#I went to pick through my drafts and figure out what I wanted to post next and had to double check my numbers

[witherby]

THIS BLOG IS LESS THAN TWO WEEKS OLD

IS THE DC FANDOM OK

[iidesxreii]

Anatomy - S. Reid

∘₊☽ Song: https://music.apple.com/us/album/anatomy-single/1695033802 ☽₊∘

╔ Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

☆ Word Count: 5.3k

☆ Category: Angst/Fluff (Opposites attract, what can I say?)

☆ Summary: You never talk about your father with anyone. And when you finally do allow yourself to think of all the reasons you come to a certain realization. One that took you years to admit. //My take on the song Anatomy by Kenzie.//

☆ Content: HURT/COMFORT, angst, flashbacks, dad problems GALORE

╚ A/N: Omg this is my first fic and it's been sitting in my drafts for like months. I was skeptical about posting this but I guess no better time than now you know? I have a couple more in the drafts and if this does any type of good, I'll release more! Bold are lyrics, italics are memories <3

Also!! This is LONG. I didn't realize how long until I scrolled through and my GOSH. Please grab snacks and tissues because this shit gets deep. PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU HATE IT I WONT BE MAD I SWEAR.

If you squint I slipped in some very slight father figure Hotch bc that’s my crack

═══════ ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ｡･ ═══════

You called me today, on a random Tuesday

Don't ask me why I still have your number saved

You roll your eyes and double click your lock button to send the phone call to voicemail. You try to continue talking with the team, but within seconds your phone is ringing again. You sigh and pull your phone out fully but before you could send them to voicemail again, Hotch’s voice broke through to you. 

“Agent (Y/L/N). I don’t know who’s calling you, but please go answer. This is the 3rd time.” Hotch’s usual monotonous voice cuts through the conversation everyone else was having, the minute he does it goes quiet in the conference room. You breathe in deeply before licking your lips looking for a reply.

“Actually it’s the 18th time since you clocked in this morning. 3rd since we’ve landed.” Your all knowing, fast talking and ever so loving boyfriend chirps from the corkboard. Your eyes dart to him and you see that he hasn’t even turned an inch to look at you. Still focusing on the ins and outs of the case your team was supposed to be working on. You sigh before clearing your throat.

“Since you know SO much Reid, who is it?” You ask as you stand from your seat at the table. Morgan has a smile on his face as he watches you two fight like a married couple. Your hands land on your hips and Reid finally turns around. He has a file in his hands and the entire time he speaks he’s reading into it.

“Your father. I saw his name come up 4 times before we went to the round table room for debriefing.” He places the white board marker down before flipping a page in the file and continuing to read. You squint at him and make a face. Your boyfriend had terrible social cues, especially while on the job. He wasn’t the easiest to speak to sometimes, which is why you never let it bother you. Until now. Talking about your father brought the worst out in you. “If you’re going to ignore someone’s calls you could try blocking them or turning-” 

“Reid.” Hotch’s stern voice comes barreling through his train of thought and he finally looks up. When he sees your face his softens immediately. He didn’t know why you never spoke about your dad or why you never answered his calls. He also didn’t know why you never went home during your vacations or never spoke about your home life. But seeing you look so defeated after his last few words to you, he’s wanted to know more than ever. You roll your eyes and pull your phone out. You click your fathers name and the phone immediately redials and sends out the call. You show your colleagues and some of them jokingly laugh as you head out of the door. The phone rings 4 times before it picks up. And then you hear your father.

Hello, stranger, it's been forever

You're acting normal, but nothing's normal about

“Hey stranger! Seems like I can never get you on the phone nowadays!” Your dad’s voice cuts through the quiet silence after a beat of sitting on the phone. You clear your throat as you entire an office that was empty. It wasn't too far from your team so you could still keep an eye on them and gauge what they were talking about.

“Hi dad.” you mumbled into the phone. Your tone of voice did nothing to throw your father off his reason for calling you. You can hear the smile on his face when he continues talking.

“Are you busy? Do you have some time for catching up?” He asks so innocently but you fear that. Your dad never calls for just anything, there’s always something behind the call. Something you chose to stay away from.

“Ah…no.” You think about it for a second before answering. You should have said you were busy, or you shouldn't have called back and instead blocked his number but the thing about your father was you loved him. You always had, always will. He was your weak spot. No matter how many times he had proven he didn’t deserve second, third or fourth chances you gave him them all.

“My little FBI agent is finally quiet. You know you were never really a quiet kid-” he continued talking and you continued listening. Another notion towards you giving your father time that he doesnt deserve. You watch as your team continues shuffling around in the room, talking and marking up a board you can only see half of. 5 minutes later you see the door to their room open and you turn away. Within seconds you find your door opening and Morgan peeking his head in.

“Profile is ready. Good to go?” he asks. You turn to him and give him a thumbs up before returning to your call. The door closes and you take a peek at it before clearing your throat.

“Hey dad, I’ve got to go but…I’ve got some vacation time saved up. How about I come visit and we can go out for dinner.” you turn to look and find your team making their way out of the room and towards the open vast police station. A sure sign that they were about to give the profile without you.

“That’s a wonderful idea, munchkin. Let me know when. Stay safe.” you nod into the phone and immediately hang up. There was nothing more to say after that. You slide your phone on mute before sticking it in your pocket and opening the office door. Before you can head towards the team you feel a hand on your arm. You turn to find Spencer standing, waiting on you.

“Angel-” He doesn’t get any further before you smile and pull your arm gently from him. You didn’t want to talk, no matter how sad you looked or felt. Talking about your dad was never a good thing.

“Not right now, Spence. Profile time.” you deflect like you always have. Never talking about your father was normal to you. Nothing good had or could ever come from talking about your father.

Trust issues and soaking tissues

Your relationship with your father had turned sour about a year after him and your mom divorced. He stopped visiting, stopped calling, stopped sending money for you and your sister. Like he had just given up. And then one day he started calling back and his reasoning was because work had exhausted him and strained him beyond what he was used to but he was back and wasgoing to be there for you guys. If only 7 year old you had known the lie.

“I’m going to come and pick you guys up and we’ll hangout for the weekend. I told your mom I’d be there at 5. I love you guys, Munchkin.” his voice came through the phone one wednesday. Your sister, Ameilia, squealed and jumped on her bed before flopping down and grabbing her pillow to scream into.

“We love you too dad! We can’t wait!” You quickly hung up the phone and turned to your older sister who stopped in her tracks and immediately started digging through your shared closet for clothes to wear. You followed suit with the brightest smile on your face. Unknowingly to you and Ameilia, your mother was standing at your door with a worried look on her face.

Lyin' to my sister and sayin' I don't miss you

The false hope calls kept coming well into your teen years. The constant ‘I’ll pick you up’ and ‘I’m sorry I just got caught up in work’ conversations weren’t making it better. Each time he fell through he had a better lie than last time. Ones that made sense in your little brain. You didn’t finally grasp that he wasn’t ever coming until your 16th birthday. Your mom had saved up as much money as she could to pay for an extravagant party for you and you invited your dad. Of course he agreed and said he’d be in attendance that night which got you excited. But as the night droned on, and the end of your party came to a close you found that everything he had ever said in the last 9 years had been a lie. You knew you’d get a call sometime next weekend about how busy he had gotten, but you figured you’d let it ring. Maybe Amelia would answer.

“You okay?” Ameilia asks you a few days later. You’re working on something to keep yourself busy when you look up to her. She’s sitting on her bed playing with a small toy your dad had given her years ago. 

“I’m fine…” came your quiet voice. She looked up at you and scoffed before throwing the toy into the box labeled goodwill. She was cleaning her side of your guys room before college, and it seemed she was trying to get away from your dad. Something you knew you’d need to do yourself, but haven’t done just yet.

“Do you miss him?” came her soft voice. You turned to her once more before swallowing. You shuffled a bit on your bed before coming to the edge and sitting down. You opened your mouth to say something but nothing came out. Do you lie? Tell the truth? “It’s okay if you do. I did too for a while.” you look up at this. Another toy gets tossed into the box and she looks back at you. 

“Do you still?” comes your quiet question. Your 16th birthday was the one time you expected your father to come through. But you couldn’t help but feel sad that he didn’t. You could deal with any other lie, but a lie about missing this big of a milestone in your life? inexcusible.

“Do me a favor.” You look up to find her standing from her bed. She has her hands on her hips, which is how you know she means what she’s about to say. “When I leave for school, if he keeps calling…don’t pick up. If the ringing bothers you pick it up and slam it back down. But don’t speak to him ever again. He’s not worth your tears (Y/N/N).”

With no closure, just getting older

Now almost 8 years after that conversation you still find it in you to have his number saved. You try not to answer the phone but his persistence quietly eats at the back of your brain making you answer the phone, though you’d never admit that to your sister. You’d never hear the end of it from her. She’d eat at you about the closure you both never got. Which would make you not want to disappoint her but you can’t make them both happy. So for now, you pretend you haven’t answered his calls in years. But you know and it eats at you. The pain you experienced from not really having your dad in your life made growing up harder than it should. Nobody to chase the boys away, nobody to cry to when you felt your mom was being unfair, nobody to bring you to the ‘daddy daughter’ dances. A figment of your imagination, a silhouette of a man you once knew. Nobody to introduce Spence to, have dinners with, walk you down the aisle when that time comes. Just emptiness. 

And the older you got the easier it got to ignore the calls. When you managed to get a job at the BAU every excuse after was about how busy you were. New case, no time on your hands, working overtime, no vacation time, ect. Nothing you ever came up with for an excuse was ever about something normal. It was always about your job. Which put you in a temporary peace of mind. Your phone stopped ringing all the time and only rang sometimes. Your call log stopped being filled with ‘dad’ and in turn at the top of your messages was always a new excuse on why you didn’t answer. And for a while the lies became easier, something you no longer thought about but instead typed out and sent before going back to sitting on your couch. Which had turned you into him, and made you feel guilty so you went back to answering.

But you still see me as a kid on your shoulders

“Can’t wait to see you again! We can go to the park and eat ice cream after!” is the first text you see when you come out of the house you and your team had just barged into. You don’t respond to the text, you instead clear your throat and lock your phone before looking around and checking which car you’d be riding back to the station in.

It's just anatomy, you're only half of me

“Why do you even care about dad? It’s not like he cared about us.” Your sister had asked during one thanksgiving where she was home from school. You shrugged before continuing to wipe off your makeup. Yet another festivity you had invited him to that he had missed.

“He did. At some point…” you whispered into the air. You watched Ameilia roll her eyes and scratch her nose before she threw her hands up and turned away from you. 

“Right. Blood doesn’t make you family you know. He’s only half of our DNA anyway.” She grabs her phone off her bed and heads out of your old shared room and towards the bathroom with a tune humming behind her. You wished you could feel like her. Thriving even without dad. Living.

Still, you don't know me at all

“Maybe we just do the ice cream. The park isn’t for me anymore.” is the only thing you text back. Before you can lock your phone a message comes in and you read it.

“Sorry Munchie. I forget you’re not so small anymore.” Munchie. He hadn’t called you that since before the divorce. It plays in your head over and over again before you will yourself to type something back.

“I am unfortunately 23 now, dad.” You lock your phone immediately before you can accidentally read another text. You go to slip your phone into your pocket and feel it vibrate almost immediately. You shrug it off and pay attention to what Hotch is telling you from the driver’s seat. Right now this is more important. Catching your killer is more important. But Munchie plays in your head anyway.

You've been my missing piece, so why aren't you missing me?

Guess I meant less than I thought

“You still don’t miss him?” you question your sister as she’s getting ready for bed. She turns to you and her smile drops immediately. 2 years ago she had asked if you missed him, and now you're asking her if she misses him. You know the answer though.

“Does he miss us?” You can hear the aggravation in her voice as she answers you. She pulls her blankets back on her old bed and plugs her phone onto the charger.

“Of course he does.” comes your reply. She turns and places her hands on her hips, a notion that she was getting serious.

“Text him. Text him that you miss him and tell me what he says." She motions towards your phone before walking out of your room. An hour later she come back in from her shower and heads to her own bed. She sits down and reaches for the lamp that was on. “Anything?”

“No…” comes your solemn reply. You had been staring at the phone since you sent it. Eyes bloodshot and bleary.

“Open your fucking eyes, (Y/N).” and then the light is gone. And all you are left with is a broken heart, a fading phone screen, and tears streaming down your face.

It's just anatomy

Hate that you're half of me

“Dinner guys?” Hotch voices as you all leave the station with one more bad guy caught. You look over your team who is all fondly talking to one another.

“Absolutely. All on you Hotch?” Morgan jokes while clapping Hotch on the shoulder. Hotch spares him a side eye before letting out a small chuckle. 

“Absolutely not.” He pats Morgan’s chest before turning to you and Reid. The entire team turns and you find everyone staring at you. Spencer included. 

“(Y/N)?” JJ has her bottom lip between her teeth and she’s holding back a smile. You chalk up wallowing in self pity to a later time and smile.

“Family dinner it is.” Spencer smiles at you before throwing an arm over your shoulder and walking with you to the car.

Hate when people say that our noses are the same

So I went and got a change, like three-quarters of L.A

Three weeks later you’re walking in from lunch with Spencer when you see the rest of your team crowding around Penelope. She has an ipad in her hands and she’s pointing at something on it when you both approach. You find a picture of JJ’s family on it and they’re pointing out the similarities in JJ now. You shake your head and head to your desk when you hear your name.

“Wow (Y/L/N). You look just like your dad.” Emily’s voice cuts through the team’s jabbering and you freeze. You hated hearing that. You looked like him and now you don’t reach out like him. Every call is from him and not from you.

“What?” You ask, turning around slowly. Emily points at the Ipad in Penelope’s hand and Penelope turns it to you. You find a picture of you, Amelia, your mom and your dad all dressed in your sunday best for easter photos. You had to be no older than 6. Sometime right before the divorce.

“It’s like copy and paste.” JJ smiles at you and you try to fake one back. Except it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. Jj, Penelope and Emily all notice and like a switch the Ipad is turned around and they all shut up.

“Except her nose is a bit smaller now. It was larger when she was a kid.” Morgan continues. He has a smile on his face and he shows no limit of stopping. Emily turns to him and you see her make a gesture that he completely ignores. JJ taps at his biceps and he shakes it off. Reid goes to open his mouth and stop him but the damage is done. “You get a nose job (Y/L/N)?” everyone's eyes go wide and you blink a few times. Before he can rush out an apology you’re cleaning your desk and grabbing your things. You needed an out. You wanted no one to know about your father or your nose job, but now your whole team knew.

And I've dated shitty people 'cause of how you treated mom

Now I'm with somebody good, but I'm still feeling numb 'cause of

The next day you come in and the subject is on shitty exes. JJ, Emily and Penelope are discussing the ins and outs of how shitty their love life has been or is going. Except obviously JJ. She’s got Will and a newborn. Who wouldn’t love to be in JJ’s shoes. You reach your desk and keep quiet. You’d usually add in your two cents by now but with what had happened yesterday and your abrupt shift end you don’t add your input due to the shitty list of men you had from the ripe age of 14 to 20. Instead you listen to theirs. And it wasn’t like you were expecting an apology. You weren’t. You were just taking your time in getting over the fact that you’d never be able to skip the accusations of looking exactly like your father. A spitting image of him. Like a mirror.

