#an onward fanfiction

[nyx-knacks-writes]

The Parting of the Ways (Rose's POV)

For my first bit of Doctor Who writing... Nine's regeneration, from Rose's POV. Please be nice. I tried my very best. It took me upwards of two hours to get through the video because I was trying to be as detailed as possible with the Doctor's movements. And because I misheard the dialogue several times over and had to correct it.

All the dialogue, of course, belongs to the BBC.

“What happened?”

“Don’t you remember?”

A beat of silence passed by as Rose laid on the floor of the TARDIS, glancing about to confirm her location. The Doctor stood at the console, looking between the panel, the center column, and Rose herself. She lifted her head and found it swimming, hazy images passing by in front of her eyes, foggy and indistinct, just shy of tangible. It only took a moment for her to shake them off, though, and she carefully pulled herself up into something halfway to a sitting position, knees in the air in front of her.

“It’s like…” She paused for a moment as the Doctor looked away. A beautiful melody seemed to echo in her ears, something like she imagined the sunrise might make if it could sing. Or maybe it was more of a duet between the Sun as it rose and the Moon as it set. Threaded through the joy and love in the song was a terrible, haunting loneliness, as though the singer knew that this could not last. The sorrow of knowing such beauty must come to an end infiltrated and surrounded the gentle joy of the melody.

“There was a singing.” She lowered her knees to the floor and rested her palms on the cool metal, still shaking the cobwebs from her mind.

“That’s right. I sang a song and the daleks ran away,” the Doctor supplied, looking over and offering that big, wide charming smile. Baloney. The singer was female. It couldn’t have been him, though he was certainly telling the truth that the daleks were no longer around. He was too… easy, for lack of a better word. At ease, that was the phrasing she was looking for. They’d dealt with daleks (okay, one dalek the first time, but the number wasn’t important) before, and they put him rather on edge. They made him tenser, sharper, like a sword coming out of its sheath. The total opposite of how he was acting at the moment.

“I was at home. No I wasn’t, I, I was in the TARDIS and… ah… there was this light...”

In the corner of her eye, she caught the Doctor glancing downward, along the direction of his arm. Something glowed golden on the console, but she elected to ignore it. It couldn’t have been terribly important. Just some monitor going off, in all likelihood, reminding him to perform some regular maintenance task.

“I can’t remember anything else.”

It was painfully true. Like wisps of cloud in the wind, Rose couldn’t seem to get a solid grip on what had happened. Something had happened, clearly, but what? The ghosts of the ghosts of her memories were fading fast, turned transparent in mere seconds.

Another beat of silence.

The Doctor’s gaze fell back to her, though she didn’t see it for a moment as she performed another visual sweep of her surroundings. Rose made an irritated face and shook her head, at last deciding that it really wasn’t worth dwelling on. She glanced back up at the Doctor, lifting her eyebrows as she caught him watching her.

“Rose Tyler.” A little huff of a laugh escaped him, and his lips curled upward, back into that lovely smile of his before it pinched back inward as she prepared to lift herself up to stand.

“I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona? Not the city, Barcelona, the planet, Barcelona.” His face seemed to open as his eyebrows shot upward before closing again toward the end of the sentence. His shoulders bobbed up and down with his movements as he shifted around for emphasis. “You’d love it, fantastic place.” And there it was again, that smile that opened his face and sapped away every ounce of intimidation that he possessed. “They’ve got dogs with no noses.” He laughed at that, a wheezy little sort of laugh that turned into a ha-ha-ha, and Rose couldn’t help smiling with him as she finally pushed herself away from the floor.

“Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke and it’s still funny!” His eyes slipped back to the console.

“Then why can’t we go?”

Back to her.

“Maybe you will! And maybe I will. But not like this.” Back to the console again, the cryptic bugger.

“You’re not making sense.” It was Rose’s turn to have her face pinch together, though for her it was more in confused thought than clear thought.

“I might never make sense again! I might have two heads, or no head.” His current, normal, real-world head turned back and forth as he spoke, presumably checking in on whichever meters and dials told him the current state of the ship. “Imagine me with no head! And don’t say that’s an improvement,” he added as Rose smiled again, showing off her pearly teeth.

The Doctor dropped his head toward the console before picking it up again and swinging it to look at Rose once more.

“But it’s a bit dodgy, this process.”

The smile began to fade.

“You never know what you’re gonna end up with.” Without warning, he doubled over and sort of fell backward, his hands flying to his stomach as some sort of electronic wail ran through the air. His midsection glowed golden, and Rose lunged toward him. She didn’t have a clue what was going on, of course, how could she, but surely there was some way for her to help!

“Doctor!”

“Stay away!” he commanded, throwing an arm outward to ward her off. Admittedly, it stung. Hadn’t they been the best of friends? Hadn’t they had wonderful adventures together, even if they’d been rather less than safe? Hadn’t they… A single memory from whatever had happened between getting home and finding herself in the TARDIS once again nudged its way into her brain as she stared at him with concern. Hadn’t he kissed her? Hadn’t they been the best of friends who’d just so happened to fall in love along the way?

The Doctor brought his chin to his chest as his face contorted with pain, and Rose noticed that the golden light had vanished.

“Doctor, te… Tell me what’s going on.” Her voice wobbled slightly at the beginning of the sentence before firming up. He couldn’t just do this, just, be so openly struggling and in pain without letting her help.

He leaned his head back, gritting his teeth.

“I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one’s meant to do that!” He smiled again, the absolute nutter, and Rose paused, looking him up and down with her mouth open as though to say something.

