#and I mostly rotate whump in there so like

[windfighter]

Nobody:

Literally nobody:

Me, pressing a hand against my side to hide an injury: Takuya, can we... take a break?

My brain two seconds later: Oh fuck we're daydreaming out loud again

[staycalmandhugaclone]

Ode to Artists Pt 1

Part (1) of Ode to Artists, the next arc of Doc's Misadventures! If you're new, start at the beginning with Touch Starved!

Am I well past when I was supposed to finish my Bingo sheet? Yup. Am I still counting this one toward the "Bed" prompt? Also yup. I meant for this to just be a one-parter, but I just can't write those... so it'll be 2 or 3 parts of mostly (emphasis on mostly) fluff before we get into the next whump-tastic arcs I have planned. (Also, after my appointment today, the midwives say I could literally go anytime from tomorrow to 5 weeks from now, soooo if I vanish for a bit... well, you'll know why)

Warnings: This arc will mostly be fluffy stuff, but there will be references to past torture here and there. This one has some flashbacks, profanity, and loads of emotions like guilt, fear, anger, and general angst, as well some brief mention of wanting to die (not SI - with relation to ending torture), and I supposed some dependency

WC: 3,405

Rough Mando'a translation:

hut’uunla chakaaryc - coward and a rotten, low-life, (considered worst possible insult)

When we’re children and we first learn that the sky is endless, when we’re told of the countless lives beyond that stunning blue and the thousands of planets that we’ll never visit; when we’re first taught that the impossibly distant stars who’s lights danced in the darkness of night had died and been reborn long before we’d ever glimpsed them, and we discover just how small we are amidst an existence that would live on unchanged in spite of our hopes and dreams and fears, unmoved by our short lives and inevitable deaths; when we’re children and these harsh truths rob us of that innocent sense of invulnerability and infinite potential innate in the brilliance of youth, there is a wound that is dealt in the wake of that revelation regardless if the words are spoken with unapologetic honesty or gentle wonder, and those wounds may scar or they may fester, but they never fully fade.

I remembered when I learned how big the galaxy was. I didn’t feel that loss then. At the time, I’d felt inspired, enamored by the vast stretches of possibilities I’d never before considered and lightened beneath the new sense of freedom granted by those possibilities, but I felt those scars now.

Used bandages lay forgotten in small piles atop the medbay counter as my eyes stared blindly at the still pink bands encircling my wrists, fingertips just whispering over the newly knit skin. The freshly formed nerves shuddered beneath that delicate touch, unaccustomed, yet, to even gentle sensation. I hadn’t seen the damage wrought by how violently I’d thrashed against those restraints, not until after Comet had done his best to clean and sow them back together, and bacta gel had regrown most of what surely still dirtied a floor already coated with too much blood, but I could imagine it. For the scars to still shine so starkly against the unmarried flesh beside it, I didn’t doubt how near I’d come to severing tendon and exposing bone, and the simple fact that I could remember no sense of pain beyond the panic of drowning held its own morbid wonder.

It was as I stared unseeing at those scars, thoughts coming and going absent a moment’s true consideration, that I felt small. I’d never known fear could cut so deeply, that the body was capable of such terror, and yet I’d suffered beneath it for so long as the worlds around me continued in blissful ignorance. Children played as I screamed. New lovers relished the touch of another as I died. Stars were born as I begged for everything to end, and yet I now stood in the same room of the Marauder that I’d lived in for well over a year. The air still held the stale taste of too many rotations through the recyclers. The engines hummed with that same subtle rumble fading into the ambiance of the occasional beep of an alarm, and beyond the door, if I bothered to listen, I was sure I’d hear Wrecker’s boisterous voice or catch a sharp retort from Crosshair.

Even in that haze of wandering memories, my heart still leapt at the thought of him. He’d refused to let me so much as change my own bandages during the week we’d remained on the Negotiator. What arguments I’d tried to offer failed beneath the gentleness of his touch, the way his eyes hardened and his lithe body curled over mine. It didn’t feel possessive. It felt safe, and that was far too precious to refuse. Between those moments, however, I’d rarely seen him.

Only after noting his absence for several days did I learn that he kept vanishing to the training rooms, seeking anyone foolish enough or brave enough to spar and ensuring what minor injuries he sustained had been tended long before returning to my side. I wanted to talk to him about it but found myself unable to force the question past my lips, too worried that I already knew the answer to risk asking, because what could I say if he was fighting as a means of distracting himself from everything I wasn’t yet willing to speak of? If he felt driven to escape a helplessness I knew too well, a helplessness he only felt because of me? It had been something of a relief to get word of our latest assignment if only to break that routine.

With my wounds now all but healed and the lot of us en route to Alderaan, some semblance of normalcy was finally beginning to return. Friendly bickering again flowed between the brothers, free of that tension that had made my heart twist since Devaron, and no one shot away to hide the instant the medbay door opened or purposefully avoided eye contact if we were in the same room. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. That return to normalcy, however, brought with it a quiet I wished I could appreciate, but the thoughts it granted freedom to were ones that robbed me of breath and left me staggering amidst memories I couldn’t force back.

“Doc?” My attention snapped away from those lingering scars, chest hitching in a small gasp at the suddenness with which that daze fled me. Echo stood barely a handful of steps away, brows draw lightly together above eyes full of the beginnings of worry. I hadn’t noticed the hiss of the door opening or closing, hadn’t heard whatever initial greeting he’d offered as he entered. Had he asked me something? How long had he been speaking before falling silent at the realization that I wasn’t even aware of his presence?

“Sorry, Echo; guess I got a bit lost in thought.” I said softly with a gentle smile that did little to chase the concern from his gaze. “What did you say?” He hesitated a moment, jaw tensing, and I couldn’t help but fear I’d missed something vital in whatever words he’d spoken while my mind had floated absent intent.

“Just… wondered if you’d eaten yet? Figured I’d grab you something since I was headed there anyway.” My heart sank at the offer, certain that had nothing to do with why he’d really come here, but the tentative truce between us was still too delicate to strain beneath blunt questions. I turned my attention back to the counter, using the excuse of gathering the discarded cloth to hide the threat of disappointment from my gaze.

“Probably a good idea.” I sighed despite how unappealing one of those flavorless bars sounded. “I’m finished here, anyway, so I’ll come with you.” A stranger wouldn’t have noticed the tension steal through him, the delay preceding that forced smile. A close friend wouldn’t have hesitated to address them. I noticed and said nothing, caught in the lingering uncertainty of where we stood, terrified that I might push him away again with one poorly chosen word.

“Have you reviewed the mission brief, yet?” He asked, vying for some attempt at nonchalance as we started from the medbay. I nodded, still a bit confused by it. We were making a delivery to the governing body. Given the relatively safe location of the planet, using a squad with the immaculate record Hunter and his brothers boasted made little sense. Echo let out a small chuckle at my expression, and my heart leapt at the sound.

“I think Cody sent us on this one as a bit of a break.” I didn’t fight the look of surprise that drew my attention back to him, though the darkness that followed left me turning away just as quickly. He was babying us because of me… sending us as a glorified delivery service. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for the reprieve or enraged at how badly I needed just that: a respite from the unending horrors of this nightmare of a war.

“I don’t think he meant it as an insult.” At that, a quick huff escaped me, cheeks warming from how effortlessly he read me.

“I think he meant it as an olive branch more than anything.” I retorted, pleased to glimpse the smirk those words brought to his lips.

“Or an excuse to get Crosshair off his ship as soon as possible.” He mused, voice lowering as he leaned subtly closer to me, and I found myself biting back a string of laughter at his conspiratory tone.

I wasn’t surprised to find Wrecker in the small kitchette as we entered, a few empty wrappers already littering the table with a third already half eaten. His eyes lit up when he saw us.

“Did he tell you?!” The vibrant excitement in his voice was almost enough to make me hesitate, eyes flicking back to Echo for a moment.

“I’m going to guess not yet?” I replied, brow hitching expectantly. The arc didn’t bother even trying to explain before his brother jumped to his feet.

“They got this celebration tomorrow on Alderaan! Tech says they only do it every five years!” He purged the news in a loud, eager rush of glee that I was helpless against, lips instantly drawing up into a broad grin.

“Tomorrow? Are going to make it?” A quiet whisper of fear coiled in my chest, images of too many strange faces milling about overly pretentious floors as music danced through the air, but I refused to grant it purchase in the wake of Wrecker’s delight.

“Yup! Hunter even said we’d have the whole night to see it while the ship gets fueled up!”

“It’s outside,” Echo added softly, and I couldn’t quite meet his gaze despite how my body automatically shifted toward him, too aware of what prompted him to offer the gentle reassurance. “Up in the mountains.” Alderaan’s snowy peaks were renowned for their timeless beauty, and the knowledge that we wouldn’t be confined to some inescapable prison veiled in the guise of splendor and finery proved the perfect balm to the quickening of my heartbeat.

“We’ll have to bundle you up with a couple extra layers.” I didn’t doubt that he heard the gratitude warming my words as I finally found the strength to look at him, and the kindness in those eyes shown untainted by the distance that still haunted us.

“Pretty sure I’ll be thawing out the whole trip back regardless how many sets of blacks I put on.” He grumbled, but there was no heat to the complaint. I offered a sympathetic smile and bumped my shoulder lightly against his chest before treading further into the small room to retrieve some rations for us.

