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taranida · 5 months ago

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AWAN: the sad story of the best boy's life and death

We need to talk about AWAN. It baffles me that part of the community thinks that AWAN’s story somehow is not canon anymore. Well, it is. It is a failed attempt of escaping the Dark Place, yes, Alice and Alan might’ve seen each other only in her dream, but everything depicted there happened to the point we have a physical evidence for it.

So, let’s take a look at it and speculate what happened before, after and during. Because the story in AWAN is pretty straight forward, but many things are quite peculiar if taken together with other games. I will also explore the concept of the story and how it changes reality and touch up on the theory that I wanted to write, but postponed in the light of the Poison Pill Entertainment dropping the Night Springs DLC.

Alright, the most important part I want to talk about: Alan’s, let’s say, ascension level. Because, oh boy, AWAN’s Alan is the most confident, powerful and knowledgeable version of him we ever saw. The only other version that might fight for this place is Alan-on-the-phone (since as of now we have no idea from what point in the story the call was made). If we talking strictly about Alan as Alan, not Alan as Tom Seine — Alan Seine or Tom “665” Wake is a discussion for another time; I’m still brainstorming some parts of this mystery, although I will talk about him as well in the end.

We have several manuscripts in the game that point out that Alan mastered the Dark Place to a degree he never showed before or after. He also remembers and knows when he will forget:

He can peek into the real world, he can and tries to reach out, knowing what he’s doing, not unwillingly haunting Alice or forgetting that he had sent messages to Rose:

He also knows what the Dark Place is and how to survive there, obviously remembering his experience in the DLCs for the first game:

And what one needs to thrive in the Dark Place; how to shape his own fate. Most importantly, he knows what not to do. At least at this point (we all know it went straight into the window in AWII):

One of the most important parts here, Alan doesn’t need anyone to help him fight or sprinkle pages around (or deliver the OoPs), he does everything by himself and he realises, that he’s in control, he’s the creator:

In fact, Alan in AWAN is so powerful, he can and does get out of the Dark Place into an overlap, effectively creating the playground for himself and trapping Mr. Scratch within it:

Yes, yes, it’s written here as if Mr. Scratch set the trap, but let’s not forget when and by whom those manuscript pages were written. In the final loop we even have an in-game confirmation, that now loops are working in Alan’s favour and this is his way to make the story work: the hero must struggle. The whole story of AWAN was finished before Alan set foot into the overlap, he is the creator; all the struggles and set-backs of his are of his own doing. Because, as we well know by now, for Alan the scale must always balance, the story must be believable, everything must be perfect. And the thing is… it’s not perfect for the reality. There is no way the satellite will stay intact after re-entering the atmosphere. Surely not in the condition we see in the game; but Alan probably never bothered to learn about space — therefore this works. The whole story works because as a piece of fiction it is believable for its creator, Alan himself. He would have never believed that he will just jump out of the Dark Place and destroy Mr. Scratch in one flashy shot from his trusty revolver. As he himself puts it in one of the Writer in the Cabin TVs:

“I’ll be bound by the events of the story just as much as anyone else who’s been woven into it. The story must stay true for this to work. There have to be victims along the way, near escapes, cliffhangers. In a horror story it can’t be certain that the hero will succeed or even survive. He almost has to die.”

And he almost does. Or not almost? I strongly believe that in the end of each loop Alan is supposed to die before he’s hurled back in time: just like in the second game. Whenever the outcome is not in Alan’s favour he just loops, it’s not the first nor the last time he will abuse loops to his advantage. And, really, Mr. Scratch does what, according to the manuscript? Just sends Alan back? Why? How is it beneficial in any way? How is this twisted, cruel and unhinged serial killer so nice to just “send Alan back to the beginning of the maze”? He’s not Scratch from the second game, who has some obsessive feelings towards Alan, he’s a true monster, a sadist, one if the darkest beings, basking in violence; he even states his goal and desires pretty clearly: he wants Alan dead and to take his place. So why would he not kill Alan?

Because it was written. It’s not different drafts of the same story we’re going through in AWAN, like we do in AWII’s Initiation, it’s one complete story titled “Return” and it was finished before Alan woke up in Night Springs, every loop was accounted for, everything that happens is set in stone by the power of art and the Dark Place, we even have a manuscript, that confirms it. Before AWAN, while he was writing this story, Alan is not lost or confused, he’s not pushed around by beings in the Dark Place as it happens in the first and second games, he’s prepared and knows exactly what he’s doing with this Return. He does fail to, well, return, but he doesn’t fail in destroying the threat to him, Alice and Barry (literally all the friends Alan has) — something that matters more than escaping. He even manages to save everyone involved in his journey: Emma in the third loop finally survives till Alan leaves the Rest Stop and, as the dialog with Dr. Meadows explains, there is no more story after Alan is gone:

“You know, I just realized that I don’t have any memory of what happens after you leave. What does that mean?” “I don’t think it means anything. If everything goes well, you just keep going. I don’t show up here like this again. No more bad guys. Things go back to normal.”

That’s why Alan can “secure” Emma’s lights and be on his merry way: there will be no one to hurt her after he left. Bad things happen there only because of the story, even the bad things that happened before Alan got into the overlap happened only because of the story.

So, what happened outside the story? What was the truth Alan borrowed and not art becoming truth?

Well, let us talk about Mr. Scratch. I did mention part of what I want to discuss in my previous theory, but I will expand on everything here. Not gonna lie, I was so excited to finally talk about him and point some things out, that as I saw in the community were twisted to fit the narrative of Seine=Scratch, but the Night Springs DLC already confirmed that Tom “665” Seine is, in fact, Alan. I will put a warning nonetheless: I do not believe 665 and Mr. Scratch are the same being, but they might have the same role in the story, I will address some things that make them similar, but this is an in depth look at Mr. Scratch and not at 665. And keep in mind that all those things are manifesting in them, to my belief, for the exact same reason. For all those out there who want to believe that Mr. Scratch is alive, well and will be making a return (no pun intended), I’m with you; I love this twisted bastard, he’s my favourite antagonist, maybe in all the games I had a pleasure to know, he’s goofy and evil, and twisted, and cruel, and charming, and just the right amount of funny and scary, but I don’t believe that 665 is him; and I, sadly, fully believe that Mr. Scratch is completely unalive. If my assumptions will be disproven at some point — so be it, this is, after all, just a theory and theories can be wrong.

With this said, let’s start from the beginning. The beginning of Mr. Scratch, not the beginning of AWAN. Another thing that baffles me is how some people for some unclear for me reason believe that the Bright Presence created him. He didn’t. Why would he? The Bright Presence is quite indifferent to, well, everything, really. He’s also from a different side of the eternal conflict between light and dark, which makes it kinda ridiculous for him to create dark beings or even summon them. As far as we know he’d rather kill Mr. Scratch on the spot than grant him a way out of the Dark Place. So why did Mr. Scratch make an appearance in the first game? And why did the Bright Presence react to him so nonchalantly? For the latter, I would assume, the Bright Presence being a prick — is a reason good enough. Or, putting it properly, not caring about the world or anything, really, enough to act: he’s no human and what little humanity Thomas Zane’s body granted him seems to be tied to Barbara only; he’s not a being we can understand as he cannot really understand us. His whole involvement in Alan’s plight is unwilling, dictated by the story and the story had nothing about the “evil double”.

Why is Mr. Scratch there then? The argument might be made that this is just how the cookie crumbles. In Emil Hartman’s notes from Control’s AWE we learn this bit:

“But, now, like Tom before him, Wake has disappeared into Cauldron Lake. And this is where my work turns... hypothetical. Since he was lost to the Lake, Thomas Zane has been observed by various townspeople. This indicates to me that the individuals within the Lake are not entirely "gone". I anticipate Wake will similarly return one day.”

Could Thomas have his own Mr. Scratch? Is it the way the Dark Place claims artists, spitting out their double to somehow maintain balance? We have few artists who went into the lake, one way or another, but only two of them are known to make an appearance in the real world while being in the Dark Place: Thomas and Alan. Others — Alice, Tor and Odin (Balder?) — as of now don’t have a double or we are not aware of them. Might be because, like with Mr. Scratch, their doubles need more time to manifest properly; as Mr. Scratch himself told us, it takes time:

“At first, I was just an idea. But they kept telling all these stories about you. You already had that rep, and then you disappeared mysteriously… And then… stories about bad, crazy Alan Wake came true. And here I am! That’s the best part, isn’t it, when that happens? You can always count on Cauldron Lake.”

Tor and Odin went into the lake at the very end of AWII, they surely had no time to have their reputation acquire flesh; Alice… pinpointing when exactly Alice made her leap of faith is quite hard. It probably happened somewhere between May and September of 2023, judging by the dates on this e-mail:

In May Barry is yet to learn about Alice’s “death”: either he got the response from her or somewhere between this e-mail and the moment we see the PC he learnt about her “death”. With this “4 months ago” on the e-mail we can calculate, that the PC is stuck in September of 2023, which in and of itself might be the answer, yet I hesitate to take it as a fact; I will return to it. Nonetheless, four months might not be enough for the “idea” to become a full fleshed double, even if we will take the earliest possible date of the plunge, it could be even six months, which still might be not enough. Therefore, we have only Alan and Thomas being blessed with doubles as of now.

There is, however, another way to look at Thomas’ sightings. It might’ve been the Bright Presence itself making an appearance. We know that after the Last Dive both Presences, wearing the skins of Thomas and Barbara, surged up into our world. What happened while they were there we don’t know, but people seeing Thomas might’ve seen the Bright Presence. Yes, it kinda shines like a lamp and wears the diver suit when we see it in the first game, but who is to tell it was always like that? The Dark Presence for sure didn’t look as the old lady at the time, its body was only twenty-five years in 1970. In fact, the Dark Presence was surely looking like Barbara: Cynthia confirms it; Thomas himself was fooled for some time; The Poet and The Muse, too, notes only the darkness in Barbara’s eyes and the change of attire. The Bright Presence might’ve been the “double” people of Bright Falls mistook for Thomas.

This is not how the cookie crumbles then? Let’s run with it, I believe it to be more plausible that there is no exchange between the Dark Place and our world when someone is claimed. The person just goes missing as many Taken did every AWE. So why does Alan have a double? Well, in fact, we don’t really know, but there are few things, pointing that it’s Alan’s own doing.

Allow me to explain. In the second game we see how Alan refuses to let the idea of him having an evil double, who does all the horrendous things, he doesn’t want to take responsibility for, go. He always cries “Scratch”, whatever happens. Even when he shoots Noir-Casey in the alley in the second draft of Initiation, we see a quick flash of Scratch’s jumpscare, as if to say “it was not Alan, it was Scratch!”, when it obviously was Alan — he was in the driver seat firmly enough to hold control, he chose to let Scratch do his dirty work or he did it himself, making an excuse that Scratch took over for a moment. It’s a weak excuse, but this is Alan’s way to cope. We also have Alan’s idea of the balance and consequences: he might’ve not believed that his sacrifice will be enough to save Alice, so he added more just for a good measure — it was not written, as I believe that moment is completely based on dreaming in the Dark Place, but his little treacherous thought of “oh, what if I miscalculated and more must be paid?” could manifest into Mr. Scratch. It further strengthened by Mr. Scratch’s words “at first, I was just an idea”; whose idea he could’ve been if not Alan’s? And there is yet another, for me, the last nail in the coffin: Alan wrote the episode of Night Springs about the Champion of Light and the Herald of Darkness. He might’ve created Mr. Scratch long before the whole Bright Falls ordeal happened. His early works matter: we have AWAN based on his early work, Control based on his early work, the Bright Presence weirdly parallels with the character from Errand Boy story, and something that has nothing at all to do with the Dark Place — Alex Casey, who’s himself not entirely sure if the fiction affected his life or his life affected the fiction. Alan is a strong parautilitarian, after all, his powers might’ve always been connected to his writing (or him being the Master of Many Worlds always was the truth, that needed a vacation in the Dark Place to fully manifest). There is also a chance that he did it retroactively: time is just a point in the story after all and he needed Mr. Scratch for AWAN to happen, even if the attempt to escape was unsuccessful; not like at the time he knew it will turn out this way, and after AWAN, apparently, Alan lost huge chunk of his mastery over the Dark Place and, probably, memory.

I strongly believe, that Alan was the one to summon Mr. Scratch. And everything from here on will be said with this belief (but it doesn’t affect much). Now; we know that Mr. Scratch spent some time as an idea, echo, then he started to taunt Alan, leaving him no other choice than confrontation.

This part, I believe, is the truth: it’s in Mr. Scratch’s character, he loves to toy with his victims, it’s entirely possible that he, indeed, can travel from the Dark Place the our world effortlessly, and he has little understanding of the consequences to his actions or disregards them due to his power: he has an army of Taken by his side and, as he put it:

“I’m a little more resilient that those I’ve Taken.”