“Every cell in my body’s dying.” Her eyes snapped back up to his face.

“Can’t you do something?” Rose edged closer near-imperceptibly.

“Yeah! I’m doing it now.” The Doctor came a little closer to the console and leaned on it for support. “Time Lords have this little trick, it’s, sort of a way of cheating death.” He paused, looking downward as his face wrinkled with pain.

“Except…” He lifted his head again to look at her.

“Except, it means I’m gonna change.” His head bobbed up and down in a halfway frantic sort of nod, the sort of nod one nods to communicate the sentiment that the present topic or situation is rather less than pleasant, but there’s really nothing to be done about it. “And I’m not gonna see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face.” Yet another smile. If he thought he was being reassuring, well… okay, it was kind of working, but it wasn’t like everything was alright again. Things might never be quite alright again, not if she was losing her Doctor. Not if she was losing the man who’d opened her eyes to what the world was really like, who’d shown her the marvels of space and time, and, admittedly, a good amount of the oddness going on in her own hometown in her own home-time.

“And before I go—”

“Don’t say that!”

“Rose.” He lifted his head from where it had dropped to his chest in order to meet her gaze, and oh, those eyes… He’d accepted his fate. It was obvious. His face had been screwed up tight, but now he’d opened it again just to pause, and Rose closed her mouth to let him speak.

“Before I go, I just want to tell you you were fantastic.” His head shook from side to side on the word, the catchphrase that he couldn’t go a day without saying, and the dam broke.

Tears welled up in Rose’s eyes, and an overwhelming ache stained her heart like a drop of dye in a glass of water. She wanted nothing more than to go to him, to hug him, to feel that leather jacket against her body and those lovely strong arms wrapped around her one more time. But of course, he’d never allow it. He had told her to stay back, and it must have been to protect her. Why else would he be so determined to keep her away when he must know how much of a stab through the heart it was to be… to be saying goodbye. To be saying a million things in her mind that seemed to choke in her throat and drift up to sting at her eyes, leaving them unsaid. And there he was, smiling through it all like he wasn’t leaving her behind, like he wasn’t disappearing away from her, never to be seen or heard or touched or felt again. If he wasn’t dying already, she’d kill him herself.

“Absolutely fantastic. And you know what?” he waited a moment, just a brief little moment. “So was I!” he concluded with a final, quick little nod. Rose smiled at him, one last time. That was the last thing she wanted him to see of her. A smile, something to let him know how much she loved him as he disappeared before her eyes.

His body went rigid, hands splaying out to the sides and head tilting back as though he were about to scream upward to whatever god or higher being might be listening. The force of the energy around him threw Rose backward, and she had to cling to one of the coral-like pillars in the TARDIS in order to avoid being thrown back even further.

Though she couldn’t see as the bones of his face shifted and changed, Rose did see a new plume of hair sprout from the Doctor’s skull, replacing the short brown hair she’d grown to love. The golden light faded away, and someone entirely new stood there in place of the Doctor, in place of her Doctor. He turned his head toward her.

“Hello. Oka— Mmm.”

He stopped speaking as quickly as he’d started, and the way his lips puckered and the skin of his cheeks hollowed and bulged in certain places seemed to indicate that he was probing around his mouth with his tongue.

“New teeth. That’s weird. So where was I?”

He looked toward the floor before looking back up at Rose, though he seemed to look through her rather than at her.

“Oh, that’s right. Barcelona.” He smiled and got something of a crazed look in his eyes as he finished, and all Rose could think was that he was so different.

Big, fluffy, chocolate brown hair. Brown eyes to match, replacing the icy blue eyes that had held so much, icy blue eyes that had watched her so carefully the first time he’d ever met her. This man was as skinny as a twig, a very slight bit taller than the Doctor, and a tad higher-pitched in the voice. 

What had he done with her Doctor?

[sintoxic]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Dead by Daylight (Video Game) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face/Frank Morrison Characters: Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face, Frank Morrison, Clive Andrews Additional Tags: Suggestive Themes, Recreational Drug Use, Marijuana, Shotgunning, Violent Thoughts, Attempted Murder, Implied Sexual Content, Possibly Unrequited Love, Making Out, Boys Kissing, Friends With Benefits, but without the friends part, Frank wants a serial killer bf, Danny 'what are feelings' Johnson, Not Beta Read, Unhealthy Relationships, Danny's POV, 1990s, Pet Names, Sexual Tension, Older Man/Younger Man, Insecurity, Two Shot, Feelings Realization, Death Threats, No Smut Summary:

At that moment, all Danny could think about was how pretty his boy was. Over and over, the word replayed in his head like a hymn.

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

“Danny?” Frank said. “You good? You’re lookin’ at me all weird again.”

—

Or Danny shows up at Frank’s place unannounced and gets more than he bargained for.

[mandg-readings]

DUN DUN DAAAAA... this is honestly as much of a surprise to me as it is to you, three hours ago I said I'd start making a dent in it and had enough in me to completely smash it. So the new mic makes editing a lot easier and I guess I'm still in the weird insomnia productivity hyper-focus stage? Enjoy it while it lasts😢

[lineffability]

"Wait, what the He– what the fuck happened, Aziraphale?! What about the Book? The Metatron? Why did you come back? Did it work?! What happened?"

Aziraphale opened his mouth, then closed it again. He suddenly looked a little embarrassed. Finally, face down and mumbling into his collar, looking almost a little non-directionally annoyed, he said, simply: "Pushed him."

"What? You what?"