“Did Tech mention what all we might expect at this event?” I knew Wrecker would have seen through the subtleties of how Echo eased that fear from me; knew he’d likely understood the instant my gaze first turned away from him, just as I knew he understood the true reason behind my question, and I loved him for how readily he answered my unspoken plea for a distraction as he raptly described what he remembered of Tech’s earlier explanation: of the group of artists that had lived and died centuries prior, but who’s works of Alderaan’s beauty became so renowned throughout the galaxy as to alter the very fate of the planet, inspiring countless others to seek out those natural landscapes to witness that beauty for themselves. He spoke of the promise of endless venders offering unique food and drink and all manner of goods, and he drew no attention to why I sat so quietly beside him, why I failed to respond with my usual glee to his animated retelling, but he was not silent in the face of my stillness, powerful body shifting ever so subtly about mine, hand gentle in every brief touch that somehow never lasted too long, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but relief at his unspoken offer for a comfort that was so soft as to barely be noticeably beyond the unwavering sense of safety it granted me.

It was late. Offensively late. The medbay lay illuminated in the faint glow of a monitor I hadn’t been able to bring myself to turn off, knowing what darkness awaited me the instant I flicked that switch, what terrors lingered in the shadows vying for any excuse to strike. Crosshair had said nothing about it as he shifted atop my bed, groggily holding the blanket open with feigned impatience, but I couldn’t dismiss that flare of shame at yielding to that fear. The instant I settled into him, however, the warmth that enveloped me as he fit himself perfectly around my too tense form and let out that deep, quiet sigh of contentment robbed me of all thought beyond the feeling of his chest dancing with unhurried breaths against my back, the strength of his arms holding me with a covetous need, and I’d found myself drifting into a far kinder sleep that I had any right to hope for.

I loathed the unknown disturbance drawing me from that gentle slumber, jaw tensing beneath an attempt at denial that I might simply ignore whatever it was and slip back into that blessed nothingness. Crosshair lay perfectly limp against me, face tucked into my hair with that precious stillness of sleep. Resigned to a late-night visit to the privy, I reluctantly tried to slip away from him, laughter threatening to bubble past pursed lips at the tiny groan that escaped him as his arms tightened petulantly around me, but he showed no signs of waking as I finally managed to detangle myself from his embrace.

Footsteps as near to silent as I could manage, I tread carefully down the hall, tiptoeing past the bunkroom, though only Wrecker and Echo lay within, both far too lost to their own blissful sleep to note my movements. It wasn’t until I’d nearly reached the privy door that something on the very edge of perception left my blood running cold. I couldn’t say what it was, not yet, but my body seemed drawn toward it, wide eyes locked on the fore of the ship as my legs carried me forward despite the sudden urge to flee.

Even after some recognition began to note the sound of broken gasps amidst free-flowing water, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. There was a haunted sense of familiarity in the way I watched myself move through the ship; in the automated motions I didn’t have the presence of mind to even try to stop.

“…severe forms of torture.” There was a weight to that normally clinical voice; a dread that even he couldn’t fully suppress.

“Tech.” Hunter’s hushed voice barely registered as he turned sharply to face me, but I couldn’t focus on him. I hadn’t even noticed myself climb down the ladder into the cockpit.

“Who ordered the hit?!” I don’t remember when that man’s voice had filled with such anger.

“It’s rare for anyone to endure longer than a couple minutes… what she went through”

“Tech!” Hunter barked, finally ripping his brother’s attention from the audio clip. I didn’t see the look in his eyes as he followed Hunter’s gaze toward me.

“Just tell me who planted the kriffing bomb!”

“I don’t know!” It didn’t sound like my voice. It was enraged and terrified and ruined by hours of screaming. Hunter’s hand flared toward Tech, but he sat frozen – caught – as I approached on strides faltering beneath the tremble just beginning to steal through me.

“That’s krayt spit, and you kriffing know it! Who ordered the hit?!” Part of me wanted to be impressed at how clear the recording was, mind eager to detach from the rush of liquid that followed my every response, the way my lungs panicked and burned with the afterimage of that agony.

“Just kill me, you hut’uunla chakaaryc!” I’d heard Warthog say that once… even Wolffe had been taken aback, and only Sinker would tell me what it meant when I’d asked. That man surely had no idea what I’d called him, but the violent slap that tore from the speakers followed by the seemingly endless flood of water and desperate coughs left no uncertainty that he’d fathomed a guess.

“…Doc.” My hand was reaching out, senses dulled to all but the echoes of my nightmares screaming with such haunting clarity from the speakers, deaf to Hunter’s quiet call.

“Who was behind the attack?!”

“I don’t know!!” That voice was sobbing and screaming and so utterly broken.

My fingertips barely brushed the console before the recording stopped, but I could still hear it… the gush of water… I could feel it’s chill tear the warmth from my flesh; felt it flooding my mouth and nose… and I felt that undeniable, visceral fear of death creeping through me.

Hunter shifted hesitantly toward me, but I merely shook my head. The movement was so slight, I barely felt it, but it instantly left him frozen, shoulders sinking beneath emotions I was still far too raw to try to name.

Without a word, I stepped away from them, away from whatever apologies or questions or murmured reassurances might be festering atop their tongues, my eyes still staring blindly at the endless buttons and switches decorating the console, and when I turned away, when I began to leave in the same silence in which I’d arrived, neither could bring themselves to try calling out again.

Any other night, I would have cringed at the thought of waking him. I would have strained myself to slip back into his embrace as carefully as possible, breath held in my chest until I was sure my intrusion hadn’t robbed him of that empty sleep, but I could spare little thought toward such things. He was warm. And he was safe. And I didn’t bother to even slide beneath the blanket before pressing myself against him.

Crosshair’s torso swelled with a sharp inhale, brows drawing together with some mixture of annoyance and confusion, but then he went still. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, body curling into his as though I might hide from the memories still raging through my mind. He studied me for mere seconds before shifting in careful, unhurried movements, one arm slipping beneath me to wrap around my shoulders while he brought his other hand up to just whisper against my cheek, the unspoken question clear in that tender gesture.

Again, I felt my head give the slightest shake, unable to offer anything more. His thumb trailed the ridge of my cheekbone, touch featherlight, before letting his hand brush gently through my hair to rest against the back of my neck, holding me with just enough force for me to feel his strength, and a shuttered exhale escaped me that left us both clinging just that much harder to each other.

He didn’t speak throughout the night, but the occasional dance of his fingers or touch of his lips in something too gentle to be called a kiss reassured me that he was still awake, still holding me until that tension began to slip away. I don’t know how long we laid there, letting the minutes and hours pass in that perfect quiet, but when I finally heard the steady thrum of his heartbeat over those horrid screams, I wanted to sob. I wanted to shout beneath the disdain I felt toward myself and the apologies I didn’t have the strength to voice. I wanted to tell him that he could leave; that I wouldn’t blame him for needing to separate himself from the mess I’d become, but I couldn’t stop my grasp from tightening around his shirt at the very thought, and when he responded without hesitation, when his arms nearly crushed me against him, I abandoned even the memory of fear that he’d want me to grant him that escape.

In the morning, I’d thank him. In the morning, I’d try to offer some manner of an explanation that he was long past due, but for what few hours still remained in that façade of night that meant nothing in the emptiness of space, I let myself give in to the simple need for his presence and the quiet it granted me. I let myself be weak that I might find solace in his strength, and I let myself love him with every atom of my being for the selflessness of his comfort.

Next Chapter

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[whumpycries]

One word prompt: whimpering

i am. so sorry. this is so late but hdskljfsd dsklj.

ANYWAY. this update brought to you by yours truly who dealt with back and knee pain for 4 days straight proceeding a thing where i'd had to kneel for about 25 mins.

anyway. prev part here.

cw: kneeling, slavery whump, kinda dehumanisation associated with slavery/loss of autonomy, i guess?

Rowan had been counting the minutes very diligently. 

All two of them.

“You know the amount of time you stay on your knees is exactly the amount of time I’ll take you outside for, don’t you?” 

“I know,” August snapped, before wincing and dropping his head. 

August knelt beside the chair Rowan was sitting on, pretending to read a book even as he kept his attention firmly on the squirming prince. Not even a full minute before he’d grown uncomfortable. He was on a rug. He tried to subtly lean his weight against the chair, but Rowan reached down to tug at his hair. 

He was gentle, of course. August knew resistance would mean the entire outing would be cancelled. No need to use force where it wasn’t needed. 

August straightened up at the first touch, flinching a little. He was biting down on his lips, his face strained with concentration, and Rowan couldn’t quite suppress his smile at that. He was trying so very hard. 

At the three minute mark, August lifted himself off his heels and shifted a bit, wiggling his toes, before sitting back down with a grimace. 

At four minutes, he asked, “How long has it been?” 

Rowan didn’t even try to keep the humour in as he told him it’d been less than five minutes. He watched as August’s shoulders slumped and he exhaled loudly, a thin whine escaping him before he quickly smothered it. 

“Can I...” August spoke up after a few moments, “Can I at least bring my hands to my front?” He was holding onto his left wrist behind his back, rotating his shoulders a little bit. 

“The amount of time you spend kneeling with your hands on your front will be halved when adding to time spent outside,” Rowan informed him, watching August’ face crumple with a strange mix of despair and anger. 

“It’s not fair,” he said, a little petulantly, and then promptly shut his mouth, as though realising how petulant it had truly sounded. 

Rowan chuckled, “I’m not trying to be.” 

August shifted again, lifting himself up and leaning his weight mostly on one knee for a few seconds before shifting to the other, creating a sort of sideways rocking motion. Rowan let him; he was kind like that. And either way, August stilled after almost an entire minute of that, slumping in place and putting his weight back onto his heels. 