“How is it to be with Reid? Is he how I think he is?” Emily speaks to you first. You turn to her with a relaxed smile and lean back in your chair. You cross your legs over the other and cock your head.

“How do you think he is?” you question her. She looks at JJ and Pen before clearing her throat and giving you an awkward smile.

“The same here, but more relaxed. And always talking your ear off.” JJ holds back a laugh by licking her bottom lip and Pen just smacks Emily’s arm softly.

“He’s actually quieter. And cuddlier than in public, but that’s because he doesn’t like PDA.” You shrug like this is  normal conversation. And of course it is because it’s you talking to your girl friends about your boyfriend, but it isn’t because these are your teammates and your boyfriend is one of them.

“Hey about yesterday-” Emily starts but you wave her off. You make a funny face before stretching.

“No apologies needed. It’s fine.” and then you turn back towards your desk and you continue working on the file at hand. You play it off well but you refuse to let them know that their words have been on constant repeat in your head since you heard them. 

Trust issues, I'm soaking tissues

Lyin' to my sister like I never miss you

Ameilia calls you and catches you off guard the weekend after it happens. She starts the call off by saying something about her wedding which gives you a moment to collect yourself from the multiple crying sessions you’ve had. But you slip and let out a sniffle and she hears it. She stops all conversation and listens for a minute. You try to play it off and speak to her but your voice gives it away.

“What’s wrong?” she asks into the phone. You sniffle again before clearing your throat. You give yourself some time before answering and sigh.

“Nothing Ames. Continue talking about your wedding.” You plaster a fake smile on your face even though she can’t see you. You wipe at your bloodshot eyes and throw yet another tissue into the pile on the table.

“Is it dad?” she asks. You open your mouth to disagree and stop yourself. Then you continue with your lie. You’re just as bad as him, half of him. A liar.

“What? No. I don’t talk to him-” you start to go on a tangent and you hear your sister’s voice break your train of thought. 

“I know you’re still talking to him. I spoke to mom.” Is the only thing she says to you. You sigh into the phone and shake our head. Leave it to your mother to break your 8 year lie apart

“I-” you start but you hear your sister on the other line. She sighs and sniffles before quickly covering it up with clearing her throat.

“I wish I loved him the same way you do. I really do.” And without missing another beat she goes back to talking about her wedding. Anything to not talk about dad.

Say you'll visit, empty promise

God, I wish that for once you'd be honest

A couple of weeks go past and you’re back in your hometown with Spencer. He hadn’t managed to get vacation time with you, but he had a couple of days saved up and decided to use 2 of them for dinner with your dad. Something you had asked him for and he immediately dropped everything to be in attendance. He knew the history with your father. And how much you tried to refuse talking to him. He thought that if you could face this, he’d be able to ask your father if he could marry you. Because that was all he was waiting for, a chance to ask properly.

So you found a hotel and a great place for dinner. Texted your dad and told him where and when to meet you. You got dressed in the hotel room, called a cab to ride in for the dinner and walked in with your head high when you said you had a reservation for 3. You sat at the table shuffling with anxiety and Spencer watched hoping that this wouldn’t be like all the other times. The times that had you sniffling and crying for days on end. The times you spent in your apartment and not his because you didn’t want him seeing you that way. But as time went on, one hour went to two and then three and your drinks went from just one to six. He saw the look on your face. One of defeat and embarrassment. And you chalked it up to another defeat when you called your waiter over and had them close out your six cup wine tab and Spencer’s one glass of water. You signed the $300 dollar tab and left two crisp hundred dollar bills for wasting your waiter’s time and stood. Spencer followed and you both made your way to the hotel.

It's just anatomy, you're only half of me

Still, you don't know me at all

“I’m sorry. I got caught up in some work and fell asleep at the office. Dinner on me next week instead? You’ll still be in town then right?” You read the text and throw your phone on the bed and turn to Spencer who is looking at you with his hands in his pocket. He doesn’t say anything, just pulls his hands from his pockets and opens his arms for you to fall into. And you do. You sigh and fall into his arms and waste no time crying your eyes out.

You've been my missing piece, so why aren't you missing me?

Guess I meant less than I thought

You now understood why Ameilia never sent your father a wedding invite. He wouldn’t pull through back then for either of you, what makes your silly little heart think he’d pull through last night? Or for her wedding? Another ping finds your ears as you watch Spencer gather his things for the airport.

“Munchie. I’m sorry.” “Munchie, I'll be at The Brindleton for lunch. My treat.” “Munchie. Please call me back. I love you”. You don’t notice Spencer looking at you or the tilt in his head as he analyzes your body language. He’s trying to gauge how you feel about your father because unbeknownst to you, you crying in his arms last night solidified that maybe you were ready for anything that comes after 3 years 9 months 19 days and 6 hours of dating. That black velvet box that has been sitting behind the books you find most boring on his bookshelf is now digging a hole into his heart. You look up and find him staring and you just smile at him. And he smiles back.

It's just anatomy

Hate that you're half of me

You flew in 3 hours ago and found yourself at Spencer’s place. Playing with his fingers as he lays on the couch underneath you. Your phone blares your ringtone and Spencer looks at you. You pick it up, watch it ring and when it’s done he notices the multitude of calls you’ve missed. 19. All of them from your father. And he watches as you open your phone, and block his number. Then you delete his contact and set your phone down again. He watches as you contently lie back down and sigh. A silent relief falling off your shoulders. His eyes fly to the bookshelf and then back to you. 

“Hey, why'd you come straight to mine?” Spencer crane's his neck to look at you and you shrug. You spare him no glance as you melt into him even more. He wouldn't have thought that was possible minutes ago.

“I was ready to come home.” your simple answer does it for him. He makes up his mind immediately. And you do too.

It's just anatomy, you make up half of me

On your 4 year anniversary Spencer pops the question. Over dinner at home. And of course you say yes, excited to show your mom and sister. No longer does your father cross your mind. Instead it’s filled with what your future could look like. Half Spencer, half you.

But still, you don't know me at all

You get the occasional call to your work phone but you’ve seen that number before and instead you ignore it. Spencer and the team watches as you do. No longer does it bother anyone because the only place he can reach you is work, and unfortunately a lot of calls go unanswered as a government worker. 

You've been my missing piece, so why aren't you missing me?

You watch your sister walk down the aisle in front of you with her fiance’s dad guiding her. Which makes you think about how you’d like to walk you down the aisle. You turn to Spencer who’s looking ahead at your sister and smile. Your missing piece was never your father. You just held a spot open for someone to love and missed the clear sign that there was always someone there.

Guess I meant less than I thought

A year and a half go by and you’re sitting at your sister’s house with Spencer. She hands you a small box and you find a small cupcake, its topper, a baby pacifier. You gasp as you stand and reach for your sister with wide eyes. She squeals as you squeeze her and turn to Spencer who has dug his finger in the icing of your cupcake. You roll your eyes and turn to Ameilia.

“You are going to be the BEST auntie ever. I love you.” it no longer hurts to hear I love you. Especially when you know the person saying it means it. It means even more when you know you mean it too.

“I love you more.”

It's just anatomy

“For all it’s worth…I knew you had a nose job. I just loved your face so much I never said anything.” Spencer whispers into your ear the night before the wedding. You roll over and face him with creased eyebrows. 

“Are you sure it isn’t because you profiled me and knew I wasn’t going to ever recover if you had told me you knew?” You ask it in a joking way but Spencer can see the truth behind it. 5 years, 7 months, 24 days, 23 hours and 56 minutes of loving you and he can tell everything about you. He never misses a chance to learn something new though. 

“It could be that…” he mumbles as he shoves his face between your breasts in a way of getting more comfortable. If neither of you get any sleep the wedding won’t be exactly as you planned it. And he would hate to make his bride’s perfect wedding go wrong. “Angel, it’s just anatomy. I wouldn’t have cared. I still don’t.” he whispers it and you almost don’t hear it. Almost. But you do and you shuffle closer before wrapping your arms around him.

“And that is why I said yes.” you kiss the top of his head before closing your eyes and attempting to fall asleep. A full day is ahead of you in no less than 10 hours.

Hate that you're half of me

“You ready?” you turn and find Hotch at your side. You wouldn’t have asked for a better father figure to walk you down the aisle. And he was honored you asked. He turns to you and adjusts your dress once more mumbling about modesty and returns to your right side. He holds his arm out for you and you lay your hand in the slit of his elbow.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” comes your response. And within seconds the door is opening, the music is playing, and Hotch is walking you down the aisle. Blood surely didn’t make this family, you did. The BAU was your family. Your dad was just…anatomy.

[eyra]

stuff what I have learnt about writing good

If you've followed me for longer than two minutes then you'll likely know (because I keep going on about it) that I've been working on a novel for the past year. It's always been a dream of mine to write and publish a book and whilst I still have a long way to go before I can even start thinking about querying (whether on this book, or the next, or the next, etc.) I suppose I can now say that a book Exists. I have written A Book.

Now whether or not that book ever sees the light of day, the process of writing it has been truly eye-opening. I went in knowing virtually nothing and came out, still with a huge amount to learn, but with a whole library of tools that I didn't have before. I'm now putting these to use with the first draft of my second book and already the process feels so much more enjoyable, because I've started to figure out how to make it work for me.

I wanted to jot down what I've learnt purely for my own reference so I can keep looking back and reminding myself what worked for me first time around, but given that I get a nice number of asks picking my brain about my own writing process, I thought I might as well share all this with you lot in case there's anyone out there who finds it useful!

So here are the big things that I've learnt so far...

1. Not every trick works for every writer

This has been, by far, my biggest learning. Starting to plan a novel for me felt SO overwhelming - I felt like I was bombarded on all sides with "this is how to write a novel" content, and it felt like there was just too much to learn and like I would never find my way through it. I spent weeks (months...) doing every worksheet, every outlining method, every chart, anything I could get my hands on. Some of them, by the end, proved themselves very useful. A lot of them didn't. There are thousands of voices online that are telling you "this is the right way to write a book" or even "this is the ONLY way to write a book" - don't listen to them. Try things, but don't feel like you have to fit yourself into every single box. Just find the things that work for you.

2. It's possible to overplan

On a related note - sometimes you just need to start writing. I spent WAY TOO LONG faffing about before I put pen to paper with my first book. So, so long planning out characters and plot points, a lot of which I then had to completely reimagine mid-draft because I realised they just didn't work anymore. In hindsight, some of this was down to me being scared to actually start writing - the planning stage was a bit of a comfort zone for me, despite not naturally being a plotter/architect - I have always always always been a pantser/gardener, but I got sucked into the whole "proper authors do it THIS way" narrative.

With my second novel, I did a nice amount of planning but then just bit the bullet and started drafting. I know where my story begins, ends, what my major themes are, I know all my main characters and I know my key plot points. The rest, I'm figuring out as I draft. If nothing else - I'm having a lot more fun this time around.

3. Think about voice and tense before drafting

Yeah duh obvious right? NOT TO ME. If you were following me around April time, you may have witnessed a series of minor breakdowns when I realised that, having written a whole first draft in third person present tense, the entire book should actually have been written in first person past tense. So that meant, basically, starting over from scratch. This was a big learning for me, and not a mistake I'm likely to make again.

4. Stop looking at your word count

For someone who's never really put much thought into word count before - my approach with fanfiction has already been "it'll be as long as it'll be" - I got OBSESSED with the word count of my first couple of drafts. A lot of people will tell you that any good novel "has to be" under 100k words. I constantly see this one post on Pinterest that says "I promise you that you can tell the story you want to tell in 100k words or under." I'm definitely no expert on this (and I'll eat my words when an agent tells me my manuscript needs cutting down), but I'm sceptical - a lot of stories can and should be under 100k words, sure, but most of my favourite books are much longer than this. However, I did get stuck in a "this manuscript has to be between 70k and 100k words" mindset and felt like a failure whenever it was sitting outside of that bracket. Also - keep your genre in mind. If you're writing a rom-com, 70k could work perfectly. If you're writing fantasy, you're probably going to go over that.

5. Know whether you're an overwriter or an underwriter

And related to the above - know whether you tend to write bare bones-style then add to it, or whether you tend to dump it all on the page then cut back later. I'm the first, and I knew this, but I still panicked when my first draft was only around 70k. I felt like it was rushing through the plot at an unreasonable pace and it didn't feel "finished". This was because it was a first draft. By the time I sent my manuscript to my beta reader, it was around 126k.

6. The dumb stuff works

The title of the document for my first draft was "XXX - worst possible version" and at multiple points during the drafting process I changed the font to Comic Sans size 48. It works. Completely takes the pressure off and gives you full permission to write big, write silly, write unhinged, write mad things that you'll cut back by 90% later. But it gets it all on the page. If you're stuck or cringing at yourself in Times New Roman size 12, try Comic Sans size 48.

7. Don't compare your first draft to your favourite book

Like an idiot, I did this. I still find myself doing it. It's possibly my worst writing habit. I'll type out a page at 11pm after a full day at work and no dinner and then I'll pick up a published book and think "ah man, the page I've just written is nowhere NEAR as good as this." Published books are fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh drafts that then go through months and months of editing. Do not compare your manuscript to a published book. Just don't do it.

8. Don't try to be That Author

Good writers are good readers. Absolutely read broadly, read deeply, just read. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, everything. And it's fine to find yourself influenced by other writers - that's how writing works. But don't try to BE other writers. One of the issues I had to unpick last year was that I was reading a lot of authors whose writing styles are very different to my own. I know my own style fairly well by this point - fanfiction's a great sandbox for figuring that out - but at certain moments during my editing phases I found myself cutting away at my prose because it felt "too different" to the books I was reading at the time. This was a weird thing for me to have done, and I went back and fixed it later.

I think what I'm trying to say with this one is: take inspiration from everywhere, let yourself be influenced by different writing styles, but find your own voice and trust it. Literature already has a Sally Rooney and a Donna Tartt and a Leigh Bardugo. It doesn't need a clone - it needs you!

I'll finish by sharing what I've found to be the most useful plotting template. This obviously isn't the total extent of my planning process by any means, but after trying about a million different plotting techniques for my first manuscript, this is the one:

The 27 chapter method (more examples here)

And finally, two little character tricks that I find invaluable:

AITAH?

Character philosophy

I hope someone out there finds something useful in this post! Although I've been writing in some capacity since I was a teenager, 2024 was definitely the year I realised that I am a writer at my core. I want to be a published author, but I'm already a writer. It brings me happiness like nothing else in the world! And I love to talk about all aspects of writing, so my ask box is always very much open.

Happy scribbling! x

[thescarlettbitch]

Intuition vs Anxiety

How to tell the difference, and how to learn to trust your intuition.

This is going to discuss my personal experiences, which involve mentioning how my body responds, my language will not be very descriptive, but it could still be triggering to people with emetophobia.

I am going to say this now, every single person is different. This may not be applicable to everyone. At the end, I will have ways to help you get in touch with your intuition.

Also an obligatory I am a stranger on the internet I am speaking from experience, but that does not mean that I am a figure of authority on this use your best judgment, take what resonates, be respectful.

Edit: I was not planning on posting this yet but I can't "unpost" something and move it back to my drafts, and I don't want to lose it. Sorry. Lmk if anything else needs added/changed/fixed etc.