Crowley's eyebrows rose higher than a kite; his mouth dropped open in the telltale way that usually sparked mischievous delight in Aziraphale. Even now, a little rebellious joy jumped up for a moment in his chest, before it was dragged back down into a pit of despair that had taken up permanent residence in Aziraphale's stomach. But a little pride stayed behind, lurking sinfully in the corners of his mouth. 

“Pushed him. Into a bookshelf. And…” Aziraphale mimed a falling weight. “Buried him beneath it.”

Crowley, unlike Aziraphale, suddenly seemed not to have a single care in the world. Bastard that he was, he threw his head back and laughed, and the sound ripped so loudly through the silence of the bookshop that Aziraphale joined in nervously, just so he would have something to do. 

"You pushed the Metatron into a bookshelf?"

"I just said that, yes. No need to repeat it back to me." 

"Oh, you wonderful bastard."

[continue reading Meanwhile the World Goes On Chapter 19]

[read from the beginning]

[dogdaysareover365]

Has there been a ghostbusters onward au? Its so perfect.

Trevor is barley

Phoebe is Ian

Gary is Colt

Callie is Laurel

egon is Wilden/the dad who’s a pair of legs

Ray is Cory the manticore

[inkandpaperqwerty]

This is a momentous occasion. Why? Because this is my first Sunday Update that I am posting to my Substack, Qwerty’s Quasar, as well as my tumblr and website! I also enabled the paid subscription option and the chat feature, so I’m trying to expand and become more active over there, which is really exciting!

What’s also exciting is that Rehearsing Tragedies is ready for Update Wednesday (03/12)! I’ll polish it again before actually posting it, as I always do, but it’s ready right now, and the next chapter is basically written, it’s just that a large chunk is in my notebook and needs cleaning up.

DID I MENTION MY INCREDIBLE BROTHER MADE FANART FOR ME?? FOR CHAPTER 6??? WITH SCRATCHED UP CAS ON THE COUCH????????????

Ahem. I’m hoping to update Want is a Wasting Disease on the next Update Wednesday (03/26), and then Rehearsing Tragedies again on the Update Wednesday after that, but that’s not set in stone.

Huge shoutout to @norite for leaving kudos on two of my works associated with my book Cataclysm and my upcoming book, Collision Course! Support for original works and characters is always appreciated, and you put a huge smile on my face!!

Speaking of Collision Course, the final edit is about halfway done according to the page count, but I think the majority of the cleaning up is needed toward the end, so… I’ll say I’m about a third of the way through. My awesome sister is working on the cover art, and it’s not even done yet, but it already looks so amazing!

Thanks so much for reading, and as always, your support is appreciated more than you will ever know!

[miraclesnail]

title still pending, wip, chapter 3

chapter 1 2 next chapter

When you think of Travis Stoll, what comes to mind? Powerful? Intelligent? A protagonist? More like weak, a bit on the air-headed side, and a minor character at best. So why is he being chased by a crazy man with a foot long butcher knife?

When Travis was nine, Castor and Pollux snuck them a DVD from the outside world. It was a movie called Resident Evil. And like the mean, pseudo-big-brothers they are, Castor said, “It’s a funny movie.” 

“It’s a safe movie,” Pollux followed. 

It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t safe.

Instead it gave Travis a healthy dose of zombie phobia. 

It lasted up until he was 17, around the time when Nico decided to stay full time as a yearrounder. The kid used his zombie army for everything. Building his cabin, getting him snacks, attending counselor meetings. They’re actually pretty docile and interesting once Travis got over the fear of them turning into raving, brain-chomping zombies.

Well, whatever Nico did for his zombie-phobia is all undone. Right now. Right at this moment. 

The thing inching towards him on its stomach groans like the hungry brain-eating zombie it is, muffled due to its face planted solidly into the broken tile floor. 

Travis tries not to whimper (he does though) as he scoots back on his butt from the thing. He wants to run. He wants to rollerblade away. He wants to be anywhere but here. But all of that requires access to his hands which he unfortunately does not have access to right now.

He pulls lightly on the handcuffs binding his wrists together. They graft uncomfortably on his skin and he stops. The thing groans as the metal links on the handcuffs jingle and seem to shuffle even faster towards him. It’s head is rising (oh god, oh please no.) enough for Travis to see eyeless sockets, broken jaw swarming with maggots, blue skin tinge with mold and fungi, and — 

Okay, he has enough. 

“Hey, uh, Michael?” he calls out hesitantly.

His once dead but now alive and well, and also the reason for him being tied up, friend does not respond. So Travis tries again, this time louder. “Hey, Michael.”

Nothing. 

Dude, what has he done to piss off Michael? They were on great terms before Michael had died! 

…

Michael died. Michael is dead. So this person in front of him couldn’t be Michael. Because Michael is dead. Michael died. 

Who is he then? A lookalike? A twin brother? A clone?

You know what? This is an issue Travis will leave for another time. A more pressing matter is rearing its ugly head with each passing second. That thing is a foot away from him now. 

“Michael,” Travis tries again only to be ignored again. And fine with him. He knows exactly what will make Michael talk. “Mike. Mikey. Mic. Saint Michael. Mikey-angelo. Miiiiichaeeeeeel. Miiiichaeeeellllllllll.”

And as expected, Michael snaps, “What?” His brown eyes alight with such familiar anger that Travis can’t help but stare. The intensity, the way Michael scrunches his face, the absolutely familiar face of irritation is all very Michael-like. Though, it was never him at the end of Michael’s temper. It had always been Clarisse.