Another minute passed before August started whimpering. Very low, small sounds, that he was very clearly trying not to make as his face screwed itself up with anger and pain. Then he started grinding his teeth, loud enough that Rowan couldn’t ignore the sound at all, and he reached down to flick August’s forehead. 

August looked at Rowan with such wide affronted eyes that Rowan’s annoyance at the teeth grinding evaporated. “What?” he asked, “I can’t even make noise now?” 

“You can,” Rowan said, putting his hand on August’s jaw. He could feel how tense he was as he slowly caressed it, “But from what I know, humans can’t regrow teeth after a certain age. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t grind yours to dust, as I assume you’ve outgrown the age where you could have gotten a new set if you damaged your current ones.” 

After a few slow blinks, where it looked like August couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he jerked his head away from Rowan’s touch, muttering, “What do you care?” 

“Why, of course I care, darling,” Rowan said, imbuing as much cheer into his voice as he could, which was a lot, considering how delighted that question had made him, “You’re mine, which means your body’s mine, which means your teeth are mine. You’re not damaging yourself, are you? You’re damaging something that belongs to me.” 

August stared at him for a moment, his eyes bright with tears, before he looked away, brought his hands out front, and almost flung himself across the rug, rolling over onto his back and kicking out his legs furiously. “I can’t do this, I can’t I can’t I can’t— don’t take me outside, I don’t care–” he said, words rushing into each other as he kept kicking his legs, probably trying to get feeling back in them. The chain around his ankle clinked and jingled at the movements.  

After a few moments he went limp, staring blankly up at the ceiling. 

“Well,” Rowan said, shutting his book and keeping it down onto the table beside him, “That was about ten minutes. Shall we?” 

--

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[syncopein3d]

Cheap Shot: A Friendly Review

Introduction and Format Explanation:

I've just finished reading Cheap Shot by @snaillamp. In the communities where I spend most of my time here on Tumblr, I see occasional recommendations but nothing I would call a review, so I thought I'd go into a little more detail about why I enjoy stories I read. This is my second friendly review after Smoke, Salt and Asbestos, and this story is in a very different genre from that one.

The reason I think a positive review might be useful to my audience is that, when people praise a story, they seldom give enough detail for me to know as a reader if I will also want to read it. These are stories I liked personally, and this means that reviews will mostly be of hurt/comfort stories with happy or at least ambiguous endings.

Ambiguous here means characters may part, or may have dangling plot threads for later, but they have survived and are in some way better or recovering.

This doesn't mean I disliked everything I didn't review; I read a lot of stories and can't review them all. This is just for stories that are completed according to the author (something of a rare category already) and that I thought deserved special mention.

Another reason is that the Tumblr writing format is more akin to the magazine serials of yesteryear than a novel. That's less applicable in the present case, because this is more of a traditional short story format and is reasonably complete in itself, even if there are other stories with these characters. I could imagine this as a Netflix or Amazon show. It would be inexpensive to produce and it has good characters, strong atmosphere, and intense emotions, and those are all good things from the point of view of producing a streaming show.

I'll attempt some light analysis, but I won't ask authors if I'm right about their intent first, so you only get my reader impressions on it. As such, I might be wrong about some or all of how I describe a story and its lore. I don't insist on death of the author once a review is up, so authors are welcome and encouraged to comment!

Summary:

Cody, a doctor in a small Canadian town, is injured in a way that kicks off a downward spiral in his physical and mental health.

Whump Vibes:

The reason I chose to review this story is that the vibes are simply immaculate. The author is so fantastic at building mood that I read the whole thing, even though real world stories aren’t usually my cup of tea.

If you want to wallow in that feeling of knowing you're making yourself worse but feeling helpless to change it, of well-meaning friends who don’t get it, of not quite fitting wherever you are, this is perfect for that. Cody knows on some level that he's doing it to himself, but he still can't help it. He's even alienated from chemical solutions to the problem - weed makes him nauseated, he doesn't really seem to like drinking, and a lot of anesthetics also make him sick. On a personal note, I liked seeing a fictional character with problems similar to mine about recreationals, since that's very rare to see in print.

If you’re also a loss of consciousness fan, as I am, there’s a fair amount of that scattered throughout, too, not just the inciting incident. There's a vomiting scene near the end that's fairly graphic, so emetophobes may want to skip this one, since it's an important part of the story's climax.

There are rotating caretakers as different people in this small close-knit community circulate in and out of Cody's life, helping where they can before they go back to their own friends, relationships, and lives. There are moments of comfort, but no catharsis. There are moments of connection, but nothing lasting. This is not just a way to introduce us to more of the cast, it's also a way to emphasize Cody's isolation.

Characters and Setting:

Here we come to the other reason for this review. I grew up in a dry town in Eastern Washington, not a damp and temperate Canadian town, but the feeling of rural inertia, of gradual slow degeneration, is the same: the one storefront that's always empty, the ancient public art fading on walls, the community's gradual drain of youth and talent as people who can get out, do.

This is a fantastic example of an author not using a modern setting to avoid worldbuilding, but instead using that base to build a rich, detailed world. There's nothing supernatural here, but everything feels haunted in a very rural gothic way.

Theme (Mild Spoilers):

I would say the principal theme here is decay. Cody's town decays, his hygiene decays, his physical condition decays as he fails to take care of himself and his injury. His relationships remain, but they are stagnant, the same as they've always been. The accident that opens the story is an example of Cody's attempt to find connection with other people causing him real and lasting pain. Connections form around him, even with his help and approval, but they don't include him.

The ending doesn't bring cleansing and relief. It hints at those things, but we leave Cody worse off than we found him. I sat with this for a while before I came to that conclusion, wondering why I felt disturbed when the characters' tone was always light and practical. This story is actually very dark. The characters just don't necessarily find that surprising or unusual. They live in the same world Cody lives in, and this is a mundane awfulness that doesn't really even provoke horror for them, just mild concern and practical action. They get the thing done and move on. Will Cody actually get better? Maybe. It's definitely not certain.

Final Comments and Recommendation:

I enjoyed this story, but I enjoyed it as horror, a new experience for me with whump content. It's not the horror of blood and gore, which you can easily find around here, including in what I write myself. Nobody dies or even gets permanently maimed. It's a horror of emotional detachment, spiraling inward, creeping dread. It held my attention because of the sheer strength of atmosphere, even though it's a very different approach from other whump stories I've read.

If you're ready for something deeper and darker, for some meaty personal drama and character study with your whump tropes, this is absolutely for you! Go read it right now!

[voidwhump]

yea what i was talking about to whither-wander-whump was Dragonlance, like you guessed. Dragonlance Legends specifically (so, in case you're not sure which one that was, the premise is basically that the mage Raistlin wants to become a god, his twin brother Caramon needs to do a bunch of character development and stop being emotionally dependent on Raistlin, and the cleric Crysania wants to redeem Raistlin and Raistlin uses that to manipulate her to help himself). I've just been having brainrot abt it, like Dragonlance isn't even really a main fandom for me - honestly I haven't even really looked into what sort of a fandom exists for it, i've just been. you know. having brainrot abt it and suffering silently on my own, lmao. (I haven't even read that much of the franchise, and I'm further hindered by the fact that my local library mostly only has translated copies which I refuse to touch because the one time I read one of the books translated, the translation quality was awful. So anyway for now all I've read is Chronicles, Legends, and the first book of Destinies.)

Anyway for some reason my brain has decided it's fun to poke at Caramon a little bit (literally this wasn't a choice my brain just went okay we're rotating him now, without asking my opinion, you know how it is sometimes) and i've been toying with some "okay no way in hell he's actually just fine at the end of the story, he's gotta be traumatized as fuck after all that, what if I make him break down a lil bit over everything and then throw in some comfort" kinda thing. Y'know, a good old-fashioned aftermath angst / hurt/comfort fic. And I just feel like a few extra scars and an injury that didn't really heal properly or some lil things like that could be fun to add into the mix. anyway yea idk i'll probably never actually write it anyway cuz my brain is stupid

(also i ended up even reading the books in literally the stupidest weirdest most roundabout "how the fuck did you even manage that" way, it's ridiculous, but that's beside the point)

Cool! Like I said, dragonlance has never been my main focus, but I definitely read at least the first book of chronicles and I remember Raistlin but not his twin for some reason. It might be because I read it somewhere between 8 and 11 years ago lmao.

If you do actually get words on paper, the two routes I primarily see in fanfic in D&D universes to keep cannon injuries around are 1. removing magical healing that happened in cannon or 2. making a unique injury harder to heal/fully recover from than was established in cannon. For injuries invented for the fanfic writers just exclude clerics and include limited healing potions it seems.

I just now thought of a secret third option that could be a vibe: phantom pain from an injury that was healed but for whatever reason that character's brain didn't catch on. Maintains cannon injury -> magical healing status but fits nicely with emotional stress.

Anyway fucking mood on not being able to find copies of these older series, I've been trying to hook myself up with legend of drizzt ebooks for a while but Hoopla straight up removed the prequel trilogy at some point and libby's options from my branch are sporadic at best and always checked out. If I'm buying books I want physical copies and I do NOT have the space for that lol. Or the funds really.