And he is. Although we see him flinch at a very strong light hitting him from the window in one of the TV’s, he’s quite comfortable in the room with at least two lamps and holds up pretty well in the light of a huge movie projector (well, while it’s just a light); he can also disappear into thin air, in fact there is no “boss battle” with him, he never gives Alan even a chance to attack. For our average law enforcement, he’s invincible, FBC would be able to contain him, probably, with the cell that Scratch broke in the second game, but Mr. Scratch doesn’t know about FBC. As well as he doesn’t know about the extent of Alan’s powers. Therefore, he couldn’t care less about the feelings of the trapped writer whose face he stole. Or anyone’s feelings for that matter. His whole thing is — he enjoys the sufferings he brings. This manuscript, I believe is the truth as well:

But then the story comes in. Those manuscripts, I believe, is Alan expanding Mr. Scratch to fit him into the role of the Herald of Darkness:

Because what Herald of Darkness Mr. Scratch would make if he wouldn’t be, you know, heralding the darkness. If he was left to his own devices, he would just take over Alan’s life, corrupt it and keep killing other people. Tragic, of course, but not something that fits into the grandiose narrative of the episode of Night Springs where the stakes are much, much higher. For Alan to take the role of the Champion of Light, there must be something light needs a champion for. Basically, Alan makes it about light versus darkness, good versus evil, chaos versus order and raises the stakes for his plan to work. And, as always, the writing makes new truths: now Mr. Scratch is set to bring his pals into our world and if not for Alan, we all would be suffering under their rule of terror. As the narrator says:

“The fate of countless individuals hangs in the balance, threatened by the machinations of the herald of darkness.”

But everything there should be taken with a pinch of salt: Alan Is the most unreliable and most reliable narrator at the same time. Mr. Scratch might’ve been a minion of another being; or he might’ve been a Dark Presence as well as the one that wore Barbara’s face, free to act on his own and seizing the opportunity. Truth here is — we have no way of knowing what he is; Alan doesn’t know it, but Alan can make anyone into almost anything if he’s able to believe in it.

What about everything Mr. Scratch does, that we see in the game? Well, that’s already a part of the story. Alan wrote at least some of the TVs, as this manuscript hints:

It might, however, been based on the memories of what Mr. Scratch told Alan about his adventures in our world, or it was for the drama, it matters little: it is true to the character and the killings are in his nature.

What is totally not the truth borrowed — the day before Alan arrived, because Mr. Scratch’s actions serve as a bread-crumb road. The party leads to the dinner, the keys there — to the hotel, the murder in the hotel leads to the Observatory, threatened and scared Dr. Meadows and the signal lead to the Drive-In Theatre. Everything Mr. Scratch did before Alan made whatever town in Arizona into an overlap and called it Night Springs, was to make a map for Alan to follow. And the three women we encounter have all been in close contact with Mr. Scratch only to have a justification for them to remember the previous loop:

I will return to this, since this is the part where AWAN goes against the other games.

So, let’s finally talk about the iconic suit, ring and dance, shall we? Well, there is not much to say, really; all of those are Alan’s. Mr. Scratch even makes a point in one of the TVs about how much there is of Alan in him:

“I’m not just wearing your face, you know. It goes a lot deeper than that. There’s a lot of you in me. All the best parts. […] I’m just as real as you are. And I’m the improved version. No fears. No doubt. No weaknesses. No self-deception here. I don’t let anything drag me down. I know you like I know myself. I know it bothers you that I’m like this, that I use your name and crawl my way into your life. But I only do it because… I’m better at being you than you ever were!”

Let’s not get into “the best parts” and Mr. Scratch’s understanding of them, but the thing is — he is Alan in every way, just cranked up to 11 and a bit of a serial killer, with nothing to stop him from doing what he wants. Plus a little of group-think. The point is — the base is pure Alan minus all doubts, fears, self-deception and ability to reflect on the actions. Even the violent tendencies are from Alan — as we well know from his history of attacking paparazzi and having the “rep” in the first place. Mr. Scratch even inherited the affections from Alan. Maybe not to the full extent, but those feelings are so strong, even the nature of the dark entity couldn’t fully get rid of them. About Alice he says:

“She’s really beautiful, isn’t she, your wife? Well, our wife, really. Just my wife soon. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna treat her like the others. She’s special. If I wanted her dead, she would be. I’ve been around for a while, now. So talented. You haven’t seen her new work, of course. It takes my breath away. Really, she’s that good. Did you know that I’ve got a wedding ring too? We’re that similar.” “Everything else — doing my thing, getting a bit of quality time with Alice… that’s a little something for me.”

One of his goals, he can’t shut up about, is literally to be with Alice. And were he to do so, I wouldn’t be so sure he would kill her as he promises. With Alan being so fixated on keeping Alice safe, Mr. Scratch might’ve ended up on the same thing. Because there is so much Alan in him. So much, actually; even with all the whining about Barry, he admits to liking him as well:

“Aw, I actually kind of like the guy. He’s a plucky little butterball. He plays the clown, that’s a hard road to take.”

So, the ring is Alan’s, the suit is as well Alan’s:

Alan literally wears it in Alice’s movie. With all that we can assume that the dance is also Alan’s. Mr. Scratch doesn’t have his own moves, really; whatever he was before the end of the first game was almost lost. I would bet that the Taken he creates are also very much influenced by Alan’s psyche: his worst fears, his ideas, his experiences. The Splitter is Alan’s understanding that a Taken might be easily defeated with a light and some amount of bullets, but there’s strength in numbers; the Spectre is him being traumatised by the unkindness of raves; the Giant is explained to be borrowed from pulp fiction; the Grenadier is uno-reverse of the chapter from the first game where all Alan had is flashbangs and they worked miracles. Or, of course, our boy Mr. Scratch might have much better imagination, thanks to the connection to Alan; the Dark Presence, becoming Scratch, even managed to write a book because of the same reason. But whatever of these two explanations you like the best, all roads lead to Alan. Not to mention that the manuscripts explaining the diverse Taken were written before Alan even saw them.

I will finish this part on the sad note. Mr. Scratch is dead. He was unalived by Alice’s movie, literally spoiling the ending of the Final Draft. Alice’s love is the piece of the puzzle that Alan needs to destroy Mr. Scratch as well as Scratch. And in both cases it was written, even if Alan himself didn’t understand to full extent of how important Alice’s involvement is or that she was involved at all. Balance Slays the Demon is exactly what we have going on in both endings. But the death of Mr. Scratch is quite telling: he dies in a similar way to how the Taken of this “generation” die: we see the same circle of light on him, that we see every time we burn away the shield, then he dissipates in bright sparks. Much more bright sparks, of course, giving us the clue that he’s in fact, not the average Taken. He is a dark being, he’s not easy to kill even with light and love, he doesn’t just poofs into sparks, he fights till the very last moment. But, alas, in the end he is no more. And I don’t see the way for him to return, although I would love to see more of him.

There are more things about AWAN that I find interesting. The radio is one of them. Each loop we get a different show: first with Barry and the boys of OGoA, second is Eddie Rodman reflecting on how this is one of those nights, when he forgets how long it’s been, and turns into the narrator of Night Springs for a monologue, the last loop gives us a chance to hear the interview with Alice and Serena. The chronological order of the two interviews is given to use for free: Eddie says that he interviewed Barry and the boys before Alice and Serena. We also know that none of them might be in the studio with Eddie the same night Alan is looping: Serena is at the Drive-In theatre that night (and their interview was done at morning anyway) and Barry is in his room as the game starts with him sleeping and ends with him waking up. So, what’s the deal with all those shows then? Well, this has to do with the manuscript of Alan catching radio signals that can pierce the veil between worlds and him wanting to hear his two closest people. The only show that happens the same night is the one where Eddie is talking about how he feels he might’ve been in the studio forever and asks for calls. Therefore, we have the monologue with the Night Springs narrator’s voice there. Eddie was never in the close contact with the forces of the Dark Place, for him the night is just weird, but, you know, not extremely weird; we all have had nights and days like this, when they drag and drag and seem to never end. But for Alan in his loops the radio is a chance to hear how Barry and Alice are doing.

Speaking about Alice. We all know that this version of Return doesn’t work and Alan doesn’t get out of the Dark Place, no matter how he’s sure that he will (he claims that he will deny everything to Dr. Meadows if she were to make this experience public and encourages Serena to find him after all this is over so he could help her with the aftereffects of the close contact with Mr. Scratch), but we have a “movie date”. An overlap in the overlap. I would assume that Alice had a nice dream about Alan and Alan got his little moment of happiness with her. All this taking place before he was pulled back into the Dark Place. And I will talk about this as well later.

So, what about Emma, Rachel and Serena? I believe they remember. Obviously, Emma and Rachel are coping somehow: Emma got the confirmation that there are forces in this world we cannot understand, but she already believed in something like that anyway; Dr. Meadows is probably quite excitedly trying to solve that mystery. But Serena is in a peculiar situation: she saw her friend’s presumably dead husband. Nothing in AWII even hints that she shared this with Alice at the time. Alice herself learnt about the truth of what happened in Bright Falls only in 2017, after the haunting started and she visited the Oldest House. I assume that Serena never told Alice about what happened. I’m yet uncertain about the last recording of Alice’s, where we see the last photographs of hers, but if that happened in the real world, then there is no better candidate to edit all this into the video we see, than Serena. Because we have no newspapers about Alice’s death in the same place her husband died, which would blow up — they are both famous and both died the same way; even the FBI agents that head to Bright Falls are unaware of Alice’s fate. In the real world the circumstances of Alice’s “death” must be hidden: from the public eye and from the authorities as well. The only person that would understand that is Serena, who went through the loops of AWAN. Or this last video was created in the Dark Place and somewhere there, in the area of Cauldron Lake the lone camera still stands on the tripod. It also goes to the question of “when exactly Alice jumped”, since we see no indication that it’s known she’s dead and the PC is stuck in September, it might be that she arrived in Bright Falls not long before the beginning of the second game and everything that happens in Parliament Tower past the second draft of Initiation happens only in the Dark Place. Just food for thought.

Now, let’s talk about the story and the implications. Especially this manuscript:

This goes into direct contradiction with the first and the second game. Both are loops which Alan manages to forget, being in the closest contact with the powers that can shift reality — he’s literally the one doing the shifts. And there’s no such a thing as immunity to the story if the story demands it, even Anderson’s famous “immunity” is disproven in the second game in front of our eyes. I’ll talk about it in another theory. Yes, we have Cynthia, who remembers even in the second game that Thomas Zane was a poet, but she doesn’t remember the loops: none of them, actually: not from the first game nor from the second game. No one who’s in the story remembers the loops, yet they are the reality changed, and here we have Alan establishing that, securing himself three allies. Does that mean that this manuscript shaped reality in the way that from the moment of AWAN everyone, touched by the powers, will remember? Nope. The thing is: this Return is a finished story and everything in it, considering that it fails to end as Alan wanted it to end, stays in the story. Emma, Rachel and Serena will remember the events of AWAN, but rewrite reality in front of their eyes, they will have nothing to remember about the newest changes. Everything established in this Return works only in this Return; after the story ended with Mr. Scratch’s death, there is no Night Springs, Arizona anymore, there is no such a thing as “awareness of the changes” if the conditions are met, there are no giant spiders, no Taken, maybe even no more thinned reality, that might’ve been there in the first place only because of (Alan’s writing) visiting Old Gods of Asgard, Barry and Alice, whose presence can cause the thinning:

The story ended and the rules established for it to end ended with it. New rules are established in the second game and the story follows them, people who are in the story act accordingly and remember what the story needs them to remember.

That’s not to say that AWAN never happened at all. It did. We have this pretty thing Alice wears in the second game:

Which is certainly from AWAN:

It might even be her attempt to show Alan, before revealing her plunge into the lake, that she remembers, that she knows what really happened; the picture he needs to see. The deer balloon is a further hint and the “horror of caring” is a message too.

We have Writer’s Journey videos where Alan wears the outfit from AWAN, that he clads himself in for comfort. We don’t have Mr. Scratch in the second game, instead we have Scratch (in the loving memory, I insist). All in all, the AWAN story did happen, it just didn’t end as well as it was designed to: Alan didn’t escape.

In fact, it is my belief that everything got worse for Alan when he was slammed back into the Dark Place. He already wrote that getting out in the overlap will be hard, being dragged back, probably, was even worse. You see, in This House of Dreams that certainly takes place after AWAN judging by what he fill the shoebox with, Alan doesn’t do well at all. I have an explanation about which poems are whose — here. The sheer fact that Alan pretends to be Tom Zane screams of him going mad; not like it’s the first or the last time, but I believe, this was the point of desperation great enough for him to write something that might’ve caused 665 to be manifested. The whole theory on 665 is still in the works, but I think AWAN was the blow that started this. He gets back, crashed by the fail (yet another one or the first one), he goes crazy, writing poems and assuming the role of Tom Zane, who helped him in the first game, as a way to cope and then he writes something to summon him. But he doesn’t know that “Zane” he encountered is the Bright Presence. And here’s the deal with art in the Dark Place: when art goes against art, nothing good comes out of it. We can see it with the poster of a movie from 60’s that is based on a novel by a man who will not be born for a bit less than a decade. But the Dark Place accommodates and thus we have 665, an aspect of Alan, who is surely set to be his own man and get the hell out of the Dark Place no matter the cost. 665 is a sinister being and much more dangerous than Scratch and he, I believe, is about to fill the role of the late Mr. Scratch. The true evil double, who’s much more capable of stealing Alan’s life and identity, who’s already shown he can and is willing to manipulate Alan to achieve his goals, and who can pretend to be on Alan’s side.

