncontested, she could not be the Keeper her clan wanted with all she now knew of their past, could not continue the rituals the Dalish held sacred when she knew from what they stemmed.  She would go home one last time, she would tell her Keeper the truth, and then…he didn’t know what she planned to do. He had suspected, still suspected, that she had no real plan beyond that.

Free of the templars and the Inquisition both, duty no longer had any hold on him. Only fear remained, and he had been many things in his life, but he had never been a coward, and in that quiet moment as the last of their men disappeared from sight, he had taken her remaining hand in his and kissed it, confessed (not very eloquently) all that he had long felt for her, and asked her to join him in South Reach when her duty to her clan was filled.

If you think you could ever come to care for me, come to Ferelden. I’ll wait.

And he was waiting, like a fool, despite her carefully measured response, clearly designed to give him no false hope.

Cullen had done all right for the first six months, focused on reconnecting with his family, trying to find a way to reinvent himself yet again, neither templar nor commander nor, he soon found, farmer.  He did odd jobs for Mia, helped Branson in his fields, kept up his training regimen during the late evenings and early mornings, sleeping only in the deepest part of the night as was his habit. Despite his siblings’ protests he slept in the barn with its great wide doors, or even in the grass of the pasture, where none but the cows would be disturbed by his nightmares. Little by little he confessed his suffering and his sins to his sister, and found some measure of comfort in her continued love and acceptance, though her pity grated and her scoldings irritated.  

Fall passed into winter and he grudgingly moved himself indoors, catching what sleep he could on Mia’s living room floor or staring into the fireplace, and his thoughts were drawn to Kirkwall because that was as close as he could get to Wycome. He wrote to Varric, and he must have been utterly transparent, because the dwarf wrote back, “Sorry, Curly, haven’t seen her lately. My people said she made it to Wycome in the fall, but that’s all I can say.”  Cullen suspected Varric knew more than he was willing to tell, but there was nothing he could do about it from this distance. He’d kept up a regular correspondence with Cassandra, but she was no help either. Eventually Cullen scolded himself into acceptance. He had made the invitation, promised to wait, and it was unfair of him to pursue her before she was ready to come to him.

He tried to bury himself in the homely winter entertainments, took out his frustration on his training dummy.  To his combined amusement and horror, Branson’s wife began inviting local young ladies to meals, and while most of them were perfectly nice girls, his only real temptation came from a bold blonde who cornered him in the barn and kissed him with surprising skill. His body responded with a flame that surprised him, and for a moment he was kissing her back, helping her hike her legs up around his waist, before his mind caught up with him and he had gasped out a rather confused refusal mixed with apologies.  She’d taken it well enough and he’d been more careful not to get caught alone after that.

Cullen had never been more grateful for spring in his life, but he found his attention wandering frequently from his tasks to the horizon.

One evening he came in from his training to find Mia sitting up with the chessboard and a stubborn expression.  He sighed inwardly and sat down, resigned to one last confession.

He had expected her to be exasperated, perhaps even angry at him for tying up his heart and his future in such an uncertain way, but Mia said no word of criticism against his actions. Instead she said, “And what will you do if she comes?”

Cullen opened his mouth and then shut it again. Mia raised an eyebrow, and continued. “You haven’t even got a home of your own, Cullen. You’re welcome here, you always will be, you and everyone you call friend, but I don’t think you want to bring your lady to live in my barn.”

“Well, I thought…” Cullen began, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I mean…” he sighed.  “I just don’t really know what to do, Mia.”

“Well you can’t wait here and do nothing and hope she shows up with an answer for you,” Mia said briskly. “You need a plan for the future. How can you ask any woman to be with you on the terms you now stand? I know you hate working on the farm, you only do it to keep busy.” She softened slightly. “I know you, little brother. You don’t want a job, you want a calling.”

“If you have any idea where I can find one, I’m all ears,” Cullen said grimly, staring at the board.

“If you want to know what I think,” Mia began, ignoring the eyebrow Cullen raised at her. “You need to stop daydreaming and start thinking. Consider the reasons you wanted to be a templar in the first place and what you really want to accomplish, and then start thinking about how you can actually do that. Then, should your lady come, you at least have something to show her.”  She sighed. “Cullen, I feel like I’m watching your soul die a little every day. I don’t want to lose you again.”

Cullen felt a rush of affection and reached over to squeeze her hand.  “You’re right. I have been idle long enough. I’ll think about it, Mia, I promise. I won’t let you down.”

She squeezed his hand back. “You could never.”

They finished the game in silence. Cullen lost, too busy mulling over Mia’s words to really concentrate. After Mia went to bed Cullen went outside despite the biting chill of an early spring night, and lay on a hillside staring up at the sky, seeing not a single one of the stars scattered above him.

The next day he wrote a letter to Divine Victoria.

Cassandra’s response was gratifyingly quick and supportive. With something to do, to manage, something that he could believe in and work for, his spirit revived, and he stood a little straighter, suddenly aware of what a half-life he had been living. During the day he worked and trained, and at night he planned and wrote letters, but still through it all he was waiting.

Spring was nearing its end and he was working in the field with Branson when the world upended.  He looked up and caught the profile of a rider on the horizon.  He thought little of it at first but at the second glance his head snapped up and he stared at the elaborately curved horns spiraling up from the mount’s head.  

“Maker’s breath,” he murmured, straightening to his full height and shading his eyes with his hand.  His heart began to beat triple time as he caught the flash of sunlight on a white flank.  

“Is that a halla?” Bran asked, coming up beside him to see what had caught Cullen’s attention.  “I thought only the Dalish ride hallas, and I didn’t think to see one alone.  Is there a clan coming through, I wonder?”  

Cullen didn’t answer, transfixed.  Branson looked at him. “Cullen?”

Cullen did nothing but stare. The rider was headed in the general direction of the farm, angling towards the two houses. He strained his eyes, trying to catch details, though he knew it must be her. Then she must have caught sight of them standing there in the field, for the halla changed its approach and came on faster, picking its way daintily through the field so that it disturbed none of the growing things.

Then she was there and it was real, and he was staring up at her on the halla’s back.   She was thinner, he saw at once, and her hair was a bit longer than he remembered, but her smile was the same, and the warm velvet voice that spoke his name still made his knees weak. “Aneth ara, Cullen.”

“Inqui–ah, Atisha,” he stumbled.  “Welcome.”  

Uncertainty flashed over her face for a moment before it settled into the neutral expression Josephine had trained into her.  “Thank you,” she said, more brusquely, than before, and Cullen realized he had better pull himself together before he offended her further.  He took a step forward and offered his hand, then hastily retracted to pull off and toss aside his dirty work gloves before offering again.  She placed her hand in his and he reached up with his other hand to catch her waist as she slid off the halla’s back.  

“I–ah” he swallowed, not sure what to say.  Atisha’s eyes were anxious as she looked up at him, but she must have read his feelings in his face, for she softened and smiled.

“I’m here,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“So you are,” he managed.

Bran coughed, and Cullen became abruptly aware his brother was trying very hard not to laugh.  He felt the heat rush up his face and ears and cleared his throat.  “Lady Lavellan,” he said, resorting to the familiar formality as much to get his own bearings as to throw Branson off of his. “May I present my brother, Branson Rutherford.” He stepped to Atisha’s side, giving her a clear view of Branson, and vice versa.  Cullen had the satisfaction of seeing Bran flush this time and suppressed his own grin.  

“Andaran atish’an,” Atisha greeted, with a slight bow.  “I’m pleased to meet you, Branson. Cullen’s told me,” she gave a little grin, “many stories.”

“Oh, great,” Bran muttered under his breath.  “Well, I’ve heard about you of course, though I daresay,” he shot a murderous look at Cullen, “He left out a few things.”

“There are some things I couldn’t do justice to if I tried,” Cullen said, more intently than he meant to, and his breath caught as Atisha turned soft eyes to him.  