[brionysea]

current bnb status? like how many chapters r done / close to being done and what are some scenes ur working on now ? :3

hi hello!!! i was about halfway through drafting part 3 (i don't want to say chapter - they're Lengthy parts, there would be about 5 chapter breaks within each part if i was doing chapters) before i got distracted by the realisation that I Can't Write Whump. how do people write whump? i came here for the emotions and the trauma processing and now i have to write a character getting physically pretzled? rude

anyway, as of right now the plan is... 7, 8 parts? somewhere around there. part 1 is about 95% done (i'll probably get on that last 5% next time i pick up writing bnb again - dustin is being The Brain Cell Friend and he will not wait long); part 2 is like, 50% done, but that's mostly because writing a character realising their own mortality within the context of a pre-determined scene from the show is difficult and feels repetitive and stale in contrast to being able to just Make Stuff Up; everything beyond that is pretty mentally laid out by now but it's a bit haphazardly existent, writing-wise, and it's certainly not edited. max gets a speech at the end that makes me cry though. i have to break from the perspective character (mike) (he's a bit busy Antagonising The Antagonist at the time) (he does that a lot, it's concerning. where are the survival instincts? is he not paying attention to the moral of the story? it's that running is okay, mike! that's how you survive in stranger things!!!) to pull that off but i don't even care, it's so worth it

as far as scenes that are currently In Focus in my brain:

there's the dustin thing i mentioned. mike gets to catch him up on the Mike (And El) Are Being Weird part of season 3 that he missed out on in real time via distraction by russian conspiracy theories, which is always fun because dustin tends to listen when mike talks and he's been pretty distinctly kept separate from any and all Mike Is Being Weird parts of the show for a long while. because he is too smart and would figure out that that's Important, actually. writing what (if anything) he would do about that is going to be fun, because i wasn't really thinking about him before but now that he's here he will not be ignored. dustin also takes the time to battle mike's anxiety with flawless logic and wins, because dustin is amazing. i really love dustin and the lack of dustin&mike interactions is criminal

the other part that's currently in rotation, which i haven't actually gotten around to writing yet because of the pretzling (i won't provide details or context, it helps with the immersion :)), is max and mike being friends. aka the point of this whole endeavour if i'm being honest. they can allow themselves to be suicidal, that's fine, but if their friend tries it? right in front of them? tries to die right in front of them where they can see??? what an idiot. what a stupid idiot who needs to be saved from their own idiocy right away. get hugged, idiot. don't die. (<- if i'm being even more honest, THAT'S the point. teen suicide allegories vs the power of friendship. get friendshipped, idiot) (is this mostly me being bitter over the optics of Suicidal Teen Max Mayfield dying seconds after she realised she wanted to Live, Actually? maybe so. i hate that trope, even if in this case it's temporary death that does actually work for the allegory. let traumatised characters recover)

one thing i've noticed is that i have this inclination to try and make the wheeler family better? ted is a bad father, that's easy to roll with, he sucks, but i think about nancy and my brain is like Make Her A Good Sister (especially when she's good at solving puzzles and mike is very much a puzzle right now, but that's the case in the show too and she still Doesn't Really Care), or i try to write karen and my brain is like Make Her A Good Mother, which... she's trying, at least, but it's. it's quite hard to find that balance of well-meaning and still-doing-damage. because i know they're not a good family to mike but apparently my subconscious disagrees with that on principle and thinks he deserves one, established characterisation and relationship dynamics be damned, and that's just !! it's annoying!!!! i'm trying to do an accurate character study here, which includes the Not Fantastic family dynamics!!!!!! wanting to give mike wheeler good things and accurately writing about mike wheeler's life are not easily compatible goals and it's very irritating

anyway. this last part will probably mean nothing (yet), but i keep being tempted to finish and publish the first part even knowing that that would kill my motivation to actually finish writing the rest of the story (don't ask, the demand-supply part of my brain is broken), just so that people can see the bedroom window scene. i am So Proud of the bedroom window scene it's unbelievable

[seldomscilence16]

Whumptober day 31:

"I thought that I was getting better."

Emptiness | setbacks | "Take it easy."

Fandom: Camp Cretaceous

Prompts: vaguely all

Short and sweet with a hint of Whump. Rewatched the last episode and was like 'damn tv 7 my ass' for the millionth time. Anywho, a short piece on how trauma bonded kids would not just return to normal the minute they return to their loved ones. I think it probably took them awhile to get to the time skip point in which they were. I may rewatch and do some rewrites or missing moments or added moments lol. This show was just too good.

TW for Panic attack (vaguely) and thoughts of death (mostly just near death experiences they faced, but also a little idealization in there.)

…

Darius doesnt like making assumptions about his friends. The island showed him exactly what damage that could do- even when he hadnt meant to, hadnt known he had been, but it was no excuse- he made a promise to himself to treat them right. His only friends.

So when his nightmares come back with a vengance, he doesnt breathe a word. They all went through hell and back on those Islands, they were all slowly settling back into their lives, they practically lived at eachothers houses- rotating through them because between their parents and themselves, they need the ability to verify the safety of eachother- but Darius sees them adjusting, trying to take back their previous lives with the new knowledge they have. And Darius had been right along with them, writing about their experiences and the lessons learned-

But now here he was.

He awoke quietly, far to use to the need of stealth and the light sleepers around him, he could still feel the hot wet breath of death encompassing. Its hard with a trembling body, but he manages to make it around the other sleeping teens and to the bathroom down the hall. They're at Yaz's house this time around, her mother's room on the second floor while they reside in the basement so hes not worried about her hearing him.

He slides down the wall as soon as he closes the door, theres soft moonlight coming from a small window above the shower, but the room remains mostly shadows. Theres cant be light, it will attract-

No. There could be. He just has to stand and hit the switch, because there is power here and no dinosaurs. He stares blankly at the cabinets instead, what use would light do him anyway? He was just gonna sit here like a lump anyway. He didnt need any light other than the moon, shining off tile, while he sits doing nothing. There is nothing productive to do now, no planning or night watch, no fighting bad guys or identifying dinosaur noises. Just his own breathing as a dream that mixed reality and his worst fears, plays over and over in his mind.

He had made so many mistakes.

He can think of so many instances where something he did had put one of his friends in danger. Things that had them almost dieing, heck Sammy practically had! And Ben, and Brooklyn, and Yaz and Kenji and Doctor Mae and-

And so many people had died.

Ones perfectly fine killing kids.

And others… who had just come to a park to have fun.

He had come so close multiple times too, but… if he had died instead of one of the others than, would that have been so bad?

Kenji rolls over, eyes squinting open, expecting to see the familiar form of his sleeping brother, the empty space that meets him instead has his heart rate spiking and his breath catching. He sits up- too quickly, it startles everyone else, but Darius is GONE- eyes tracking the entire room before he's reminded his brain of the fact they are NOT on the Islands. Darius hasnt been eaten by dinosaurs, but the panic still lingers that they CANT FIND HIM.

"Maybe… he just went to the bathroom?" Sammy offers, although shes already starting to stand.

"The lights off." Yaz is already standing at the hallway, "Doors closed though."

Kenji ventures forward first. Brooklyn close behind, and the others just behind her.

He knocks lightly, frowning further at the lack of response, he glances behind him and gets several nods, opens the door slightly. As expected, it's dark inside, the moon's glow barely illuminates the figure against the wall.

Darius doesn't react to his presence, his stare is blank, body motionless except for the slightest breath. It's terrifying to see such an emptiness in usually such bright eyes. There's raised red marks on his hand, wet and crusting with blood, Kenji's lips purse sadly. Swallowing thickly, he reaches out a careful hand, touches his knee lightly, expecting the flinch,

"Take it easy." He says softly, "You're safe."

It takes several moments, all of them crowded together on the floor of the bathroom- Ben actually sitting in the tub to make more space- allowing Darius the time he needs to come back to them. When he finally makes eye contact, it's hesitant, as if waiting for something.

"Hey bud, how you feelin?" Kenji's voice is gentle, nothing extra in his voice, his eyes hold a worry to them- they all do- but no judgment or anger.

Darius wants to tell them he's fine. That he's sorry. That it's nothing and they can go back to sleep. That everything is proceeding forward as it's supposed to. He opens his mouth to say just that,

"I thought that I was getting better."

That is not what he wanted to say. Seriously brain what the heck?? He can't be bringing them down like this-

"Hey, you are, we all are Darius. Setbacks are normal, and together we can make sure they don't last long." Brooklyn's soft voice breaks his thoughts, and his head snaps up to stare at her.

"You want to know my first thought when I couldn't find you?" Kenji asks, drawing his attention next, the curious look has the corners of his mouth twitching up before they fall again, "I thought you might of been eaten, or being chased, I-" he swallows the emotion, blinking back the wetness in his eyes, Darius reaches out and takes his hand.

"Sorry." And he means it, puts as much emotion as he can into the word, directing it at the room at large.

They were all healing. They all had moments of weakness. But they were a team, they had each other's backs, and for every step backwards, someone would be there to pull you forward again.

[fun-mad-ochouse]

Hi lol

You may know me from my main blog! If not, that's okay. I have been a creator (writer and artist) and OC enthusiast for roughly 8 years. I have a 'meet the artist' thing, but technically it's outdated (I am older now, the art is older and I look slightly different) so you can have my sona instead!

Its a puppet named Morgan. (It/it's and it/he pronouns!)

((Link to the picrew:

Morgan speaks through that parrot, named Bestie, and bc I have multiple other sonas, Morgan is kinda like the main one, has all the others inside of itself! He's got lore of his own, so he technically can and probably will be included in OC stuff here.

Speaking of OC stuff,

I have a kind of ludicrous number of OCs, who rotate and take turns consuming my attention. You can ask about ANY OC at ANY time, but I do have a few favorite favorites who I will list below, and the blog description will be updated to include whoever is on my mind at the current present!