And his beautiful face in his leather and lace Oh, can't you see the play he's staging?

#alan wake #alan wake 2 #alan wake game #alan wake ii #rcu theory #remedy connected universe #remedy entertainment #remedy games #alan wake's american nightmare #mr scratch #mr. scratch #alice wake #night springs #awan #tom seine #665 #thomas seine

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droughtofapathy · 5 months ago

Note

Hi there! I read your review of Cabaret and saw that one of your main complaints was that a lot of Jewish culture was staged/written out. I’m not Jewish and don’t have that baseline understanding of the religion/culture and was wondering if you could elaborate further?

Hi Anon, I'd be glad to elaborate a little more, with the caveat that I'm not Jewish either, but I do know a thing or two about the history of this show. I'm also long-winded, so... buckle in.

I don't believe the production team intentionally went into it and took an eraser to Judaism as they went, but I do believe that being an English team with far less Jewish influence in their culture and society has made them blind to the inherent Judaism of the story beyond the glaringly obvious. As I've said before, this is a revival made by gentiles for gentiles right from the very conceit. In centering the show on this nightmare puppet spectacle of a cabaret, it does a disservice to the real heart and moral of the story's true epicenter: the boardinghouse and Schneider and Schultz and the grounded people around them. The very fact that it's officially been retitled "Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club" (frankly redundant) shows that this production is no longer about the actual book, but about the frivolous hedonism. Schultz's Jewish storyline is an afterthought hastily plopped down into the cabaret setting. Because of this staging, the focus is never away from the now-very goyish cabaret. Cliff, Schneider, Schultz, and even Ernst were very much given the "I don't care much" treatment by this director who wants everyone to ooh and ahh over the exorbitant pre-show gimmicks and whatever the fuck the Emcee and Sally are doing, and to hell with the actual plot.

Everything from the direction to the marketing to the creative tone seems to scream out that no one on this creative team actually understands the message. The nightclub might be the titular setting, but it's a looming figure in the shadows. A seedy little joint in a back alley where everyone's just trying to survive. Vaudeville could be bawdy, certainly, but the staging and choreography here is vulgar and tiresome, and says to me that the creatives also have little to no knowledge of that artform either.

Cabaret is an inherently Jewish musical. The three original creatives (Joe Masteroff, John Kander, and Fred Ebb) were Jewish men who were all alive during WWII and old enough to understand the horrors happening around them and overseas. Director and producer Hal Prince was Jewish. Revival director Sam Mendes is Jewish. Both Joel Grey and Alan Cumming are Jewish and/or gay. Eddie Redmayne is the first major Emcee on Broadway (baring a few late-run replacements, in the other runs, I'm sure) who is neither. Rebecca Fracknell is not Jewish and beyond the fact that I just don't think she's a good director of musical theatre (which is an incredibly hard artform that differs from directing straight plays), she has no inherent understanding or trust of the rich material already in place. She chose instead to create spectacle without actual spectacle, and focus all the time and energy into the Emcee--a character who was never meant to be the protagonist. The charisma and iconic performances of past Emcees have elevated this role in all subsequent productions, yes, but always as a centrally Jewish (and subtextually queer) figure. By having that representation and interpretation, Cabaret remains a centrally Jewish musicals. By stripping this particular Emcee of that, we get a goyish nightmare puppet, not a man. Not a Jewish man hiding or highlighting his Jewishness. We get a re-centered gentile production dead behind the eyes.

Antisemitism in Weimar Germany takes on a featured role in what should be a starring turn. Fracknell clearly sees herself as Sally, and she's made it all about the Sally in a painfully white goyish feminist way (don't get me started on a rant about the "girlbossification" they're trying to make happen), but the VERY CLEAR intent of the material is that we should not want to be Sally. We should not be proud of being this willfully ignorant girl who doesn't care about the rise of fascism all around her, and actively states that it has nothing to do with her. We should be horrified at her complacency and shamed that we might have gone in feeling the same way. And Schneider says it, she says it right there in what's meant to be the scene, that Cliff and Sally can just run away when the going gets tough without a care in the world, but she can't. When a show takes a Jewish story, written by Jewish men, and turns it into a gentile funhouse carnival and refuses to acknowledge its Jewish-centered book characters and actors (notice how Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell were almost entirely excluded from promo materials until late into the Award Season publicity) to instead prop up a white gentile man and a white gentile woman...well, that's just blatant Jewish erasure.

#cabaret #broadway #musical theatre #i've listened to several jewish friends and strangers (i like talking to people i sit with when i go see cabaret acts) with these critiques #edit: meant to say “and/or” Jewish and gay and didn't catch the omission so apologies

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gumnut-logic · 5 months ago

Text

Scott had blood on his hands.

It wasn’t a new thing. It happened far too often to really be anything out of the ordinary. But it was different when it was his brothers’.

Oh, so different.

Technically, his hands were clean. After all, between his uniform gloves and the first aid gloves, his skin was sanitary.

But it wasn’t.

He could feel it.

Virgil woke the moment his ‘bird’s engines flared up. It was almost predictable. It was actually a good thing. But he hadn’t been coherent, stuck in the moment he last remembered. Gordon was his entire concern and it took every reassuring word and action Scott could think of to calm his brother down.

And behind him, Gordon had slipped into unconsciousness.

Fortunately, the trip was ever so short and within minutes they were on the ground again.

Virgil was still fretting. Scott had to strap his head down to prevent him from moving it, but his brother wasn’t aware enough to realise why.

His distress broke Scott’s heart.

Gordon’s silence just scared him.

But now they were both in expert medical hands. The fact Scott knew the doctor on duty was both a reassuring and ridiculous thing.

But now, alone in the waiting room, he only had himself for company and the images and the beating of his overtaxed heart thudding in his ears.

There were a multitude of things he should be doing - checking in with the GDF, following up on the danger zone, checking in with John, Grandma...Alan.

But for one moment, just one, he let himself sit down on one of those blasted plastic waiting room chairs he hated, and dropped his head into his hands.

It was far from the exemplary conduct of the Commander of International Rescue. His uniform grated against his skin, but he needed to clear his head, calm the panic and reset to face it all again.

A gentle hand on his shoulder startled him enough to gasp.

Familiar and kind aquamarine eyes caught his as John crouched down beside him. “Hey.”

Scott let out a breath. “Hey.” He straightened and sat back in the chair giving himself space. “They’re going to be okay.”

Voice soft. “I know.” John unfolded again and sat in the chair next to him. “How about you?”

“Me? I’m not injured.”

“No. But it hurts anyway.”

Scott’s lips thinned, but he didn’t answer that. There was no purpose in answering. It was acknowledged, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Instead, he pushed off from the chair and threw himself to his feet.

He had things to do.

That hand caught his arm. “Scott, wait.”

He turned to watch John stand up and face him. Quiet and calm. “Stay. Eos is managing the rescue. Aunt Val is managing the GDF component. Grandma is on her way.”

Scott looked down at the floor a moment. He needed to be doing something. Virgil’s cries were still bouncing back and forth in his head and Gordon’s silence was echoing. Blood and metal and mud.

But most of all it was the senselessness. He was willing to give his life to save others. He knew his brothers felt the same.

But this?

No one was saved. It was a random fluke of nature. A mindless tornado that could have taken everything as easily as it took the lives of the people they were trying to help.

And no one had been rescued.

His brothers hadn’t even had a chance to start.

It reminded him of an equally mindless avalanche, oh, so long ago.

The blood was sticky on his hands.

“Why don’t you get cleaned up?” John’s voice was soft as always, calm as always. This was why he was the Thunderbird he was. Why Thunderbird Five worked as well as she did. His brother was his ‘bird.

John’s hand shifted from Scott’s arm to wrap around his shoulders. Hell, the man was still getting taller. Scott wasn’t used to looking a brother directly in the eye and god forbid he have to look up.

He was the eldest, after all. It was fit he be the tallest.

“C’mon, I’ll keep you company.”

And before Scott could protest, John herded him out to Thunderbird Two and her ample bathroom facilities. A shower and his mud and blood-spattered uniform was replaced with a red flannel shirt and a pair of jeans both too big and too short at the same time.

He had Virgil poking him for not restocking his spare clothes since London three days ago.

He idly wondered if the rest of his brothers sported a Virgil voice in the back of their heads.

Scott knew that his, at least, never neglected a smart-assed word at any appropriate moment.

Today he almost welcomed them.

But the shower and the fresh clothes helped clear his head and slow his thudding heart. It didn’t clean the blood off his hands and he still had the urge to scratch them raw. He curled his hands into fists.

Returning to the cockpit he was confronted by the missing hover stretchers, but worse was the hologram playing in front of John.

Obviously, Two’s external camera, he watched as nothing other than a combine harvester attempted to kill his brothers. John played with the controls, flipping the scene back and forth obviously attempting to ascertain exactly how his brothers were injured.

But Scott’s eyes just latched onto that massive airborne machine. A killing machine that tried to take his brothers.

Holographic pixels measured out how close.

Ever so close.

“Shut it off.” His voice was sharp and cold.

John jumped as if caught with his hands in the till and the hologram vanished. “Sorry.”

Scott bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m going back to the hospital.” He didn’t bother to wait for an answer. He just lowered himself through the hatch and strode ever so fast back into the building that held his injured brothers.

-o-o-o-

Two Birds with one Stone

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #scott tracy #john tracy #tw: blood #whump #virgil whump #gordon whump #thunderwhump #worried big brother #nuttyfic reblog

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liaromancewriter · 9 months ago

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The Flirting Game

Premise: Cassie ‘practices’ her flirting technique on Ethan, but she’s not the only one who knows the moves.

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 950

A/N: I was inspired by several @creativepromptsforwriting flirting prompts that I've been saving for the right occasion: prompt 340, #6 from Teasing and #2 and #4 from Flirty Pick-up Lines. Submission for @choicesfebruary2024 Flirting. I'm also using @choicesflashfics, week 71, prompt 1 (in bold).

I. Cassie

Cassie Valentine learned the art of flirting from watching her parents. It seemed to come naturally to them, much to Cassie’s delight and Max’s dismay. Although, given her twin’s flirting game, Cassie knew the lessons from their youthful observation had stuck.

It wasn’t just the words (although she soon learned they were a powerful tool in the game of flirting). It was also about the body language — a coquettish look in one’s eyes, the subtle vocal intonation, a flick of the hair, and a half-tilt of the lips so the object of your desire knew the secret, sultry smile was just for them.

Cassie knew the love of her life was forever amused by her flirtatiousness, which made her even more determined to tease him. The fact that he often had to ask if she was doing it was endlessly amusing to her.

“You must be the reason for global warming because you’re hot.”

“Actually, it’s primarily because of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

She silently chuckled at the absentminded and matter-of-fact response. Despite knowing his good looks attracted attention, Ethan Ramsey seemed oblivious to most women making eyes at him.

“I doubt carbon dioxide looks as good as you do in that shirt,” she quipped, laughter in her voice.

That made him pause. One eyebrow raised, he glanced at her above the lid of his laptop. The glare of the screen bounced off his reading glasses, hiding his blue eyes.

“Are you flirting with me?”

“I’m always flirting with you, Ethan. Keep up.”

He stared at her in bewilderment and then muttered something under his breath before returning his attention to the screen.

Cassie smiled inwardly at his reaction. She suspected his indifference was all an act. The man was far too observant to be this clueless about his effect on women.

As she continued to regard his profile, she caught Ethan’s furtive sideways glance and blew him a kiss. He blushed, sputtered and cleared his throat loudly, a frown furrowing his brow.

“I can’t concentrate when you look at me like that,” Ethan complained, his tone severe.

Cassie shrugged, unrepentant. “Well, you should be concentrating on me instead, so…”

She trailed off as the diagnostic team’s office doors swooshed open, and the others joined them. With a wink that promised more later, Cassie turned away to let the poor man collect himself.

Her father often told her and Max that flirting with their mother was the best part of his day. Cassie could comfortably say flirting with Ethan was the highlight of hers.

II. Ethan

Donahue’s during Happy Hour was always crowded and noisy. Nineties music blasted from the jukebox, competing with the clink of bottles and the clatter of balls crashing against each other at the pool table.

Ethan zigzagged his way through the throng and grabbed his usual stool at the bar, nodding a greeting at a distracted Reggie. He spied Cassie drinking beer and chatting with Lahela on the far side of the bar and knew she’d find him sooner or later.

“Thanks,” he said, hiding his sudden discomfort when Reggie placed his usual scotch before him.

For a brief moment, the exchange reminded him of going for a drink with his father when he turned twenty-one.

Ethan remembered feeling amused at the bartender handing Alan his “usual” without asking and thinking how small his dad’s life was that even his after-work drink (always a single Sam Adams) never changed.

Back then, Hopkins was within his grasp, and he was chomping at the bit to discover the world outside Providence. Now, he’d been coming to Donahue for so long that Reggie kept a stool waiting and served his drink without saying a word.

When did he become so damn predictable?

Of course, not everything was as it was, he thought as her scent hit his senses before she came into view.