“Can I stable your–er–” Branson began, and Atisha turned back to him.

“That won’t be necessary, he isn’t staying,” she told Bran.  She walked over to the animal, who was pawing the ground and looking at the horizon. One-handed, she loosed the straps that kept her pack fastened to the halla’s back and let it fall to the ground.  “Ma serranas, ma fallon,” she said, stroking the nose of the majestic creature.  “You’ve done all I asked and more.  Go in peace.  Dareth shiral.”

The halla tossed its head, and then shoved Atisha in the chest with his nose.  He raised his head and looked around, nostrils flaring as he tested the air.  Then he was off like a white arrow, leaving Cullen and Branson gaping at his speed.

“The herd pushed him out,” Atisha explained.  “It was growing too large, so he travels to find a herd needing new blood.  He consented to bear me on his journey.  It made things much easier for me.  I’m not sure I could have traveled alone otherwise.”

“If you’d sent word, I’d have come to meet you,” Cullen said, taking her hand.  “There was no need for you to come all the way by yourself.”

“Yes, there was,” Atisha sighed, with a shrug, but would not explain.  Cullen chose not to press her, afraid of shattering this fragile thing between them.  Though he put a calm face on it, his heart was racing.  That she had come gave him hope, but he had promised he would make no assumptions, presume nothing, form no expectations.  He had asked only for a chance to win her love, and that was what he had been given.  

There was still every chance that she would choose not to be with him.

They left Branson in the field, Cullen carrying Atisha’s pack, and went to Mia’s house. Mia welcomed Atisha as warmly as Cullen could have wished, and installed her in the spare bedroom that Cullen had never used.

“I had meant to stay at the inn,” Atisha said quietly aside to Cullen. “I didn’t intend to put anyone out.”

“You’re not,” Cullen assured her. “The room was Rosalie’s before she got married, but since she’s gone there’s no one using it now. I–prefer to sleep elsewhere.” He didn’t explain further, knew she would understand. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I can speak to Mia,” he added quickly.

“No, this is fine,” she said with a slight smile. “I just–um…” She faltered, and her fingers went to play with the hair around her pointed ears. “I don’t want to make any trouble for you with your family.”

“You won’t,” Cullen told her, taking her hand again. He was finding it hard to stop touching her, making sure she was real, though he certainly didn’t want to pressure her with his presence. She hadn’t pulled away yet. “Mia–I told her, about you. About–my feelings for you.” Maker’s breath, he hadn’t meant to bring that up so soon, but she didn’t look away when he said it, nor pull away her hand. He took heart from that. “You don’t have anything to worry about as far as that.”

Her smile grew, just slightly. “That’s good,” was all she said, but his pulse jumped.

“You must be tired,” he said quickly, before he could do anything foolish. “And I’m filthy. I’ll leave you to rest and…I’ll see you at dinner, then?”

She nodded, and he thought he saw a faint color grow on her cheeks.

“All right then,” he said, letting go of her hand. “Until then, my lady.” He made a hasty exit before he could say anything foolish, and walked straight out of the door of the house until he was standing in the fresh air outside, heart hammering at a rhythm he normally only felt in battle. “Maker’s breath,” he muttered, shaking his head. He did a deep breathing exercise to steady himself, and then after a quick stop at the barn to grab a spare set of clothes, he walked down to the creek to clean up. The cold water did him good, and he walked up the hill again, feeling a little more grounded. She was here, had come a long way to be here, and her manner so far had not been at all repulsive. Hope and anticipation still made his heart pound, but his thoughts were not so scattered.

“You’re looking well,” Atisha said, accepting the basket of bread he passed her. “You’ve kept yourself busy, I take it.”

“Somewhat,” Cullen said, not quite meeting her eyes. “Mostly I’ve just been helping out here and there and keeping in practice. I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself at first. I haven’t been a civilian in–well, ever, really. It took me a while to find my feet.” He smiled at Mia. “I had help, though, and I think I have a plan that can work now.”

Mia humphed but looked pleased, and Atisha smiled. “I know what you mean,” she said. “It was as strange as I expected it to be, going back to the clan. Just traveling was an adjustment.” She glanced down at her missing arm. “I’m not used to needing help, and I needed quite a bit, at first. One of Varric’s friends offered to travel with me for a while, she was very helpful, if…chatty.” She sighed. “I’m glad I went home, though. Not everyone was happy to see me, but my closest friends and Keeper Deshanna were very kind and helped me get through the worst of it.”

“I’m glad you had someone to help you through, I was worried for you. I know you bore it well, but it couldn’t have been easy.”

“What do you intend to do now?” asked Mia.

“To be honest,” Atisha sighed, “I’m not entirely sure. I thought–” she hesitated, glanced at Cullen.  “I thought I might…write a…a book,” she said, blushing as she rearranged the strands of hair around her ears with the tips of her fingers.

“A book, really?” Cullen asked, genuinely surprised.

She reddened further. “Not like Varric’s, you understand, I’m not that kind of storyteller, but…so much of the Dalish culture and history isn’t understood at all by humans, and more importantly, what history the Dalish have is kept almost entirely by the Keepers. When a Keeper dies, whatever knowledge they haven’t managed to pass on to their first is lost. I thought…I was First for many years, I know a great deal of the history our own clan kept, at least. That knowledge should not be lost. As well, I am the only Dalish that knows of all that we saw through the eluvians. The library, the Evanuris, the origin of the veil, the Temple of Mythal…It shouldn’t be lost again. I don’t have a solid plan yet, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about as I was traveling.” She bit her lip, looking away from him as if she expected him to disapprove.

“I think that sounds wonderful,” Cullen said warmly.  Atisha looked at him, weighing his sincerity, he thought, and then smiled.

“Well,” she said airily, “I figure if that doesn’t work out and all else fails, I can convince Iron Bull to take me on with the Chargers.”

Cullen laughed, but looked at his plate.

“So, Mia,” Atisha said, turning the conversation, “Please feel free to ask me all the questions that Cullen has failed to answer satisfactorily. I’m happy to embarrass him as much as you like.” Cullen glanced up just in time to see one blue eye wink at him, and he grinned.

“As long as you leave that one story out,” he told her, waving his fork threateningly.

“Oh I’m keeping that one in reserve,” Atisha teased.

“That’s just unfair,” Mia complained, and the conversation went on, mostly between the two women. It amused him slightly to see Mia so engrossed. He hadn’t realized his tales of the Inquisition were so lacking, but clearly there was a great deal Mia wanted to know that he hadn’t been able to tell her.

“Well,” Mia said, once the dishes were done and the table was clear. “I’ll leave you two to talk, shall I?” And before either Cullen or Atisha could say a word to stop her, she was gone.

For a moment, they just looked at each other.  Cullen rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously.  “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

Cullen lit the lamps, brought out a sheaf of papers, and spread them out on the table. Atisha listened with curiosity, looking through the documents as Cullen explained his plans for a sanctuary for templars who wanted to break their addiction - rather nervously at first, but gaining confidence as his excitement for the project began to leak into his voice. He showed her the enthusiastic letter of support he had received from Cassandra. He opened the map and showed her the land Divine Victoria had granted him, and laid out the blueprints sent by the dwarven builder Varric had put him in touch with.

“These are a long way from completion,” he told her, with a touch of apology in his voice. “The land has a keep already but I haven’t yet visited it to see how much repair it will need. All I have to go on are the plans in the archives for now. This is more of a concept than a plan at the moment.” He glanced sidelong at her, but could read nothing of her thoughts. He continued explaining his plans, pointing out difficulties and possible solutions, short term and long term goals he had considered.

Eventually he ran out of words, and just stood there, waiting. After a long moment, she said, “This is wonderful, Cullen. You’ve got a very good start here. I think this is an excellent use of your skills and a worthy cause.”

Cullen let out the breath he had been holding as quietly as he could. “Thank you.”