Consistent Favorite Faves:

Jesse

Peek

Marvin

Friday

Robin

Reaper

Anything involving these guys will all have the tag '#top 6'. If the list ever changes, it'll stay consistent! As for other tags:

Genres:

'#whump' this will be anything dark or torturous, often involving physical or psychological abuse. If this isn't something you want to see as a whole, block that tag, but I'll put content warnings on specific subjects as well. Always feel free to ask me to tag something if you feel like I missed it! (Keep in mind that I don't have to say yes. I probably will, but I don't HAVE to.)

'#adventure' this covers journeys mostly. Characters going from one place to another to accomplish something and probably learning a thing or two along the way.

'#fluff' cotton candy shit. Gonna be honest you'll probably never see this from me (/hj), I'm not very good at being NICE to my characters. Encouragement is welcome. 💀

'#scifi' easy enough, anything involving futuristic tech, dystopian themes, etc...pretty self explanatory tbh. (Jesse is going to hog this tag /silly)

'#fantasy' also p easy. Backwards instead of forwards in time. Mythical creatures and magic being more prevalent than technology. I surprisingly don't use this a lot.

'#modern magic' I don't think I have a single world without magic, this is gonna be anything set in a modern era with whatever fantasy twist I've applied.

'#multiverse' this covers a LOT of my stories, I work with and within the multiverse a LOT and the lore behind it all is as much my pride and joy as any OC. I will scream for hours about it, please feel free to be curious! It'll come up a lot. ;D

'#nsft' OC stuff that's uhhh 18+. Lol.

Subjects:

'#oc lore' information that is specific to characters and how they respond to their environment!

'#worldbuilding' information that is specific to location (universe, country, city, street, house, etc) and the environment the characters are responding to!

'#story lore' information that is specific to character journeys and, y'know, stories.

'#magic lore' technically this could go under worldbuilding, but a lot of my worlds borrow ideas from each other, and I can talk about magic so much alone that it deserves its own tag!

Post Content:

'#oc game' I'll put this tag on any post I reblog with the intention of talking about OCs. Ask games for others to interact with, but also those "reblog with the OC that...." type things!

'#answered' asks I answer about my characters! Asks about my personal life outside of OCs should be directed to my main, by the by, please and thanks. Asks answered here are going to be solely about characters :]

'#ic' in character responses to asks or posts! These are going to be as frequent as I can manage /lh

'#ooc' out of character responses to asks or posts, or just rambling about OCs.... will probably end up being the majority of my content lol

'#sona stuff' the inclusion of OCs that are also me, lol

'#not mine' the inclusion of other people's OCs-!

'#art' I draw sometimes!! Really hoping to start posting art here, haven't done that on Tumblr in a good several years.

'#writing' same deal as with art, self explanatory really-

'#memes' this will include incorrect quotes, filled out meme templates, some shitpost art, all the sillies!

'#tag updates' for when I add any tags to this post! Mostly for the purpose of keeping track of that.

'#other' general tag for "no existing tag really fits rn so have this". Hopefully this will be sparsely used.

Ho boy, this is getting long.

Last little things you should know about me, boundaries and a DNI.

- I'm an adult

- I love to rp

- I'm in many fandoms, mostly BATIM (for years and years and years now)

- my favorite number is 6

- Boundaries are really no discourse and be respectful lol

- dni is just pro contact paraphiles, radqueer and transid, and other general creeps. I don't give a fuck what you do in your personal life, I don't condone anything that harms other people though! This is a fun space, keep it fun.

That all said:

Enjoy your stay!! Feel free to interact, I don't bite :D

[just-horrible-things]

‘Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Late Arc 2, Ariadne and Alex living together

Missing Taryn [ First | Prev | Next ]

Alex comes home to find Ariadne sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by the contents of the undersink cabinet, trying to unblock the drain with a bent coat hanger. She’s disassembled the trap and as many of the pipes as she can. Half the pieces are in the sink above, the other half balanced on the baking tray that’s catching the filthy water underneath.

“Heya,” Alex calls as he closes the door behind himself. “Hey,” Ariadne calls back.

She hears him take his coat off and go to the bathroom, then he comes into the kitchen and stops in surprise at the mess arrayed around Ari where she sits with her sleeves rolled up, arms streaked with black-green drain slime, up to her elbows in the sink’s guts.

“What’s up?” he asks. “The sink’s not been draining right.” He can hardly have failed to notice. “We let too much pasta and shit go down it, probably. I put drain cleaner down it yesterday but… it didn’t work. So now I’m trying this. The blockage is a pretty long way down and I’m having trouble reaching it.” She shrugs. “But I think it’s working. Slowly.”

“... can I get some water? I was going to make coffee.” “Sure. Just try not to let it go down the plughole, or it’ll land on me.” She leans out of the way to let Alex fill the kettle, then resumes threading the coat hanger back into the pipe to fish for another blob of goo.

There isn’t a lot of space in the kitchen for two people, even without an obstacle course of cleaning supplies covering the floor, but Alex finds a spot to lean against the counter and watch Ari work.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Ariadne almost laughs. It just seems like common sense – drain’s blocked, you stick something down and unblock it. But Alex just wilts if he thinks she’s laughing at him. “My mum could fix just about anything,” she says. “I guess I got it from her.”

The stove hisses gently. Ari glances up, and catches Alex with a strange look on his face – thoughtful and perhaps a little puzzled.

“You don’t talk about your family much,” he says. Neither do you, Ari thinks. Instead she says, "The apartment I grew up in was…. well, bigger than this, but not much bigger. The kitchen was a bit wider, probably not any longer, we had a second bedroom… Okay, a bit bigger. But it felt pretty cramped with four kids in."

"Things were always breaking, probably because kids don't treat stuff gently. The landlord didn't give a shit, and mum couldn't afford to call a guy in because she couldn’t work full time what with looking after us."

She's not sure where dad's money went, thinking about it. Alcohol, perhaps. They didn't talk about it. 

"So she'd get out a screwdriver or whatever, get one of the older kids to hold things for her, and she’d do it herself. She used to say, if you see something broken, you fix it. So that’s what I grew up doing."

Alex is quiet. Ari wrinkles her nose, rotating her bent wire and wiggling it back and forth to try and get the hook on the end to catch on the blockage instead of just poking uselessly at it. Behind her, the kettle starts to whistle. “Do you want coffee?” Alex asks. “Always.” He fills the press.

Finally the hook catches, and Ari is able to coax another disgusting glob up the pipe. She deposits it on the baking tray with the others. It’s mostly hair. How enough hair gets down the kitchen sink to form a major structural component of a blockage… must be one of life’s great mysteries. 

The smell of coffee starts to cover the drain stink.

“What about your folks?” Ariadne asks, as she starts to thread the wire back in once again. On the edge of her vision, she sees Alex shake his head. “It was just me and my sister,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He hums a little non-committal hum in acknowledgement.

She’s almost done here, she thinks. It’s hard to visualize what she’s touching with the wire, but she wiggles it around as far as she can, and she can’t feel it catch. She’d like to be able to put some water down it and see if it flows, but she’d have to reassemble all the pipes first.

“D’you… want your coffee down there?” Alex’s voice has turned brittle. Ari looks up. “No,” she says, “I’ll come get it in a minute, I’m filthy. … are you okay?” Alex looks down and away. “I miss her.” He says it like a guilty admission. “Oh, Alex. I’m sorry.” “No, I’m sorry. After what she did I shouldn’t be–” “Of course you miss her. She’s your sister. I’m not gonna get offended.” 

Ari sits back on her heels to look up at him. She almost puts her hands in her lap, then thinks better of it.

“She must seem like a monster to you,” he says. Ari tugs at her lip with her teeth, picking her words carefully. “I’m not her biggest fan,” she ventures. “But… she had a good reason to hurt me.” “No,” Alex says firmly. “Revenge isn’t a good reason.” “Okay. What I mean is… she had an understandable reason. I’m not… I don’t think I get to decide she’s a monster.”

Alex sniffs a little. “I thought you’d hate me for still loving her,” he confesses. “Definitely not,” she says. “Not even a little bit.”

He picks up his mug, then puts it down again awkwardly.

“... can I have a hug?” Ari grimaces, and shows him her hands. “You really don’t want a hug right this second,” she says. “I stink. Give me a minute to wash up, then yes.” “... What about the drain?” “The drain can wait. It won’t mind, it doesn’t have feelings.” He smiles a little bit at that. “I’m nearly done anyway.”

Ari washes up in the bathroom, soaping all the way up her arms. She scrubs, and rinses, and soaps up and scrubs again before she’s sure the smell is gone. Looking in the mirror, she finds she’s managed to touch her face and leave a black smear right across one cheek. She wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“Still want that hug?” she asks, when she returns to Alex in the kitchen. Alex nods. Ari hugs him tight around his ribs. He hugs back, and she feels him relax against her. She relaxes too, suddenly aware of how tense she was.

“You could go back, you know,” she says. “If you’re homesick. You don’t have to live with me forever.” “But… what would you do?” “The same as I do now, more or less.” “You’d be alone.” “Yeah,” she says, pulling back a little to look at his face. “I’m a grown adult you know. I’d be okay.” He hums, and reluctantly lets her go.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he says. “This… is working. Besides, I don’t know if… I’d be welcome. After…” He doesn’t have to finish that thought. After he helped Ariadne. After he chose an enemy over his own people. “Okay,” she says. “That’s okay, you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. I just… want you to know that… if you want to, I won’t stop you leaving. I won’t be upset.” “Okay,” Alex agrees, voice still a little tight. “Oh, here  –” He picks up Ari’s mug, and puts it into her hands. “Oh.” She smiles. “Thank you.” She starts to take a sip, then wrinkles her nose. “Shall we go in the other room? It smells of drain in here.”