I've heard it a million times, intuition is in your gut, anxiety is in your chest.

But what about when your anxiety manifests as a full body reaction? What if your intuition is full body?

I've had horrible anxiety since I was a small child, my panic and anxiety attacks used to get so bad I would, for lack of a nicer term, puke my guts out. It was not fun.

There have only been two instances that I had that type of intuitive response to something, and both times I brushed it off as anxiety. And both times it had started as a smaller reaction.

The first, I was like 13, we were on vacation and had met up with some friends an adult in my life had. Upon meeting one of these friends, she set off a bad feeling. Something was off about her. The major stomach reaction went away after culminating in throwing up, but the uneasy feeling stayed. I brushed it off as anxiety. Two YEARS later, the woman attempted to harm my family and I. Now I know what my intuition towards people feels like, and I don't let anyone who sets that off stay in my life.

The second was I wanna say two years ago now. I woke up on a Sunday with this deep uneasy feeling. It wasn't necessarily in my stomach, but it was deep in my bones. I brushed it off, got dressed, contemplated calling in sick, powered through and went to work. And then I almost got unalived. Now I know what situational intuition feels like, and if I get that feeling, I stay home.

The two do not feel the same to me, but I know how each of them feel.

Now, is trial and error a /good/ way to find out which is which? No, I would suggest sitting with your feelings. Feel where the sensation is coming from. Is it just an alarm bell in your head or is it the feeling of a bull getting ready to charge you head on? Is it around the idea of working or the idea of going into work /today/? If you deal with chronic anxiety, you probably either have meds or coping mechanisms to help you calm down, are they working? Does it feel different than usual? Where does your anxiety usually culminate?

An exercise I do to try and work my intuition is guesswork. Guesswork is what it sounds like— guessing. Your intuition is your knee-jerk reaction, your first thought (usually). How can you focus this in a controlled environment?

Flipping a coin. Flip the coin, guess heads or tails. You're not just guessing, you're divining which one it is. Follow your feeling. Why do you think it's heads or tails? You just feel like it is? Congrats, that's your intuition.

Shuffle a deck of normal playing cards. Pick a random card face down and feel which card you're holding. What suit is it? What number? You can close your eyes and try to picture the card in your head. Whichever one comes to you first. That's your intuition.

I have always had a hard time trusting my intuition in things like spirit work. These are things that have helped me, and I hope it can help you.

[jjkamochoso]

Okay guys I screwed this up yesterday!! This was a request from @killuagirly and was originally an ask but I accidentally posted it unfinished instead of saving as a draft and had to delete it lol SO here's the request: "Another Feitan request! Feitan with a Female Reader who's dying to 'pretty him up'! He's already gorgeous as is of course, but wouldn't it be so fun to do a morning & nightly routine with him? If she's lucky, Feitan will let her paint his nails! He goes for black when she asks what color he'd like, but maybe with a little pink heart on each ring finger! He wouldn't mind that much, so long as the Troupe doesn't see of course. He'd never hear the end of it."

Here's my answer to the ask: I loved this so much😭❤️ thank you for always bringing me your Feitan ideas, I absolutely love writing for this man🥺❤️ I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!!🫶

And finally, here's the fic:

Pretty in Portor

Fluff

Feitan Portor x f!reader

Warnings: slight mentions of violence

Feitan had no clue how he got so easily persuaded by you. It was like you put a spell on him or used some sort of crazy Nen technique to manipulate his actions. Of course, he knew that wasn’t the case—

He just really, really loved you.

That’s why he found himself in your room in the hideout of whatever city the Phantom Troupe had business in this time, wearing a fluffy headband pulling back his bangs while you applied a face mask to his pale skin. You already had your own on, sporting a fluffy headband matching his.

“Why you no ask Machi or Shizuku, even Pakunoda, to do this?”

“They’re not into this kind of stuff,” you whined.

“And I am?” he questioned, prompting you to jokingly swat at him. “You bring in water? I no going out to bathroom to wash off.”

“Of course. I’m not a monster,” you replied. “I won’t make you too uncomfortable as you so sweetly partake in my nightly routine with me.”

“Too late,” he grumbled, earning a gentle flick of the forehead.

After you both rinsed off the mask, you rummaged through your belongings to find the rest of your skincare items. You laid them out on the bed, all of the foreign labels piquing Feitan’s interest.

“What this?” he asked, picking up a small jar.

“I was just looking for that! Thank you,” you said as he handed it to you. “It’s exfoliation for your lips. It gets all the dead skin off and makes them smooth. You want some?”

“Looks sticky. Absolutely not.”

“Your loss.” You giggled mischievously before your voice gained a flirty tone. “You know, if you ever wanna kiss anyone, this is a great way to make sure your lips are smooth.”

Feitan glared at you mercilessly. “Don’t say stupid things.”

“Just a suggestion!” you exclaimed, putting your hands up in defense. You put some of the product on your lips and scrubbed with your finger, taking care to get your lips nice and soft. Feitan busied himself with looking at your array of items, thinking your words over and trying not to blush. His eyes trailed up, sneaking a glance at the way your finger ran over your now moisturized lips as his mind filled with what they might feel like against his own…

He quickly went back to his reading of ingredients on whatever bottle he picked up, trying to shake those thoughts out of his head. You were none the wiser of what he was thinking about, though you couldn’t help but notice that Feitan was a little too engrossed in the bottle of serum he was holding, especially after his not-so-subtle peek at you just a minute ago. You wondered if maybe that could mean he felt the same about you that you did about him? You hadn’t a clue and it didn’t help to ponder over questions you were sure you’d never have answers to, so you picked up a bottle of nail polish to forget your worries for the moment.

“You want your nails done too?” you asked.

“Only if you have black,” he snorted, figuring your girly, pink loving self wouldn’t be caught dead in black nail polish. To his horror, you procured a bottle of his color request and held it up.

“Perfect! I’ll do yours after I do mine.”

Feitan wanted to protest, but knew it was no use. He was a man of his word, after all, so he sat quietly, mindlessly flipping through a book he had brought into your room as you began to paint your nails.

“All done,” you had said after a few minutes. “Your turn!”

Feitan groaned but sat across from you anyway.

“Hand, please,” you told him. He held out his left hand first and you went to work, but not before he almost shivered at the skin-on-skin contact. When both hands were done, two coats of polish and one layer of lotion later, Feitan was impressed with the end result. He had to admit, he was a fan of the dark color contrasting against his skin.

“They look so pretty!” you gushed, fawning over the great job you did with his nails. You grasped his fingers and turned them every which way, inspecting them closely. They looked nice, sure, but they were missing something.

Your eyes lit up. “I know! I can paint a little heart on one of the nails.”

“Anatomical?” He smiled darkly. “Bloody?”

You screwed your nose up in disgust. “No, I was thinking something more like this.”

You picked up a small brush, used for creating tiny details, and dipped it into the pink polish bottle. You then carefully made a few strokes over each of his pinky nails, drawing a dainty heart on each one.

“There,” you said triumphantly. Feitan looked at his nails, confused at how he should feel. On one hand, it was sweet of you to include him in your hobbies and enthusiastically make him participate, but on the other hand, how could you not see how wildly ironic it was, painting cutesy hearts on the nails of a sadistic torturer? The same nails that were normally inflicting pain and misery, caked in blood and other bodily fluids, were now covered in nail polish and sweet smelling lotion, being treated with a tenderness he forgot he had craved for so long. Unfortunately, because there was a “no fighting your fellow Troupe members” rule, Feitan wouldn’t dare to walk out of your room with the nail art; he couldn’t bear the idea of being teased to no end and not being able to shut the person up with violence.

“Tch. Cover it with paint. I no need anyone seeing this.”

“Aww Fei, are you sure?” you pouted. “But you look adorable!”

“No want to look adorable when killing someone. That your job.”

You giggled as you opened the black polish bottle again while the man quickly looked away, trying to hide his sheepishness at the compliment he inadvertently gave you. Now that your last minute art additions were covered, it made it even more special to him. He loved knowing he had your heart, a little piece of you, hidden away in a place only he knew of.

“This is more your style anyway,” you said, smiling softly at his plain black nails. You were about to put the polish back in your bag but before you could do anything, Feitan stopped you.

“Wait. Sit.”

You obliged, curious to know what he was up to. Feitan himself seemed surprised that he spoke up, but nevertheless continued.

“Choose color and give me brush.”

Your stomach fluttered with excitement when you realized he was going to do some nail art on you as well.

“I’ll do black,” you said, “that way we’ll match each other.”

“Gross,” he muttered, feeling his cheeks warm as he studied your splayed out hands in front of him, not daring to peek at your gorgeous face in his flustered state. He busied himself with the brush, starting his art. You decided to wait until he was done before looking at your nails to keep it a surprise. Your eyelashes fluttered closed, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. Feitan, now finished, was going to question why you hadn’t said anything yet but he looked up to see your shut eyes. You looked so peaceful that he wouldn’t be surprised if you were asleep. His gaze darted down to your lips, the skin softer than ever after your exfoliation, and he was so terribly tempted to kiss you. He stared you down, deathly still as he took this time to inspect all of your pretty facial features while he knew for sure you wouldn’t catch him doing so.

“Feitan,” you whispered, his skin erupting in goosebumps at the way you said his name, “are you all done?”

He wanted to say no, have you all to himself as he continued to commit your every fine line and curve of your expression to his memory, but as selfish of a man he was, he didn’t want to make you wait to see his work any longer.

“Open eyes.”

You did what he said, but instead of your nails, your vision was filled with the handsome face of the man you adored to no end.

“So pretty,” you breathed out, getting lost in his gray eyes.

“You haven’t seen nails yet, idiot,” he chided, wishing the acid in his stomach could dissolve the butterflies flying around in it.

“Hmm? Yeah, you’re right,” you replied, finally examining his artistry. You gasped with delight at what you saw. Feitan had drawn a skull, similar to the one on his cowl, on each of your ring fingers.

“They’re perfect! Feitan, I love it! Thank you!” you exclaimed. He was about to answer you but was dumbstruck when you planted a kiss at the corner of his lips before bringing him into a bone crushing hug.

“I’m just so excited! We look so good!” you continued, eventually pulling away from him with a big smile. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to show everyone!”

You ran off, your bunny slippers thumping against the hard floor. Feitan brought his polished fingers to his face where they rested against the spot you had just kissed, letting a lovestruck grin rest on his face.

Your lips were even softer than he dreamed of.

[tlbodine]

Stuck? Try junebugging.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but we're 5 days into nanowrimo so maybe this will be helpful.

Do you want the safety and surety of knowing what happens next in your story but can't stick to an outline? Does knowing in advance what will happen suck the joy out of discovery writing? Do you try to wing it through plots but get tangled in plot holes or have a story that runs out of steam because you can't figure out what went wrong? Are you at your most creative when you have a little bit of guidance? Do you tend to under-write? Do you get ideas in your head for random scenes and snippets that drop from the sky without context?

If any of these apply to you, junebugging a draft might be for you!

What Is Junebugging?

Since you're on Tumblr, you might already be familiar with the concept of junebugging as it relates to cleaning. If not -- I think the idea was first introduced to me by @jumpingjacktrash.

The basic idea is that you tackle cleaning by way of controlled chaos. You pick a specific area you want to focus on, like your kitchen sink, and then wander off to deal with other things as they occur to you, but always returning back to that area. You end up cleaning a little bit at a time in an order that may not make sense to an outsider but which keeps you from getting overwhelmed and discouraged.

How Does Junebugging Work in Writing?

OK, so that's great, but how does this work with writing? Well. In my case, the general idea is to jump between writing linearly, outlining, and writing out of order. It usually looks something like:

Start free-writing a scene, feeling my way through it and enjoying the discovery process.

Thinking, ok, now I have this scene, did anything need to happen to lead up to it? Do I need to go back and add some foreshadowing? Does this scene set anything up that needs to be paid off? And then jump forward/back to make those adjustments.

I'll usually have a bunch of disconnected ideas of ideas that have popped into my head, so I'll write those down in a list somewhere and then try to figure out what goes in between them and what order it goes in.

I'll write what I call "micro-scenes" which is where I'll just sketch out a few essential elements of what's going on without worrying too much about details, description, etc. -- just he did this, she said that, the setting was this, real bare-bones script. Then I can come back through and flesh out each of those microscenes into an actual scene later.

Got a story that has a complex structure? No problem. Write through each storyline one at a time and then chop them up and weave them together afterward. Write all the B plot scenes first then come back through to do A plot and C plot. Move the pieces around like legos. No one ever has to know.

This method works for me because I can't "decide" story elements in advance. I have never been able to just sit down and "figure out" what happens in a story beyond a couple steps ahead -- I have to discovery-write my way forward. But at the same time, that gets really daunting. So I zoom forward with micro-scenes, roughing out the beats in the most bare-bones way possible, then when I run out of clear vision for what happens next I backtrack, flesh out those scenes, build in connective tissue, etc. and by then I will probably find more inspiration to jump forward.

It's basically folding drafting, outlining, and revising all together into a single phase of writing, which is chaotic and goes against everything people teach you, but if it works? then it fuckin works.

Anyway, sorry for the jumbled-up post, I'm dashing this off quickly while I heat up a pizza and I'm about to dive back into my WIP -- but I hope this was a little helpful. If nothing else, take this as my blanket permission that it's 100% OK to jump around, write out of order, write messy, outline sometimes, pants sometimes, and do whatever else it takes just to get through the story. You've got this. Good luck.

[always-andromeda]

𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞…

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ⟡ Joel Miller x Tess Servopoulos

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 ⟡ 700

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 ⟡ Joel mourns a life he wishes he could've had.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ⟡ I've had this one stuck in my drafts for a long while. I've been adding to it little by little whenever I've felt sad enough. It's a tiny drabble and I don't feel super confident in it. But I'm trying to ease back into writing. Forgive me for not posting in a while. Life has been a little busy. But please accept my offering of some sad, angsty shit lmao.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ⟡ pure, unadulterated angst. mentions of Ellie. nothing else I can think of!!

He tries not to think about it. About what she’d think – what she’d say – seeing him now. Hair longer than she ever got the chance to see; long enough that she could run her fingers through the silver streaked strands. When he finds himself alone on a quiet night he can sometimes feel it. Her lithe digits caressing the nape of his neck in a way that she never could outside the safety of their four walls.

Back then, everyone knew just who he answered to. Joel Miller was her attack dog through and through. All Tess had to do was point and unclip the leash and he was off. It was an effective arrangement. He used to have an anchor point; a shelter to be reeled back into when he strayed too far. It was a shelter that went up in flames along with Tess. And Jackson is all uncharted, all marked by unfamiliar touches that aren’t hers.

Some part of him always knew it went far deeper than a business arrangement. It was pure luck that staying with Tess was beneficial in both a practical sense and a…less practical sense. Of course he’d always been reluctant to question the less practical parts of their relationship.

Maybe that’s why he does now; when she’s no longer around to pick it apart herself.

He finds Tess in the oddest things. Ellie’s jokes, for one. He knows that Tess would’ve gotten a kick out of them. She would’ve rolled her eyes before remarking, “That was terrible.” All while harboring the slightest grin. Sometimes it’s the image in his head of her eyes glimmering that makes him crack a smile of his own.