“But I must ask,” she asked somberly, “where do you see your apostate elven lover in all of this?  Do you not feel she would be a liability?”

The word ‘lover’ sent a thrill through him that he resolutely ignored. “Never,” he said at once, intent on her face. “Not with what I have seen you do.”

“That was different,” Atisha shook her head, pale hair glowing silver where the lamplight hit it. “Cullen, this is politics. You will need noble support, funding. This is a worthy cause, I want to see it succeed. I care deeply for you, but–”

She stopped short, and there was a moment of absolute silence as they both registered her words.  “I…did not mean to tell you that way,” she sighed, a blush creeping over her face.  

His breath came quick and his pulse pounded in his ears.  He dared not take his eyes from hers.  “Do you love me, Atisha?” he whispered, searching her face.  She met his gaze steadily.

“I do,” she replied, quiet but firm.  “My heart, I always have. But what life can you have with me? Will it not harm your cause to–”

“Then I will find another cause,” he said urgently, cupping her face in his hand.  “There are many ways to serve, and only one of you.  I nearly lost you, once to Corypheus and once to inaction.  I will not make that mistake again.  I know that whatever I could accomplish without you is nothing to what we can do together.  So if you do not like this plan, we will find another.”  He made to throw the papers in the fire, but Atisha grabbed his wrist with a yelp.

“Fool man, what are you doing? There’s no need for that.”

Cullen dropped the papers to the floor, reversing her grip on his wrist and pulling her into him.  “I love you with all my heart,” he breathed into her hair, sliding his arms around her, pressing her tightly to him.  “I was prepared to wait–I didn’t dare hope–.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Cullen,” she whispered, hiding her face in his neck.  “It will only get worse as word spreads about Solas and his plans. I’m not the Inquisitor any longer, I have no rank to protect us. I have nothing, no family, no income–”

“You have protected enough,” Cullen told her.  “You have sacrificed enough. No one has any right to ask more, least of all me. I am not afraid.”  He pressed her a little closer.  “You forget, I have seen you face down a false archdemon, the first darkspawn, and a Qunari invasion. I know there is nothing you can’t do when you put your mind to it. If you love me, if you believe I can do this, that is enough for me. I will make this dream a home for you, and you can write your book or work for Iron Bull or anything you want, as long as you come home to me.”

Atisha sighed, letting her cheek rest on his shoulder.  He felt her body soften, melt into his. He turned his face and pressed his lips to her temple.  She raised her head, tilted her face up to his, and he immediately bent to take her lips, soft and yielding beneath his. She sighed into his mouth and it felt like a surrender and a homecoming all at once.  He felt her hand slide up his arm, over the muscles of his chest and up his neck, fingernails scraping his scalp lightly as she threaded her fingers through his hair.  He kept his pace slow and languid as he moved his lips against hers, sliding one hand up her back to cradle her neck.  He released her mouth and pressed his forehead to hers.  “I love you,” he said.  “Stay with me.  Be my wife, my lover, anything, only stay with me.”  

“Yes,” she said, and he smiled.  

“To which?” he chuckled.

“Any. All of it,” she said, completely seriously.  “I have nothing to offer you but pain and hardship, but if you will have me despite that, then I am yours.”

The hand on the back of her neck pulled her forward and he sealed his mouth fervently over hers.  “Then marry me,” he mumbled between increasingly hot kisses.

“Yes,” she gasped breathlessly as his mouth moved to her neck. “Cullen!”

The sound of his own name in that breathless squeak drove him wild. He lifted her blindly, scattering the papers on the table as he set her on it.

“Cullen Stanton Rutherford!”

“Fuck,” Cullen swore vehemently against her mouth, and Atisha began to laugh.  Cullen tore himself away from her to face a fuming Mia standing in the doorway.  

“Mia, I–”

“Stop.” Mia held up a hand.  “I don’t care.  Just–whatever you’re going to do, do it far away from my kitchen table, please.”

Cullen looked down stupidly at the table Atisha was sitting on.  “Right.  Right, sorry.  We’ll just–go. Somewhere.”

“Maker preserve me from idiots and younger brothers!” Mia threw up her hands and turned her back on them, stalking out of sight.

Atisha was doubled over in laughter, gasping for air. “I’m sorry,” she giggled.  “It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”

Cullen bent and slid his arms under her knees, tossing her up onto his shoulder.  “Laugh it up,” he told her, carrying her out of the house. “You still agreed to marry me.”

“I did,” she giggled.  “Where are we going?”

“Ah–” Cullen blinked. “Um…”

He could practically hear her roll her eyes at him. “Put me down, you ridiculous man,” she ordered. He bent his knees and set her feet on the ground.  When he straightened, Atisha grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him into a dizzying kiss. She pulled him along, unresisting, until they were out of sight of the house and the fields, and then he took her hand and led her to a hollow where he had slept more than once in the summer.  Now it was filled with little white spring flowers, and as he laid her down among them he felt that nothing in the world could have been more perfect.

[spiritgriffon]

Smile- a Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic

Author: Rachael D.J AKA Leopaaahh..! I didn’t change my username back!

Ok, I didn’t forget, I got attached. I just want to stay this way for a few more days!

Let’s try this again;

Author: Rachael D.J AKA Deep Eyes White Dragon AKA the dragon formerly known as LeopardGal6

Pairing: Kaiba Seto/Atem, Prideshipping

Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort, Tragedy, Romance

Chapters: Oneshot

Warnings: End-of-Manga & DSoD spoilers! Vaguely implied rape, vaguely implied pedophilia, blatantly stated child abuse, mental illness & character death.

Words: 7,316

Summary: Daimon has been a butler for the Kaiba household for many years- he remembers laughter and tears, redemption and despair. But above all, he remembers Seto.

Rating: M

Read it on FFN and Ao3

Notes: Last year, I wrote a story called Blue Blossoms. It was the first time I'd ever written a story in preset tense. I swore it would be my last. I lied. This story features Daimon and scenes from season zero, backstory from season three, and events that only happen in the manga and Dark Side of Dimensions. Canon? What canon? Also, before anyone asks- no, I haven't abandoned The Isolation Game, I just really loved DSoD and wanted to write something that tied into it. ...And yes, I know that Kazuki Takahashi posted something on his Instagram that expands on the end of DSoD a bit- he also says that this is only one possible ending. Keep that last part in mind here.

(A few notes on names; Miyazato is a Japanese surname meaning Shrine Village. Ishida is a Japanese surname meaning Stone (Rice) Field. Aika is a Japanese female given name meaning Love Song.)

 Daimon remembers the first time he met Kaiba Seto.

 That isn’t even his proper name yet- legally, he is still Miyazato Seto, and this won’t change until the paperwork for him and his brother goes through over a week from this day. But the driver introduces the children to Daimon as Kaiba Seto and Kaiba Mokuba, and for an instant the boys exchange a shy glance, before Seto says a polite ‘Nice to meet you’ and gives Daimon a small, shy, honest smile.

 Daimon remembers the first time he sees Seto talking to himself- he’d completed his schoolwork for the day and was strolling through the gardens. Daimon remembers his laugh- loud and uncontrolled and so full of joy. Daimon remembers asking him what was so funny, and he replies “My friend!” and for an instant Daimon is worried that someone has broken in, but Seto clarifies that he is the only one that can hear her, and Daimon relaxes. Seto is such a curious and bright child- an imaginary friend is hardly surprising.

 Daimon doesn't remember his first heart attack. He does remember waking up in his bedroom with young Seto at his side, and the way the room smelled of fresh oranges- he remembers Seto handing him one, and the way his hands were coated in sticky juice- Daimon’s hands were too weak to hold it on their own. He remembers waking up the next morning to the sound of Seto’s laughter- out his window, he can see Seto playing in the freshly fallen snow, tripping over a black trench coat at least three sizes too big as he runs after his brother.