“Can you do something about the… uh… you know.” Michael still glares at him and okay, Michael is really gonna make him say it. Travis finishes the sentence lamely, “The zombie. Can you get rid of the zombie?”

He waits for the ridicule, the jiving, the “oh gods, you’re such an idiot. Zombies aren’t real.” but instead all he gets is an arrow piercing the thing’s head in a millisecond.

Travis jumps, tied hands clenching his chest at the speed of the arrow. He smiles gratefully and relaxes his shoulder. “Thanks. I really—”

“Shut up.”

And Travis snaps his jaws shut and endure the uncomfortable silence they delve into. He twiddles his thumbs. He taps his feet. He thinks about how Michael is now alive. The doors of death are open again? Michael decides to make a break for the real world? Michael decides to take revenge for his untimely death caused by Luke by messing with him? 

But none of that explains why everything is so… bleak and apocalyptic. New York is destroyed. **(add more later)** Most of the buildings are gone and the remaining ones are compromised. The tiles and walls have green junk growing out of them. These things, zombies, did not exist before. 

This… all of this… it has to be an elaborate prank by Connor, right? A prank that Connor somehow manages to convince Nico and Hazel to join in on? Yeah… yeah. That makes sense. Nico and Hazel made the zombies. Annabeth designed this fake, apocalyptic New York. Percy and Jason can be the one causing the storm outside. This has to be it. There’s no other explanation. **Now to figure out what Travis did to deserve all this… 

Only one way to get answers. 

“So Michael—” he begins.

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

That went nowhere. 

Micheal crosses his arms, not moving from where he’s leaning on the crumbling wall. He’s frowning, staring intently at him. Like he’s waiting for him to do something. Like he’s waiting for him to make a run for it. But the crossbow resting snugly against Michael’s leg with all its beautiful, entirely real arrows assures Travis will do nothing. 

Except maybe scratch the itch at the back of his head.

The second his hands move up, Michael has the crossbow up and aims at his face.

Okay, no scratching the itch. Maybe he could just use his shoulder or the wall behind him. 

He lowers his hand and chuckles nervously, “Okay, sorry, sorry.” 

Michael didn’t lower the crossbow though.

Michael didn’t smile and say, ‘just kidding.’

Michael didn’t pull his mask off to reveal he’s actually Connor. 

Instead all Michael does is rest his finger on the trigger.

Oh gods. He’s really going to die here.

“Aren’t you going to make a run for it?” Michael says.

“Run?” he chuckles, “How am I going to run with you pointing a crossbow on my face?!”

Michael frowns. “You’re going to hurt Beckendorf’s feelings if you don’t try. He’s certain he created restraints even you can’t break out of.” **

Beckendorf. Another dead friend being spoken about like he’s alive. Yeah, why not. He’ll play along with whatever game this is. “Well, I’m sorry but I can’t break out of these.” And to prove it, he tugs on the cuffs and makes the link jingles. 

Michael scowls, the crossbow lowering just a tad. “You’re not even trying, asshole.”

The word comes automatically without him thinking. Connor likes to curse. Cecil sometimes too. Julia and Alice do it often as well. When he’s in a cabin full of little kids as young as 7, parents do not appreciate their kid coming back from the special summer camp knowing all the bad words a kid shouldn’t know. And since he’s the oldest, the blame falls on him. He, of course, makes Chiron take the heat of their parent’s complains but it still leaves a bad taste on his tongue. 

“Don’t curse,” he says on instinct.

Michael stiffens. He grips his crossbow tighter. 

“Travis,” Michael says slowly. At least he got his name right. “Why are you… acting … this way?”

“What way? I’ve always been this way.”

Michael exhales and steps closer. He kneels so they’re eye level and with a very careful eye, studies his face with excruciating focus. It’s very uncomfortable and Travis deals with uncomfortable situations the only way he knows how. 

With his trademark smirk, he shouts, “Boo!”

Expectedly, Michael jumps back and Travis makes himself laugh. Unexpectedly, Michael is back by his side, this time with fear in his eyes. With a very gentle hand, Michael touches his shoulder. Travis isn’t weirded out by touching. But it always came from Connor or his younger siblings. And Michael, before he died, was never a touchy-feely kind of person. 

Maybe he should jumpscare him again. 

With a careful voice, Michael says, “Travis, what are you wearing?”

He looks down and sees nothing out of the ordinary. “What do you mean?’

“Where did you get the shirt?” Michael’s voice is strained.

“My … shirt? From the camp store?”

Michael breathes harder. “Why are you wearing it?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to wear? Newsflash, Michael but this orange shirt is all camp has,” Travis jokes, hoping Michael will laugh but all Michael is doing is breathing harder and harder. 

“Travis, please, tell me you’re pulling my leg right now,” Michael pleads with tears in his eyes.

Travis blinks in alarm. Michael is on the verge of crying. Michael has tears in his eyes. Michael is pleading with him. This isn’t a joke, is it?

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers truthfully, wincing at Michael’s face falling further, “I have no idea what’s going on actually. I, uh, thought you were Connor in a mask, but now I’m not so sure anymore.” 

Michael chokes and a violent shudder runs through his body. Callous hands grip his shoulder and shake him harshly. “Are you on drugs right now? Is that why you’re acting so strange? God fucking damn it, Travis! What the fuck!” Michael yells. 

“I— uh— um—” 

 Oh gods, what is he supposed to say?