Cassie squeezed into the space between his splayed legs and the bar, resting one elbow beside his drink. It had the effect of enclosing them in a bubble where nothing but them existed.

Ethan saw the familiar half-grin curving her lips and knew she was in a teasing mood tonight.

She flicked her mane of long blonde hair back and leaned towards him, her head cocked sideways flirtatiously.

“I heard that you can determine how well you fit together with another person by kissing them. Want to skip the small talk and see if we’re compatible?” She quirked one eyebrow as if daring him to play along.

His breath caught at the sexy way her green eyes sparkled in the light. The teasing smile hovering on her lips was his undoing.

“You should know that I have asthma, just in case you intend on taking my breath away on a regular basis,” Ethan found himself repeating the line he’d practiced for an occasion just like this.

Cassie wasn’t the only one who had game. There was a time when pick-up lines tripped off his tongue, charming the pants off — literally — of any woman he wanted. They’d been easy. His girlfriend was anything but.

“Buy me a drink, and I promise to do just that,” she chuckled, her palm covering the back of his hand, stroking his knuckles with her thumb.

Ethan started to call Reggie and flushed when he saw him watching their antics with amusement. The other man simply rolled his eyes and turned away to grab ingredients for two Specials.

Ah well, Ethan consoled himself as Cassie closed the distance between them and brushed her lips across his, uncaring of who from work might be watching. His girlfriend was unpredictable enough for the both of them. Who could ask for more?

---------------

All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @lucy-268 @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @justyourusualash @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @youlookappropriate @zealouscanonindeer

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart choices #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfics #choices fanfiction #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

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skeefee-sky · 1 month ago

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'Sentience ain't all fun and games...'

@thunder-tober Day prompt: 10 - Speed Characters: Alan Tracy, Thunderbird Three Word count: 570

Hhhhhhhhh, I hate how much I struggled to write this one >w< but! Of course, not all stories are going to be easy to write – such is the life of a creative writer <w< I’ve also based this like, early season 1 so, Alan’s a lil bit inexperienced and brash; don’t mind him >w> Alan persuades his brothers to use Thunderbird Three for a ground-mission… which doesn’t go exactly as planned.

💙❤️ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ❤️💙

“I can’t believe you thought that was a good idea… How did they even let you think it was a good idea?!”

Alan opened his mouth to reply, but his words were lost on his tongue. He’d come back down to the hangar to check in with his ship, half expecting a few words of discouragement from him, but Thunderbird Three sounded genuinely upset with him. He did have a sprained wrist to answer for it…

The Thunderbird let out a quiet huff through his vents. “I know I haven’t been sentient very long, and yes, it’s cool and all but... Trying to get to the danger zone before Thunderbird One is, not an excuse to test out what I can do.”

“I just wanted to help…” the astronaut murmured, finally finding a chance to say something. He felt so small tucked against his Thunderbird’s thruster, but it was the only way they could hear each other, without the youngest Tracy having to climb back into the cockpit. The upside was, it was still warm from them being out on a rescue… A sigh drawled from the Thunderbird’s systems.

“I know… Sorry… I’ll admit, I want to test my new limits now too but, we can’t do that at every opportunity,” he explained, rocking the slightest on his refuelling pad to make sure the locks clicked into place. Their little test drive had used up half of his fuel reserves, and he didn’t want to risk being half-empty if they were called out again. “If a rescue calls for speed, or heavy lifting, we already have two Thunderbirds perfectly capable of that. I was built for space missions...”

Alan knew that. Scott had reminded him of it too. He’d just thought, now with his Thunderbird’s sentience, they could be a little bit more useful on missions… Of course, yes, there was the fact his craft was a spacecraft… He tilted his head back, blue eyes trailing up the side of his Thunderbird as he nursed his wrist to his middle.

“… Wasn’t it just a little bit cool to tow that cargo ship though?”

“No.” Thunderbird Three had been rather abrupt with his answer, and there was no way he was admitting out loud that actually, yes, it was a bit cool. The nosedive he’d taken into the water hadn’t been… “We were going too fast for it to be considered safe anyway.”

“Since when have you ever worried about that?” Alan snorted; the craft not being able to tell if he was humoured or annoyed. “You’re always breaking your own rules, Three!”

“When we’re in space…” the rocket grumbled. It wasn’t just their speed he’d been concerned about… His manoeuvrability had been rather shoddy too, and while yes he was fast, he was a lot bigger than Thunderbird One… His pilot could have come away with a lot worse than a sprained wrist had his nosedive not been as controlled as he’d made it… “You know, you worry me sometimes, captain…”

“Makes sense. I’m still ‘just a kid’ after all…”

“That’s not what I-…”

Thunderbird Three quietened when he no longer felt the small of his pilot against his frame, settling a little straighter on his refuelling pad. Had he been too harsh…? He was still trying to figure out everything that came with being sentient… Maybe he should ask for pointers from his pilot’s older brothers at some point…

#sky's writing #thundertober2024 #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #sentient thunderbird #the struggle was reeeaaallllll #ick ick ick >w<#*posts it anyway*

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positivelybeastly · 13 days ago

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I don’t get into fancasting characters but I’m frustrated by the fact that Kelsey grammar was pretty spot on beast casting despite my own quibbles (even though it was a relatively small role) and nick hoult (who I’m sure is otherwise lovely) was just. An objectively bad choice

Here’s my suggestion for beast’s next actor, presented to you, Dr. beast fan numero uno: Harvey guillen. He’s hot, he’s fat, he can pull off nerdy or a more physical character. I’m sure beast is taller but I always think of him as being shorter than his bros

Kelsey Grammer, despite his politics, was an excellent Beast. Good voice, good humour, the requisite amount of maturity, he didn't overplay Hank's angst, he understood that Beast's emotions are pretty harshly buttoned down . . .

I will say that there's a more paternalistic, maybe slightly arrogant bent to him, especially in his initial interaction with Wolverine, but it's not necessarily out of step with how Hank could have developed in this different timeline where he got to go into politics properly. He's clearly rather important to the government, given the way that he's introduced and the fact that the President is borderline waiting on his advice before he goes ahead with his course of action, so, it's a bit more justified than usual.

It's a small thing, but I also like the glasses they picked for him. They're very reminiscent of the crescent moon glasses and pince nez that Hank was favouring in the comics as of this time.

Nicholas Hoult, though . . .

Honestly, he's a great actor, but you're absolutely right, what a miscast. It's even just the minor things, like him being British - Hank kinda has to be American, there's a subtly all-star American farmboy/quasi-Superman thing going on with him that's important to his character arc, and you lose that pretty much instantly if he's a Brit.

The writing also just. Was not there for him in the same way that it was for Grammer. Did he even tell a single joke in any of the movies? Like, actually tell a joke, not be the butt of one, or have something he said be a punchline? I genuinely struggle to think of a single instance. That's not even getting into the mangling of his character that occurred with their insistence on having human Hoult out and around for all the movies. He just kept waffling on his only real plotline for, what, four movies? Bleh.

Now, I was not familiar with the name you suggested, so I had to look him up, and . . .

Not bad, actually? Not bad at all? I like the hair especially, it's very reminiscent of human Hank's hair, he's got a bit of volume and mess and curl going on, and he suits the glasses nicely.

Full disclosure, I haven't properly watched the What We Do In The Shadows TV show, just seen clips and bits, but from what I have seen, he's definitely got the comedic chops to play a decent Hank. The height, I'm not as worried about - tall Hank is nice, but I'd rather an inaccurate height than a miscast.

It's a good pick! I like it! I still prefer Alan Ritchson, but I can see it.

Like, these three gifs just give off SUCH Avengers era Hank energy, I can't articulate to you how much I'd love this kind of performance for Beast in an X-Men/Marvel movie.

#Anonymous #outofmuffins #gif warning

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alanjeffbrainrot · 4 months ago

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Bending the Rules pt. 1

CW: Student/Teacher AU, eventual smut, minors dni

A/N: idk why im obsessed with this concept. It’s also a soulmate AU cause I’m a slut for alanjeff true mate shit. Enjoy 😌

Word Count: 4.5K

Find it on AO3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~ To read pt. 2

My masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alan takes a different path earlier in life and ends up becoming a college professor. Jeff walks into the first day of class and sits at the very edge of the room, away from all the other students. Alan notices him on day one and doesn’t understand why he’s so intrigued by this new student.

A few days into class Babe (also a prof at the university, he started 4 years after Alan and they became fast friends. Lots of students think they’re dating because of how close they are) pulls him aside to mention that “Jeff, the kid in your Tuesday/Thursday class ? That’s the kid we’ve all been talking about, he’s going places”.

Confused, Alan casts a glance over at Babe murmuring that he wouldn’t be convinced until Jeff says something. Literally anything.

“Oh, that’s just how he is, don’t worry too much about it.” Babe shrugs it off but something about the boys nature still bothered Alan. Why was he so quiet, he thought to himself, and what will it take to get him to talk to me.

Why this mattered so much to Alan he wasn’t sure, but he vowed to keep an eye on the omega and see if he could get him to crack one day.

As the class continues Alan discovers that the Babe’s comments rang true. Jeff was truly remarkable. Just after midterms Alan calls Jeff to his desk, asking him to wait to speak with him.

“You’re the best student I’ve had Jeff and I just happen to be losing my TA after this semester, graduation and all” Alan chuckles. “Would you consider taking the position ?”

Jeff looks conflicted and quietly says he’ll think about it (the most he has said to Alan this whole semester, making Alan’s alpha puff up its chest). Alan nods and says he’ll check in again in a few days before waving Jeff off, wishing him a good day.

A week goes by, still no answer from Jeff and Alan is stressed. He feels like he’s going crazy, anytime he sees Jeff on campus he has to keep himself from bombarding the boy. Maybe he just doesn’t want to do it ? Alan thinks to himself. He’s about to start his senior year, lots of students turn down TA positions.

Babe, who’s usually next to Alan when they run across the little omega, is beginning to notice his strange reactions. Alan stands straighter and can barely keep his eyes focused in front of him, always glancing over to watch Jeff walk by them. The worst part being Alan’s pheromones, subtly being pushed out a tad stronger when the shorter is nearby, a fact that probably hasn’t even registered with Alan yet. Babe doesn’t say anything, just observing his friend become smitten like he never has before.

To Alan’s surprise, however, the next class Jeff is in he walks up to Alan and quietly mutters “I’ll do it”.

“Oh ! Oh my god, okay, yeah. Awesome” Alan stutters. God, why am I acting like a flustered school boy. Realizing Jeff is still staring at him, Alan shakes himself out of his thoughts. “I’ll email you the requirements and the application. You’ll send a copy to me and to student services. If you need any help just let me know !”

Jeff just nods before walking out of the classroom, leaving Alan a confused and flustered mess. And that’s the moment his alpha decides to complicate the situation. (For years Alan had kept that part of himself under lock and key, getting very good at not listening to his instincts.) Mine his alpha growled as if trying to break out of a cage, that omega is mine.

Alan is appalled at his own thoughts, vowing to keep himself together and not cross any lines. He wouldn’t even be interested Alan reasons with himself, it’ll be fine.

What Alan doesn’t know, is Jeff is having the same battle with himself. He had never touched the alpha (he had gotten very good at never touching anyone at this point) but just before beginning Alan’s class he had grabbed his brother, Charlie, by the wrist. And, unfortunately, it triggered a vision. One in which a tall, sophisticated, older alpha just happened to be hanging off of Jeff’s arm. It was a small point, insignificant in the grand scheme of the vision which was centered around Charlie, but it had shaken Jeff to the core. Who was this alpha and why on earth would Jeff let him touch him ??

When Jeff walked into class the first day he had kept his head down, a habit to ensure nobody spoke to him before or after classes. But when he finally popped his head up and looked at the professor at the beginning of class he had to keep himself from sprinting out of the classroom.

There, in front of him, was the alpha from his vision. No way, Jeff had thought, there’s absolutely no way. That vision had to be incorrect, a fluke.

The day Alan asked him to TA, jeff panicked, leaving campus and driving straight to speak with Charlie. When he gets in front of his brother he realizes he has no clue how to breach this topic.

“You remember that vision I had just before the semester ?” He starts with. When Charlie nods he takes a deep breath and continues, “I didn’t tell you everything….. the vision was about you” Jeff emphasizes, “but…. Next to me……. Was this alpha, someone I hadn’t met before.”

“Oh ?” Charlie said surprised, eyes going wide, “Why didn’t you tell me before ? What’s the problem ? Probably someone we’ll meet in the future.”

“Well….” Jeff trails off, not sure which topic he should begin with, “in the vision I was letting this alpha hug me ? Kind of, he was holding my arm like he was hugging a pole. But I didn’t seem bothered by it”

Jeff is interrupted by Charlie squealing, “YOU GET A BOYFRIEND IN THE FUTURE OH MY GOD !”

“Charlie !” Jeff huffs, hitting his brother on the shoulder to get him to quiet down. “You know my visions aren’t always absolute. And I really think this one can’t be true. There’s no way !”

“What, you don’t think an alpha will want you ? Come on jeff, you’re a catch.”

Jeff glares at Charlie but he just smiles back, sincere as ever. “It’s not that, jackass. It happens that I met the alpha when the semester began. But….”