It seemed a cruel joke that the world had taken Tess and bestowed the teenager upon him in the same breath. But it made sense. After all, it was the same world that took Sarah and then gave him Tess to begin with. Some days he doesn’t question the trade off. There’s no use. Tess wouldn’t have wanted him to question her sacrifice that way. Other days it is much more difficult to listen to the more practical version of her. Some days…he strays.

She would’ve loved the food. It wasn’t like Bill’s gourmet lunches. But those QZ rations had nothing on the food from the greenhouse. She would’ve loved the fruit. When summer came around he remembered the way she’d woken up from a dream one night. She’d dreamt she was a kid. She was at a farm her parents used to take her to in the summers. She got to bite into the deep crimson flesh of a plum. The juice had only just begun to run down her chin when she’d woken up. Her voice was soft and barely audible over the rumble of FEDRA trucks rolling by their apartment. She said it was just something stupid. To him it was something sacred. He couldn’t explain to Ellie why he’d gone quiet when he saw a basket of plums in the cafeteria. And he wasn’t surprised when his tasted sour.

Even his house felt occupied. Her figure floated in door frames as he cooked and cleaned and did whatever menial task he needed to. Hip cocked and lips curled into a smirk as she teased him over how much he traded for coffee beans. He would’ve said something humorous in response, he’s sure of it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She was always far too clever for him. She’d state as much as he poured her a fresh cup of coffee.

It always takes him a second to come back to his reality. There’s no second mug to fill, no second plate at the dinner table, no second pair of boots by the door, no one to share a bed or bathroom with. It’s always empty save for him and his cruel imagination.

How could she haunt a place she’d never been? Maybe that didn’t even matter. Maybe what they’d shared over those difficult years went beyond a time or place. Whether he liked it or not, she was there. But not in the ways that mattered most. Not in the ways Joel wished she was.

[galaxymagitech]

hello!! i'm a big fan of your fic "Bleed the Poison Out" (and i'm definitely putting it on multiple fic rec lists). it has such a good portrayal of bruce and dick's relationship <3

so for the ask game: ✰ NEW SHAPES ☹ EVIL TWIN ♡ SMALL THINGS

Thank you so much!!! That is one of my favorite fics I’ve written, and probably in my top three of Bruce & Dick fics to write, so I’m really glad you enjoyed it. Sorry for taking so long :(

Bleed the Poison Out | Ask Game

♡ SMALL THINGS: pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite minor detail from it!

Hmm. This fic means a lot to me, so it’s difficult to find something that feels minor, but…I think I’d go with the soft rug that has the pizza sauce and blood stains. The fic can feel very isolating (to me, at least), like Bruce and Dick are the only two people in the world—even when other people come up, they’re a distraction tactic. But the rug is just there, and a sign of Dick’s connections beyond just Bruce. Even if he never talked to Bruce again (although he will talk to Bruce again), he would still have a family.

✰ NEW SHAPES: send me a fic and I’ll give you an alternate direction the fic could have gone!

Well, when I first started planning this fic (for last year's Dick Grayson Anniversary Week), I was trying to make it an actual heartwarming, complete apology that, while not fixing everything, left a very solid foundation. But every single fully sincere apology I could think of felt utterly ridiculous. I genuinely could not suspend my disbelief enough to believe that Bruce could apologize in a way that doesn’t make things worse. So, I ended up pulling out a draft that was permanently consigned to my notes. It was a personal thing, not fit for posting, but I figured I could try to fix it up.

After that, I think the main thing that nearly went differently was that I almost cut it off because I couldn’t think of an ending. Instead of getting through to Bruce, Dick would have forced down his feelings in the end, accepted Bruce’s apology (and lack of apology for the incidents they disagree on) and then Bruce would leave. And Dick would be alone.

But then I found a turning point, where Dick voices something that's just so out of place that it forces Bruce to confront how his actions are so messed up that they've created these really messed-up (but realistic, I think) thought processes. That, despite not meaning to, he hurt his son.

☹ EVIL TWIN: send me a fic or scene and I’ll give you the unhappy ending version of it!

This was really fun. My first thought was that the conversation escalated and Bruce got violent again, but I figured that's boring, and I could do better. So I challenged myself to imagine the actual worst dumpster fire of an ending possible. And then I worked back from there to light that fire.

That turning point I mentioned in the previous question? It could very easily have sent the conversation careening in the opposite direction. So I’ve started the story from there. Enjoy your dumpster fire ending!

***

“I want you to hit me again,” Dick admits. For a moment, there’s silence. And then—

“What.” Bruce’s voice is flat and cold. Dick flinches at the sound of it.

He—it made sense in his head. If Bruce just…just hit him. Now. After Spyral. Not under mind control. No Court of Owls, or dead sons, or dead friends, or justification. If Bruce just hit him, Dick would know. He would know that this is what Bruce does, that Bruce hits him, that it’s a thing, and Dick can be angry all he wants and it won’t be just stupid, childish resentment.

But sitting in the silence and listening to the words echo in his ears, Dick knows there has to be something wrong with him, something that makes him push and poke and prod and provoke until Bruce loses his patience. After all, what kind of kid—not that Dick is a kid, but he sure feels like one right now—what kind of kid wants his father to hit him? What kind of kid says that out loud?

When Bruce speaks again, his words dig their claws into Dick’s heart and scoop out the rot hiding inside. Because, as much as Dick wishes he wasn’t, Bruce is right. “If you’re looking for whatever villain you’ve built up in your head, Dick, you’re not going to get it.”

“Villain,” Dick echoes. Everything is cold, not just Bruce’s voice. The air in his apartment. The air in his lungs. The cavity Bruce has carved into his chest where his heart is supposed to beat.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” Bruce asks. “I fired you. I’m to blame for Jason’s death. I’m to blame for everything, aren’t I?” Dick’s fists clench, thumbs trapped against the wood of the table. “I made mistakes. I’ll be the first to admit that. But—”

“Mistakes?” Dick can’t keep the hysteria out of his tone. He was trying to be calm. Reasonable. He alwaystries. But something about arguing with Bruce turns him into a timebomb. And sooner or later, he explodes. And even if he calms down, even if he tries to reel himself in, he just explodes again. And again. And again. Until one of them leaves. “You want to talk about Jason’s death? Because you blamed me for that too, and then you hit me, and the first time you even thought to apologize is half a decade later! You beat me until I agreed to leave my family behind and go on that godforsaken mission and even now, you can’t even acknowledge what you did! All you can say is that you made mistakes!”

“What do you even want me to say, then?” Bruce asks. His face is contorted with something that Dick has only seen a few times before. In the cave, after Jason’s death. As Batman pulled him from Blüdhaven’s wreckage. In the cave again, after the Crime Syndicate. It’s a face Dick has only ever seen on Batman in their worst moments together. But now, Bruce is wearing it, and Dick can’t force his lungs to breathe. “You’re acting like a child, right now.”

“Maybe stop treating me like one then!” Dick screams.

He doesn’t mean it in the way he meant it at twelve, at sixteen, at nineteen. He doesn’t mean that Bruce isn’t giving him enough responsibility or independence, or that Bruce doesn’t trust him.

Dick means that he will never be able to say anything to convince Bruce that he did more than just make a mistake. No matter what, Dick’s words will always be less trustworthy, less valid, less real. Bruce will hold a court session in his head and Dick’s thoughts will never be anything other than an unreliable eyewitness testimony.

That’s unfair to Bruce. Dick has no way of proving that he’s right—about Bruce hitting him after Gordon’s supposed death, about the events before Spyral being more than just a brutal spar, about Bruce’s actions being a step above mistake and crossing over into something he doesn’t want to name. Why should Bruce trust him, when he accidentally lied about not agreeing to spar? Why should Bruce trust him, when he took the most thorough apology Bruce has ever given and pushed and prodded until he made it another argument, just like he always does?

But it still stings.

Bruce’s response stings even more.

“I tried to apologize,” Bruce says. “I sat here while you accused me of one terrible thing after the next. But—”

Dick can’t help but interrupt. (That’s wrong. He needs to take responsibility; he can help it. He just doesn’t.)“It’s not an apology if—”

“—playing the victim—”

“—you’re arguing with me—”

“—own up to my flaws but—” 

“—every other second!”

“I won’t apologize for something I never did!” Bruce roars, hands slamming into the table as he stands. The surface trembles, and Dick wonders if this will be it, and the kitchen table will finally crack. He’ll get a bigger one, this time. One with room for enough chairs for everyone.

His mind, Dick realizes, is not totally there. He can hear everything Bruce is saying. He can see the kitchen around them. But right now, the world doesn’t feel entirely real. “I didn’t ask you to!” Dick yells back. He thinks at least. He can’t really tell. His voice sounds too-loud and too-quiet at the same time. “I didn’t ask you to break into my apartment when I just wanted to sleep and try to talk about it, okay? Nothing’s stopping you from leaving!”

“I was trying to make things right!” Bruce screams, stepping forwards. Dick scrambles out of his chair and takes a step back, towards the corner of the kitchen. Away from the door. Not that Dick could reach the door anyway—Bruce is blocking the exits.

Dick remembers noticing that, when Bruce sat down. That Bruce put himself between Dick and the exits. Because he both of them appreciate being able to watch all the entrances, but he doesn’t know that right now, Dick feels like a cornered animal. Bruce would never have thought that Dick needed an exit to feel safe. “This?” Dick sweeps an arm out. “This is not making things right! This is making things worse, like you always do!”

Bruce takes another step forward. This time, Dick refuses to give any more ground. There’s not much further he can retreat in the corner anyway. Bruce opens his mouth, presumably to scream something else, before he abruptly pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is cutting, but no longer a scream. A knife, instead of a club. A knife that buries itself in Dick’s chest and twists. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You said you want me to hit you. And so you do this.” Bruce shakes his head. “This isn’t you, Dick. There’s something wrong with you, right now, making you act like this. Have you been exposed to any—”

Bruce says more, but Dick can’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. All he knows is that he needs to get out. He needs to get out. He needs to get out.

He can’t get out. The exits are blocked.

He needs to—

Over the next few weeks, Dick will look back on this moment and replay it over and over again in his head. He will try to tell himself that he was just acting instinctively, that he wasn’t thinking, that his vigilante brain perceived a threat and lashed out. But he’ll know better.

Dick hand forms a practiced fist and strikes Bruce in the face.

No. Dick needs to take responsibility. Dick strikes Bruce in the face.

And for a moment, the world freezes. Bruce, with his head thrown to the side. Dick, with a fist raised, blood beginning to well from where one of his knuckles scraped against a tooth. And the room, empty, with no one to bear witness. Just like always.

Except it’s entirely different.

Dick sucks a breath of air into the vacuum of his lungs. Bruce slowly lifts his head. For a moment, they both stare at each other.

And then Dick collapses against the wall, barely remaining upright. His mind is filled with a cacophony of voices, all screaming the same thing. “I’m sorry,” Dick says. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I swear, I’m sorry.”

Dick hit him. Not to fight him while he was making a mistake. He just hit him. During an argument.

Bruce has never hit Dick outside costume. Even during the spar, they wore their cowl and mask.

Dick didn’t just hit Bruce, didn’t just make a horrible—a horrible mistake. He crossed a line.

“I’m sorry,” Dick repeats. It’s all he can do. He knows how it sounds. ‘I didn’t mean to’s and ‘I’m sorry’s. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Are you done?” Bruce asks, wiping away the blood from a cut on his lower lip. His voice isn’t warm, but it isn’t cold either. It just is. Are you done? Are you done being a problem? Are you done escalating every fucking argument you get into? Are you done playing the victim, when you just struck someone you love and made him bleed?

“Please,” Dick says. He doesn’t know what he’s pleading for. Forgiveness? That would make it worse. If Bruce forgave him. What he did— “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Bruce says quietly. “I’m sorry too.” Bruce shouldn’t be apologizing. Dick hit him. This is all wrong.

Bruce was right. Dick keeps playing the victim, when all he’s done is create the problems.

Bruce helps Dick into his chair at the table and steps back. Dick’s skin crawls the whole time, but he can’t think of anything except the impact of Bruce’s skin beneath his fist. “I’ll see you next week,” Bruce says. “There’s a case that could use another pair of hands.”

Dick looks down. When he looks back up, Bruce is gone. He doesn’t know quite how long it was between.

All this time, Dick held grievances against Bruce for, what? Treating him like an equal? Like someone he could speak to honestly? Like someone who could stand up for himself if he didn’t want to spar?

Bruce wanted to apologize. And Dick responded by hitting him.

It’s clear, now, where the poison lies. Seeping into Dick’s blood. Dripping from the cut on his knuckle. Pulsing within his very veins.

[nellienews]

Random Nellie behind-the-scenes post!

I was looking through some old files, and found some really old versions of Nellie. She's been through quite a few iterations!

This was the very very first Cirinel, before I'd even decided on her eye injury. I remember really liking the amber eyes. I wound up ditching them for yellow because, while all the elven eye colors have a half-blind version, the eye that's blind differs.

Amber had it on the right eye—and that's a problem, because the bandages cover the right on male characters, and the left on female.

So away they went in favor of yellow!

I did a lot to hide that she was half-blind. I wanted that to be a twist that people found out once they downloaded her, and that was back before I'd even touched the Creation Kit. So all her photos had her winking, or angled so you couldn't see her left eye.

This version of her had to go, though. I started looking into permissions for assets, and the mod I used to get that hair for her didn't give permission for people to reuse it.

So I switched it to KS Hair, fiddled around in the character creator for a bit, and made the second iteration of Nellie.

This is when I figured out I wanted her hair to be a bit more vivid, somewhere between red and brunette. Of course, I hadn't quite figured out color contrasts yet, so she looks a bit pale here. This is Awkward Teen Nellie.

I'd tried doing the same "sneakily avoiding showing the left eye" trick again, but I'd turned just a bit too far here:

You can just barely make out her blind eye there.

A mutual of mine, @azures-grace, caught on, and the ruse was up. Not that that was a bad thing; at that point, I was vibrating, looking for any excuse to talk about my daughter and her secrets, so the instant I had the chance, I spilled.

A lot went on between this iteration of Nellie and the modern day version. I started learning the actual ins-and-outs of the Creation Kit. I made my very first mod, just to give her an accessory. I wrote so much dialogue. At one point, I had a draft where she had seventeen siblings.

And then, the worst happened. My computer broke.

I'd just been sitting, watching a video, when the whole thing shrieked at me and the screen went dark. It wouldn't turn on after that.

It wasn't salvageable. I took it into the shop, and they basically tossed their hands up and had no idea what to do. So much of my work on her was gone, and I had to start over from rock bottom. That was a pretty rough year for her development. Nothing kills motivation for something like losing a ton of work. I'd try to pick her up, give up for awhile, then go back and add more. It was very, very slow going. But eventually, I caught my rhythm again.

This time around, I knew a little more of what I was doing.

Enter Beta Nellie. This is her from a few months ago. I'd gotten her new clothes, picked out her unique axe, and settled on her final colors. Her hair changed, too—instead of a crown braid, she now had a messy bunch with hanging strands in the front. I wanted to emphasize that she was trying to look dignified despite her situation, but a prisoner isn't going to escape Thalmor captivity with a perfect updo.