Michael pulls him up by the front of his shirt. Travis stumbles unevenly on his feet. Even that seems to panic Michael more because he starts patting him down again, skipping over his secret stash. 

He squirms against the proding, whining, “Why are you doing this again? I told you I have nothing hidden.”

“You have nothing on you. No weapons. No equipment. No nothing. Fuck. Travis, are you fucking crazy?!” 

“Am I supposed to have something on me?”

This time Michael didn’t even answer his question, instead pulling an eyelid back. Travis flinches from the sudden proximity and tries to pull away but Michael wasn’t having any of it. 

“Did you take something? What was it?”

“Other than tylenol for my headache this morning, nothing,” Travis says. 

Michael scowls, “Bullshit. You’re acting weird. You’re acting like you did back then. You’re tan for whatever reason and… and…” Michael grabs his wrist and turns them over till the palms face up. He’s deathly silent. “Your scars are gone.”

His eyes trail back up. “All your scars are gone.”

“Yeah…well,” Travis pulls his arms out of Michael’s hands and shuffles back. “Mike, you’re really freaking me out right now.”

“Travis… you’re really Travis, right?” Michael whispers, not following after him. 

“The one and only,” he says, eyes looking away as he shuffles back some more, unsure of what to say next. There’s something in the shadows. There’s something moving in the shadows. There’s someone in the shadows. But it’s not shuffling like a zombie would so it’s probably not a — 

A gust of wind lifts them both up from the ground. Terror grips his heart and Michael yelps in alarm. Just a few meters behind them is a drop from an unimaginable height. They’re going to die. But rather than push out, the wind lifts them further and further up to where their back touches the ceiling. 

It feels like one of those gravity roller coasters in the fair. A force is pushing him onto the surface and it’s impossibly difficult to lift a hand against the gravity. Except there’s no rollercoaster causing this. And this experience is nowhere near as fun as the one in the fair. 

Michael struggles valiantly, twisting and turning and screaming to be put down. His crossbow lies below them. 

The person in the shadow moves closer, stumbling in an uneven gait, shambling like they’re drunk.

Crap, was it actually a zombie?!

But, wait, no. The zombie is laughing, manic and high, and zombies can’t laugh. 

“Caught two! I caught two!”

And zombies can’t talk. 

“I’m going to be fed for decades!”

But zombies eat flesh and oh god it is a zombie. 

The pressure intensifies and he can’t move. He can’t breathe. He’s being crushed. He’s being suffocated. 

The zombie moves from the shadows and into the dim light. And maybe Travis is dreaming, maybe he’s hallucinating, maybe he just ate something bad and is going through a full blown bacteria-induced hallucination, but the zombie that stumbles into view shares a face very, very similar to that of Lou Ellen, counselor of Hecate cabin.

Lou Ellen laughs freely, head thrown back and arm clutching her stomach. She steps closer and he notices something was wrong with her left leg. It shouldn’t be caved in the calf area. It shouldn’t be curved inwards at all. He shouldn’t be able to see the red sinews of the muscles and the telltale white of the bone. 

“Oh. It’s you. Hey, there,” Lou Ellen says and she steps closer until he can see her face, beyond happy, beyond crazed.*** 

She gives a wide, blood stained smile. 

“Nice to see you again.”  

He wakes up with the burning, excruciating pain in his neck. But it lasted only for two seconds before it all went away and he could breathe again, could think again. 

He always wakes silently. Sometimes zombies would claw their way to his living quarters and being absolutely still and listening first has saved him from bites many times. 

Clarisse’s voice is what he hears first. Maybe he’s been captured but he’s still alive for some reason. He wouldn’t think they would capture him and not sacrifice him right away unless they struck a new deal with the gods. 

“We should crack open his mind. Take a good look at what’s inside.”

“No, we can’t. That’s invading his privacy.”

Clarisse is arguing with someone. The other voice is unfamiliar. 

“He’s an enemy. We can’t treat a threat like he’s our friend.”

“But that’s Travis! We can’t—”

“Travis decapitated Mr. D, eviscerated Chiron, and tore my knee a new one. He’s fucking dangerous, Holly. Laurel, you shut the fuck up too.”

Oh. It’s Holly and Laurel. … What are they doing with Clarisse?

He keeps still, keeps his breathing even, and surveys his situation. He’s resting on a cushioned surface on his back. His wrists are bound with metal. One on each wrist and they extend outwards. Not linked together. He senses, more than feel, that it’s just a simple master lock with a standard key. The basics of basics. He can undo this in a millisecond. 

He listens closely, taking in the creaking of wood and the scuffing of shoes. There’s a person right next to him. Maybe 15 or 20 total in the room. If it had just been Michael and Clarisse, he could escape just fine. But they somehow got new people. Where did they get new people? They’re not exactly in supply.  

“You guys, maybe we should wake Travis up and have a talk with him.” Another voice he doesn’t recognize. 

“And have him go crazy trying to kill Percy again? Dude, no. That’s not a good idea. Six people couldn’t restrain him.” [That voice is Leo’s.]

“But we’re not getting any answers with him asleep. Besides he’s tied up and there’s 20 of us. I can charmspeak if we really need to,” the person beside him says. [Piper.]

“Alright, Clovis, wake him up. Everybody else be on guard,” a girl commands and involuntarily his hands curl into the sheets. Annabeth said that. No doubt. That’s Annabeth’s voice. Clear. Precise. Said a name. This isn’t reality then. Gods-induced illusion? Or did he finally die and this is his eternal hell?

“He’s already awake.”