“But” Charlie drags out, “what, is he an asshole or something ?”

“No ! No, hes… he’s the nicest person I’ve ever met. Gentle and so smart” jeff abruptly shuts his mouth. What am I saying he thinks to himself shaking his head before looking up at Charlie, who’s wearing a shit eating grin.

“You LIKE HIM” he teases, “so again I ask, what’s the problem ?”

“Umm…” Jeff looks down, not wanting to see Charlie’s face when he admits this. “He’s my professor” he whispers.

“Oh, okay that really could be a problem” Charlie says, tone nothing but understanding. “But you graduate next year right ? Just avoid him until then and let fate decide once you’re not a student anymore.”

“Well, he kind of asked me to be his TA next year. And I feel like I have to do it. I could learn a lot from him and it would look really good on my resume. Ive seen the places his past TA’s have gotten hired. This could give me a huge advantage getting into a garage Charlie.” Jeff looks up at his brother who seems to weighing what he has just told him.

After a few hours of discussion jeff came to the decision that he would accept the position and just keep his distance as much as he could. I Can do this he thought to himself, I just have to keep my guard up until I graduate.

Jeff didn’t understand why his omega, on the other hand, was resisting this wholeheartedly. Begging him to get as close to the alpha as he could. He’ll be ours soon enough his omega taunts him, just you wait.

Much to his omegas (and Alan’s) annoyance, Jeff goes back to ignoring the alpha. He keeps his head down, scurrying in and out of class without sparing a single glance at Alan. Even during class when Alan would look over, Jeff would avoid his gaze and only look back up when Alan had directed his attention elsewhere. Alan was losing his mind.

Two weeks before the semester ended, Alan was sitting at his desk, neck deep in grading assignments. Babe walks through the door, nose wrinkling at the heavy pheromones in the room. “God lung, what’s got you so stressed.”

Alan glares at Babe, laying his own down and leaning back in his chair. “Unlike some people, I have papers to grade. And more coming soon for finals. So, do you need something or can I get back to work ?”

“Not my fault you don’t teach a practical course” babe shrugs, walking further into the room and leaning on a desk in the front row.

“Someone has to teach the textbooks” Alan sighs. It’s always around this time he wishes he had Babe’s job, teaching practical, hands on classes in the on-campus garage. “Seriously though, did you need something ?”

“Yes, actually. I heard about your TA for next year.”

Alan furrows his brow, “Jeff ? Why, you were right. The kid’s going places.”

Babe nods, crossing his arms and leveling his gaze with Alan. “That’s true but… are you sure you know what you’re doing ?”

Babe’s delicate tone leaves Alan even more confused. “What do you mean? I’ve had TA’s for years and I think he would be great. A little quiet but that’s not a problem.”

Sighing, Babe looks down. “Lung, i'm going to be honest with you. Do you have any idea how you act around him ? You get nervous, you stare at him. God, I’m the only one that would notice but you push your pheromones out !”

“I don’t-“ Alan trails off, not sure how to defend himself.

“Look, it was fun to watch you get all flustered around him. If the circumstances were different I would absolutely be pushing you to ask him out. But… he’s your student, you know ? You just need to be careful.” Babe finishes, glancing back up at Alan to gauge his reaction.

Alan, though embarrassed for being called out, begins nodding. “No, no you’re absolutely right. I’ll keep myself in check, Babe, you don’t have to worry. Besides, Jeff has gone back to ignoring me so I don’t think there will be much of an issue.”

Babe nods, giving Alan an encouraging smile. “Good luck with the grading, lung. Let me know if you need anything.” Babe says before turning and walking out of the room. Leaving Alan to contemplate what he has gotten himself into.

The semester ends with no incident, both Alan and Jeff trying to keep their distance but neither handling it very well. Jeff spends more time with Charlie, desperately trying to push down his feelings despite a lingering feeling of sadness. Alan, on the other hand, is just frustrated.

He spent the last two weeks in an annoyed huff, everything seemingly setting him off. He tried his best, he really did, but each time he has to watch the omega hurry out of the classroom a piece of him is screaming to follow. To not let him go.

The second day of the summer vacation (neither Babe or Alan teach summer classes) Babe let’s himself into Alan’s house and immediately is smacked with rut pheromones.

“Shit” Babe curses, covering his mouth and nose with his hand. “Lung !” He shouts into the house, “Do you need anything ? I can drop it outside !”

A pained groan is heard from the other side of the house before Alan drags himself into view. He’s flushed, sweaty, and looks absolutely worse for wear.

“You look like death Lung” Babe says, scanning the alpha in front of him.

“I feel like it” Alan says from the top of the stairs, scrubbing his hand down his face and sighing. “I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard. It hasn’t been this bad since I presented.”

Alan gets himself together enough to relay a list of supplies he needed. Babe leaves quickly after getting the list, Alan’s heavy pheromones giving him a headache.

Alan makes his way back to his bedroom, peeling his sweaty t-shirt off before throwing himself on his bed. He’s overheating, fire-like arousal licking through his veins. He kicks his pants and underwear off, hand snaking down and grasping his cock.

“Fuck” Alan breaths out. He begins stroking himself, bringing his hand up to gather the precum leaking out of the tip to make the glide easier. He squeezes his eyes shut just trying to focus on the pleasure, bringing his other hand down to squeeze at the rapidly forming knot at the base of his cock.

As he gets closer to his release, his mind starts providing images of a faceless omega propped on his lap, back facing him as he bounced up and down on Alan’s cock. Alan groans at the image and speeds his hand up. “Just like that baby” he mutters, everything in him wishing the image was real.

The omega in his mind leans back, turning his head towards Alan and suddenly he realizes the image is of Jeff. A sob is forced out of Alan as he cums suddenly, Jeff’s name on his lips. He strokes himself through his orgasm, slowly coming back down to earth. When he realizes what he just did he groans, rolling over and shoving his face into his pillows, embarrassed enough to ignore the sticky release still on his stomach that’s now going to be on the sheets below him.

God Alan, he thinks to himself, what the fuck am I going to do.

Unbeknownst to the alpha, across town a very similar situation is occurring in Jeff’s apartment. He had called Charlie, panicked because his heat hit him early. For most people that wouldn’t be too strange, maybe a change in cycle, but Jeff had just gone through heat a month before.

When charlie got to the apartment to drop things off (Jeff had a tendency to not plan for heats and would surely starve himself to death if charlie didn’t deliver a bag of water and snacks each day) Jeff was curled up in bed. Crying.

“Woah, Jeff, are you okay?” Charlie said delicately, trying not to spook the omega.

“Hurts” Jeff wails out, clearly lost in his omega headspace, “need alpha.”

Charlie freezes. It doesn’t matter how many heats Jeff had gone through, he had never let himself slip fully into his omega headspace and he certainly has never asked for an alpha.

“Alpha ? Who’s…” charlie trails off, not expecting to get an answer from the clearly distressed omega (and if he’s being honest, unsure if he truly wants to know).

He waits a few moments before Jeff finally looks at him, eyes red with tears streaming down his face. “Alan” he sniffles, “please. I need alpha.”

Charlie just looks at him confused, not remembering anyone in their lives named Alan. But then it hits him. He had been helping Jeff with the TA application and had noticed the alphas name, Alan, printed at the bottom. Alan, the same alpha who was in Jeff’s vision from months ago.

“Fuck” Charlie cursed after putting the pieces together. “Jeff, bud I need you to listen to me” Charlie says, trying to figure out the most delicate way to put this. “Alan… can’t be here with you.”

This just distressed the omega more, a new round of tears begin falling as Jeff’s scent sours even more. The small omega buries himself further into his nest as sobs racked his body. Charlie sighs, knowing there’s nothing he can do to ease his brothers mind. He decides to leave the room and camp out in the living room. He doesn’t usually stay but Charlie doesn’t have the heart to leave him so distraught.

Jeff’s heat breaks 5 days later, substantially longer than any heat he's ever had. When he finally drags himself out of his bedroom he curls up on the couch next to Charlie. His eyes are still red, occasional tears escaping and dripping down his face. Charlie is worried to say this least.

“You okay?” He finally asks. Jeff refuses to look at him, just curling further in on himself while sniffling.

After a minute a quiet “no” is heard from Jeff, voice scratchy. A second passes before another round of sobs wracks Jeff’s body, “I don’t know what’s happening to me Charlie.”

Charlie hums, reaching a hand out to card his fingers through Jeff’s hair. The omega presses into the hand, desperate for any type of comfort he could get in the moment. “Let yourself cry, I’ll be here as long as you need.”

And Jeff does just that. He moves slightly to lay his head in his brother's lap and cries. “Why do I miss him” he manages to get out, “it feels wrong not having him around.”

“Alan?” Charlie asks, already knowing the answer. Jeff just nods, flipping over so he can bury his face in Charlie’s stomach. Charlie chooses not to press the topic and just comforts the small and broken omega in his lap.

The next day Jeff runs Charlie out of his apartment, wanting to be alone. The only reason Charlie agrees is an agreement that jeff would call that night to check in. Jeff curls up in bed as soon as Charlie leaves, his heart aching.

He would never admit this to Charlie but part of the reason his heat took so long to break this time was because he refused to do anything, touching himself feeling wrong even in the worst of it. He craved Alan in a way he had never experienced with anyone before, his omega set on the idea that either the alpha would be touching him or no one at all.

“God” he groans, rubbing his eyes, “next year is going to be rough.”

And rough it was. Up until the first day of class, Alan and Jeff had been communicating through email, both men managing to make up excuses to avoid seeing the other in person (and neither feeling strong enough to control themselves if they were to meet up alone).

Alan was nervously pacing in this classroom, chewing on his thumb and just trying to calm his nerves when Babe walks in. “Woah, lung calm down. Everything’s gonna be fine” he says, grabbing Alan by the shoulders and guiding him to his desk chair. Once the older man and sat down babe walks around the seat to perch himself on a desk in the front row.

Alan looks up at his best friend, contemplating how to explain the complicated flurry of anxiety and excitement he was feeling. “This is either going to go really well or really bad, babe.” He lands on, sighing and leaning back in his chair.

“Well, just don’t do anything stupid and it shouldn’t be an issue” babe shrugs, crossing his arms.

Alan glares at him, “I’m not going to-“

Alan is cutoff by the door opening, the small omega walking in with his head down. Alan’s breath hitches, okay, he thinks, this is it. When jeff finally looks up he looks straight at Alan, their eyes locking as causing jeff to freeze.

Babe, immediately noticing the fact that neither man was moving to speak, looked over at jeff, “how was your summer?”

Not realizing there was another person in the room, jeff jumps and whips his head around to babe, “oh umm, good. I guess.” he stammers out, glancing between both men in front of him.

Babe hums out a “good” before fixing Alan with a very pointed gaze, “alright lung. I’m going to head to the garage. Have a good first day”

Alan nods, eyes shifting to babe long enough to wish him the same before they settle back on Jeff. Babe rolls his eyes before making his way out of the classroom, already knowing damn well that Alan’s promise to not do anything stupid would really only last so long.

The click of the door closing behind babe seemed to shake Alan out of his trance, smiling at the omega. He quickly explains to Jeff what his day to day tasks would be before they both start working in silence, neither totally sure how to speak with the other.

They carry on like that for the first two months of the semester, dancing around each other and spending no more time than necessary together. Alan gets jeff to talk a little bit, learning about his brother Charlie and Jeff’s goals after graduation, but it never goes further than surface level. Both men feel a pull towards each other, their bodies and minds seemingly linked in a way neither fully understood.

When midterms hit they began working late, trying to get grading done and working on solidifying the curriculum for the last half of the semester. It was a random Tuesday when things changed. They were working late, clock showing 9pm with both men sitting across from each other in the classroom.

Alan groans, head hitting the desk as he closes his eyes, “why did I become a professor” he mutters.

“Because you’re good at at” jeff responds, shrugging. Alan’s head whips up, staring at jeff who is pointedly keeping his eyes on the work in front of him.

“Thank you” Alan breathes out, noticing a small smile forming on the youngers lips. Clearing his throat, Alan stands, “I’m going to go fill my water bottle. Do you need anything?”

“I’m okay” jeff says, looking up to smile at the man standing above him. Alan smiles back before leaning down and kissing the boy before turning and beginning to walk towards the door. It takes a moment for his exhausted mind to catch up to want he just did, freezing and turning back around immediately.

Jeff is staring at him with wide eyes, neither man totally sure what just happened. “Oh my god, Jeff, I’m so sorry” Alan starts stammering out, “I don’t know why I just did that. I’m so sorry.”

Alan’s brain is going a mile a minute, desperately trying to work out what the fuck just happened and why he did that. It was as if it was a habit, something easy that they just did despite decidedly being something they did not do. Jeff just continues looking at him, making no indication towards how he felt about the action.

“Jeff, please say something, I am so sorry.” As Alan continues stuttering out apologies Jeff stands, immediately shutting the man up. He walks forward, the alpha half expecting Jeff to smack him, which would be justified he thinks to himself.

Jeff stops right in front of Alan, looking up and examining his face. “Kiss me again” he says quietly.

“W-what?” Alan asks, eyes going wide.

“Kiss me again.” Jeff says with more finality behind it.