 Daimon remembers the pictures- scribbled hastily on his schoolwork or over an hour on a proper piece of drawing paper. Despite Seto’s ten-year-old talent, Daimon remembers the boy’s eyes- fierce and kind at the same time, lavender or purple with flecks of crimson and blue pointedly added in. Daimon keeps the pictures in his room, kept neatly in a sealed box. Every last one of them.

 Daimon remembers asking Seto about the boy. Seto calls him his friend- someone who has been gone for a very long time and he misses terribly. Daimon assumes that this was a boy he knew in his old home, but Seto insists they’ve never met. Daimon asks Seto how he can miss someone he’s never met- to which he gets a serious look on his face and says flatly “Because that’s the way it is.”

 Daimon doesn’t remember when the pictures stop.

 Daimon resumes his role as teacher two months after his heart attack. Seto is as bright as ever, but he no longer looks up at the corners of the room, smiling at jokes unheard. Instead he cringes, face buried in his collar. After a week of silence,  Daimon asks if anything is wrong. It’s his friend. “She’s not real. I know she’s not real, but she won’t stop telling me she is.”

 Daimon learns that while he was away, Seto had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Daimon knows that keeping Seto on his medication and aware of reality is for the best. He also knows that Seto is miserable.

 Daimon remembers Seto’s eleventh birthday- he is too ill to see him in person, so instead he writes a card. Daimon writes it in English- he remembers how happy Seto was to learn how to write his name in a new way. Daimon had promised to teach him how to write in cursive as soon as he was able to read his textbook cover to cover. Daimon remembers using a blue ink pen. Daimon remembers how Seto loves the color blue.

 It is nearly a full year later when Daimon returns to the Kaiba mansion- Mokuba appears overjoyed to see him again. Seto says everything he should say- but there is no feeling behind it. Gozaburo invites Daimon to dinner with the family and spends most of it bragging about how fast Seto is learning- he’d taken over Seto’s education personally, after all. Daimon remembers the bandages just barely peeking out from Seto’s collar and sleeve- not at all suspicious on their own, but he remembers Seto’s face when he notices they’re showing. The way he yanks his sleeve down and holds his breath after, as if he’d seen a ghost and not a piece of latex sparks a seed of worry, and he makes a note to get Seto alone after dinner.

 Seto can barely stay awake through the end of the meal. Daimon knows by the dark circles under his young eyes that the boy needs his sleep and vows to ask him about the bandages in the morning. Daimon has an episode that night and has to return to the hospital.

 Daimon is still ill on Seto’s thirteenth birthday, but he insists that he will go see Seto come Hell or high water. His old room has been gutted- most of his personal belongings are now in the Kaiba Medical Center where Daimon now lives, but the box of Seto’s pictures is nowhere to be seen.

 Gozaburo is out of town on important business and Mokuba has the flu, so Daimon has Seto to himself for the day. Daimon spends the day teaching Seto cursive, just as he’d promised so long ago. Daimon can feel the tension in the air when he arrives, but by the time night falls the air has cleared and Seto is even laughing a bit- until it happens.

 Daimon had had a box of stationary under his bed, and when Seto leaves to get a drink of water, Daimon finds the box still there, but with a very different prize inside.

 Cards. Duel Monsters cards, none of them of any particular value, save the “Blue Eyes White Dragon,” hand drawn by a young child with care.

 Seto walks in on this and freezes. Daimon asks “Seto-sama, are these yours?” to which he hurriedly sets down his water so roughly it nearly falls and snatches the cards away.

 Seto blurts out at least three excuses at once, a maid must have hidden them here, he was so very sorry someone had disturbed Daimon’s box and he’d been meaning to throw them out for weeks, really he’d just been too busy-

 Seto is manic, and Daimon’s voice can’t reach him through the cloud of panic, but Seto reacts to the hand on his arm as if he’s been slapped in the face.

 “Seto-sama, what’s wrong?”

 Seto’s eyes are red and watery in the harsh fluorescent  light. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I’ll just throw them out, it’ll be okay.”

 Daimon frowns. “Why would you do that?”

 Seto’s eyes drift down to his hands. “Because… Duel Monsters in a childish game. Mokuba and I aren't allowed to play childish games.”

 “Seto,” Daimon says as he reaches out a wrinkled hand, but as it enters Seto’s line of sight he flinches, so he drops his hand back to the bed and says “look at me.” Seto obliges, the mania cleared from his face and instead a resigned submission. “I don’t think Duel Monsters is a childish game.”

 His posture is still defensive, but there’s something glimmering behind his eyes, not quite hope, too scared to be hope, but something close. “You don’t?”

 “No, Seto-sama. I beat the world champion of Duel Monsters once, you know.”

 It’s a subtle change, the way Seto’s shoulders lower, the way his head raises, But Daimon remembers it clearly. “You did?”

 “Yes. It was a private match, not in a tournament, but I beat him best out of three.”

 Daimon can see how Seto’s expression changes, the way his lips barely part and the slow unintentional whistle as he exhales. Daimon feels the unconscious tug at his lips. “Do you want me to teach you how to play?”

 Seto’s expression changes, his brows furrow, causing deep lines in his young skin. “I already know how to play,” he pouts. “Mokuba and I used to play it all the time.” His face is almost comically sour, but it’s the most honest expression he’s worn all day.

 “Then we can jump right into a round,” Daimon says with no room for objection.

 The two play late into the night, until Seto finally falls asleep in his chair. Diamon could see them- the bandages on his neck and arms, and he thinks he may see one under the hem of his shirt as well when he falls asleep and it rides up a bit, but Daimon can see how fragile Seto’s happiness is, and despite his every instinct telling him to find out what happened, Daimon’s selfish heart can’t find enough strength to break Seto’s smile.

 By the next month, Daimon is suffering cascade organ failure. Simply spending a day outside the KMC is too much for his body to handle. He sleeps most of the time, but he awakes every so often to find young Seto has come to visit- at first almost every other day, then once a week, then in a bare few months he only comes to visit once, and the next time he is awoken it’s by a lawyer. Kaiba Gozaburo is dead. Kaiba Seto is the new president. Kaiba Seto is now fifteen years old.

 Seto had turned sixteen by the next time they met- his hair was bleached, and Daimon guesses he’d done it himself- there is a distinctly green tone to it. There is no shyness or fear in his eyes- he no longer puts up a defense, this smile is a threat. Seto says “I have a job for you, Daimon,” and though he replies of course, anything for you, Seto-sama, part of Daimon’s heart simply can’t comprehend this dangerous stranger as the bright boy he had grown to love as a son.

 Daimon has spent the last year in a sealed chamber- his lungs and heart have been replaced by artificial organs, but even so, he can only survive for three hours outside of intensive care. This would normally not be a problem, but the driver nearly running over a high school student was not in the plans.

 Two and a half hours after leaving the KMC, Daimon knows that this is the end. He’s known that he’d outlived his time in this world already- he is not afraid. Daimon has but two regrets- leaving Seto now, though he knows in his heart that it is far too late for him to save that kind boy, and the second…

 Well, there is something awfully familiar with that high school student. Mutou Yuugi, sixteen years old, a few months older than Seto, though one would never guess it by looking at the two. Puberty was hitting the poor boy late- his voice broke every few sentences and Daimon guessed that even Mokuba was taller than him.

 He was kind and gentle, and Daimon noticed the way he bit his lip and his brows arched down during their game of Duel Monsters. There was something buried just beneath the surface- a hidden strength, covered by self-doubt, the same that caused him to over think his moves and lose the game, though he had the advantage. Daimon thought he had a good read on Mutou Yuugi.

 Just not on what made him so familiar. One mystery he’d never solve.

 Minutes after the duel ends, Seto enters with Daimon’s personal medical staff. Daimon is ill and faint, but there’s a distinctly odd note is Seto’s “Yuugi? What are you doing here?” that's a fair bit too chilly to be hopeful and yet far too familiar to be uncaring.