Chairs scoot on wood and he can hear the boards creaking. Metal clinks around the room. Are they drawing their weapon? Why?

[I decapitated the God and gutted the centaur.] Oh. 

“Drop the act, Travis,” Annabeth demands. 

He opens his eyes and winces at the sunlight. It’s so bright. And quiet. It’s so quiet. The absence of rain after months and years of constant downpour… it’s jarring. It feels unnatural. Someone coughs and slowly, unhurriedly, inch by inch, he turns his head to the side to quickly glance at the people on the other side of the room. All of them standing and all of them either gripping the hilt of their weapon or hiding behind another person. 

[They’re scared. I didn’t mean to… I wouldn’t have… if I known they were going to freak out like this… maybe I should have blown the immortals up instead.] I think that’ll still be an issue. 

He recognizes a couple. Clarisse. Will. Katie. Conn— he tears his eyes to the next person. He doesn’t recognize her. Nor the next demigod and the next and the next until his eyes land on Perseus. By instinct, his hands reach for the weapons on his belt, but they lay several feet away on a table. Two demigods are sorting through his weapons. 

He calms the murderous, bloodthirsty need in him and looks to the next person, to Annabeth. He stares at her. At her golden locks. At the ponytail. At the familiar sternness of her face, the familiar sharp gaze. It’s her. It’s really her. 

A chair creaks nearby and he glances upwards. It was Piper sitting beside him. She stiffens when they make eye contact but she remains seated. 

“Hey,” she says curtly. 

“Hey,” he mutters awkwardly. 

You’re right. Piper has a really nice voice. [I know, right?]

He turns his head back to the ceiling and closes his eyes. There’s around 20 demigods in this room. More than half he does not recognize. And the half he does recognize, he can’t overpower by himself. Not an illusion then. Not hell then. He digs his nails into his thigh and considers the pain. This is reality. 

[I think we can still make a break for it]

A chair screeches against the hardwood and he winces at the grating noise. It’s too loud. His neck itches. And he goes to scratch it. The handcuffs only allow him a couple inches off the convertible sofa. But even that is too much to give. They should have secured it all the way down. They even gave him a pillow for his head. Stupid idiots. 

“Travis,” Annabeth says, “If you cooperate with us, everything will go smoothly and nobody will be hurt. So I’m going to need you to answer a few questions.” 

Something groans beside him and he snaps his eyes to it and oh. It’s just a branch against the window. 

“Why did you attack Percy?” Annabeth continues, undeterred.

He can see the tips of the pine trees and the very clear, very blue skies, not a single cloud in sight. 

“Travis, answer me.”

A bird flies freely, soaring without a care in the empty sky.

“Travis.”

There’s a gentle breeze outside, not a howling hurricane. 

“Travis? Are you listening?”

The sun is shining. There are birds flying. The leaves are green. Annabeth is alive. Connor is alive. Leo and Piper are alive too. Everything is alive and brimming.

Why? 

The boy he thought was Connor, the one he chased through the entire building from one end to the other, the one who confidently said his name, must actually be Travis. Did the clover allow him to time travel? To a past where nothing has gone wrong yet? No, that can’t be. The other Travis must have been the same age as him. [Piper and Leo were never at your camp at any point.]

“Percy, bring it over.” 

Then what is this? 

“Why do you have this?”

He peeks an eye open, glances at what Annabeth holds in her hands. It’s just a phone. Why is she so confused by it?

“Neat thing you have here.” Annabeth flips the phone in a hand, flipping it back and forth in faux-nonchalant observation. “It doesn’t emit our signals. You can’t attract monsters with this.”

He frowns. The way she’s talking… like she had never seen … when she had advocated for its creation for so long… *****

Annabeth hums curiously. She taps the screen once to activate it. “Who is ‘**Melon Lord?’ Weird name. They've been messaging you non-stop.”

Shit. 

It takes all he has to roll his head to the side. Annabeth holds the phone screen out for him to read, but still far enough he can’t reach it. He winces at the barrage of texts he sees.

“Yo yo yo! It’s your savior here with another daily update! I’m alive as you can see. How are you doing this fine hour? Still kicking, I hope? The others are making quite a commotion. I think they’re saying they caught you? You in trouble? Need help?”

“Yooo Travis? You're dead or what?”

“Travis?”

“Dude, I know you’re reading this.”

“Hey, you okay?”

“Travis?”

“Okay, it isn’t funny anymore. Text me back now.” 

Annabeth takes the phone back and scrolls through the limited notifications with a scowl. “Who is this person? They’re really concerned.”

Commotion? Shit. That’s right. Michael. Michael is the reason why he’s here. After he’s pushed in, what happened? Did … did Michael catch his other self? Is Michael taking him back to their base right now?!

Shit. Fuck. 

[No, wait, calm down. Let’s think this through.]

Easier said than done when his heart is beating faster by minute with fear. 

“Travis?” Annabeth’s voice is stern but there’s a crease in her eyebrows, eyes tinged with worry. 

“I…” But his voice is raspy and he gulps, wetting his mouth before trying again. “Give me back my phone. I need to call someone.”

“Call who?” She asks, face blank. “Who are you going to call?”

“S-” but he stops. 

His knowledge of the world and theirs is conflicting. 

But this isn’t an illusion. Isn’t a dream. Isn’t time travel. 

Annabeth sighs. “You know, Travis, for as long as we know each other, you never seem like the type of person to be a double agent.”

A different world then. [A parallel universe, an alternate universe] 

“We all trusted you back then when Luke left and Chiron always sent you and Connor out on a lot of quests.” 