Alan is a strong man, he expected to be able to keep himself in check. But when an omega, no not just any omega, Jeff, his omega, is asking him for a kiss, who is he to say no ? Alan surges forward, capturing Jeff’s lips in a heated kiss and pulling him in by the waist.

At this point both men are giving into their instincts, neither Alan’s alpha or Jeff’s omega could stand being apart anymore. They stumble backwards towards Alan’s desk, the older man’s hands moving down to under Jeff’s ass and lifting him up and perching him on the edge of the desk.

Jeff spreads his legs, alan immediately taking the invitation and stepping between them to get closer. He pulls back for a moment and rests his forehead against Jeff’s, both men breathing heavily. Alan’s hands come up to rest on Jeff’s hips, rubbing small circles into the soft skin just under his shirt.

“Are you sure” he whispers, finally pulling back to look into Jeff’s eyes.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything” Jeff says sincerely, “please.” Just to make his point, Jeff wraps his legs around Alan’s waist and pulls him closer. The alpha moans with their groins make contact, the little bit of friction sending sparks up his spine. “I need you Alan, I don’t understand it but I need you in a way I’ve never needed anyone else.”

Alan leans down again and pecks Jeff’s lips before moving to mouth at the boys scent gland. “This can’t just be a one time thing” Alan says, still buried in the omegas neck, “god, I’ve never felt this way and if we’re going to do this I need you to promise me that.”

Jeff’s nods, hands flying up to grip Alan’s hair and leaning his head to the side giving him more access to his neck. “I promise” he whines out, “we can talk about it tomorrow but right now” Jeff trails off, pulling harder on the alphas hair, “right now I need you.” he finishes.

Alan groans, sucking harder at Jeff’s neck once he says that. His hands trail further up the omegas body, slowly lifting the shirt up before brushing his thumbs across Jeff’s nipples, drawing a shaky moan out of the boy underneath him.

Alan moves his mouth back up, kissing Jeff passionately as he continues toying with the boys chest. All is fine until they hear the door open, Alan jumps back, whipping around to see Babe standing in the doorway. His eyes are wide, never expecting to walk into a scene like this.

“What the fuck lung” babe sighs, not mad but definitely annoyed, “I told you not to do anything stupid.”

Jeff, face bright red and eyes cast towards the floor, slides himself off the desk. “It’s not his fault” Jeff mutters quietly.

Both men turn to look at the small omega, standing in front of the desk and wringing his hands together.

“I don’t care what y’all do, don’t worry about it, but you can’t do it here. Jesus Christ lung” babe says turning back to his best friend, “what if it was anyone else that walked in.”

Alan nods but says nothing, mind reeling with what just happened. Babe sighs, looking between the two men in front of him. “I came to tell you I was heading home lung. Whatever you choose to do is up to the both of you but…” babe pauses, concern clear in his voice, “just be careful” he lands on finally. Babe turns and leaves the classroom, leaving Alan and Jeff in an uncomfortable silence.

Alan turns to look at Jeff, unsure how to proceed in such a situation. Jeff meets his eyes, a look of determination behind them before he walks back up to Alan and leans up to give him a quick kiss. “Let’s go to your place, lung.”

Alan’s breath hitches, nodding quickly before gathering his things, holding the door open for Jeff. The small omega chuckles at the alphas eagerness before they make their way to the parking lot, both men excited and nervous for the promise of what was to come.

#pit babe the series #pit babe #alanjeff #sailubpon #pit babe hcs #pit babe fanfic #pit babe fic #babecharlie #charliebabe

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eliotquillon · 1 month ago

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Your Cameron timeloop fic sounds so cool! I don’t write timeloop usually bc it stresses me out to write but I love it as a reader and a concept. What kind of gave you the itch to write it - like what are you finding super fun about it?

OKAY SO time loop stories are kind of my white whale; always wanted to write one, have about 6 different drafts for different fandoms dating back as far as 2017/18, and never really managed to pull it off (apart from a one-shot i wrote 3 years ago, and that was less ‘time loop’ and more ‘reincarnation’—the loop wasn’t an enclosed time period). time loops are so interesting to me because they’re a physical manifestation of what is (usually) an internal conflict of some kind; the loop is a metaphor and a way for characters to work their shit out, but it’s also real, and brings its own set of problems. in groundhog day, phil’s loop forces him to confront his own cynicism and become a better person; in russian doll, nadia and alan’s loop forces them to process their own trauma (with the addition of them dying at the end of every loop); in undertale (i would argue that its save/reload ‘memory’ and the fact that you have to play it at least twice for the true pacifist ending qualifies it partly as a time loop story), the loop forces the underground to reckon with its desire for freedom and what they’re actually willing to do to get it. it’s an external obstacle that forces internal processing, and that is FUN but also scary as hell to write. my gut instinct whenever i consume a new character-driven piece of media is always to daydream ‘well what if there was a time loop?’, because for me it is THE ultimate blender to stick people in and see what comes out.

why i chose cameron (and the events of hunting specifically) is a bit more complicated. first things first: i love cameron. i love WRITING cameron, because time and time again in the show there’s a clash between what she believes abstractly and what she actually finds herself capable of following through on, and that’s a fun internal/external conflict. can you see where i’m going with this. and cameron is having…a TIME in early s2. the premiere of s2 literally has her going through the stages of grief in order, and that foreshadows the next few episodes pretty well for her. she’s not happy, and stuck in a rut, and everyone can see it—the other fellows, house, wilson, even the TB doctor. and it’s not like she’s going to just pack up and leave—she’s worked hard to get where she is! she’s fought so hard to be taken seriously! it’s got to mean something! and i think she’s been feeling that way a while (for example, why does a person like cameron apply for a job under house in the first place? he’s the best there is, but they have very different beliefs and attitudes towards patients, and when she finally leaves the fellowship she turns around and ends up doing something completely unrelated—i think it’s because she’s looking for meaning even back then). hunting is such a great episode because it brings to a head what’s been bubbling under the surface for a while now: secretly, a part of cameron does want to change. she suddenly has the perfect excuse to throw caution to the wind and do something different. and it’s tragic because of course it turns out that the patient is lying to her, that he’s just as unhappy as she is even with all the partying and casual sex, and ultimately cameron comes away from that episode with a better understanding of herself but…she’s still unhappy, you know? she’s determined to act like it didn’t happen and move forward. and the great thing about a time loop is that it forces you to confront things. the only way out is through. that’s why the loop is set the day after she does the meth, and not the day before: if cameron were stuck in a loop of that day, the first thing she’d realistically do is. Not do the meth. and not call chase. and since the main point of this fic is to force her to confront the aftermath of that, it has to be the day after. she can’t change the past, but she can (and will!) change how she deals with it.

i’m also interested in hunting because of cameron and chase’s conversation in lockdown, when she tells him that she slept with him on meth because she was starting to already have feelings for him and it scared her and she pushed it away. because like. this is entirely characteristic of cameron. i 100% believe this is what happened. there is also zero fucking evidence from the writing that this is what happened. there are occasional callbacks to cameron’s HIV scare later in s2, and the fact that she’s slept with chase before gets brought up in s3 during the fwb era, but between hunting and insensitive cameron and chase basically act like none of it ever happened and most of the s2 drama is between cameron and foreman instead. so this is kind of a fix-it, as well: i’m bringing those feelings to the surface and making chameron happen earlier because this time there is no running away. the fallout of this is gonna vary—@all-pacas wrote up a very good meta recently about how chase’s provoking of the patient’s brother into suing him in the mistake very likely happened a day or two after he slept with cameron, and therefore that might not happen if him and cameron actually TALK ABOUT THINGS and he doesn’t hoard up more guilt and frustration—but there will be a happy-ish ending. i say ish because ultimately this isn’t really a ‘shipfic’ and therefore things will be a bit messier than they are in, say, groundhog day, but the fic will end with them together and things will be better than they were at the beginning.

anyway this fic is so crazy fun to write for a lot of reasons, but what has really taken me by surprise is how much i’m enjoying writing FOREMAN into this fic. cameron is spiralling (time loop) and chase is concerned and house is intrigued and meanwhile foreman is just stood in the corner going ‘guys 🤨 anyone gonna fill me in 🤨’. one of my fave parts of the first chapter is the section where cameron starts drawing a clock to see if she has encephalitis and then is like ‘wait the clock will look normal to me anyway. What if i email it to foreman. Nevermind he’s going to think i’m insane’ lmaoo. foreman and cameron were actually decent friends in s1 (never forget him shovel talking house and saying he considers her a friend) until articlegate, and in s3 it’s revealed he knows she has a brother (and chase didn’t!), so i’m putting foreman/cameron friendship BACK ON THE MENU. he will probably still steal her article anyway but she wouldnt be as mad about it. not that this fic is going to cover articlegate but yknow

anyway thank you for letting me be very self indulgent and yell about this fic LOL

#asks #house md #i should probably start a tag just for time loop stuff #time loop fic

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chemicallywrit · 1 year ago

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It’s Audio Drama Sunday and this week was full of bangers! This list is not comprehensive but it is what stuck out this week. Let’s goooooooo

🔥 The Heart Pyre continuously leaves me with the perfect impression of being in middle school reading under my desk. It’s so good it feels like I’m getting away with something. Maybe it’s because Rena is such a relatable protagonist. She’s just a normal girl! She’s just a little teen! What is she supposed to do! And that makes her even more heroic. As always, the choice this week was impossible and I can’t wait to see how it shakes out. Also, Logan And Finn Should Kiss 2k24. @theheartpyre

🗡️ SIDEQUESTING 😭 This episode is so SWEET. I love when Rion grows a little—Sidequesting is episodic and doesn’t lend itself to like, substantial character development. That is fine; it’s not the point of the show. It makes the moments Rion does grow, though, stand out like little jewels. This episode shone. @sidequestingpod

🗝️ Palimpsest is doing its slow burn thing, referencing itself over again as its name suggests it will do, and in this story, I am Very Concerned About That Man Lenore Married. He is condescending and dismissive and he is isolating her, and I DO NOT TRUST HIM.

📼 Within the Wires—oh my gosh, I literally screamed when the canned noises stopped. What is your game, Tony? What do you want with Brian?

🅿️ Podcube was short this week—Podcube is always short—but this episode had me cracking up at work. I love that this team manages to find new conflicts somehow. Man vs man, but they’re assassins and one of them is convinced the other is in love with the target. Why does this work? Why is this so funny? Please listen to Podcube. @podcube

🩸 Hemophobia continues to make my skin crawl. This episode reveals that the characters are Church of Christ, which, for those who don’t know, means they have a really specific set of beliefs about baptism that I KNOW are going to be perfect fodder for the Horrors. And yet it’s all so normal so far. Creepy. Oh, another thing this episode does is portray with perfect gut-wrenching clarity how strange and awful it us to be a devout teenager, and in like, four different ways. Incredible work.

🎣 Eeler’s Choice has some FANTASTIC sound design this episode as Ran comes into their own as a storm chanter—FRICK. I am worried about them. And their new ship. Please be careful and don’t get eaten by fungus. @eelerschoice

✨ Stories from Ylelmore is brand new and SO GOOD, oh my gosh, I am in love with the earnest delivery, the characters who are absolute BABIES, the genuine fascinating mystery. I can’t wait for more. @storiesfromylelmore

🍔 Midnight Burger’s THREE HOUR FINALE brought us home with Clementine. It wasn’t what I expected, and I think that’s kind of Midnight Burger’s MO. The fact that the tone of the dialogue, that the characters themselves, are so cynical and hard—it will trick you into believing that it’s a cynical show. Maybe it is! But it also fights over and over again for the idea that things can be fixed, that love matters, that you can save people and you have to try, you always have to try. And sometimes you win. And that’s how the universe is meant to work. It kills me every time. Also, shoutout to Alan Burgon, always the best, who I love to hear doing his actual accent. @midnightburgr

🐦‍⬛ Leaving Corvat. Oh my word. It’s a wellness cult. Sleeper’s in a wellness cult. I am really pleased with the development his character’s showing, being decisive and brave.

🍵 Gastronaut is going some places and I am OBSESSED. The relationship between Oscar and Polity is everything to me, and the fact that Oscar has gotten to the point where he refuses to ignore his responsibilities, he refuses to leave people behind—he is sometimes stupid, but he is trying and I’m proud of him.

🧟‍♂️ We are getting to the final episode of Precious Cargo in the Dead and y’all….it’s gonna get juicy. I’m not exaggerating, one of the zombie actors used watermelon to get things sounding juuuuust right. Our next story might be even better, too, I can’t wait to show you.

Thank you for reading! If you like what I do, buy me a ko-fi!

#audio drama sunday #audio drama #audio fiction #fiction podcast #freaking podcasts

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thelittlestaxolotl · 10 months ago

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More long asks! Might do more if I figure out what I want to ask next ;-;

For DJ!

Hello! How are you?

Who is your favourite out of everyone in CG and what’s the reason that their your favourite?

How’d you and Alan meet?

Have you seen any… suspicious behaviour going around in the village? For You!

Is like victim just wondering around as a human, since all hollowheads can shapeshift.