 Seto has another job for him just days later- this time, to defeat Mutou Yuugi in a proper duel. Seto looks straight ahead in the car as he explains what will happen- supposedly, the “weak” persona he’d seen earlier was only a split personality, and the real one would only come out when challenged. “I’ll warn you. Don’t lose. He punishes losers,” Seto says, a shallow smirk on his mouth as his eyes glisten. “‘The Sensation of Death.’ That’s what he called it.”

 The change in Yuugi’s demeanor is instant and undeniable. Self-doubt was utterly replaced by overconfidence- no doubt he truly had skills to back it up, but Daimon guesses he wasn’t quite as untouchable as he thinks himself to be.

 Daimon loved a good game- he was never one to stop midway through just because his body complained. But with Seto standing behind him, hand on the IV line, he feels no pain. A real challenge like this is rare- he completely lost sense of time, until the fog of battle clears, and he feels his body begin to fail.

 It is laying there, helpless, as the boy he had dedicated his life to steps over his prone form and leaves him to die, he realizes Seto was truly gone. This was no barrier of protection- something in him had broken- something in Seto’s heart, Daimon had allowed to break.

 Daimon remembers the careful touch on his arm, looking up into the boy’s eyes- lavender, speckled with crimson and blue, strong and kind and sad and utterly lost all at the same time. Daimon remembers the feeling of a smile tugging at his cheeks- this boy could bring back Seto’s smile. They may have just met, but Seto had been missing him for a very long time. They had a bond that Daimon could not understand, but he could feel- as for why, well, that’s just the way it is.

 Everything had gone dark then. Some unknowable amount of time later, Daimon realizes that he is back in the KMC. Something was happening, and it was quite loud, but Daimon still feels ill and returns to rest.

 It was well over a month later when Daimon returned to consciousness. Daimon remembers it feeling more like a nightmare than reality. Seto is in a coma. He has been for weeks. He’s shown no signs of recovery.

 Daimon remembers reading Seto’s chart, and so much has changed since the last time he looked after his master’s health.

 Paranoid schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. Asperger's syndrome. Dangerously high blood pressure. Hypermobile joints- and the beginnings of arthritis in at least two fingers, even at his young age. And prior to his catatonic state, severe insomnia. He’d stopped taking any medication weeks before the beginning of what the doctors were calling his “breakdown”- the beginning of Death-T’s construction coincided with the increase of Seto’s erratic behavior. Apparently, this had started with the night he’d been found asleep on school grounds, and had devolved into such incessant nightmares that Seto had been going three or four days at a time without sleep.

 All of this comes to Daimon secondhand- from the staff and files. None of it seems real- not until he sees Seto in person.

 His hair is cropped short- it’s brown again, but not close to the length he liked. He stares ahead, eyes lolling from left to right, searching, searching, but unresponsive. He’s neither unconscious nor brain dead, according to the doctor’s findings. He’s dreaming. He’s been dreaming endlessly, night and day, for three months. This is good, they say. REM sleep is when the body is best able to heal itself. Daimon knows this is true, but Seto’s vacant look makes his heart ache.

 Seto has grown taller since he last awoke- his clothes are far too small. They fit awkwardly on his large, bony frame- too short on his limbs and too baggy over his torso. The doctors decide to give him a full examination on the six month anniversary of Death-T, and Daimon sess what he’d been afraid of for years.

 Scars. Dozens of scars, little light brown lines scattered over the surface of his arms and shoulders like scattered straw, two deep russet lines encircling his neck like an abused dog, and dozens of little white crescent marks on his arms, his shoulders, but mostly down around his hips and lower back. Four lone ones on his belly, all in a line. But nothing on his face or hands. Kaiba Gozaburo knew how to hide his tracks.

 There was no way to know if Daimon could have stopped this.What Daimon did know was that he hadn’t tried. Daimon remembers taking Seto’s clammy hands in his and apologizing for what he’d let happen. Daimon didn’t beg for forgiveness. He neither wanted nor deserved it. He begged instead for Seto to wake up. Seto only stared ahead.

 It was two weeks to the day after that, when things get noisy again. It was dark out- one, perhaps two in the morning, when the man runs into the KMC. He staggers drunkenly, leaning on walls and chairs and kicking cabinets as he dashes around the room as fast as his impaired body will allow. Daimon remembers the man- tall, very tall, with a dark coat he into which he shovels handful after handful of pills. What he does not take he discards on the floor- once, he steps on a bottle and falls into a computer with a great clatter. “Fuck,” he says in English with an impeccable American accent. His voice is a deep baritone that Daimon feels is familiar but does not immediately recognize. He makes a note to turn this drunkard in once morning comes. KaibaCorp. needed better than prescription-stealers that disturbed patients to this degree.

 In the end, the helicopter and prescriptions are both discovered missing hours before Seto is. He’d taken damn near every stimulant in the west wing.

 This leads to four days of pure panic- Mokuba was two days late for his check in from New York, none of his staff could be reached- through hotel staff insisted he ordered room service two to three times a day, Seto had woken up, been spotted by exactly one member of the house staff and run off while she went to get a doctor, and somehow managed to steal a helicopter. And for four days, nothing changed. Daimon remembers the constant buzz of anxious activity, and then the fall of dead silence, and knowing at least one of the brothers had been found- and then the fear, the dread, the impatience for someone to return and tell him what was going on, and then-

 “For the last time, I do not need a doctor, I need a lawyer! The Big Five-”

 “Kaiba-sama, you have been in a coma for over six months-”

 “Do I look like I’m in a coma now? This needs my immediate attention!”

 “Nii-sama, please! Just let them-”

 “Listen to your brother, Kaiba! He’s righ-”

 “Who let YOU down here? Ugh, get rid of the bonkotsu and I’ll stay here until he’s gone.”

 “WHY YOU-!”

 “Sir, I’ll need you to come with me.”

 Daimon remembers seeing the brothers walk in hand-in-hand, the way Seto’s sharp mouth scolded the doctors and gently sparred with Mokuba, and how he followed his brother’s guide completely. Daimon remembers the look on his face, as his sentences drifted off and an unfocused look glazed over his eyes, and how a simple “Nii-sama? You were saying?” brought Seto’s world back into focus. Daimon remembers the almost unnoticed touch, as Seto began to drift off and ghosted his fingers over his brother’s, and though no-one else did, Daimon saw the reassuring squeeze of Seto’s fingers, and the way Seto’s thumb ran over the back of Mokuba’s hand- to anyone else who saw, it was Seto comforting his little brother after a horrible ordeal- but to Daimon? Seto needed his brother just as badly as the other. He wasn’t well yet- but he also wasn’t the same broken child that stepped over a dying man that he’d lost interest in. He was Kaiba Seto, and he was sick, and he may never be the same as he was before, but he would get better. Finally, he would heal.

 Daimon sees Seto often after his return. After the first week, Seto’s “fading” spells cease almost entirely, and he is able to fully resume his duties as president- however, his six months of inactivity had taken a steep toll on his body. Between his lack of proper food and sudden growth spurt, Seto had gone from somewhat gangly to severely underweight, his reflexes had been greatly slowed, and he was having even more joint pain than before. Seto comes into the KMC twice a week for physical therapy, and always stops to talk to Daimon. Daimon gets the feeling he is being more talked at than talked to, but hearing about Yuugi’s ongoing feud with the math teacher and Mazaki’s inexplicable domination in the arcade, how dare she replace his high score, she wasn't even a serious gamer , and the time the bonkotsu was drawing something called a “fursona” in history class, and the design was so terrible that Seto didn’t know whether to turn him in or give him art tips and he couldn't decide which until after the bell rang and then he’d been so distracted that needed to get notes from Yuugi and it was all the bonkotsu's fault, and the other three Seto had taken to calling “The Peanut Gallery” in English- to Daimon, Seto sounded more alive than he had in years. The years had changed him- he’d always had a bit of an acidic side, even as a child, but now there is an edge of bitterness to his every word, a challenge in his jokes,  an unspoken threat in his laugh. His air of utter self confidence rings hollow to Daimon’s ears- Seto brags about how superior his new advancement in Solid Vision tech is to anything KaibaCorp.’s Competitors have, to which Daimon points out that yes, it is a brilliant design, but his current duel disk still had many flaws- Daimon’s honest answer makes Seto waver.