This version of her appearance took a lot of inspiration from Azure's fanart of Nellie here. Azure had taken Awkward Teen Nellie's colors and made them more vivid, and had emphasized the wispy little strands of hair that'd come loose from her crown braid. It really helped cement the kind of vibe I wanted for her.

Honestly, Beta Nellie probably would have been Final Nellie if things had gone to plan. I'd made her face in RaceMenu, saved it as a preset, and later decided to do a quick 3rd person playthrough to get used to seeing her on screen before I attached her model to the stuff I'd written.

I went to open my presets, though, and she was gone. Poof! No Nellie! (Plenty of attempts at making Link and Zelda, though. Curse my crossover rp heart...)

So it was back to the drawing board on her appearance. Except now, I had a reference to look at, and some things to fine-tune.

I took away her red eyeshadow, because I couldn't get it to look nice. I gave her a scar. I picked out a texture that looked like wild freckles. She got a nose that better matched her high elf features, some softer and slightly less angled eyes, a longer face, and (although you can't see them in this pic) ever-so-slightly rounder ears. I messed with the Breton sliders to give her just a little bit of a "not fully Altmer" look.

And with this shot specifically, I knew I had my daughter at last.

Since then, everything about her has been...well, not a breeze. Learning some quest things and how to make idles do what I wanted had me banging my head against the wall, and finding a way to change her outfit with a script had me making the code myself to solve a ten-year-old forum post. I'd messaged my friend @dynamite124 for debug help more times than I can count within a week.

But it had been achievable. For the first time since my computer broke, everything about her had been falling into place. And for the first time since her inception, I knew what I was doing.

The only roadblock left at that point was her voice. I'd decided a long time ago that I was going to try to voice her myself, but I gave it several honest tries, and I just didn't have the vocal range I imagined her speaking with. Being blunt, my voice is better suited to Aventus Aretino than to a High Rock noble. Once I came to terms with that, I put out a casting call for Nellie's voice.

Which brings me to an announcement.

Cirinel now officially has a voice actress!

We're 90% through recording dialogue for her introductory scene, and as soon as that's done, I'll be posting an official video showcasing her and introducing her VA!

I've been in such an Elder Scrolls mood since we got started that I went and shot a bunch of new reference pics with Nellie's final appearance. They're below here, and will be in a separate post immediately after this one goes live.

Enjoy!

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

I, personally, would love to hear about all kinds of details and things that ended up being changed or adjusted from older fics. What were some ideas you had fun with?

oh god

-itysg: many of you might know this one already as it's in an a/n, but i originally entertained the idea of having ajax and zl adopt ruu thanks to some abyssal energy nonsense. i ended up ditching that route bc it would've had to have started when they go to tsurumi? but if you'll remember, ajax then was in no state to support a kid with the magnitudes of baggage that ruu would have at that point, so no.

-cyanide: i don't think there was anything major i ever changed abt cyanide, believe it or not, at least not that i can remember now. the more interesting part abt it is the fact that it got written at all, bc as i was developing wips and seeing which i would pick next, not only was cyanide not my main idea, it was also one in like. twelve. i have SO MANY zhongchi longfic wips. so many. some came up during cyanide and some during babysitting, but a good chunk all sprang up together with cyanide's original draft, so. i had sort of set it aside and was focusing on the True childe suffers fic, but ended up reaching a point there where like. i was kinda following canon. and unlike in the thomato fic that's similar to this wip, i couldn't wrap up childe's situation as swiftly as thoma's, so i started waiting for updates and then that sort of got the fic stuck in a cycle where i know damn well childe's plot in-game is going to be fucking wild and shit kept happening to him (hi inazuma, hi scarascratch, hi fontaine) and i added it to the wip and then i waited for more etc etc. idk. i picked up cyanide as i paused that one and sort of went 'huh ok this one is interesting' i still want to write a beta design childe fic at some point but who knows if i'll ever get around to it (that was the one). i also have a hanahaki wip but the thing is he bribes baizhu to take the flowers out like first scene and the actual plot is emotionless childe navigating all the bs that happens to him while zl tries to figure out when things went so wrong. there's also like two mafia wips that are just variants of each other. there's two mirroring timetravel wips bc i couldn't decide who i wanted to timetravel lmao. there's a different transmigration idea more along the lines of eoos (childe gets into the actual game no weird timeline shenanigans like in cyanide). that's not even the half of it this ship has an absolute chokehold on my writing brainworms.

-jadeite: to elaborate on the previous post which i assume inspired this ask, the first draft of jadeite actually didn't go too far. zl comes to in a hospital in the harbor bc czl had been about to go to a job interview for wangsheng, and as soon as he got to the door and said hi to hu tao a car veered off the street and nearly killed them. czl shoved hu tao out of the way and that's how he dies. originally in the hospital it was gonna be xiangling and xinyan w hu tao bc they came to check on her when shit happened, and they don't really explain much of anything to zl before leaving him. he spends the night in the hospital sort of figuring out how the TV works and going thru the same thought process as in actual jadeite. he gets discharged and is kinda out on his own for a bit (where childe sees him) before ht calls him for the parlor incident. childe isn't present for that in this draft. that's all the first chapter lmaooooo there wasn't all that much after that honestly. a bit of a second chapter and some plot points, but i hadn't thought about it too much (i was writing cyanide at that point). once i came back to it like towards the end of cyanide i sat down and thought through the actual plot and what i wanted to happen and started modifying the first draft into something else, and then i frogged that second draft and the first into what you guys actually got to read

-every good intention: i started writing this immediately after parade of providence and i think you can tell, esp compared to ysmms which was before kaveh's release and therefore before my descent into 'oh god why' territory around his characterization. even before his hangout in 3.7 i could already tell something was off, that final convo on the interdarshan event was like- he's on thin ice now. so i have to confess that i didn't plan to write a third chapter at all. didn't even plan to post it bc it was two chapters of nothing but angst and i figured most people wouldn't care to read it (or might even incur some attack from fandom youngsters). it was going to end with the to-do list and an ambiguous/open end on what happened to alhaitham. but then i couldn't get the brainworms out of my head and i ended up deciding to post it (partly because i was so baffled and disappointed in the fandom about their reaction to that last scene in the interdarshan), but in order to get people to read it, i added the third chapter and the happy ending. one of the bookmarks from someone says something like 'just read the first two chapters' and honestly yeah i never read the last chapter anymore. it was supposed to end at the second, the third is there entirely to appease and entice the to-be audience and going by how many read it compared to two vowels it feels like it actually worked LMAOOOO so yeah let me leave the confession booth now don't shoot me haikavetham shippers i was with you once 😂

[queenofbaws]

"i missed hearing your voice.." Jossam post game? I hope things are going alright

He told himself that he wasn't worried, that he'd pulled off crazier stunts than this without breaking a sweat. The ball was in his court, after all, and even if he didn't have the home team advantage as he parked his car and stepped out onto her driveway (salt crunching under his feet like grit from the mines), other advantages abounded: he looked pathetic, for one, bruised like an overripe summer peach; he'd had time to run his lines, for another, drafting before refining, refining before editing, editing before finalizing, finalizing before practicing, practicing, practicing.

Even now, as he carefully climbed the steps to her front door, setting a little more weight than usual against the side rail (he'd landed strangely when he'd fallen into the vent shaft, and all the kings horses and all the kings men hadn't quite been able to figure out how or why he'd managed to fuck that muscle group up in such a particular fashion), he worked through the script in his head:

Hi there, long time no see! I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd check in...I think maybe you forgot to pay your phone bill this month - the damn thing just rings and rings when I call, no answer, no voicemail, nothing. Hey, look, don't sweat it, I don't even care that you kinda-sorta blew the lodge to smithereens, that's what we've got insurance for, know what I mean? What's a little property damage between friends? Oh, quick question while I have you: You don't, ha ha ha, hee hee hee, hoo hoo hoo, I don't know, hate me, do you?

But before he could so much as knock, Sam opened the door and his oh-so-brilliant plan crumbled into so much dust.

She had that effect on him. Always had.

Why hadn't he planned for that?

There was a beat where they simply stood like that, opposite one another in a hundred separate ways, her arms folded despite being on the warmer side of the threshold, his open wide despite the cold, both of them posturing, posturing, posturing as if they could fix the problem through body language alone.

Josh wet his lips. Forgot his lines. "Hi." There. Hi there. That was what he'd practiced, that was what he'd written, that was part of the plan that would endear him to her again. It wouldn't come out, though, couldn't squeeze its way through the pinhole of his throat, not now that she was actually looking at him, not now that they were close enough for him to smell her fabric softener and see the butterfly bandage holding that cut over her eyebrow together.

He tried again, took it from the top as Dad would say...and failed just as spectacularly. "I, uh, hi."

Sam's entire body seemed to move with her breath, drawing up on the inhale, folding over on the exhale. She was tired, he saw, she was so, so tired - and all because of him. "What do you want, Josh?" she asked, the question smooth and unhalting, improvised but earnest.

He hadn't considered that. Hadn't planned on a question. He hadn't practiced any answers, hadn't drafted a line of banter that would come across as suitably apologetic while still being rakish and playful, and -

And...

And.

And, God help him, it all just came out.

"I wanted to see you," he said, the rush of blood in his ears deafening him to his own voice, filling his head with panicked radio static. "I know I'm the last person you want to see, but...you weren't answering your phone, you weren't answering your messenger, you weren't answering your email - holy shit, Sammy, I almost picked up a pencil to write you an actual hand-to-God letter, but I was worried you'd throw it in the shredder as soon as you saw my name, and there'd go my seventy-three cents of postage. In this economy, I - "

Her eyebrows went up. His stomach sank into his feet.

He tried again.

"Look, I...I know you don't want to talk to me. If I were you, I wouldn't want to talk to me either, but...but you don't have to talk. You don't have to say a word to me if you don't want, you can close the door in my face right here, right now, and I'll get it, I really will, but I just..." His throat was a desert. He swallowed hard, found his words cracking anyway. "I miss hearing your voice. I miss seeing you. I...I miss everything about you, and I know the only person to blame for that shit is me, but I don't know how to fix it, so..." Out went his arms again, a pathetic mimicry of himself, a gesture as hollow as it was familiar. "I'm open to suggestions."

Sam took another breath, her shoulders rising then falling, her gaze never flinching, and something in the shape of her mouth, the jut of her hip, convinced him that he'd been right, that she was only a second away from slamming the door in his face, turning the latch so hard he'd be able to hear it click. After what he'd put her through - after what he'd put them all through - it was what he deserved, what he had coming, what he'd brought down on himself, what he'd -

"You should probably start by coming in, then," she sighed, finally dropping her eyes from his as she held the door open, making space for him to step inside. "My list's a little too long to go through with the wind blowing like that - trust me, I've timed it."

"I bet you have, Sammy," he said as he took that first step onto the mat, his eyes prickling from the warmth of her house and something else, something he wasn't quite willing to let himself believe yet. "And I'm all ears."

[mvltisstuff]

What about a fic where reader is Evan’s sister and gets into a bad car accident? Lots of angst but also some fluff please. 🫶🫶

slipping through my fingers - e.b

summary: request :)

evan buckley x sister!reader (a lot of maddie too 🩶)

a/n: i have an eddie diaz oneshot in the drafts currently that i’ve been debating on posting. it contains a pretty sensitive subject, so i really wanted to get it right. it was inspired by another request, along with another show. i hope you enjoy this and i’ll keep on writing some more for you guys :))

y/n could say growing up with as the youngest buckley wasn’t the easiest task. the consistency of begging for attention was draining from the start. going above and beyond for just a grain of appreciation was the default in their house. she was repeatedly looked through, almost as if she wasn’t there due to her parents grief.

she had come after buck in a desperate attempt to be able to save david, but failed in the end. he was gone too soon, so therefore, y/n was almost like a chore. sure, her parents loved her, but she wasn’t the child they wanted. dealing with the discovery of why she wasn’t loved enough was just as bad as experiencing it. maddie was in boston with doug, and buck had gone onto his own adventures. meanwhile y/n was stuck at home with nowhere to go and no plans of leaving. she dreamed about it, though. she heard about buck moving to los angeles and immediately wanted to be with him. she was almost done with college, and after that, she packed up her diploma and degree and flew away.

life in california was amazing. she had friends, she was loved, and she had no reminders of the lonesomeness she felt at home. for once, she was able to make a home out of where she was. maddie was safe, and it felt like they were a fixed version of their family.

out of the pure intentions in her heart, y/n invited her distant parents back to LA. with maddie expecting a new baby, and the years of a few texts, there was a new hope that maybe things could be turned around. it wouldn’t change their childhood experiences, but maybe they could heal them. maddie was on board, but buck was still skeptical. their words were like knives and the scars couldn’t be helped. he showed up anyway, wanting to give maddie and her baby the opportunity to have a life with them.

they travelled six hours, and chimney and maddie were gracious enough to host a dinner for everyone. maddie received hugs and gifts as buck and y/n were kind of nudged away. when maddie got her baby box that her parents had from when they were kids, buck and y/n had just become dusty figures. they didn’t say anything, at least not about that.

an explosive speech from buck had ignited from the judgmental words from their parents, causing him to be begging for love and expressing his inner teenage self. he had removed himself from the dining room of the apartment, and y/n sat in her seat, slumped over with her head in her hands.

“god, can you guys please just do something other than reprimand us?” y/n breaks the awkward silence.

“we were just speaking, y/n!” says their father. “if evan wants to storm out, let him.”

“well, maybe he wouldn’t have stormed out if you didn’t nit-pick ever part of his life.”

“you invited us, y/n. i don’t know what you want us to say. you know what we went through-“

“and you think that’s an excuse? if so, it’s a shitty one and we all know it. no parent should have to say goodbye to a child, but no child needs to go unloved because they don’t care anymore. and you didn’t even bat an eye when he begged you to ‘love him anyway’. so if you want to sit here, and tear down everything we have build from your actions, be our guest.”

“you always defend your siblings, y/n. you guys have never once put yourself in our shoes!” their mother cries out.

“oh, trust me, we did. for over 20 years,” maddie breaks in.

“how do you think we feel, maddie? you all just packed up your stuff and ran away to leave us with nothing,” speaks their father, again.

“dad, i can’t… i can’t do this. everything i did, i did it myself. i made this life here for myself! so did maddie, so did buck. don’t go putting yourselves on a pedestal,” she begins to gather her things, and put hers and bucks dinner plates away for maddie and chimney.

“where are you going?” chimney says, trying to calm everything down and he’s definitely in the most awkward situation.

“chim, thank you for dinner and letting us come over. you’re welcome over to my place anytime. i’m sorry, but i’m going to see my brother,” y/n says, shutting the door behind her.

while maddie stays back, trying to pick up the broken pieces, y/n drives over to bucks apartment. she repeatedly calls him, making sure he’s okay and to say that she’s coming over. the roads were dark from the early sunsets of the fall, barely illuminated from the streetlights.