When is the main comic coming out (Don’t have to say.) I’m just way too excited ;D hah-

For my favourite precious , Orange /Second ! <3

7. Is it peaceful in the forest? Nothing hectic going on?

8. Does CG leave you alone when you ‘rest’ (sunbathing idk-)

9. Do you know about any other Hollowhead that Alan has told you of?

10. What kind of other magic can you do except shapeshifting?

11. What is your favourite thing about everyone in CG including Alan!

-Anon that thinks too much

Asks for DJ, huh? *resigns to the fact that I will have to rewatch all the episodes of AvG to better understand his character*

"Things are going smoothly."

"Favourite? Green. Poor thing always get all the troubles..."

*Tries to remember their irl first time meet* *fails* *leaves to rewatch all their chatting episodes in frustration*

"Uh, wouldn't say so. Everything's as it was before."

IT'S OUT I DID THE FIRST PAGE-

"Nah. Everything's fine, neat and quiet."

"Well, they try to... Thought most of the time they fail."

"I- [censored by Ax]

"Aaall sort of it. Basically anything you can imagine. In theory, I didn't try."

"They all are so different, and still cope with each other... And Alan, uh- I think you humans call it 'parent figure'?"

#avm au #in character sec #in character ax #in character dj

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localgirlbecomesobsessed · 3 months ago

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Avoidance isn’t the answer part 1

I’m thinking of making this a three part or two part what do we think 🤔

This is after eight hours of travelling back home yesterday pls have mercy if it’s not the greatest (this is also my first time writing something a bit 🌶️)

Leo x xena (pre-established)

A Little Angsty~

It’s as little bit smutty(only a little bit)

This is just after obscuary chapter

Minors do not interact please

Hands slid up her thighs as one stayed at her hips rubbing light circles as the other slid back down tracing around the scar on her other thigh.Leo grinned down at her, a Cheshire Cat smile overtaking him as he eyes hungrily ate up the sight before him.

A scowling xena looked up at him arms folded at her chest as she fought back the smile trying to grace her face, she didn’t seem to mind the predicament and in fact leaned into it as she allowed Leo to do as he pleased. They were in his room, xena lying on the edge of the bed as Leo leaned over her standing in between her thighs. Her black hair was splayed out on the bed, her blazer was off and lucky Leo she was wearing a short sleeved top so he got to take in the sight of her tattoos, something she rarely showed to anyone. Her skirt was hiked up as he couldn’t stop himself from raking his hands all over her thighs, the skin so soft Leo thought his hands were going to melt into them, the scarred skin on one of thighs being slightly more sensitive as he ate up the sight of them slightly twitching at his touch.

“Plllleeeasse Xena~I won’t ask for anything ever again~”

She sighed as she could see the lie from miles away as he sweetly nuzzled into her neck, squeezing her thigh as he hummed into her neck.

“You say that everytime Leo” •_•

She was keeping a strong Pokerface as her scowl melted away, her heart was going crazy and she feared that he could hear or even feel it thrumming against him as she wrapped her arms around him so the both of them could be comfortable and definitely not to bring him closer to her.

“Hmmm…I guess I do XeXe but maybe this time it’s the truth~”

He muttered out as Xena traced her hand up his back and started to play with his hair. He sighed as he pulled himself up a little bit, leaning his face over Xenas’ as her eyes widened at the closeness.

They were always interrupted when they were like this, always so close but never able to meet eachother, it was always Sho or Alan or literally anyone stopping it from happening.

He squeezed her hip making her let out a light squeak, something that made her face immediately light up in a fiery red as she tried to avoid eye contact as she could feel that Cheshire grin widen, she dared a glance back at him and sighed again as amusement sparkled in his. He leaned in closer eyes flickering from her lips to her eyes as their lips were about to brush.

“Will you do it for me honour roll?”

He whispered against her lips as he squeezed her hip once again, she let out a short gasp as he continued to caress her other thigh. She gulped as she silently shook her head signalling a no.

She was surprised she was being stoa strong willed about this, she was usually so annoyingly weak to giving into leo and his hijinks.

“Hmmm that’s too bad.”

He sang against her lips as he was just about to her capture her before he pulled away, she tsked in response puffing out her cheek as she pouted at the lack of kisses. His eyes widened in delight as he watched her in amusement, logging the reaction in his brain with all the other facial reactions he liked to elicit from Xena.

“Only good girls get rewards Xe~”

If it was possible to go an even brighter red, she’s done it. Quickly hiding her face with her hands as she felt him preen at the reaction he was getting. Both hands found their way under her skirt and to her hips again squeezing and caressing as he stared down at the girl.

“I’m not wearing a bunny costume.”

Now it was his turn to pout.

“I’m not doing it, I don’t know why you’d even want me too.”

Leo cocked his head to side, smiling lopsidedly at her, yellow eyes beaming at her as his hands slid back down. He was on his knees back straight as he traced the scar on her thigh.

“You don’t see why I’d want you in a bunny costume huh.”

He leaned back over her licking his lips as he planted his hands beside each side of her head.

“Hmm nope not at all…”•_•

She tried to hide the strain in her voice as her hands ghosted down his chest, eyes avoiding his as she suddenly found the duvet cover to be insanely interesting.

He leaned back down to her tilting her head gently to look at him, she could see the glint of his tongue piercing as he nonchalantly played around with it.

It was a stupid plan they both knew it, he wanted to uncover the mysteries and thought maybe he could entice the blonde fly who keeps hovering around her with alluring him to answer the all important question.

Why’d you make a deal with a demon?

It was honestly an idiotic plan that was so dumb it could actually work. Ask Kaito to come help with a photoshoot for Xena’s bunny debut and have her ask the question, using the delicious sight of her in costume to make him answer.

Annoyingly though she is close friends with the fly and has refused which has lead them to the situation now.

Though Leo wouldn’t mind if she didn’t do the plan, not with how this has all played out. To be honest he’s pretty sure this idea came from the idea of just wanting xena in a bunny outfit and needing an excuse to see her in it plus she’d been upset since she left obscuary she needed this distraction…she wouldn’t want it on his gram though-not unless he dressed up too;which wasn’t the worst of ideas, he may even get to get Sho to join in too, he couldn’t let his thoughts wander too far though as he felt Xena slightly shiver underneath him as he brought a handback down to ghost around her thighs again.

He sucked in a breath as his eyes met hers, pure need echoed through the both of them, he went to brush his lips against hers again, grinning as he moved away and nuzzled into her neck again.

He can’t help it, she looked surprisingly cute when he teased even more so like this where he could keep her there and keep teasing her until they both completely lost it. He hummed against her neck as he felt her sigh in disappointment, he cheekily pressed a kiss against her neck sucking on her pulse as his hands begun to wander.

Xena let out a loud whine as he did; squeezing her thighs around him as she leaned her neck out more giving him more access, letting out another whine as he sucked even harder taking in her scent as he did, the smell of fresh flowers overwhelming him.

“Fuck.”

He couldn’t help groaning out as she started to grind against him.

Xena whined out.

The sound and movement shocked herself and Leo as she quickly went to cover her mouth and dropping her thighs away from him as she regained her senses, Leo let out a low groan as he nipped her neck before moving back to her face, grinning as he started moving her hand away from her mouth, she stared up at him from under her lashes unsure of what to do suddenly nervous as they were finally about to kiss despite all that’s just previously happened.

How cute.

“Sorry XeXe was it too much, you just smell so good I can’t help myself.”

He said it in a teasing way as he clasped onto one of Xena’s hand, he used his other to trace her bottom lip. She stared up at him wide eyed, stilling almost entirely which confused Leo slightly as the mood seemed to swiftly change.

“I smell good?”

She asked quietly, fear dripping off every word as she lightly pushed him back. He looked down at her confused, brows furrowed as a frown made its way onto his face.

“Yah? You smell like…”

Something seemed to dawn on Leo’s face, something she didn’t like at all.

Recognition.

A piece of a puzzle slotting its way perfectly into position.

She pushed at him harder causing him to stumble off her in surprise, she darted up grabbing her blazer and bag as she begun her escape. Leo just stared at her watching as she run away, a look of understanding which was even more horrifying to her.

Of course he’d understand.

She darted to the door and risked one more glance at Leo, who hadn’t even moved, his eyes widened as he caught a look of the rare sight of Xena , eyes wide and full of sorrow as tears slightly dripped from her eyes as she ran out the door refusing to look back.

#xena #tokyo debunker oc #tokyo debunker #leo kurosagi #oop some angst #mixed with smut kind of #xena x leo #leo x xena

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tagsecretsanta · 11 months ago

Text

From @gaviiadastra

From @gaviiadastra to @womble1

Hello to my wonderful gift recipient! I’m certain this was a gift to me; I got to write my all time favorites. Thank you! I hope you have a wonderful holiday and that you enjoy this story, and special thanks to TAGSS for organizing the exchange this year.

My prompts were:

1. FishTank (Virgil & Gordon) and woodland dappled light.

2. Alan having to deal with life outside the island.

3. Anything christmassy. Who am I kidding, I'll be happy with anything. 😁

___

Along Country Roads

Summary: a place can hold unique memories for different people - sometimes it’s the same one, just different.A/N: I promise, it’s a balanced level of sappiness and brother time with some light h/c. For exact warnings: references to depression and avalanche aftermath, in which I headcanon Virgil was present with Lucille. Gordon’s hydrofoil accident is always in the background. But there’s laughs too, aaaand I’ve continued to use crafty!FishTank as a plot device.

~*~

For as much as Scott fought the GDF for them to have a family holiday, the IR commander sure managed to make himself scarce, Virgil thought bitterly. It was the first time they’d managed to take International Rescue offline for a full week without there being an excuse of a serious injury prompting the decision – a fact that hurt his heart to think about. Still, Virgil awoke to a mostly empty household despite the homely comfort of coffee still warmed and the gentle brush of heat throughout the cabin from the controlled flames stoked in the fireplace.

But, no, that wasn’t necessarily fair to Scott either, and Virgil recognized his sleepiness taking control of his thoughts. He’d known his older brother would need to take some time in DC, and it wasn’t actually all that far to the Capitol. All would be well, as long as Scott’s business was concluded by Christmas, like he’d promised them. It still felt strange to be offline; not knowing what was happening in the rest of the world left an uncomfortable itch that ran through his blood, which was only eased with the knowledge that Eos was still watching, listening, and would alert them if they were needed.

The distance away was exactly why they'd chosen here in the first place - a remote location for the full step back and reset they needed after months of running on exhaustion.

These days, the mountain cabin and its surrounding property belonged to Virgil, even if he still thought of it as one of their family’s winter homes. It was only after their mother’s death that they started vacationing here in Appalachia. The hills of Shenandoah were different enough from the ski lodge, so he’d been able to form new cozy Christmas memories within its walls, comforted by the East Coast’s gentler, wiser mountains. The Blue Ridge Mountains to the east and the Alleghenies to the west and were among the oldest on the planet. They knew loss.

The ache in his soul then had been raw and bare, and certainly it had taken a few winters for him to heal enough to step foot into the snow. But he'd wept with the song of the ancients and walked stronger for it.

Home, through country roads, indeed.

That morning, though his heart rang with the distant echo of the constant activity of their childhood, he’d walked in instead on just Gordon cozied by the fireplace, wearing more layers than his usual attire and with a blanket thrown across his feet. Virgil recognized the hank of heathered blue and dusky grey, now spun into a usable yarn cake, that Gordon had selected for a pair of fingerless mittens for Scott. And it was that which had reminded Virgil of their brother’s planned departure that morning; Scott’s absence had given Gordon some privacy to finish his Christmas gift.

In lieu of a greeting, Gordon finessed his foot from beneath the blanket to waggle his toes at him, while continuing to crochet the stitches in the round. “Do NOT tell him how close I cut it.”

“Ugh, gross. Good morning to you too.” Virgil parked himself in the adjacent recliner, far enough from potentially stinky feet and near enough to a side table for him to comfortably drink his coffee while watching the flames flicker within earthen stone. “And I would never.” It was the curse of the homemade gift - always the best of intentions and never enough time.

The fireplace mantle he usually kept bare save for a large, framed painting of a creek running through a grove of autumn red oak trees. The brush strokes were ones he knew as well as his own. He’d studied from them, committed them to memory. And though their mother never knew the cabin home, the scene could’ve easily been something right outside their door, albeit in a different season. The deciduous trees were spectacular in the height of color-changing foliage, and he’d had the pleasure of seeing them many times in their travels as children for their father’s business, then again with International Rescue through which he’d seen many of the world’s marvels as well as its strifes.

When they arrived, the first thing they did together was pull out the old holiday decorations, and so for the first time in a long while the artwork shone from a podium of garland, the green of blue spruce with wine-red bows interspersed in the artificial branches.

“What are you thinking about?”

Virgil flicked his eyes away from the painting where Gordon had pulled his earbud away, his yarn work resting in his lap while he rotated his wrists to stretch.

“Mom,” Virgil answered, glancing back to the landscape captured in time.

“Oh, I always thought that was one of yours.”

Virgil shook his head. Coughed. “Where is everyone else off to?”

Gordon rambled in answer, but Virgil was versed enough to catch the key points: that Scott was, of course, in Washington; John was in the office on a conference call with his editor in New York; Grandma had gone into town for supplies – “I would’ve gone with her had I known” – and Alan was still asleep.