 For so long Seto had been surrounded by danger- those who sought to tear him down and those who only existed in his life to agree. Those who had pushed Seto to the point of creating Death-T and those who’d enabled him to do so were equally to blame, in Daimon’s mind.  Seto had built a wall of ego out of fear and pain to hide behind, and it was so very fragile. Seto had lived a life of criticism with himself as the only consistent support- both honest validation and criticism from another was a new experience, especially from the same source, and simple remarks were enough to shake Seto to the core.

 “The Duel Disk does need work before launch,” Daimon says, and Seto’s face is vulnerable and hurt, “but I know you’re up to the task, Seto-sama. Things like this take time.”

 Seto presses his lips into a thin line and looks directly at him for a few moments, before his smirk returns and he pronounces “Of course I am. I know that.”

 Seto knew many things- but he needed to hear them all the same.

 Daimon remembers the days leading leading up the the launch- Seto had created a promotional tournament dubbed “Battle City” and was constantly busy. Daimon remembers the glimmer of excitement in his eyes- due to his coma, Seto hadn’t been able to attend last year’s worldwide Duel Monsters championships as he had planned or even this year’s nationals- losing his title to Insector Haga by default, who had then gone on to not even make the top fifteen, had been something that bothered Seto greatly. This tournament was Seto’s chance to return to competitive dueling- and his chance to face Mutou Yuugi again, which he honestly seemed more excited about. The last time the two had faced each other had been before Seto was completely recovered- he was positive that he could win now that he was back at full strength.

 Daimon remembers Seto’s small smile the night before the tournament- anxious and giddy with an undeniable edge of danger.

 “I’ll crush him,” he says.

 “And then what?” Daimon asks, and for a single second Seto’s smile falters, he looks lost and unfocused and an instant later his smile returns.

 “Then I’ll know,” he says. Seto doesn’t say what he will know- but there’s a breathless lilt to his voice that leads Daimon to believe he has more than a vague idea.

 The next time Daimon sees Seto is the night after the tournament ends. Daimon remembers awakening in the dark, only the faint glow of the computer monitors lighting the room, barely able to see the room’s other occupant. Seto sat silently, elbows pressed into his knees and mouth hidden behind crossed fingers. His eyes are downcast, seeing nothing.

 “Seto-sama?” he asks, to which the only response was a quiet shuffling of Seto’s feet on the cold tile. Seto has something to say- Daimon can almost hear a silent, frustrated scream in the air. Daimon waits.

 “I don’t believe in the impossible.,” Seto mutters so quietly that it would have been unheard in anything but dead silence. There is a pause.

 “I’ve seen impossible things before. My whole life. When I was young, I believed they were real- everything seemed so real then. But I know better now. Occult things only exist in fiction and dreams. People can’t transform. Dissociative Identity Disorder is real. Ghosts are not.”

 Seto pauses, his brows furrowed deeply. “I know…” he takes a breath. “I know that not everything I see is real. I know that my own senses can’t be undoubtedly trusted. It’s a fact I’ve had to face about myself- but I know the limits of reality. I’m not so inhibited that I can’t tell when something is blatantly impossible. Even when I can’t tell at first, there are always ways of checking- security videos, witnesses, transcripts. I can’t be fooled anymore- not even by Solid Vision. I know what’s real. I know…”

 Seto falls silent, and Daimon can hear his unsteady breath. His eyes are squeezed shut; the dim lighting catches the wrinkles in his skin in a way that illuminates his pained expression.  The quiet drags on for an uncomfortably long time, but Daimon doesn’t dare break it. When Seto speaks up, Daimon jumps.

 “I saw something.” Seto pauses, and Daimon is worried he’ll stop, but after taking a breath he continues; “It was utterly impossible. It wasn’t like the things I see anymore- there was no sense of reality to it, it wasn’t even trying to be believable. It was the sort of thing that simply can’t happen. It was like the things I saw as a child, before Go- before I learned how this universe works. I’m not a child. Childish things can’t touch me anymore…”

 Daimon sees him shift- sees him purposely, painstakingly relax his long fingers from the way they were digging into each other. His eyes open slowly, the light reflecting off of them and making them seem bright and watery. Daimon remembers making eye contact- he remembers the irony of Seto’s statement, as he looks more like his childhood self Daimon met seven years ago than he has any time since.

 “I think it was real,” he breathes, and then crosses his arms over his chest, looking at the floor. “But things that can’t be real aren’t real… right?”

 Daimon smiles kindly. He remembers the way his heart raced- with pride that Seto would come to him, and with joy of seeing someone he’d once feared lost for good. “Seto-sama, look at me.”

 Seto raises his eyes, shining and pained and lost, looking at the same time both young and innocent and old- older than Daimon, the eyes of someone who had seen far, far too much for one lifetime.

 “There are some things in this world that we don’t understand. Some impossible things that reasonably can’t exist that simply are. I’ve seen one myself, Seto-sama- and if you asked me how it happened, I’d only be able to tell you ‘Because that’s the way it is.’”

 “I don’t understand,” Seto replies, and then slowly, minutes later, eyes closed and arms relaxed at his side, he whispers not to Daimon, but himself; “Maybe… I don’t need to understand.”

 Daimon watches him, listens to his breathing even out and eventually settle into an unconscious rhythm, and smiles as he returns to sleep.

 For three days, Seto is happy. He has an idea for an upgraded Duel Disk and a worldwide system, he finalizes the buyout of I2 in person, and he proudly declares that the      bokotsu     was bragging all day about lifting weights and therefore, he would also begin lifting weights and do it      better     (it simply wouldn’t do to have the bonkotsu beat him at a subject at school, even if it was technically extra-curricular.) On the second day, Seto brings in Mokuba and they spend the night playing Capsule Monsters Chess. For three short days, Kaiba Seto is on top of the world.

 On the fourth, he is furious.

 Daimon has no idea what caused the change. The anger doesn’t go away the next day- for weeks, Daimon hears rumors about Seto storming around the building, snapping at and firing anyone who dared to look at him the wrong way. Daimon remembers the night Mokuba comes to him, crying. “Nii-sama is throwing things,” he whimpers.

 “Are you scared?” Daimon asks, and Mokuba nods wordlessly as he curls up to Daimon’s side. “You don’t need to be scared of your brother, Mokuba-sama. He’d never hurt you,” Daimon assures.

 “I know he’d never hurt me again. I’m not scared for me,” Mokuba mumbles into Daimon’s arm.  Daimon strokes his hair and makes a mental note to ask about that “again” part at a more appropriate time.

 Seto doesn’t stop visiting this time. He begins to settle down after the first month, and he’s civil, though not even close to friendly. Daimon believes he could cut the air with a knife when Seto is around- waves of steaming tension rise off him him even on the best days, and he’s never more than a breath away from snapping. He tells no one what’s bothering him, not even Daimon or Mokuba.

 Mokuba has an idea what caused it. “He was on the phone with Yuugi when it happened,” Mokuba admits to Daimon one night. “Nii-sama won’t tell me what he said. But I know there was a lot of yelling that night. I don’t think they’ve talked since- at least outside of school.”

 Daimon bides his time. He doesn’t believe Seto will come to him this time, not in his current state of mind. But he also knows that confronting Seto in the wrong way would be nothing but damaging. Daimon waits. And two months after Seto’s foul mood begins, Daimon sees his chance.