Settling onto the couch, Alex still looks mournful. Ariadne isn’t sure if she’s said too much, or not enough. She sits beside him, checking his reaction to be sure she’s welcome.

“Tell me about her?” she suggests cautiously. “Your sister. What’s she like, when she isn’t…” “Breaking people’s bones,” Alex says sourly at the same time as Ari finishes “-- mad.” He frowns, and Ariadne realizes what she’s asked. “You don’t have to,” she amends hurriedly, “you don’t have to tell me anything about her, forget I –” “No,” he cuts her off, “I know what you meant.”

He leans against her shoulder, and Ari shuts up to let him think.

“She was the only family I had,” he says. “She always defended me. Always. Ever since we were children.”

“She didn’t use to care about resisting the government, or fighting back. Neither of us did. We just wanted to survive. It was only after the Resistance rescued us from… from the hospital. After that, we wanted to help them help other people like us.”

“Tare didn’t want me to heal for the Resistance. She didn’t want me to ever have to heal anyone again, but… I wanted to. I didn’t want her to go off into danger fighting for them. But she wanted to. She was always brave. Fierce.”

Ariadne suppresses a shiver as goosebumps race across her skin.

“She had to be, to survive. To keep me safe.”

Everything Ari could say sounds trite in her head. You had a hard life. She cares a lot about you. I'm sorry. 

She rotates her mug in her hands, and wishes for the distraction of the drain. 

“I never thought,” Alex’s voice is quieter, sadder, “that she’d…” “I had it coming,” Ariadne says. “Ariadne,” Alex reproaches. “No,” she says, “hear me out. I know it was… wrong.” She says it, but it’s difficult to wrap her head around what could be right or wrong, under the circumstances. “I mean that… it followed, it was a consequence of what I did, what I was. I knew the risks. It was… a reaction, to my actions.”

Alex hmms sadly. His shoulder is growing warm against hers. “We don’t believe in that kind of torture. Not for any reason. Or at least… I don’t. I thought they, the Resistance, didn’t either. If I was wrong… then I don’t belong there, and I don’t want to.” Ariadne nods solemnly. “You don’t have to go back,” she affirms. “We’re doing fine, we can carry on like this.”

Alex meets her eyes, and nods, and wipes his nose, but something catches in his voice when he speaks. “I don’t hate her,” he confesses. “I – I miss her.” Carefully, checking his reaction, Ari puts her arm round him as he swallows back tears. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay to miss her, it’s okay to not hate her. Of course it is. I get it. It’s okay. It’s… messy, and complicated, and… we have time to work it out. As much time as you need.”

Alex settles against her. “I don’t know if that’s true,” he says, choked up. “She… it’s a dangerous way to live. What if she dies, and I’m not there?” “Then… perhaps you can send her a message. Or arrange to meet up with her, talk to her.”

Maybe you could convince her to stop being a terrorist and go off with you, thinks a part of her that clearly hasn’t gotten the memo yet about that no longer being her damn problem.

“It doesn't have to be all or nothing,” she says. "Think about it." Alex nods against her shoulder. "And… it's okay, with you? If I want to see her?" Ariadne swallows. She thought it was. That's why she said it. But she's suddenly very conscious of her pulse thudding in her skin. "I won't let her hurt you," Alex says. "I won't let her. She doesn't even have to know where you are." "Then… yeah," Ari agrees, "yeah, it's okay with me."

[Next]

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Look at me being a predictable bitch but I would love to see um. Jameson. Perhaps during his recovery and rebuilding trust with Jake

CW: Injured caretaker with whumpee, recovering whumpees, referenced pet whump and past captivity/torture

"You, uh. Have to rotate your shoulder a little more." Jameson's voice is harsh, hoarse and rough like always but maybe a little more of an edge than he means it to have. He sits on the steps outside, near Jake but nowhere near him at the same time. The sun is warm on his scarred arms, briefly bared to the sun as he wears only a loose t-shirt and jeans.

If he could stretch his legs out, he'd be able to wiggle his toes into the blades of grass that badly need mowed, but his knees aren't having any of that plan, so he just sits and feels concrete warm under the soles of his feet instead.

"Yeah, probably." The sling is off, and Jameson glances sideways to see the big guy opening and closing his left hand, again and again, stretching his arm out, pulling it back. He's shirtless, in just loose pajama pants. The California sunshine and heat is layering his skin with an easy tan. Jameson doesn't look at his chest to see if the hair there's as blond as the hair on his head.

Well, yes he does. But only for a second.

The scar where Jameson stabbed him still seems glaringly, brilliantly new, a red slash across formerly mostly-pristine skin, and he has to look away as soon as his eyes take it in. Guilt twists inside of him, guilt and the fear that he could do it again, maybe to someone who won't survive it, to Allyn or Nat or... anyone else.

Jake again, even.

"Listen," Jameson says, voice low. Inside, he can hear Antoni and Allyn talking, Antoni walking them through some kind of baking thing . It had been a bunch of words and measurements that made no sense to him, but Allyn seemed eager to learn, and Jameson just... just wanted to feel like part of the house again. "I'm-... I'm sorry-"

"You said that already." Jake rolls his shoulder again and winces a little, glancing at it like it personally offended him to still be injured. Maybe it does. "I told you, no apologies necessary, taking risks is part of the job."

"Yeah, you said that, but-"

"And I meant it."

"Right. I just. So, I asked Nat to bring me over to see Allyn, but... kind of. I wanted to talk to you." He hates how weak he sounds, how his voice kind of trembles a little, and he glares down at his throbbing knees as if they had caused his nervousness. As if in response, nerve pain sparks and tingles up and down his leg, making the right one jerk a little unconsciously. He hits his thigh with one fist, but it doesn't do any good. It never does.

"You wanted to talk to me?" Jake blinks and looks over at him, surprised. "What about?"

"Uh. I want to-... to move back into the house."

There's a beat of silence - something that isn't surprise on the big guy's face but isn't exactly joyful excitement either, and Jameson hurries to fill the gap. "I-I'm working on shit, I take like three meds a day now - the pain meds don't do shit but the ones for my brain work, I swear, I haven't-... I haven't had any, um, any fucking weird shit things in my head for a while, and I want to be closer to Allyn-"

Jake takes a deep breath. "Jameson-"

"I'm not going to hurt you again," Jameson says, as quickly as he can get the words out, almost breathless. His hands clench into fists, muscles knot up all the way up his spine, everything hurts from the stress of trying to say what he's been wanting to say for hours now, since he got here. "I'm not. I'm, I'm better. I won't hurt you."

There's another beat of silence. Jake presses his lips together, then exhales loudly. "It's not me I worry about, Jameson. I have to think about all my people here, not just one."

"I've-... I've never fucking touched anyone else-"

"I know, but you've come real close with Nova, and after what happened with me, I just-"

"No, I won't. I won't hurt anyone." Jameson leans forward, tries to look to the side and catch Jake's eye, but the big guy won't look at him - and that's answer enough, isn't it? His heart twists, and he shouldn't have asked, he knew he shouldn't have asked. It's why he didn't tell Nat, honestly, he knew he shouldn't have. The taste of Jake's voice is sour with the sudden certainty Jameson has that he will never, ever be safe for the people he cares about. Even the guy whose entire literal job is to fucking deal with people like him doesn't want him here.

"Let me think about it," Jake says, finally. "Okay? We've brought in this new guy, Rafael, and I just. Let me think about it."

Jameson knows what let me think about it means. It means no. He's not fucking stupid. He has to look back down at his feet, closing his eyes against a sudden burning rush of tears he can't let anyone see. Fury and fear and guilt overrun his nerves, and it's all just layers of pain.

Jake stands, moving back inside, and Jameson keeps his eyes closed as the sun shines hot on his hair and arms, as the wind moves along the lines of his face like the fingers of someone who loves him.

Allyn's voice startles him when they say, softly, "So how did it go?"

Jameson pushes himself to his feet - and jesus, he's so fucking glad when his knees hold him long enough for him to grab the cane he brought with him - and walks away from them without answering.

The big guy's fucking job is to take chances on people like him, and even he thinks Jameson is too big of a risk.

He makes it to the sidewalk before his knees give out again.

[satashiiwrites]

Wip tag game

Tagged by @imsupposedtobewritting for this wip tag game…. And first how dare you! (Affectionate)  Yes I am shamed by the length of this list! I am adding a few bonus gifs just to break up the text blocks a bit. 

Pro tip: If you want me to work on something listed below my muse really does respond to feedback/comments/gifs/meta posts/stimulation.  Make of that what you will. 

Family, Familia, ‘Ohana (911/H5O/SWAT, Buddie, McDanno, platonic Deacon/Hondo).  I’ve got a chapter title for the next one—SNAFU—and the following one after that—FUBAR.  That pretty much sums up a lot of things there. i’ve been working very non-linearly here and have a lot of the plot figured out as well as which beats to hit… now just the execution of said plan.  Mostly the muse has been chewing on the penultimate chapter and final chapter a lot more than what is currently going on. I’ll make the muse behave eventually but it’s getting a break on this one since I updated just a little bit ago.  (Don’t look at me like that Danno!)

A New Version of Foreplay, Chapter two/final chapter (911, Buddie) I really just have the smut to write and the muse hasn’t been playing ball here. It’ll happen eventually but just probably not this week.  We know where we’re going here and all—Just need the Buck and Eddie part of my muse to cooperate. 