Virgil glanced down at his watch.

“He was up until four modding for one of Brandon’s livestreams,” Gordon defended on their youngest brother’s behalf.

“I’m going to pretend I know what that means.”

“It means let the kid sleep.”

Virgil knew he’d have to trust Gordon on that one. Besides, he wasn’t one to argue over late mornings; he’d done his fair share of staying up late to catch the sunless sky for this art project or that over the years. He nodded in acknowledgement and took another sip from his coffee as Gordon settled back into his project, replacing the ear bud.

It had been rare, in their childhood, for Virgil to enjoy spending time with Gordon like this, not because of the age difference between them though that certainly played a small part, but because they existed on different schedules. Even more so than his space-faring siblings, Virgil was like the moon to Gordon’s sun. His late nights, however, were not a product of scientific interest, but rather an overactive imagination and trauma-based insomnia, and later - as he got older - the artistic outlets to alleviate the worst parts of them both.

When they were younger, Gordon would be the first awake and the first to wake everyone else with his volume and exuberance. He didn’t really like Gordon for that back then, but it was also something that he didn’t realize he missed until it was gone. That was something that had changed drastically over the years between Gordon developing a discipline for a morning routine with his swimming and then his subsequent military experience. And though the vivacity came back after the accident, there was a time Gordon understood Virgil’s own mind more than Virgil ever wanted his younger brother to.

The Gordon he knew now was plenty more considerate than his younger self, among the most carefree spirits he knew despite the scars on his heart, and still the most resilient, most tenacious person he’d ever met.

They made a good team. His light was good for him.

“You’re thinking so hard, V.” Startled, Virgil tried to regain control of the remaining coffee in his mug so it wouldn’t spill. “Honestly,” Gordon added, laughing, “I can’t even focus on my stitches.”

Virgil watched as Gordon stabbed his hook in the top of the stitches from the row before, grabbed his working yarn with the hook, then struggled to wiggle it back through the loops. It budged eventually, but mid row, Gordon stopped and had to stretch again.

Virgil gently placed his drink down on a coaster to protect the wood of the side table. “You should take a break,” he suggested.

Gordon shook his head. “I have to finish these by tonight.”

“Scott’s out the whole day, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but - ”

“So come for a walk with me?” He glanced out the window. Outside it was a clear day, deceptive in how bright the sun was, dappled through the branches of the trees. “I’ve been meaning to check the markings along the trails. Make sure they are clear or if they need a new coat of paint. Come with me?”

Gordon hesitated, squinting at his progress. “You know the cold isn’t my thing.” Suddenly, frustration cut through his concentration as his brow furrowed. “My stitch count is off! For fu-”

“Ooookay, you definitely need a break.” Virgil hopped out of the recliner and pried the work out of a grumbling Gordon’s hands before he could unravel the whole thing unnecessarily, gently placing the hook, yarn, and partly-finished mitt on the adjacent table. “Come on. The air will be good for you. It doesn’t have to be for long, and we’ll be walking the whole way, which’ll help with the cold.”

“And walking for the whole time?” he pressed, eyeing Virgil warily, like he knew better in trusting Virgil’s word when it came to the wonders of natural beauty. He had to hand that one to Gordon; there was some truth to that lack of faith.

“For the whole time,” Virgil promised. “I won’t even bring a sketchpad, scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t ever a scout,” Gordon countered.

“Still.” Virgil beamed.

~*~

They met back in the lounge after Gordon changed and located a hoodie to slide over his long sleeve, and after Virgil had poked his head in the office to check on John, realized he was still on his call, then slid a note for him under the door. He handed Gordon his sherpa-lined puffer jacket, then donned his own hooded flannel with fleece interior. They each had their own preferences for winter accessories – so Gordon grabbed his pair of grey fingerless mitts and a matching knit hat from the closet, while Virgil wrapped a wide scarf in ivory white loosely around his neck.

Virgil’s core body temperature always ran a bit warmer than his siblings’. There had been many a winter growing up with one (or both) of the terrible two tucked into his side.

With the additional layers on, Virgil’s skin crawled with the heat from inside the cabin stifling him, so he didn’t linger in the entryway while Gordon tied up his hiking boots. Outside in the crisp chill he breathed deeply, his nose finding the gentle tickle of pine and woodchips, before he exhaled a cloud of breath that warmed his cheeks. He stepped down from the porch, and the frozen patches of amber grass and earth crunched under the heel of his boot.

“Ugh, it’s so cold out here!” Gordon exclaimed in the clamor of him joining Virgil in the great outdoors. “My hands are going to get so dry.”

Virgil fondly rolled his eyes and started to reach for the top of Gordon’s head before he remembered he would be blocked by the hat. “That’s what hand lotion is for,” he said instead, further loosening the knot of his scarf.

From the front porch, the road curved past a line of bare trees before it disappeared down the mountain. The drive there was treacherous enough it sat comfortably on Scott’s favorites list between testing hot sauces and bungee jumping. Despite the drop close to the road, deceptive with the blanket of trees, Virgil trusted his older brother behind the wheel. The cabin was only midway up the mountain, and it really was only one large stretch of hill that was particularly touch and go. Scott was plenty capable, and the lack of land rover was an indicator that Scott had driven himself into the nation’s Capitol. He might be back a little later than expected, but Scott thrived in his time behind the wheel. Relaxed even. Those hours to decompress would be beneficial for him – plenty of time to mentally leave work behind so he could fully and completely join the family for the holiday.

“So, up or down?��

Gordon, his covered hands tucked into his jacket pockets, twisted toward him then glanced at the two paths as he shifted onto toes to stretch his back. With a sigh, “Let’s get uphill over with. As long as you promise not to linger at the look out.” Virgil held his hands up, palms out, to prove he was without his art supplies as promised.

As they walked, Gordon excitedly shared the latest on his co-written article for Marine Science Daily, which Virgil knew was the exact reason Gordon’s Christmas project plans had been derailed. He nodded along at the appropriate talking points, having read the article but always more engaged when hearing it from the aquanaut directly. Meanwhile, Gordon subconsciously kept moving closer to Virgil’s side. Eventually Virgil untied the scarf completely, letting its length fall unsecured down the front of his jacket. Like a tie at the end of a long, wild night. Not that he would ever admit to having those. What happened at college stayed at college.

“Do you know my favorite Christmas?” Gordon asked, pulling Virgil from his fond memories of theater afterparties and post-concert celebrations. But Gordon hadn’t waited for Virgil to answer, his eyes unusually bright against the reddening of his cheeks with the bite of the wind. “I used to hate the cabin when we first started coming here. I was too young to remember – uhh – before, but I remember how it felt against all that change and you were so different and always so sad all the time. The first time it snowed, I remember you running back inside like it burned you, and Scott ran in after, leaving John to help Al and I with our snowman.”

The lump in Virgil’s throat grew.

“But then one year, it actually snowed on the holiday. A for real white Christmas! And I remember thinking – this is it, this is what we’ve been coming here for. It wasn’t a massive snow; just enough to cover the grass – definitely not enough for a snowman, but we made our fun anyway. I had just made the perfect snowball out of what little was there. And any moment, you would come join us. I just knew it. And then I saw you watching us from the window, and it didn’t look like you were going to come.

“It was just enough time distracted for John to launch his freezing projectile at me. He hit me square in the face and I dropped my perfect snowball. And as I cleared the snow off my face, I caught you actually laughing about the snow. You did eventually come out that Christmas. Scott encouraged you to sit with him on the porch stoop first, and then you walked out on your own. I know you leaned a lot on Scott in those days, but there was just something about that laugh – it made me feel like I helped you take those steps, even if I wasn’t the one at your elbow to keep you steady.”

Virgil swallowed hard. He remembered that year, and Gordon had only been a child. “You did plenty.”

Their breaths expelled in little huffs as they continued the climb, where Virgil noticed, as he figured might be the case, certain spots where the red paint had faded on the trees. It could use a refresh to make sure the trails were clearly marked. If he didn’t get to it this season, he’d be sure to prepare for next time he visited his cabin. Beside him, Gordon trampled over fallen branches, grumbling about the temperature between curse words, especially as they reached what had seemed like the top of the last hill only to see another awaiting them.

Virgil chuckled as he waited for them both to catch their breath at the top of the hill before they continued to the lookout just a few more steps up the final hill. His mountain was not among the tallest nor the smallest of the range, and so the top was a vision of both the valley below and the neighboring peaks. He loved the view; when it was cold enough, the mountains were sometimes snowcapped, the trees blanketed in white as soft as the cumulus through which he’d often soared.

So far, the sky had yet to open. But, oh, how she teased. Nimbostratus in neutral grey with a cobalt undertone approaching from the east, mottling the sunlight.

Beside him, Gordon took advantage of the flatter land and Virgil’s brief examination of the sky to stretch. Virgil recognized the movements in his periphery, and when he glanced back over, Gordon’s hands were placed purposefully on the small of his back as he twisted both directions.

The sway of the wind had been absent of Gordon’s familiar idle chatter for a while, he realized, and there was an unusual balance to his stance that hinted at stiffness in his joints.

“Are you okay?”

Gordon didn’t answer, but rather smirked at him and gestured with a flourish for Virgil to lead the way.

Virgil was barely two steps forward when he felt a weight launch onto his back. Squid arms quickly slung around his neck, squeezing, and Virgil leaned forward, his hands instinctively moving to catch his younger sibling before he fell off his back.

“Help me, Virgil-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope!”

“Oh my GOD,” Virgil grunted, already shifting him into a better position. “You’re fine.”

“I am, mostly,” Gordon laughed at the back of his head. “Carry me anyway.”

An arm around his neck loosened as Gordon lifted it to point one finger onward up the mountain.

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“I’m going to say it.”

“Gord-!”

“Thunderbros are go!” His laughter echoed, past tree and stream and along the paths they’d traveled.

Virgil couldn’t let him go if he tried.

He carried Gordon piggyback the rest of the way, a short sprint upward that had his calves straining, but the ache was minor compared to some of the training they did at Grand Roca. Only once they reached the lookout did Gordon hop down, giggling, while Virgil worked on calming his heart rate.

“Thanks!” Gordon skipped past him.

Virgil was tempted to throw something. In fact…

He tugged his scarf the rest of the way off his neck, scrunched it into a ball, and sent it sailing at the back of Gordon’s head. It unfurled some, but Gordon hadn’t gotten too far ahead, so he definitely felt it hit before the rest of it dropped to the ground.

“That’s no way to treat your accessories. I’m offended.” Gordon snorted. He retrieved the scarf, gave it a shake that sent a few leaves in Virgil’s direction, and then wrapped it around his own neck. “You don’t get to have this back now.”

Feeling light despite the burn in his legs, excited to witness the lookout once again, and without any real anger towards his brother’s antics, Virgil joined him at the bench nearer the view and positioned safely away from the edge. He hadn’t known how to respond to his brother’s sudden introspection about their childhood, though his own version of the memory lingered with him.

He hadn’t known that year mattered so much to Gordon. Nor was he able to recall the events leading up to him walking in the snow. Those details were fuzzy for him, but he remembered the warmth. He remembered the laughter. He should’ve realized the mark his sadness had left on his family, and before he could think any further about it, Virgil was apologizing. For dragging Gordon out in the cold, for all the years he couldn’t help the littles with their snowmen, for not doing more to make sure they had the Christmases they deserved without the weight of loss.

“Sorry? Whatever do you need to apologize for?” Gordon interrupted. He shook his head. “No, Virgil. Don’t do that.” He stared out to the mountainscape, his lips thin, as slowly he raised his palm to catch the first snowflakes in the center of his hand. One, two, then they melted into the knit fabric. “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

Virgil gaped at him. “For what?”

Gordon lifted his gaze from his clenched fist to meet Virgil’s baffled expression, fiery resolve softened into humility. “I told myself, if Virgil could learn to re-love the snow – I don’t think you understand how important that was for me to keep carrying forward. I know I can get so stuck in my own head sometimes, but your support has always been incredibly grounding. You’re like… having a sturdy shore to return to for when the tide ebbs too far. I can’t imagine having another co-pilot as good for me as you are.”

It was too much.

His own words, his own thoughts about Gordon, mirrored back to him, about him.

“Well,” he rasped, clearing his throat of the overwhelm of emotion, “we are Tracy’s after all.” It didn’t say nearly enough, but it also said exactly what it needed to. Perseverance ran through their blood, after all, and they’d both been through the unimaginable.

Virgil turned his head towards the sky, the feather fall of snow catching in his lashes, and in his hair, and on his flannel.

“It’s also entirely your fault my project’s not finished.”

“My fault?”

“You promised no lingering for art purposes, and I definitely heard a whispered phthalo earlier.”

“Cobalt,” he corrected.

“Same thing.”

“It’s not at all -”

“Soooo, do you think John’s done his meeting yet? Maybe he’ll make us hot chocolate?” Gordon hopped off the bench, clapped his hands together resolutely, and started walking back towards the trail and away from Virgil’s disputes.

“Gordon! They aren’t the same color. They don’t even sound the same!”

Smiling, Virgil had no choice but to follow.

#thunderbirds are go #tag team secret santa #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction

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