 Seto coming to him and complaining about his schoolmates was nothing unusual- at least it hadn’t been, before this began. Seto had been unusually quiet on the subject in recent weeks. On this day, Yuugi and his friends had decided to go to the arcade to celebrate the end of midterms, and to Seto’s indignation, had invited him along. Seto had been pacing as he explained this, but at the end he froze, hands balled into fists.

 “I hate them.”

 Daimon is shocked- Seto had never been one to use the word hate lightly, and now seemed to truly mean it. This was more than a fight, as Daimon had originally assumed. Something had happened here to cause this- something major.

 “Why, Seto-sama?” He asks calmly.

 “Because they’re liars!” he roars. “All of them! All they talk about is friendship and bonds and it’s all false pretence!” he sneers. “Any one of them could drop dead and they’d just… move on as if nothing happened! They don’t care about each other at all!”

 Seto wheels at Daimon, a crazed look in his eyes. “Atem was their friend. Not mine. We were never friends. They were the ones that he cared about. And they just… let him die! And now, they go to school and the arcade and shops like like it doesn’t matter! Like he never existed! Like this isn’t the end of everything!”

 Seto is panting, looking not at Daimon but through him, teeth clenched.

 “I was never his friend. I never pretended to be. But they did- and they never cared! I didn’t care, and losing him was like… like having my right arm ripped off! How could they possibly care, when they still find meaning in living now, when they still feel happy without him, w-when they say things like ‘he’s in a better place now.’ How could it be better? He’s dead! He’s GONE!”

 Seto staggered, leaning heavily on the wall for support. He paused, breathing heavily. “How can they think about never seeing him again and not want to die?” he breathes. He closes his eyes. “I wasn’t even his friend and I… and I…”

 Seto can’t bring himself to finish his statement. Daimon is at his side as quickly as he is able- he knows what Seto needs now is not words.

 Seto had been wary of being touched for years now- when he was a young child, he’d held Daimon’s hand and hugged him good-night when Daimon had read to him a book his father had read to him before his death, and Seto had admitted to him for the first time just how deeply he missed him. He’d found comfort in touch, once, but for so long he’d recoiled at every outstretched hand, every time something came at him a bit too fast, every time something brushed against him unexpectedly. But tonight, Daimon reaches a wrinkled hand out to hold Seto’s and the young man’s legs give way, and soon he is resting his head in Daimon’s lap, fingers intertwined and crying as he’d been unable to do for years. He’d been forced to grow up far too fast- he’d been forced to become a father at ten and since then had done his best until he had finally broken under the pressure- only to come back, and take on even more responsibility. Daimon knew in his condition he couldn’t take the weight off of Seto’s shoulders, not permanently, but he could give him a night to cry and mourn and be held by a father that loved him.

 “Seto-sama,” Daimon begins, running his fingers through Seto’s hair, “Everyone mourns differently. I don’t believe they didn’t care about Atem. But I also don’t believe they loved him as you did.”

 “Love..?” he whispers almost confusedly, the word foreign on his tongue. His eyes are unfocused, barely open. “I loved Atem..?”

 “There are many kinds of love, Seto-sama. I love you, and Mokuba-sama, and Doctor Ishida, who has been my caretaker and dearest friend for years. But the only time in my life I have felt as you described… it was when Aika died. We had been married for thirty-two years.”

 Seto doesn’t speak, but a range of emotions flash over his face- confusion, anger, joy, sadness, fear, longing, and another, one that Daimon can’t quite understand, another expression that makes Seto look old and lost like he’d seen the world since it began and was so very, very tired. Daimon remembers Seto’s last words as he drifted off to sleep; “I need to see him again. I need to tell him…”

 Seto’s mood changes for the better after that night- he’s still on edge but is able to fully apply himself to the projects of the new Duel Disk and and Duel Links and another personal one- one he doesn’t speak about but he is clearly excited over. Most of the time Seto is in the KMC is spent doing schoolwork- he knows the answers, but the lack of time to fill out homework had taken a massive toll on his grades. Seto clearly doesn't care, but he is aware that failing his finals would reflect badly on the company and takes the time to fill it out anyway. Daimon is hit with a wave of nostalgia, watching Seto fill out his worksheets. Seto’s cursive on his English homework is impeccable- his kanji on everything else is virtually illegible. Daimon convinces him to spend a day working on his penmanship with him before his teacher docks him       anothe    r point for misreading what he’d written, and it’s plain to see each enjoys it as much as the other does.

 Weeks pass in this manner- deals are made, new products are rolled out, school projects are assigned and finished. Then one day, Seto comes in- and not to see Daimon.

 “I’m completely fine,” he argues as Daimon wheels into the room, but his voice is shaky and he’s clearly out of breath.

 “What happened, Seto-sama?”

 “I received a minor shock while testing a new product. Nothing to worry about, Daimon.”

 “You received a shock of currently undetermined strength which caused a major cardiac event, Kaiba-sama,” Doctor Ishida snaps. “If it was as minor as you say, that is even more cause for worry. Now sit still and let me do these tests before I call in Isono to hold you down.”

 Seto grudgingly complies, and the tests come back as well as could be hoped- the shock he received was in no way minor, and his high blood pressure doesn’t seem to have been the sole cause as they’d feared. Doctor Ishida increases Seto’s medicine for his blood pressure as a preventative measure and tells him to be more careful when testing prototypes in the future.

 Duel Links is nearly ready for launch when the incident occurs. Daimon doesn’t know the details- few people do. There had been an argument in the lab between Seto and his lead designers, followed by Seto making an unscheduled trip to Egypt for reason undisclosed to most of the company, and then upon his return, a complete rehaul of the mini tournament that was planned to promote the Duel Disk’s launch at the last minute. Daimon heard quite a bit about the utter scheduling disaster that was rippling throughout the company, but virtually nothing about why Seto was doing this. Seto knew how to keep his personal life from bleeding into his professional one- if something was making him cause this much chaos, Daimon knew it must be a matter of life or death.

 Something happens during the tournament- the live feed cuts out and ambulances are called for what is later reported as a gas leak resulting in many people present falling unconscious, including Seto. The Department of Internal Affairs turns on Seto for moving the tournament up, despite the lack of safety measures in the new arena. Daimon remembers Seto’s confidant smile, tinged with a hint of sadness. “They won’t find anything against me when the investigation is done,” Seto assures Daimon and Mokuba. “They don’t have the full story.”

 “What is the full story?” Daimon asks, and Mokuba nods in agreement. He’d been at HQ when the feed was lost.

 Seto grins, says “Highly improbable,” and changes the subject.

 Seto bringing Mokuba with him on his visits becomes more often than not, over the next few weeks. Daimon remembers Seto’s quiet smile as he watches Daimon and Mokuba play CapuMon from over his homework- graduation is less than a month away now, and he really didn’t need finals to happen at the same time as the big launch. The nights spent here at the KMC are pretty much the only free time he has to spend with Mokuba as well- Daimon knew he was short on rest, but the melancholy in Seto’s eyes won’t let Daimon ask him to go home and go to sleep after the first time he does so. This time spent as a family is as precious to the brothers as it is to Daimon, perhaps more so. All of them knew that things never stayed the same for long for the Kaibas- sooner or later, this time would end. They had to enjoy every moment while it lasted.

 Only one of them knew how soon that would be.

 It’s the night after graduation, when the alarms blare and doctors rush from across the KMC at full speed. Another heart attack, they say. Doctor Ishida had feared it was inevitable. He’d told Daimon so. He’d done his best to take care of his patient- getting attached was unwanted, but there was no avoiding it. Mokuba is crying- he shouldn’t be here, not during open heart surgery, but he’d already been here to visit Daimon when it happened, and Ishida couldn't bring himself to throw the boy out. Good doctors were only as good as their patients would allow, in the end.

 What is a doctor to do when a patient has a death wish?