“buck,” she says into her phone. “i know you’re pissed off, and im sorry i arranged this. but i need to know you’re ok, so im on my way over. please call me back.”

she ends the voicemail and tries to put her phone back into the holder. it slips out of her shaky hands and onto the floor of the seat. she groans out, worried he would call her back and she wouldn’t be able to answer. she doesn’t reach down, but she looks at the phone on the floor.

a drunk, someone intoxicated with alcohol, must have been driving like a maniac. swerving through lanes with no warning and passing several signs. she tried so hard. she tried to move out of the way, but the spontaneous movements of the driver had confronted their cars head on.

the flash of white from y/n’s airbags flew out at her. the glass of her windshield was shattered, laying all over the dashboard and the seats. her head drooped onto her shoulder. the cuts on her face were stinging and the other pain in her body went unnoticeable due to shock. the soft ringtone of her phone was vibrating on the bottom of the car. the ringing in her ears caused the sound to be faded out, and she couldn’t even get it to call 9-1-1.

“maddie, hey,” buck says as maddie picks up the phone. “have you, uh, tried calling y/n? she left me so many calls and now she won’t answer.”

“no, i haven’t. she said she was coming to see you,” maddie replies, confused.

“where’s mom and dad?”

“the hotel, they left soon after her.”

buck pulls his phone away from his ear and the buzzing on his hand. y/n’s name appears across the screen. “oh, she’s calling me know,” he hangs up the phone and answers it to a bone-chilling sentence.

“is this evan buckley?” a deep, unknown voice asks in bucks ear.

y/n was awake in the ambulance, hearing all the chaos and jargon around her. she knew she’d never hear the end from buck, being a firefighter. she begged them to let him know, telling them repeatedly, “my brother works at the 118,” and how maddie is a dispatcher.

she was wheeled into the hospital on her stretcher, collar on and a big bandage around her waist for a massive piece of glass in her abdomen. “y/n buckley, 27, three-car pileup with an oblique fracture to the tibia and penetration wound to the abdomen, likely to not have hit any major organs.” and before she knew it, she was sped into the trauma rooms and given more morphine. she just wanted her brother and sister. not all these doctors or her parents.

buck picked up maddie on the way to the hospital, not thinking twice before smashing the gas pedal down. he ran through those doors like a strike of lighting, being seen in one place and somewhere else the next. he forced her name out to the nurse as maddie caught up to him. “relation to the patient?”

“brother, and sister,” he says, impatiently, both hands flat on the counter.

the nurse typed rapidly on her computer. “she’s in surgery, honey. but she’s stable.”

buck puffs out a sigh of relief as maddie grabs his arm, leading him to the waiting room. almost all of the 118 was in this hospital, like she was a firefighter herself. chimney had brought hen, and eddie had come as well as bobby. athena had told bobby, as she was the one who arrested the man who caused the crash.

buck tries to calm himself down remembers all the times he tried to one-up her and smiles at the memories. he and maddie exchange small and sweet memories of their little sister, as her life remains in the hands of someone else.

“hey,” maddie nudges him, trying to think of something to cheer him up. “remember when she stole 20’s out of our wallet to buy us christmas gifts?”

buck giggles a bit, “yeah, and then we tried playing tag, so we spun her around a ton of times and hid inside until she just sat there.”

“and then she fell down the stairs from being so dizzy,” maddie smiles.

“ruthless!” chim interrupts, sitting next to maddie.

“you know you two are what made it so hard to leave.”

“i know. imagine having to leave her all alone with mom and dad, though. she’s gotta be ok, maddie.”

“she will, buck. no one’s getting rid of her that easy.”

the doctor with a scrub cap on comes walking into the waiting room, followed by a few interns and others. “buckleys?”

maddie and buck shoot out of their seat first, and chimney and hen follow soon after like a train. “oh, my bad.” hen says, pulling her and chim back down to sit.

“what’s goin’ on, doc?”

“y/n will be fine. she had a fracture in her leg which we fixed up. she’ll need some help getting around, but she’ll be good as new,” the doctor informs.

they knew she would make it out, but hearing it being confirmed by the doctor made it so much more real. buck was speechless, not being able to mutter out any words. “can we see her?” maddie asks.

“you can, she’s still sedated from anesthesia and intubated, but cynthia, here, can lead you to the room.”

seeing y/n’s fragile and hurt body on the bed was an agonizing sight. maybe if buck hadn’t stormed out, she wouldn’t be in this bed and have come across that driver. maybe he could’ve driven her home. all the ‘if’s’ and ‘maybes’ in bucks head were floating through, thinking it’s his fault. he always takes the blame for these situations when it is completely the opposite.

buck sees tragedy every day, and maddie hears it. maddies only sister was in the small hospital room with a tube down her throat. she needed y/n there to help her, and her baby needed her aunt. buck needed his little sister, the one always there for him and forever will be. the thought of her not being there scared him to death. even though they see get rushed into the hospital or sent to the morgue every day, it will never prepare you from seeing your favorite people in that position.

buck stumbled over to the chair by the side of the bed, pulling it out for maddie to rest her aching feet. he walked to the other side of the bed, sitting down and grabbing lightly onto y/n’s hand like he was scared to break it. “i don’t know if we should say something. let her know we’re here, you know.”

“she knows, evan,” maddie says, meeting bucks eyes with her own. “i know that.”

buck smiles and looks down at y/n, her chest rising and falling with the hissing of the tubes and machines. he observes the iv’s and cuts and fresh new bruises. he wants to kill whoever did this, but at the moment, his only concern is the well-being of y/n.

so, for the rest of the night, maddie and buck didn’t move from their spots once until she was awoken and the tube was removed. they held her hand, and when y/n was awoken, she knew she was safe from the hands that were tangled with hers.

[imagionationstation]

Is there more to Mikey's and Donnie's meeting of the SAINW story?

See, the silly part of me just wanted to type, “yes” and then post.

But I get the feeling that actually this means, “Can we see more of the moment when Mikey and Donnie meet?”

And to that I say-!

Yeah, sure, it’s just sitting in my drafts anyway.

Now I just gotta figure out where the technical ‘meeting’ begins and ends before they transition to other things…. Mmmm… Okay!

Disclaimer: This is an old first draft, unedited.

Donnie stood up just as he caught a shadow move out of the corner of his eye. He instinctively ducked behind the garbage can and peered around it to pinpoint if this was a figment of his imagination or a new danger. 

The cloaking night was definitely not helping with his investigation, but he could quickly tell that whatever it was, it definitely wasn't the previous.

His hand slipped into his belt for smoke bombs as the shadow slipped about, it's movement slightly erratic and searching, and he crouched down when it near his position. He was just about to chuck the smoke bombs and bolt when the shadow spoke, it's voice barely above a whisper, yet somehow undeniably familiar. 

"-promise, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm the good guy. Seriously, I'm like, a great guy. Everyone says so. I just wanna take you somewhere safe. Swear it on a turtle's honor. I'm-"

"Mikey?"

Donnie jumped to his feet and moved out from behind the dumpster, so much hope stirring that it almost hurt. The shadow completely froze and the more Donnie stared, the more he could make out the broad shell and shape of a mutant turtle. His belt was different and now bore a vertical strap like his own, a mask framing wide baby-blue eyes that cut through the darkness, one visible arm clutching a nunchuck while the other remained hidden in shadow. 

"Mikey!" Overjoyed to find one of his siblings way sooner than he could have possibly hoped, he began to move forward, only to pause when Mikey quickly put three more steps between them, moving from the shadows and into full view. 

Donnie went entirely rigid when he realized that his left arm hadn't simply been cloaked in shadows, but was missing entirely, a healed over stump all that was left. His mind racing to comprehend this, he barely picked up on the way Mikey's posture seemed anxious and defensive, eyes that normally sparkled with life hardened warily. 

"So... You're not dead."

"Well, I- no..." 

Mikey seemed to deflate a bit at this and then looked him over again, giving Donnie the impression he was expecting him to say or do something. 

Donnie could only blink as he struggled to form a coherent sentence. "What- what happened to- you? And- And New York?"

Mikey raised an eye ridge, his expression a spookily close reflection of Leo's you-can't-be-serious face. "Alien invasion, dude. Duh. You been hiding under a rock for all these years?"

His tone was unnaturally cold and Donnie had to do a double take on the last accusation. "All these...? I don't... Why would I have been...?"

Mikey stared at him for a moment as though unsure what to make of him and then shook his head dismissively. "Whatever. See ya, dude."

Wha- see ya!?

Donnie's heart launched to his throat as Mikey turned and then he bolted forward, skidding in his path almost frantically. He needed a trustworthy face to help him out. He had way to many unanswered questions and they were only piling up by the second. 

Besides, why would he just up and abandon him there?!

Mikey raised his arm as if to defend himself, the movement drawing Donnie's attention to the purple clothe tied around his wrist. His eyes strayed on it before he turned back to his younger brother, who he suddenly realized was taller than he remembered. And broader.

A terrifying realization began trying to creep in and his voice trembled despite his best efforts to still it. "Mikey, wait! Please! I need your help! I don't know what's going on! I just- I woke up in the lab and- and the lair was obliterated and- and- and now the Kraang have taken over!? I mean, just yesterday the very idea of a full invasion was purely hypothetical! Please Mikey, I don't understand any of this and I need-"

"Woah, woah, dude, hold up." Donnie clamped his mouth shut as every nerve in his body went wild, his younger brother studying him as though unsure what to make of his existence. "So, what, is this, like- amnesia?"

Donnie gave a weak shrug, not quite trusting himself to open his mouth, and Mikey's expression seemed to change. A new curiosity wiped away the hardened tint that looked so out of place on his little brother's face. "Huh. Okay. What do you remember then?"

"Wa- uh, we had an argument, I got mad, went into my lab and..." His eyes widened and he quickly grabbed the strap of his bag, moving it in front of him and rummaging through it. "A Kraang device that I took went off and I- have- it- sooomewhe-here it is!"

He pulled out the smooth circle and presented it for Mikey's examination. His younger brother looked between it and him with interest, something bright and familiar appearing in his gaze. His voice lost the accusing tint. "How's it work?" 

"I don't know. I was examining it when it zapped me and everything went nuts." He gingerly ran his fingers along the side as he'd done before and the rods suddenly began to spark, both brothers gasping as a electric pink began to grow in the hole before something fizzled and it vanished. 

"Is that what happened last time?" All traces of angry Mikey was gone, and replaced with the giddy little brother who always came to his lab in the hopes of being wowed by a new invention. 

This helped Donnie's nerves to settled and he brought it closer to his face, studying the middle. "Not exactly... There was more of a painful explosion. There must have been some kind of power surge when I hit the hidden switch, perhaps whatever this is wasn't a completed project, and now it's fried. Unfortunate, really, I would have liked to know what it did."

He glanced over to Mikey and realized he was staring at him both intently and like he'd lost his mind. He lowered the device awkwardly, wondering if he was missing something. "What?" 

"How old are you?"

Distractedly, Donnie turned his attention back to the device, turning it over in his palm to study the side, wondering if he need to explain the logistics of being quadruplets again. "Sixteen, just like you." 

"Dude. I'm twenty."

Donnie's entire body stiffened and he turned to him in shock. "Excuse me?"

"Gonna be twenty-one in four months. Pretty much an ah-dult." Mikey lifted his finger wisely before pointing at the device. "And you should be too, cause you've been missing for almost five years, bro. But if you don't remember it and you certainly don't look like you've grown up..."

"Bu- n-no, I-"

"That means," Mikey gushed as Donnie's mind fought against acknowledging anything or putting pieces together. "you either drank from the fountain of youth and it gave you amnesia, or that, my stammering bro, is a certified Kraang time travel device!" 

"Time travel isn't possible." Donnie argued anxiously, earning a disapproving scoff. "Oh, yeah? Then how else do you explain all this? Hmm? Hmmmm!? Time travel, brah! Time! Travel!"

Donnie's mouth opened and shut without retort as things began making more sense without him wanting them to. Why he woke up alone in a demolished lab. Why the lair was a wreck. How the Kraang succeeded invading New York. Why Mikey seemed so different-

Wait. What happened to everyone else!?

"Mikey!" His younger brother stopped what appeared to be excited muttering as he paced and spun towards him. "Mikey, where is the rest of our family? Our friends? Is everyone okay?" 

Mikey looked like he was about to respond when his eyes suddenly widened and he glanced up at the dark sky. "Sewer bunnies! Why didn't you tell me how late it is!? Aw man, I'm so going to be dead when he finds out!"

[gisellelx]

On Revising (Cien Años Ch. 6)

I do a lot of writing in my head when I drive and last week I went and visited a bunch of friends across three cities. There was a part of "Names," from Cien Años that has been bugging me for several years, which was that I really desperately wanted to have Esme have one additional crack when she starts naming off things that come in threes and this was what I imagined but I couldn't get it to work in the first draft. This time I figured out how to make it fall.

Stephenie Meyer doesn't seem to ever think hard about the peripheral characters in her writing, especially not in Twilight. She, I think, just imagined "Oh wouldn't it have been cute if Carlisle and Esme met before" and I bet it was a fleeting thought because it ultimately never affects anything else in the story. And I'm sure she envisioned it as being pure coincidence that Carlisle just happened to be gone within weeks. But it's so much more narratively satisfying if we assume that something happened in that brief encounter that rattled Carlisle to his absolute core. That made him run away from her in 1911, but which also made it impossible to turn away from her in 1921. I didn't quite nail it in the first round, and the edit is tiny, but I'm happier with this one.

(also on Ao3 and FFN)

(Incidentally, I also busted my thought process through a sticky spot in Pride Month, through "Boys," the next chapter in Cien Años, and through the next part of One Day. This may also just be because I have a really important article due in 7 days and my brain is rebelling by refusing to write anything but fic.)

Names

Cincinnati, Ohio Summer, 1911

Cincinnati wasn't nearly far enough, but it gave him more options. The C&O, the B&O, the L&N, Erie and Western and so many others. Tens of trains, leaving nearly every thirty minutes, with the ability to fling him anywhere from Boston to Kansas.

Some moves, Carlisle was able to make deliberately. Columbus had been one such move—he'd planned it months in advance, drawing up his papers—while others necessitated less premeditation. Chicago was the first train leaving Union Station and so it was the one he had picked; giving him less than an hour to stare out at the barges moving swiftly by on the glassy surface of the Ohio. The wet summer air hung thickly as the din of the station swirled around him; high and low voices speaking German and English, ticket machines clacking, the hiss of the steam.

It would be good to be in a bigger city. He longed for the days when smaller towns had been a better refuge; when he had been able to treat patients for years. There had been a gentle intimacy in attending to a mother's fourth birth by lamplight. But smaller towns meant more talking, and in these days when a telegram—or worse, a telephone call—could travel with news of the unusual young doctor with the light eyes, the smaller towns were becoming less safe.

There were two crates of art and books shipped ahead and which would arrive behind him. Those had taken an hour to pack, and another hour lost to visiting the post office at human speed. One hour to feign panic, to explain to the most senior physician about the terrifying telegram he'd received; the need to return immediately to his family home, that his father was gravely ill. Yes, he did have a father; yes, his only family; no, they didn't get on well and that was why Carlisle never spoke of him. Except for the telegram, none of these things were technically lies.

Well that and that he claimed to be going to New England.

Twenty-three hours. It had taken him twenty-three hours to fully dismantle his life. The better part of a decade spent here in the rolling midlands of Ohio, a handful of streets from the university, and in less than a day he had demolished all of it—the small house, emptied, his possessions no doubt making their way to some other train as he stood watching the river swirl. His office, stripped of his diploma, his stethoscope and otoscope nestled neatly in his black bag.