Death Rebirth and the Jackal (Mass Effect Andromeda, The Mummy (1999 movie trilogy) with heavy influences from Moon Knight, American Gods and Egyptian history/mythology, MReyder).  I’ve got this vaguely on the every month posting schedule rotation so expect a chapter a month—possibly more often depending on how much writing time I get (fall is getting overscheduled right into February so don’t hold your breath).  

To Follow (Mass Effect all media types, MReyder, MShenko—sequel/alternative perspective of one-shot Seguir, Pre-Andromeda meeting/relationship). The muse has been chewing on the plot for this like a week old newspaper.  The paper has gotten beyond soggy and I’m going to be cleaning up plot points for a bit but I’m starting to get a really clear picture of how to work things.  Probably getting a new chapter in the next six weeks or so. Just need to get in the really angsty headspace first and have it not be stolen by Eddie Diaz. 

Reinventing Scott (Mass Effect Andromeda, MReyder) ah my what-if-Cora-really-was-pissed-about-not-being-pathfinder fic and we took a left turn at Eos that ended up with Scott and Reyes running into each other much earlier. It was kinda on the back burner but i’ve been mulling over a few plot points the last two weeks so also prolly getting something in the next month or so but not on the official update rotation—yet. 

Promise Me You Won’t Let Me (Wheel of Time, Cauthor). Is officially on the try-to-update monthly rotation.  I want to finish this before the second season starts airing.  If you’ve been reading and have watched the first season you know this is going to all end in tragedy and blow up in Rand’s and Mat’s face. Might possibly be the most painfully angst ridden thing I’ve written.  I hope the show runners give me a reason to write a sequel of them pining angrily at each other from afar in the second season. Sorry Rand—there’s going to be a lot of whump in both Mat’s and your immediate future. 

To Catch A Fallen Star (Teen Wolf and Stardust Mashup, Sterek and others) I seem to have caught a fusion/mashup vibe with Jackal and it continues here.  Prologue is posted and I’m planning on monthly-ish updates. Have a pretty good roadmap worked out so it’s just a matter of having time and energy to stay on top of.  I mean Stiles is Tristan and Derek’s Yvaine.  What could go wrong?  Oh yeah and Peter is totally Septimus while Scott is going to be Bernard. 

Cousin Harvey (Moon Knight and Suits Crossover, Marvey, it’s complicated for Marc and Steven but it’s not sexual) Nothing yeeted yet as this is going to be a one-shot I s2g. I mean what are Marc and Steven doing in Nebraska? Harvey’s got the bail money. This is going to possibly be totally crack-y (What am I saying? It’s totally crack).

The Outlaw and the Cartel Boss (Mayans MC, Miguel/EZ, Angel/Adelita, Angel/Coco, Sentinel/Guide AU).  I had this on the back burner because it’s long and when I do work on it it’s never usually on the NEXT chapter but on other things but my mood at work slid into Miguel’s headspace so now it’s gotten it’s running shoes back on.  Roughly planning every-other-month to monthly updates until done as these chapters tend to be closer to FFO updates rather than 3-5k. I just can’t leave Sentinel/Guide AUs alone and Danny Pino and JD Pardo are just too damned pretty of men. Also KJ IS NOT DYING HERE!  fwiw this is completely AU of the tv series (off the reservation so to speak) so if you want to read just pull up the wiki entries and you’ll be good to go. Don’t look so pleased with yourself Miguel *grumbles*

Firefighter Derek Series (linked one-shots, Teen Wolf, eventual Sterek). I’ve gotten a bit written on Papa Stillinski’s POV one shot so most likely will get this done sometime this fall.  Also have a pretty clear view of Connie the Librarian’s one shot which will be on the shorter side.  Expect these to randomly get yeeted if the muse gets in the mood. The Stiles and more of Derek’s POV ones the muse is doing a good impression of the witches from Macbeth with (double, double toill and trouble and all). 

Pieces that are currently simmering on the back burner—meaning that I’m not considering them abandoned and do tweak/write a bit/plot about them.  They’ll get done EVENTUALLY. I never put something out that I don’t plan on finishing even if it’s six or seven years later….again feed the muse people.  A few of these got started for MReyder week and I hate to think that sort of deadline is what it might take to make me shove something out the door chapter-wise. 

Mredyer stuff:

An Andromeda Tale (goes back and forth between actively worked on and back-burnered)

Andromeda 5-0

If I See You In My Dreams

The Marks We Leave On One Another (Gets worked on whenever the pissy part of my Reyes muse is in control.  Requires rage to work on)

What Happens in Vegas… one-shot.  Accidental Marriage. Modern AU.  It’s… um half-done?  give me another Mredyer week @radio-chatter and @quietborderline 

Untitled Westworld Fic—what if Reyes was a Host?  And um… yeah. Scott is TRAUMATIZED okay? Yes I have maybe 20k written…. 

Untitled MReyder firefighter AU.  Well Scott’s a firefighter.  Reyes is an undercover police officer. Things get interesting. Random scenes outlined/written.  Yes it’s partly smut that’s written damnit

Mreyder medical AU for @radio-chatter  you’ll get this eventually.  I’ve got too many thoughts but they’re completely disorganized. Mostly Scott and Reyes need to sync their on call schedule so they can actually get some sleep. 

What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? ah the holiday fic that I swear I’m going to finish every December and yet still haven’t quite finished it two years later.  maybe this year is the year…..it’s… half-done?

Recurrence.  Every time I re-read my favorite book of all time Dark Matter by Blake Crouch I work on this.  Eventually will get done.  I just can’t leave the idea to die. So it gets worked on once a year and gets about ten pages added which are never the actual NEXT chapter. 

Mafia AU.  I have this very clear picture of Scott sitting in a hospital waiting room, hasn’t slept in days, drinking terrible coffee at 3AM and trying not to notice how Reyes’ blood is still visible under his fingernails despite how much he’s scrubbed them. Reyes’ uncle shows up and it’s like being doused in an icy river how much he realizes he doesn’t know about Reyes’ life. Non-linear narrative. Scott is maybe a firefighter in this too or maybe he’s a cop—something public service. Reyes makes a decision to protect Scott which means he has to give up everything—but he’ll do it if it keeps Scott safe. 

911 stuff

Buddie Rear Window—more idea than fully formed.  Might be a spooky season fic might not.  Depends on how hard this plot idea sticks around.  Currently not actively being written. Buck is Jimmy Stewart. Eddie is Grace Kelly. Carla is totally Buck’s housekeeper. Athena is a very much not impressed Detective. 

Sentinel Guide follow up one shots.  Got ideas but not actively being worked on.  May randomly get one shots yeeted out on this if the muse bites hard enough. 

Might revisit the werewolf fic for a sequel for spooky season.  Might just be more sexytimes one-shot. 

SWAT

Deacon/Hondo side story/sequel to FFO.  When this finally get’s written it’s going to be a tear jerker and deal with non-canon death of Deacon’s wife and the resulting fallout—grief, healing, love etc. This has been hanging around my brain for the better part of a year so it’ll eventually get written but not until FFO is done.  Will be completely AU from the SWAT series at that point. 

Edit: i totally forgot Bradley the Damned!!!  Um yeah. It’s my Generation Kill Bradnate time bending immortal fic.  Yeah.  On the back burner because it tend to write it during spooky season.  Prolly getting an update in the next two months?  

Tagging the usual crowd with no pressure as always. @quietborderline @radio-chatter​ @tkwritesdumbassassins​ @elisela​ @outtoshatter​ @redhoodiskra​ @missanniewhimsy​ and anyone else who wants to play along. 

[bokettochild]

Touch and Go

Whumptober Day 6: Touch-Starved

Is this late? yes.

Is this proofread? No.

But I had Feelings about this one, so please excuse the shameless hurt/comfort and Legend fluff at the end, and let me project my lonely ass onto my favorite character again.

I hope y'all enjoy! Consider this a break from the unresolved whump of the last few prompts.

There are days when Legend really hates being alive.

Today's one of those days. Today's one of those horrid days when everything is cold and everything is bitter and all he can do is snap when Wind chatters at his side. All he can do is bark out something harsh and cruel that makes the sailor avert dark eyes and slowly move away from him.

The kid has spirit, he'll say that at least. Wind doesn't blubber up and cry about it, just looks hurt and walks away, shoulder's stiffening as the kid wanders over to stand next to Warriors instead, thin arms wrapping tight around the sailor's chest as the kid hugs himself, only relaxing slightly when Wars buries his hand in the kid's hair and gives the golden locks a gentle tussle. The kid's lips twitch as he stares up at Wars with his big dark eyes, rain pattering over his face as the captain throws the end of his scarf over the kid's head.

Legend pulls his own cloak closer and purposefully ignores the exchange as he continues to slosh through the mud.

They've come to Sky's world and while the area isn't one that the Chosen Hero recognizes immediately, Wild had climbed a tree a while back (regardless of the clouds that threaten lightning or the rain that makes the bark slippery) and called out the direction of what he was certain was a village. At any other time, Wind would climb up after the champion with his telescope to confirm, but Time isn't willing to take that risk and instead called Wild down back to them.

The champion trudges on ahead, laughing light and free as rain soaks through log golden hair and Twilight fusses and scolds like a worried mother cuckoo, trying to make the champion pull up the hood of his cloak while the rancher's own furry hood bobs low enough to cover his eyes, making Wild only laugh harder. The hood has ears, he notes with a scoff, and Twilight doesn't even have the decency to look embarrassed at that, instead punching Warriors' shoulder when the man points it out, a toothy grin on the rancher's face while the captain shoots him a hurt look, rubbing his bruised shoulder with something like a pout.