A world where Camp Half Blood is still standing. ***

“You guys always succeeded.”

A world where everyone is alive. 

She flips the phone to its back cover and taps the insignia, a simple gold scythe, on the bottom corner.

“Hey, tell me, Travis.” Annabeth stands above, leering down over him with her piercing gray eyes. 

A world where everything is okay. 

“Was it because you were pulling the strings behind our backs?”

A world where he made the right choice and didn’t join Kronos’s cause. 

[captainderyn]

[Fictober24] Day 3: "I know you better than that."

Prompt: "I know you better than that."

Fandom: LOTRO

Pairings: Wulfwryn/Raenor

Warnings: Implied torture/brutality, implied/mentioned injury

SPOILERS FOR: The end of the Dunland epic (kind of), the beginning of the Rise of Isengard expansion

Summary: After the events that befell Wulfwryn and Raenor when leaving Dunland, the words of elves preparing to leave for the Grey Havens fester in Wulfwryn's mind. Raenor knows that something is bothering her, it is just a matter of sorting through the half-truths she allows herself to admit.

Translations:

meldanya: my beloved

--

All around them, Rohirrim soldiers shuffled through their nightly routines. Canvas tents rustled closed, the fires still burning outside crackles, and the soft, but constant, din of voices dropped down to a murmurr. 

The noise was a welcome hum after the ringing silence of the pits beneath Orthanc, broken only by the roar of the work camp as Raenor had been dragged to and fro. He shuddered and gave a shake of his head to break his thought spiral, focusing instead on rewrapping clean gauze around his hands. 

“Let me.” Wulfwryn settled down next to him, holding her hands out expectedly. Her voice was still raw and ragged after all the smoke and vapors she’d inhaled running around the orcish work camp, among worse things her overseer had forced her to endure. 

“Raenor.” she said, firmly grabbing his attention. With a shaky breath he held out his hands and Wulfwryn began the process of unwrapping the first gauze he’d attempted. After Moria, coupled now with Orthanc, his hands shook worse than before, his joints aching at the repetitive motion. A healer should be able to wrap his own wounds, but Wulfwryn’s touch grounded him in a way caring for his own hurts didn’t. 

His love’s face was grave as she wrapped his hands and forearms, her eyes darting across the healing red gashes where he’d been chained and other spots where harsh hands had taken joy in meeting his flesh. Whether it had been worse than under Moria, he would not and could not consider. 

He remembered very little of their time beneath Orthanc, only snippets in a dark, earthy cell and other times in the cold halls of the tower, chained beside the White Wizard like a creature on display. In his hazy memories, the most vivid was that of murderous rage, an unknown and sickly cold feeling, when Wulfwryn’s overseer had slammed her to the ground solely for speaking to him in elvish. 

Raenor squeezed his eyes closed, opening them when the pressure of Wulfwryn’s wrapping became tighter. He winced, flexing his fingers, and she paused. 

“You worry about me.” he said matter-of-factly, but not happily. He didn’t wish for her to worry about him. He’d caught the way her eyes strayed to him more frequently, assessing and gauging if they should press on. 

Wulfwryn’s eyes flicked to his face and she pressed her lips together. 

“Of course I worry about you.” she said. “I worry about your healing progress, that our travels won’t hinder that. Your progress under the golden leaves of Lorien…I fear it’s been reversed entirely.” 

She stumbled over her words, sidestepping what exactly had reversed his progress.  Raenor could not escape the thoughts of what happened beneath Orthanc; Wulfwryn was unable to speak it aloud at all. 

When they’d escaped the deep halls of the dwarves he noticed she’d begun to monitor more carefully.  Since they’d entered the Gap of Rohan, her presence had turned into that of a fretful shadow. It was beginning to take a toll on her; their bedroll at night was more often than not empty as she sat unnecessary watches, pacing the perimeter of their camp into the wee hours of the morning. 

He reached up his free hand to cup her jaw, bringing her hollow and tired eyes to his. Her nostrils flared in the way they always did when she fought back emotion. 

“I know you better than that, meldanya, than to believe you when you tell me it is simply my injuries you worry about. Something is eating you alive.” 

Wulfwryn cradled his hand against her jaw in her own, running her thumb lightly against the back of it. She opened her mouth, then closed it, again and again, fighting for what words she wanted to say as though they were stuck. 

“I never should have torn you from Rivendell.” she finally said haltingly, though the minced words were built upon layers and layers of guilt that Raenor had steadily peeled away though their conversations across their travels. 

He held the silence between them, brushing his thumb along her cheekbone. They both knew he’d left Rivendell not only on his own volition to take on the quest Elrond presented him, but also out of his own need to escape the sorrows his home held for him. Those words were just the easiest ones for Wulfwryn to fall back on, the same ones she used to break the dam of whatever truly was on her mind. 

Wulfwryn’s eyes went glassy and she tilted her head back, blinking at the ceiling of their tent. 

“Our journey has done nothing but cause you harm of late.” her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “I fear these last months have done nothing but break you.” 

In some ways it was true, Raenor ceded, his physical body and spirit had been permanently altered by the enemies they faced. Just as his mind had been altered forever by the fall of Edhelion centuries before. 

“I have persevered through many tragedies and harms.” he said softly, pressing for what was beneath yet another mental wall that Wulfwryn struggled against. 

She swallowed, pressing her cheek into Raenor’s hand and shutting her eyes tightly. 

”We have passed many elves in the Great River and before that travel for the Grey Havens for less than what you have endured. When will I push you so far, put you in such danger, that you too will be so desperate for escape as to depart these lands?” 