His hand flexed involuntarily over its handle now, just as it had the day before. His memory, so often a blessing for what it permitted him to do, was so readily also a curse, forcing him to relive the most jarring experiences of his unnaturally long life. And it had seized yesterday's encounter and refused to let go.

Based on the sound of its gait, the horse which had been pulling the carriage needed re-shoeing, the hooves clopping unevenly against the stone street. There had been only one patient in the hospital, down with the measles, and Carlisle had already finished rounds, if seeing one patient could be counted as such. He was standing near the back door to the hospital, nearer his examining room, when the carriage came to a stop outside. The metallic, salty scent of fresh blood had flooded the air as soon as Carlisle swung open the door.

From the trousered, dangling legs, he at first assumed his new patient to be a young male, and so he was shocked to hear a high, feminine voice take up bickering with the carriage's driver.

"It doesn't hurt," the voice insisted. "I could walk on it."

"You can't," came a gruffer voice. "What are we meant to do with you? The yield is low this year. We can't afford to have you falling out of trees, Esme."

Carlisle stepped outside, saying a brief mental prayer of thanks for the cloud cover which enabled him to act on his concern. "What have we here, today?" he said by way of greeting. The man turned and he got a good look at his patient. She was quite pretty, with long hair the color of an unfiltered honey spilling gently over slim shoulders. Though her high-necked blouse was cut for her figure, it was tucked unevenly into a pair of men's canvas pants, and if he wasn't mistaken, she wasn't wearing a brassiere.

"My daughter," the man said. "She's hurt herself. Our doctor in London is away; we've driven almost two hours." He shook his head. "And people told me it would be my son who would be a nuisance…"

The words seemed to be meant with malice, but Carlisle chuckled anyway. "Why don't we move into my office. I'm Dr. Cullen."

He pretended that it necessitated slight strain for him to help lift the girl onto the examining table but he could tell she was quite lithe—thin and girlish but muscular, her cheeks flushed and healthy. He gently swung her legs so that they were straight out in front of her. She winced but said nothing.

"Did I hear your father mention this injury was a fall out of a tree?"

She grunted disapprovingly. "Storm last week took out a branch and I forgot. Stepped on air."

His smile came unbidden. "Air isn't very supportive."

"So it seems."

Carlisle pressed his lips together to maintain his composure. He gestured toward her trousered thigh. "May I?"

She nodded. His fingers had barely grazed below her knee when she let out a scream which nearly shattered the window. Then she clamped her mouth closed and bit her lip so hard it drew additional blood.

"Right, then." Carlisle spoke half to her father and half to her. "I think the best choice here will be for me to scissor the leg of this trouser."

The father huffed. "Better for her not to have them anyway. Why we can't keep you in dresses I don't understand."

"Hard to climb a tree in a dress. Lord knows I've tried."

Carlisle chuckled quietly even as her father scowled. He used a pair of gauze scissors which were guarded against breaking the skin. But he knew the skin was already gashed, and if he was right, he had caught the distinct, thick, oily smell of subcutaneous tissue. He wasn't surprised, therefore, by the gruesomeness of the open wound, the flash of white among red blood and oxygenated muscle fiber.

The girl's father, however, staggered forward and swayed, and Carlisle moved at full speed to catch him. The man looked up confusedly.

"It might be better if you stepped into the outer room," Carlisle said gently. "More air."

The man gave a long look to his daughter, who scowled. "Go, Father. This is not going to get better."

Carlisle met the man's anxious eyes with a gentle smile. "I'll take good care of her." His hand was a bit more forceful than he intended. But the man nodded, and a moment later, Carlisle found himself alone with the girl. He turned to his desk, removing the bottle of laudanum and a pewter cup. He poured a finger of the dark liquid and gave it to her. She raised her eyebrows.

"It will dull the pain," he explained.

She nodded, swigged the cup, and winced.

"I'm sorry. It's not particularly pleasant, I know." He did not know, but he was used to his patients pulling faces after they sipped it. "We'll need to give it a few minutes to take effect. Would you care to tell me a few things more while we wait?"

He proceeded to take a brief medical history. She was sixteen. She had only ever lived in the house she'd been born in. This wasn't the first fracture, and from her determined expression, he suspected it wouldn't be the last. No surgeries, no diseases. No pregnancies, a question which made her blush. He found himself asking a handful of questions more than necessary, enjoying listening to her talk.

When her eyes went a little dull after a quarter hour, he asked if she would mind if he tried straightening her leg once more. She nodded. This time, when he placed his hands on either side of her calf, she didn't flinch. "Good," he muttered. "Does that hurt?"

A head shake. "It throbs a little." The corners of her lips turned up and she laughed. She looked surprised.

"That's normal," he said.

"Laughing?"

He nodded. "It changes all your senses, not just the ones I need to change."

Her pondering expression gave him just enough opportunity to move at his full speed, placing the fractured tibia back into place. It was a very clean break, all told. She didn't notice his movement until he turned to his supply drawer and removed a jar of catgut and his suturing needle.

"It will be best if you don't watch me," he said quietly, as he bent over her leg.

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?"

Usually, Carlisle told his patients to lie back and count, or to close their eyes and imagine something they found more pleasant. But as he opened his mouth, he found that those weren't the words which came out.

"Talk to me. What took you into the tree?"

"I like climbing. Gives me something to do."

"Haven't you other things to do?" He saw her flinch as he poured distilled water over the wound. "I'm sorry. Your mother surely has things for you to do around the house."

"She does. They aren't interesting."

He laughed. "But she needs your help, I'm certain. Do you have brothers?"

"Jimmy. He's twelve. He can drive the tractor. But so can I."

Carlisle realized at once he could envision this; the girl with her long legs dangling to the pedals of the tractor, her hair gathered over one shoulder, unladylike and wild.

"It's good to be a help," he offered. "Do you get on well with him?"

She sighed. "He's a boy. Boys are troublesome." She paused. "Er, I suppose…"

He laughed heartily. "I was a boy once. As I remember, I was troublesome." He winked. They didn't say anything for a few minutes while Carlisle sutured the inner layers of muscle. Usually he went out of his way to make his stitches slightly uneven, like a human would. But he found himself paying close attention to them now, spacing them perfectly, tying the catgut just so. It would dissolve, and no one else would see them, anyway. When he looked up from his stitching, he was shocked to see the brown eyes fixed on him.

"This doesn't frighten you," he muttered. It wasn't a question, and she shook her head in answer.

"It's interesting."

Interesting was not the typical answer he expected to receive from a sixteen-year-old girl looking at her own exposed muscle. He continued sewing.

"Can I ask you a question, Doctor?"

He kept his eyes on his work. "Certainly." It wasn't uncommon, questions from his patients. He braced himself for the usual ones and sure enough, the first one was expected:

"Why did my leg do this?"

"You landed on your feet, did you not?"

She nodded. "How did you know?"

"The direction of the break. You were moving forward and getting ready to take a step, and the bone snapped in the direction you were going. That's also why it had the force to break through your shin like this. It's mostly inertia."

"Inertia?"

"An object in motion wants to stay in motion," he answered. Of course not something she would know, or ever be taught. "Newton's first law of motion. When you fall, your body wants to keep falling. But the ground had something to say about that."

"It most certainly did."

He couldn't help his laughter. He looked up to her inquisitive face, and then returned to his task, bringing together the skin over the sutured muscle. "When you fell, you created force. That's Newton's second law. You accelerate—get faster—as you fall. And the faster you get, the more force you create. If you'd fallen from a shorter tree, you might have just ended up on your hindside."

"And Newton's third law?"

He raised his eyebrows. "What makes you think there's a third law?"

"Things always come in threes," she said, almost exasperatedly. "Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three bears."

"The holy trinity?" he supplied.

"Oh, I don't believe in God."

His head snapped up. She'd said it so matter-of-factly, as though this were a perfectly typical thing to say. For a moment his hands stilled.

"You don't?"

She shrugged. "God is supposed to be good, isn't he? Then why do so many people end up hurt?"

What?

He frowned. "Well, as I said, in your case—"

"I'm not talking about broken legs, doctor."

He met her eyes. They should've been warm, that shade of brown. But they were steely. Firm. He had no reason to ever have such a humanlike reaction, but he felt the hairs on his neck raise, anyway. He gulped, and took a steading breath. Forcing himself to plaster a smile on his face, he went on.

"Well. In any event, you're correct. Newton proposed three laws. And the third law is the one that broke your leg." He bent over the wound, beginning to suture the skin at human speed. Already the blood flow was stanching, the blood on his hands becoming dry and rust-colored. 

"All forces between two objects exist in equal magnitude and opposite direction," he recited as he sewed. "So when you fell, you exerted force on the ground, and it exerted force right back. And that is what snapped the bone."

Her lips pursed. "I don't think I like this ground so much."

"Yes, I would suggest you stay in the trees." He chuckled. "Or at least, minimize the speed with which you go from the branches to the ground."

She harrumphed, but the edges of her lips were upturned also. He finished the topmost suture, and went to get the plaster of paris and a rag. When he returned, she was staring fixedly at the wound. She met his eyes as he began to wash.

"Still comfortable?"

She nodded. He was just finishing cleaning the last remaining traces of blood from her shin and calf and reaching for the plaster and bandages when she spoke again.

"What's your name?"

"Dr. Cullen," he answered absently, as he laid one of the bandages perpendicular to the break.

"No," came her voice more insistently. "I mean your actual name."

"Oh."

It wasn't as though it wasn't on the forged diploma. Princeton, this time, which had all but made the head of hospital begin to drool. It was easier if others thought he was from someplace else, someplace more prestigious. It was easier if they were afraid to offend him, if they thought he considered himself too good for them.

It was easier if they left him alone.

And so he couldn't explain why, but as he laid the next strip, he answered, "It's Carlisle."

"That's an odd name."

He looked up. The corners of her mouth were turned up; her eyes alight.

"It was a surname, I believe," he told her. "Perhaps my mother's."

"Perhaps? You don't know?"

He looked away again, back to her leg and to the plaster. He laid a few more strips before going on.

"She…died. Giving birth to me. I didn't know her."

"Oh." She gave him an intent look. "I'm very sorry."

He swallowed. Of course, he couldn't add the more difficult fact. That his memories were so diaphanous, that only the strongest things remained. He remembered his anger. He remembered his sorrow, but not over what. And if his father had ever so much as uttered his mother's name, he did not know it. Two hundred years ago now, he had made his way to the graveyard, now beside a grander church than the small one he'd once known. On the weathered soapstone he'd found the name he'd forgotten: WILLIAM, the last of their tiny family to die. Below it, worn so that only three partial letters remained: SLE. And then, the third name, obliterated by a century of wear, the only letter remaining a single A. He had traced that letter, over and over, hoping some memory would come to him. Even now, the pad of his index finger tingled with the memory, and he closed his hand as though to to hold fast the sensation of tracing the single letter that was all he had left of his mother.

He needed to change the subject.

"Esme is not exactly a common name either," he offered, lightly, as he worked a little more quickly. "One wonders why you are not a Mary, or a Margaret."

She giggled. "I don't like common names."

"So then you like mine."

A nod. "I've never met a Carlisle before."

"Nor I an Esme." He laid the final pieces of plaster. "I'll need you to be still for a few minutes. Can you manage that? It is something you'll need to get used to, unfortunately."

She pulled a face, but nodded, and he excused himself from the examining room into the open hallway to where her father sat, waiting. He briefly explained the break, and the treatment, invited her father back into the examination room, and then stepped outside.

Despite the overcast day, the summer Ohio heat was relentless, and the wall of the hospital was searing hot. His head dropped back so quickly that he accidentally shattered one of the bricks. He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled, loudly, unnecessarily, before drawing several more breaths slowly and rhythmically, as though he had need of catching his breath.

If God is good, then why do so many people end up hurt?

It took him several minutes to regain himself, nearly long enough to have raised second-degree burns on his back, had he been human. Finally, he raked his fingers through his hair, adjusted his shirt and tie, and strode back into the examination room. The father was there again, looking every bit as vexed as he had at the start of their encounter. Carlisle made a show of examining the plaster, despite that he could smell it was fully dry. If he took one moment longer, it would be one more moment of her gentle teasing, of his laughter, of her coaxing him into…

"She'll need to be fully still for several weeks," he heard himself saying, surprised by his own joviality. "In two weeks, bring her back so that we may check on the set of the bone." He turned to her. "That means no tractoring."

She smirked. "And no tree climbing?"

"Certainly not that." He smiled as he nodded toward her father. "Do you need help getting out? The set plaster is quite heavy." It was a question he asked often, but his forearms tingled at the thought of carrying her. But she was after all a slip of a girl, and her father lifted her with only a small amount of strain. A few pleasantries later and the unevenly-shoed hoofbeats were fading in the distance, leaving him alone.

Two weeks. His calendar appeared in his hand without him consciously thinking to take it, and that he did not know how fast he had moved scared him.

What would happen when she returned? What questions would she ask, and what information would she draw from him as a result? Before he meant to say it? While he was caught off-guard?

He swallowed deeply, shaking his head. The stethoscope and otoscope made their way into his black leather bag at an extra slow speed. There was no one waiting, and so he had removed his diploma from the wall also, leaving a discolored rectangle in the dust.

Then, with finality, he'd closed the door behind him.

As he stared at the trains belching their white steam into the heavy summer air, his fingers closed again around the handle of his bag. Lost in the odd symphony of the train platforms, he barely heard the conductor's yell for Chicago. His feet moved seemingly of their own accord, and it wasn't until he reached the platform and the door to the Pullman car that he even noticed the voice.

"Is that all you got, today, sir?"

Carlisle turned. The porter was a Negro man, his jacket impeccable and his hat on straight.

"Just this," he began. "I—"

And then he was stumbling for words. How did he explain this suspicious movement, the speed with which he had eliminated his entire presence, the lack of plans for what would happen when he arrived in Chicago?

But he needn't have worried. The porter shook his head and tipped his hat.

"It ain't my place to ask no white man his business, sir. You have a safe journey now." He moved to greet the next customer, taking on a heavier suitcase, carrying it ahead of the man onto the train as Carlisle stared.

Wasn't that what he wanted? For no one to mind his business? For no one to look too closely, to ask too many questions? For no one to ask him questions that made his throat close and his index finger tingle?

As he lifted his foot to the stair, however, he heard a voice call out for the train to Columbus, and for a hairsbreadth of a second his thoughts carried him away. The train was a little more than two hours—could he ask for his job back? Re-hang the diploma, re-open the bag, and wait for two weeks from now, when she would return…

But then he snapped himself violently back to the present. He had made his choice. He knew his obligation. He understood the danger, even if the joyful girl could not. He couldn't afford things like laughter and banter. He had no way to access smiles.

If God is good...

Perhaps the girl had been right. Perhaps there was only this. Perhaps there was only hurt.

And with the girl's voice echoing in his head, Carlisle Cullen swung his way onto the Chicago train, and erased himself…

…again.