 Daimon listens to the nurses chatter from outside the operating room. Another malfunctioning prototype, they say. He knew the risks, how volatile the program was and how it hadn’t passed safety protocols. Some say he’d sabotaged it himself- he had to make it look like an accident, for insurance purposes. What a sweet man they say, teary eyed. Thinking about his brother, even in his unstable state of mind.

 Daimon watches the doctors and nurses enter and leave, and remembers Seto. Daimon is thankful, in the end, that even though he’d lost so much, his mind is still sharp. He can remember Miyazato Seto’s nervously darting eyes, dressed in his blue knit vest with his uncombed hair, and his peaceful sleeping face the night they’d played Duel Monsters until nearly morning, and the way he looked at his drawing of a sleeping boy with eyes far older than ten, and his gentle, sticky fingers that cup Daimon’s shaking hands around an orange he’d peeled himself.

 Daimon hopes that some day he will forget the scream- the wordless sound of a child’s heart breaking. Daimon hears the calls of “Mokuba-sama!” seconds before the boy runs past, as if his legs can outrun what his eyes had seen.

 Daimon sees Ishida then, leaning against the wall with his glasses in his hand. “Idiot boy,” he mutters over and over. “Stupid idiot boy.”

 The KMC grows quiet soon- only busy staff remained, the rest gone off to gossip or spread the news elsewhere.

 Ishida is still leaning against the wall, facing Daimon with his eyes closed. “It’s for the best, you know,” he says. “He had a stroke this time- a bad one. If his heart hadn’t given out so suddenly… He wouldn’t have been himself anymore. Some people can live like that- be happy like that. But if there was enough left to know what he used to be? It would have been worse than death for him. You know how he was.”

 The doctor's words ring true, not matter how painful they are to hear. Daimon knows exactly how Seto was, can remember every encounter.

 “May I see him?” Daimon asks, hands knotted around the hem of his jacket.

 “Yeah, of course,” Ishida says, but makes no move to walk with him.

 The hum of Daimon’s chair is deafening in the utter silence, as out of place as a ringtone at a funeral. Seto lays quietly before him, eyes shut. The cliche was that he looked like he was sleeping- but he doesn’t look that way to Daimon. There’s something unmistakably different.

 Seto slept with his mouth parted slightly, often with brows furrowed. Sometimes it was nightmares- others, simply a puzzle, but Daimon remembers his expression being very different.

 Daimon feels tears well up in his eyes. He’s known Seto for nine years now- he’s seen him grow, change, laugh, cry, break and heal. He can remember every expression Seto ever made.

 But Daimon cannot remember ever seeing Seto with a more joyful smile.

[officialkmi]

My Top 5 Webcomics

For the record, these are webcomics I read ages ago, whether I finished them or not, or ones I am reading now, which means that they’re not yet finished. I haven’t really been reading webcomics as much these days, but back in high school I read a ton. It was actually pretty hard to just pick five, as I have fond memories of a lot of webcomics that I think got dropped by the creator, were dropped by me, may still be going on, or may have already finished.

I’m kinda curious what webcomics are out there now and which ones y’all’d recommend. Lemme know and I’ll make a list of those, with links, to share with others, too. I’ll even note if I’ve read it or want to read it!

(Also, I changed up the format of the list. Going from 5 to 1 because everyone’s going to unfollow me when I list #1).

#5: Ava’s Demon

I was drawn to the art style for this webcomic. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I wasn’t that invested in the characters or storyline, honestly, as much as the artwork. I wish I’d kept reading it, as I remember eagerly waiting to see who the silhouetted characters were. I actually just checked the “cast” page and was shocked to find no one new has really been added since I stopped reading. It’s kinda a let down, haha.

I stopped reading this because one of the people I hung out with in school started bashing the creator for some drama I don’t recall when xey found out I read it. I was desperate for friends, so I stopped reading since I felt like reading it was something wrong.

If anyone reads Ava’s Demon, I’d love to know if the story has made any decent progress. Who knows? I might start reading it again.

#4: Monster Pop!

I will probably never pick this webcomic up again, I’ll be honest. I started reading it, it was great, and then I just stopped around the same time I stopped reading all my other webcomics.

However, I  followed Maya Kern on Facebook this year, and I love seeing her art. She has such a pretty style. It’s soft and gives me soft feelings.

I thought, back in the day, that the plot was cool. But now, all I can tell you is that it involves monsters and humans. The cast back when I read it wasn’t nearly as big as it is now, which is good. I think I started reading when it was relatively new, so I had to check back each week for updates. It was great.

I actually like the characters, and I feel like I’d be able to relate to a lot of them if I read it again. Maya definitely gets points for diversity, which is a must have for any webcomic featuring monsters. If your cast features creatures, but they all look the same or are relatively similar gender-wise, you’re probably failing. Maya not only has a great cast, but they’re of different body types. I love seeing her body-positive art on Facebook when I’m scrolling through my feed.

#3: Check, Please!

Okay, so a few months ago I was thinking about this webcomic. I remember thinking it was as adorable as webcomics came, really. I loved the art style and I loved the story (spoiler: it’s not straight).

Then, last month, I hung out with a friend and saw it had a published version. It took all my willpower to remind myself I was about to be unemployed and could not afford to splurge on a copy. One day, though, it will be mine.

Keep in mind, while the main story is about hockey players, you don’t actually have to understand anything about Hockey to enjoy it. I know nothing about sports in general, and I almost always refuse to sit through anything but Basketball. So, if I’m saying it’s good, believe me!

#2: Trying Human

This was, by far, one of my favorite webcomics ever. Back in the day, the background on my phone was actually a side ship in it (pretty sure I did not have an iPhone back then). I’ve kinda debated reading it again. It was really cute and I enjoyed it so much.

It’s a bit nerdy, in that it is a sci-fi webcomic. It also has a small following, in that I’ve never met anyone else who has ever read it. However, if you like to enjoy lesser known media, I highly recommend Trying Human. Tell your friends about it, too. It’s a good webcomic and I think I’d enjoy reading it again.

#1: Homestuck

Surprise, admin is absolute trash. I’m so sorry to my dear readers.

I started Homestuck in High School because of a recommendation an online friend gave me, but I didn’t finish it until a year or two ago. It got to the point where I had Pesterchum on my laptop, I made fan videos (I even did one to a SHINee song and one to a B1A4 song), I tried voice acting, I wrote fanfic (no, I won’t link it), I roleplayed, I followed artists, and I even managed to make some cool IRL friends because of it. I actually wore my Dirk Strider shirt and carried around an Orange Crush my senior year Halloween because we weren’t technically allowed to dress up. And, yes, I play Hiveswap (but I didn’t play the Troll game where you meet the trolls).

While the fandom gets a bad rep, Homestuck was something I used to make friends. It was something that seemed to grow with me. I also loved the representation among characters, the way they grew (or didn’t grow). It was a story that, while confusing, was something I could really enjoy myself with.

Plus, I’d never have found my all-time favorite artist (Ikimaru) if not for Homestuck. Even though they no longer do Homestuck fanart, I love their art and it’s now my dream to one day be able to commission them.

HONORABLE MENTION: High Class Homos by Momozerii

1) This webcomic can be read on instagram or on tapas. I don’t use Tapas to read webcomics, but I feel like I did in the past during my webcomic addiction? It’s hard to remember. I read it on Instagram and give all my love.

2) Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and a fucking trans knight who I love. It’s amazing how they slip in the exposure about the knight being trans, as well. Oh, and the princess has a prosthetic leg! It’s such a DIVERSE webcomic.

3) Love triangle but not a toxic one (so far). It’s girl’s being fair and honest.

4) Who is the green haired jerk? I want to kick his ass.

Anyway, it’s an honorable mention because I don’t still read (or have finished) the other webcomics. High Class Homos is a webcomic I am currently reading because Momzerii has made me so happy with the trans knight (because I am trans and I like to think of myself as a knight in shining armor, sometimes).