The words tumbled out of Wulfwryn in a rush and she gasped a tiny breath, as if they were a flooding torrent she’d been trying to hold back. She pressed her lips together until they paled, shoulders giving a telltale shake that belied the wetness gathering in the corners of her eyes. 

In the gaping silence Raenor left as she grasped for words, Wulfwryn opened her eyes to look at him. Her expression was pure devastation and he knew her well enough to know that whatever was going to well to the surface had been festering within her for a long while. 

“It is my hand, my sword, my body that is failing to keep you safe. Every time I fail to keep you out of the hands of the Enemy, I sour this world for you further.” 

He realized now just how many elves they’d spoken to in the course of their journey that lamented their oncoming departure from this world. How many had spoken as though this lifetime was a shadowed mockery of lives they’d lived before. And just how despairing that may seem to a mortal who lives but one short life. 

Though his other hand was half wrapped and the poultice would smear, he brought his other hand to Wulfwryn’s face and pulled their foreheads together, blocking out the world around them. Wulfwryn heaved a shuddering breath. 

“This world is not yet ruined for me, meldanya.” he assured. “These difficult times are but a fraction of the times ahead. I would not be so easily persuaded to leave you.” 

“I am not worried about you leaving me.” Wulfwryn argued, though there was a sorrowful lapse at the end of the sentence that did nothing to convince him otherwise. “I simply do not wish to see you snuffed out so completely.” 

He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “I will not be, I promise. I am far sturdier than you care to admit.” 

--

NOTE: if anyone would like further context for the events that transpired in Moria, my fic 'My World Is You' centers around those :)

[givemea-dam-break]

ermmmm and what if i wrote attack on titan fanfiction what then

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

We Last Forever: A Cottage in the South Downs

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand and the pair materialized seconds later on a grassy lane. The weather was pleasantly warm. A light breeze swept across the hills carrying the smell of the sea. It was quiet, save for the buzzing of bees and the crashing of waves somewhere in the distance.

In front of them stood a cottage. It was two stories with a thatched roof. Ivy crawled up the stone facade, rendering it nearly invisible from the road. The garden gate was rusted and paint peeled from the front door. The cottage looked abandoned and yet…

Crowley stepped towards the house and was suddenly overcome with the most curious sensation. He couldn’t quite describe it but whatever it was, it felt the opposite of spooky. 

“What’s this?” Crowley asked.

“A house.”

“I can see that. Whose house?”

Aziraphale twiddled with a pair of keys in his hands. “Um, mine. Technically.”

Crowley turned back to Aziraphale in surprise.

“I bought it a while ago,” Aziraphale explained. “I asked Agent Shadwell and Madame Tracey to keep an eye on it when I… when I left for Heaven.” 

Aziraphale stilled and looked to the ground. When he spoke again his voice was quieter; his expression pained.

“I wasn’t supposed to keep it. I was instructed to let go of all my earthly possessions upon my promotion,” the angel sneered at the word and Crowley instinctively wrapped his hand around Aziraphale’s. Crowley was only beginning to understand just how long it would take for each of them to heal from the hurt caused by Heaven, but they would heal in time; they had each other now. Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s hand gently and the tension in the angel’s shoulders lessened.

“But I didn’t get rid of it,” Aziraphale whispered. “I couldn’t because I, um… Well, I bought this house for us actually. I had always hoped we might live here one day.”

A loaded pause followed Aziraphale’s words and Crowley’s mind went blank. Aziraphale had bought this house for them? Why? How? When? His shock must have read clear on his face because Aziraphale hurriedly continued.

“Oh dear, please don’t misunderstand. We don’t have to live here. I just wanted to show you because I thought maybe– actually, goodness, what am I saying? This was far too presumptuous. I apologize. I’ll sell it. Let me grab the paperwork from inside and-”

“Is that a conservatory?” Crowley asked as his eyes caught sight of a glass structure beside the cottage.

“For your plants, yes.” Aziraphale blushed. “Would you… like to see it?”

Continue reading on AO3

[anicehomicidaltree]

Another fanfic!! Yay! Mathilde talks to Barney about what happened in episode 27

[yuesya]

update!

New chapter for zenith of stars is up!

Kidnapping segment comes to a close.

FFN | AO3

[vadlings]

the memories of the boy i’ve been (801 words) by vadlings

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ethan Frye & Jacob Frye, Evie Frye & Jacob Frye, Ethan Frye & Evie Frye & Jacob Frye Characters: Jacob Frye, Ethan Frye, Evie Frye Additional Tags: Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Bad Parenting, Family, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Jacob Frye Has ADHD

Summary:

Before Ethan, it had been just him, Evie, and their grandmother. Obviously they’d competed, but nothing like they did later on, when every word of praise to Evie and look of disapproval to Jacob felt like the driving force of the rift growing fast between them.

[musicoftheheart]

screaming and crying rn because what do you mean i almost finished writing the next chapter of hmt only for the document to NO LONGER OPEN??? please no, god no don’t do this to me right now

[spywhitney]

The trinkets on her windowsill rattled as her feet hit the ground repeatedly in an excited haze, a shamelessly wide smile removing a small chip off the harsh iceberg of her fears. This was it. Something that would go right.

Chapter 3 of my sydcarmy hurt/sydluca comfort fic is out.

[inkandpaperqwerty]

heeeeeeeeeck yeeeeeeeees i made it to 3k!!!!!!!!!!!! you guys are freaking awesome i love you