[bqstqnbruin]

See You Again

I'm actually posting a fic for the first time in seven months aka the first fic I've finished in seven months peace love teaching

anyway, I wrote this for the lovely @wyattjohnston's summer fic exchange! I got to write for @selfindulgentpoorlywritten but I've never written for Nico before, so I hope you like this (I was fully inspired by my own mess of a life)

Edit since I’m a dumbass thank you to @kat-hearts for reading this first and being amazing ily 😭

One of the characters, Nat is nonbinary, and I did my best to make the reader gender netural, which I haven't done before on either account, so I hope I did it justice (if something is glaringly wrong, please let me know!)

Warnings: I was mean with the ending? A little? Also, some swearing, drinking, almost physical fighting

Word Count: almost 2.8k

_______________________________________

“When was the last time you saw him?”

You tried to shift through your memory to figure that out. In person, the last time was sometime in the first week of December about two years ago. Thinking about him, which thankfully didn’t count, would involve you giving a much more recent answer, way more recent than you would really like to admit. “I don’t remember.” 

“Well,” your roommate Nat says, looking down at their phone. “I have bad news.”

“Fucking hell,” you moan, tilting your head to hit the back of the seat of the Uber. You knew what they were going to say before the words even started to come out of their mouth.

“Nico is going to be there tonight. With all the guys.” You let out another groan, the Uber driver giving you a scowl through the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry! Jack didn’t know he was coming, or he would have told us way before we got ready.” 

You stare out the window, trying to think of all the ways that you could get out of this situation. You already paid for the Uber and didn’t want to pay for another one. You weren’t about to go somewhere by yourself, especially since the bar you were heading towards wasn’t within a reasonable walking distance if you were to go somewhere by yourself, and no way was Nat going to leave with you without Jack, and Jack, of course, wasn't going to leave without his teammates. 

“We can go back right now and I’ll tell Jack to have fun with his team instead,” Nat tells you as if they could read your mind. They put their hand over yours, trying to give you any sense of calm that was setting into your panic. “We do not have to be around Nico.” 

“What kind of person tells someone they like them but not enough to date them?” you mutter, knowing you and Nat have had this conversation many times on your kitchen floor, drunk and crying together at 2 in the morning. They had introduced you to Nico one night after a game when the team went out to celebrate. They had been dating Jack for about a year at that point, meeting him through his brother at Michigan and reconnecting when they both realized they were going to be in New Jersey together. Quinn had used the reasoning of, “he won’t know anyone in the state,” only for everyone to realize later that he knew Jack had been smitten with Nat since they met. If only you had been so lucky. 

You had known of Nico, obviously. How could you not? He was the captain of the Devils, the team you grew up surrounded by, the number one draft pick in the sport your roommate never shut up about. He covered your social media feeds without you really wanting them to and everyone you knew talked about what a great game he had the night before. You couldn’t escape the idea of him, no matter where you went. 

When you met him that night a few years back, there was something about him in person that you were drawn to. He had been just an idea to you, not someone you could think about as being real. You spent that entire night with him, your friends either wandering off or you too enthralled with Nico to notice that they were there. Nat and Jack were heading back to your place before last call, and you were left knowing that you had to see Nico again.  

He asked if he could kiss you, making you melt as his hand gently snaked its way to your cheek, pulling you close when you said yes and covering your mouth with his. You waited for his text the next day, anxiously checking your phone until he finally did after 3 pm. From then on, you told each other everything, texting each other whenever you could, him calling you and heading over to your apartment whenever he didn’t have an obligation to the team. You fell hard for him and you had believed that he felt the same about you. 

“The kind of person who doesn’t know what they have until it’s gone,” Nat tells you, trying to pep you up. “Hey, we can find you a guy that is just as hot as Nico tonight.” 

“I’m gonna move to Ireland and isolate myself with the spuds.”

“Act like you can be away from me for that long,” they tease, earning a laugh from you. “I’m serious, though. Tell me what you want to do, or who you want to do, and Jack and I will make it happen.”

You didn’t want someone just as hot as Nico, you wanted Nico. You hated the fact that there was more than one time that you had pulled up his messages on your phone, part of you unable to delete that conversation thread even though you knew it would be the healthy thing to do. But you weren’t known amongst your friends for doing what was best for your mental wellbeing, so you kept them, going back through the conversations you had in the four months you were seeing him. The last text was what haunted you the most, him telling you that he was going to be back in Switzerland for the summer and that he ‘didn’t want you tied down to one person’ while he was gone.

He said he would text you when he was back. 

He never did. 

There were multiple times when you wanted to text him, but you never did, either. 

“Yeah,” you manage to choke out. “Let’s do it.” 

You spend the rest of the ride in silence, trying to think of where in the bar you would be able to hide from Nico so that he wouldn’t see you. The guys were already inside, Jack telling Nat about 10 minutes ago that they went to start drinking as fast as they could. 

The bar was somehow muggy inside, as if the beer itself hung in the air rather than the sweat of the nearly one hundred drunk people that were crowding every square inch of the floor. Jack was easy to spot for Nat, his five foot eleven frame not the largest of his teammates, but still distinct enough that your roommate had left your side within seconds of entering to be with their partner. 

So much for finding you someone tonight. 

You tried to stay away from him, closer to Nat and Jack as best as you could, but they kept wandering off from you. The last thing you wanted to do was go with them when they were both on their way to drunk and have a history of doing slightly illegal things in the bathrooms at bars. 

You had to find someone to talk to. Any person who looked interesting. Any other guy on the team who you were friends with, but that was really only Jack, and that was really only because he’s dating Nat. Your phone was your only comfort, finding a table that had been pushed up against the wall and hoping that there was something you could doom scroll on that would distract you from looking towards Nico. 

He had the right to do what he wanted at the bar with his teammates. You weren’t together. 

“You ok?” you hear during a lull in the music, pulling you away from your phone for a moment. You didn’t know who was standing in front of you, one of the newer guys from the trade deadline that Nat definitely hadn’t introduced you to. He was waiting for you to respond, looking like he had wanted to sit down with you.

“Yeah, just, not a big ‘going out’ person.”

He lets out a nervous laugh, a smile that sends a jolt through your system that you hadn’t felt in a while. Since Nico, if you were really willing to be honest with yourself. “Me neither, honestly. I’m just here because I didn’t have anything else to do.” 

“I got dragged here with my roommate so they can be with their boyfriend,” you tell him, gesturing to Nat and Jack trying their best to sneak out of the bathroom, Jack’s shirt buttoned wrong, both of their previously neatly styled hair in a mess that you only saw after hearing them the night before. 

“So that’s the infamous Nat,” he says, taking the seat beside you. You nod as he continues, “Jack never shuts up about them. Not that Jack shuts up about anything or anyone, ever, but especially not Nat.” 

“I always knew he was a good one,” you tell him, introducing yourself so he knew you as more than just, ‘his teammate's partner’s roommate.’

“I’m Timo.” 

You spent the rest of the night bouncing between the table and the bar with Timo, him buying you every drink you wanted. There was something about him that was different, but you couldn’t focus all of your attention on him. 

He was talking about his time in San Jose while you were waiting for your next round of drinks. You couldn’t focus on a word he was saying, Nico within your line of sight talking to a girl. A really attractive girl, you might add. You felt your heart drop, feeling a lump in your throat forming faster than you could lie to yourself about that scene having no effect on you. Naturally, Nico would talk to other people. You hadn’t talked to him in two years, let alone seen him in person. Just because you couldn’t get over him, no matter how hard you tried, that didn’t mean he didn’t get over you.

“And then I got traded here, and I love it, so far,” you tune back into Timo, who is suddenly much closer than you remember. It’s just because the bar is loud, people are starting to crowd for drinks, and, fuck, you have to admit, he’s pretty hot. 

Nico was still watching. 

Timo took your hand, leading you off to the table where you were before, the drinks in your hand probably not ones that you needed to begin with. His free hand snaked its way to your waist, pulling you close to him. You could feel your heart racing faster with every inch he got closer to you. You wanted him to kiss you. 

You thought you did. 

“I’m sorry,” you pull away right as his lips were about to meet yours, tears starting to form in your eyes, leaving the drink he bought you in his hands as you ran from him. Your breath catches in your throat while you try to find Nat and Jack, just praying that they weren’t back in the bathroom or too intoxicated in general to help out. 

You heard Timo calling after you, somehow, through the volume of the music and your own drunkenness, breaking through and getting to you. You didn’t want Timo calling your name, you wanted it to be Nico. 

You needed it to be Nico. 

“Hey, hey,” you hear, feeling a familiar hand gently place itself on your arm. You turn around, Nico’s face a mixture of concern and fury. “What did he do?” 

“He, he,” you stammer, the tears falling faster the more you looked at him, every memory you had with him suddenly rushing back into your mind. “He didn’t do anything. You did.”

You yank your arm from him, trying to find anywhere to be in the building that didn’t have one of Nico’s teammates looking at you causing a scene. You knew he was following you, calling your name again and again over the music. People were starting to stare, but no part of you cared, trying harder to not let the tears that were burning your eyes fall down your cheeks. 

Nat and Jack were nowhere to be seen, the rest of Nico’s teammates trying to figure out what was going on when you burst through the front door of the bar, the cold fall air hitting your face as soon as you did. You let out a sob, trying to steady yourself against the wall of the building, sliding down to the ground while people waiting to get in tried to figure out if they should help you or if you were just another drunk person having some sort of meltdown that was none of their business. 

“Hey,” you hear, a soft voice coming from above you. “I’m so sorry if I did something wrong.” Timo slid down next to you. “I read the situation wrong, I thought you were also into me.”

“I am, I just,” you start, trying to think of what to say. 

“Hey, what the fuck did you do?” Nico yells, pulling Timo off the ground. “What did he do to make you cry?”

“Nico, stop,” you let out, Timo looking both confused and terrified by his new captain’s hand on his shirt collar. “He didn’t do anything.”

“What the fuck did I miss?” Timo asked, slowly trying to back away from Nico staring you down. 

“Why can you talk to other people and I can’t?” you ask him, feeling your sadness turn into anger. “You had no issue not talking to me for the last two years.” 

“I’m gonna go,” Timo lets out, barely loud enough for the two of you to hear and sneaking away before you could notice. 

“You didn’t want to talk to me,” Nico counters, taking a step towards you. “But you wanted to talk to TImo instead?”

“Where the fuck did you get that idea?” 

“You never texted me. You’ve spent the entire night avoiding me. You think I didn’t see you when you were by yourself on your phone?” 

“You were in Sweden. And you could have come up to me and talked to me, what was stopping you? Oh, that’s right, your new girlfriend.”

“Switzerland. And she’s not my girlfriend. I haven’t seen anyone in ages.”

“Wherever you were, you weren’t here,” you tell him, your back against the wall. How long had it been since he had last seen someone? There was no way you had been the last person he was with. “You told me you didn’t want to be tied down while you were back home. You didn’t even want to talk to me, because if you did, you would have.” 

“You’re joking,” he scoffs. “You think I didn’t want to talk to you? Every fucking day I have thought about how our conversations would go when I saw you after you get home from work. I would think about you telling me about your day, about everything you would tell Nat, or whoever you were seeing at the time. Every single person I saw in the last two years, I wanted them to be you.” 

You didn’t know what to say, letting Nico’s words sink in. “Then why didn’t you text me when you came back from Switzerland?” 

Nico took in a deep breath, closing his eyes and tilting his head up to the sky. “Because I thought there was no way someone else wouldn’t have realized how amazing you are. There was no way I could be someone who you thought was worth waiting for.” 

Nico takes a step towards you, his hand gently taking yours. This was a moment you had been thinking about since he left for Switzerland two years ago. You knew he was going to kiss you, having you pinned against the wall of the building. His free hand cupped your cheek.

“There you guys are!” Nat interrupts, them and Jack clearly having just finished up doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Nico steps away from you, clearing his throat, the red in his cheeks so noticeable there was no way even your roommate wouldn’t comment on it later.  “We’ve been looking for you, for um.”

“Long enough,” Jack finishes their sentence, a stupid smile covering his face. You knew he was lying, but no part of your brain was letting you focus on that. Nico leaned against the building, his arm up over your head. “The uber’s almost here. Are you ready to go?”

No. “Yes.” 

The three of you leave Nico standing there by himself, Nat and Jack falling asleep in the Uber as soon as it gets on the highway. 

You check your phone for the first time in a while, a lone notification popping up on your phone that hadn’t been there in almost two years. 

‘Nico, iMessage.’ 

[dancingontheblades]

18 for the fic writer asks?

I'm so sorry it took me so long to get back to you! Darkness took me and I strayed out of thought and time. No, honestly, it's been a couple of agonisingly busy weeks.

That being said, I was delighted when I saw your ask! Thank you for being interested in my writing process!

18.) if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

Since I regularly back up my works on an external hard drive, I just went through the folder that contains an early draft of my YOI novelisation and picked a scene, which I remember changing significantly in the revision process because my research on Japanese dating culture completely changed my perspective and my approach on writing the chapters startin from episode 5 ff.

So here's the early and unrevised version of Chapter 27 "The drop-dead dog date" from 2021. Back then, it was Chapter 13 (the story got almost twice as long during revision lol):

“Let’s do something together,” Viktor said as he pushed his bike across the parking lot. “Once the Grand Prix Series starts, there won’t be much spare time left.” The Grand Prix Series ... The upcoming season lurked on the horizon like a demon, waiting to pounce on Yūri and devour him. Although unlike a couple of months ago he was confident of winning, he tried not to think too often about it and instead focused on his training. Wanting to win and making it to the podium were two different pairs of skates. “Doing together what?” he asked. “We’re already spending most of our waking hours together.” They walked down the road back to town. More leaves tumbled onto the pavement, spinning in spirals and whirls like figure skaters dancing Agape and Eros intertwined. Yūri could have watched them for hours lost in his fantasies in which these leaves became people. “I thought of some fun activity that suits the season better than swimming or sitting on the beach at night,” Viktor said. “Something that for once is not related to skating.”

And here is the published version:

One week had passed since Yuuri had voiced his kokuhaku. One week of contemplating the best way to proceed. One week too long. Viktor had responded as desired, and now it was Yuuri’s turn. As he gazed at the autumnal town spreading in front of him in the mellow October light, his determination hardened.

Under a tree, he stopped, clenching his fists. “Viktor.” Viktor stopped, confusion playing on his angelic features. “Let’s do something together.” Heat flared up on Yuuri’s face. That had come out the wrong way. “But not like gaming or swimming in the ocean—it’s too cold for the latter anyway. Let’s go out. Like, let’s start seeing each other. I mean, not like we see each other every day. But in a romantic way.” Viktor blinked. Then his eyes which were like slivers of the autumn sky widened. “Are you asking me on a date, Yuuri?” Yuuri nodded. “But… I’ve never dated before. There’s not much one can do in this town except for karaoke, and I’m still traumatised from that one.” The heat on his face intensified. I’m so awkward. This is so embarrassing! “But I really want to start dating you. I’ve—” With a deafening clatter, Viktor’s bike crashed onto the pavement as he flung his arms around Yuuri. “Yuuri! I’m so happy you asked!”

The difference between those two versions pretty much shows why it's essential for me to finish a draft, do proper research on the cultures of my characters, and revise the story at least twice before I can even think of handing it over to a beta and posting it.

Thank you again for asking! Going through that first draft brought back so many nostalgic memories of the first months after I fell in love with YOI. I wish you a lovely holiday season 💖

Question taken from this post. If you like to know more about my writing process, please don't hesitate to ask!