Time's own soft chuckles mix with the light patter of rain, and Legend takes a moment to consider why the man isn't earing a cloak, only to realize that Hyrule isn't either, and that his protege is darting about in the rain with a bright smile that stretches all the way to his slowly flapping ears, the kid practically flittering about Time and giggling as the cold and wet rain dribbles through his curls and sings against their leader's armor.

Legend huffs, wrapping his own cloak tight about himself. Fine, let the other's catch cold for their foolishness. Let Time be sneezing his obnoxiously loud sneezes and Hyrule low himself back with the force of his own. Let Wild be red in the face and nasally for the next week, it's their own fault for being such blasted idiots! He'll just wear his wool cloak, thank you very much! He'll tuck it close and wrap it around and around and-

Another cold breeze makes Wind giggle as it swipes through the sailor's curls and send Warriors huffing out complaints. Wild laughs louder as Twilight's hood is pushed back, dampening the rancher's dark hair as the man sighs in defeat. Four giggles from where they're hiding with Sky under the sailcloth, the fabric held over their heads like an umbrella as they walk, both red in the face from the cold but dry save for the feet that squelch through the mud.

Legend only shivers and pulls his cape closer. How is this funny to them? How is rain nice enough to play in or laugh or try and sing, like Time is doing? Rain is cold and miserable and wet, and he's shivering as he pulls on his hood with a firm tug. It's too cold, and too wet and the only thing he really wants is to find somewhere where he can just collapse into the corner and sit. He's not asking for one of Uncle's old oversized tunics, or a warm fire, or even a mug of Ravio's cocoa, all he wants is to sit down and just... be.

It's dark out here and it's dark inside and it's dark everywhere and all he wants is to sit in the darkness and let himself flop against whatever happens to be available and just sit, mind blank, body still, nothing and no one needing him and nothing and no one to disturb him.

"Lights ahead!" Four calls back to them with a bright grin, red cheeks nearly glowing as their eyes sparkle the same color, and beside the smithy Sky perks up, ears twitching slightly as a grin break across his face. "It's the village!"

In seconds Sky has scooped Four up and started jogging towards the lighted houses before them, ignoring as the smithy laughs out warnings about asthma and slippery paths, and Legend can only shake his head slowly with a sigh as the others follow suit, even Time. Honestly, where are they getting this much energy?

When they reach the settlement it's to find Sky and Four both covered in mud and Sun and Sky's big red-head friend waiting at the door of the common house with towels and hearty laughter.

there's still a lot to be done here to make a proper village, but for the time being those who are constructing it have settled in a large common house that Sky's told them will one day be a festival and meeting hall. "Maybe even a school," the Chosen Hero had grinned. There are mostly only a few villagers who rotate out to help with construction in turns, but on the rare visit the heroes have had here, Sun and- Goose? Gross? Whatever the heck the man's name was- are always there to greet them with wide smiles and exuberant displays of affection for their best friend.

Even now, Sky is tucked under the red-heads arm, playfully protesting the fist that rubs over the knight's head, even as Four sits atop the big man's other shoulder, laughing and swinging their feet gently at the sight of their predecessor getting a noogie.

Legend sweeps past the chaos with a sigh, briefly accepting the towel Sun offer to him with a tender smile. He doesn't even bother shedding his boots, no matter how touchy his is about it in his own home, and instead flops down in the only place that doesn't seem to be occupied and gives his hair and face a quick rub with the towel before laying it aside and leaning back against the wall.

Cheery voces and laughter sound around him, but it's like a dark cloud hangs over him as he wraps his arms tight around his chest and curls up.

Even next to the roaring fire, he's cold. It's like his bones are cold, even as sweat starts to bead at his brow, and a shiver still manages to travel through him as one of the former Skyloftians stokes the roaring flames.

He's not sick, he's been wrapped to tight in warm clothes recently to have gotten a cold or something, and anything contagious hasn't been run into as they dart across worlds after the shadow. Still, he's cold, and almost hollow feeling as he presses his hands to his ears to try and block out Wind's laughter. The sound hurts, even though he doesn’t know why. His head isn’t pounding but his chest aches and throbs around nothing at the sound. His throat is tight and his bones continue to ache miserably as he finally pulls his discarded towel over his head and ears in a last-ditch attempt to stop all the noise coming over to him.

Once, he’d worried about this sort of thing. He’d panicked when he stopped being able to feel properly warm and when his bones never quite settled. Now, sitting beside the biggest freaking fire he’s ever seen outside of a festival, he accepts the chill in his bones with an exhaustion that settled in ages ago.

Violet eyes flitter shut slowly as he tries to focus on the crackle of flames, a sound he can always rely on to help him settle himself. He has to drop the towel, but the others have dulled their chatter to a quiet murmur as something clatters and sheet shuffle over the fresh wooden floor. There's the occasional laugh from one of the others, but it’s nothing he can’t handle as he wraps his damp cloak closer around him.

He could ignore it. He could get up and join the others and just ignore the cold empty hollow inside of him, but today he just wants to be. He doesn’t want to fight it, and he doesn’t want to bother using energy to ignore it. The cold cave in his chest is there and it’s not going away so he may as well accept it and t himself just drift along in the amid the cheer of the evening.

The others seem keen on leaving him alone, letting him brood in silence as Wild darts over briefly with a warm smile and an even warmer bowl of seasoned rice. The kid called this stuff pudding, but there’s nothing smooth and creamy about it. It’s good though, and he accepts the bowl with his usual nod of thanks before Wild is darting back to the others where they sit around a rough wooden long table. His brothers are all laughing and chatting with the big Goose man, and only Sun spares him a curious glance before her attention is swept up by Hyrule, who presents her with something that makes the woman blush and beam as she wraps the traveler in a warm hug.

Pain pangs through his chest as the vet lowers his bowl. He’s not... he’s not hungry he finds, staring down at the sweet and seasoned rice with apathy. He’s not really upset about not being hungry, not surprised either, just... it is what it is.

Gnarled fingers reach up and he twines a lock of pink hair through his fingers, violet gaze darting up to the table across the room as the others continue their ceaseless chatter. No one looks at him, and it draws a sigh of relief from him as he loosens up a bit.

He’s not proud of how he handles the cold, not of how he fills the emptiness enough that it stops aching. It’s embarrassing really, but he’d rather handle it himself than have to get attached to having someone else ease the ache for him.

Long ears droop slightly as he runs his nails over their shells, rubbing behind his own ears like a goddess darned weirdo and letting his other hand brush through his hair again. It’s grown some, catching on his shoulders when he turns his head and he debates letting it grow out long again for a moment. It would be more convenient when switching with Fable to not have to put on a wig, but he’s not overly keen on having to take care of the long tresses again and long hair does get so easily tangled.

There’s a burst of laughter from the table again, and while he glances up quickly, hands drawing away for a moment he finds relief in the fact that the others are all too busy teasing the captain for one thing or another to bother looking over at him. Relief blossoms in his chest as he rubs his own ears again.

It’s stupid, he knows it, but being touched, being close to someone is the only way to make this never-ending emptiness fill for a little bit, and if he just ignores it, it gets more and more unbearable. Once, Fable had thought he’d been cursed, he’d been so stiff and shivery, and it didn’t help that the bags under his eyes had grown dark enough that he looked like he’d been in a brawl. He’d explained he was just tired, restless after returning from the sea and unable to sleep properly without fear of dreaming. But sleep was the only relief from being utterly and completely empty, so he was caught in flux, perpetually tired and cold and both wishing for sleep and doing all in his power to avoid it.

Fable had dragged him up to her room and nestled them both into her big bed, her favorite fuzzy pink blanket tucked up so tightly around him that he couldn’t even squirm free as she’d wrapped him a hug and started to try and sing. It was horrible, and he’d very nearly cried at his sister’s off-key screeching right in his ear, but she’d promised to be quiet, grinning like a gremlin, if only he would lay still. He had, and the next thing he knew it was lunchtime the next day and Fable was laughing her ass off because he apparently both drooled and talked in his sleep.

He wishes Fable was here now. She’s the only one Hylia can’t rip away from him, because she's the freaking princess and needs to rule Hyrule one day. She’s safe, she won’t disappear or die before her time or leave like everyone else. She’s the only constant he can rely on, and more than anything he wants to feel small beside her as she teases him and plays with his pink hair and jokes about bunnies and cherries and Ravio and a dozen other things that make him scowl usually but only provide a constant stream of chatter when he’s too tired to care anymore.

Come to think of it, he doesn’t remember the last time he slept properly, and as he tugs the tip of his own ear he briefly wonders, entirely too spent to care how pathetic it sounds, if the others have even noticed.

As laughter bubbles up across the room from him he lets self-pity take over as wonders if they even miss him right now, so happy and warm and content together. War’s is dozing, propped up on his fist and instants away from either landing in Twilight’s food or on his shoulder, and the rancher doesn’t look like he knows which would be worse. Sky is already conked out against the Goose man, snoring softly and drooling on his friend’s arm while the others continue their yammering, Time’s hand is buried idly in Four’s hair and Hyrule and Wild are both leaning back in their seats with easy smiles that whisper warnings that the two might topple over at any minute. Only the rancher and Wind seem to be keeping awake enough to talk to Sun and the other settlers, Goose long since having left the discussion to set his big boots on the table and listen in, only throwing out the occasional comment that has Sun blowing out her cheeks and rolling her eyes as they glitter with stifled laughter.

It’s downright homey.

Legend curls up tighter. Call him a crybaby, but he wants to go home.

It’s over sooner than later, but not soon enough, and as Time and Goose exchange snarky quips, both dragging their friends and brothers over to some of the spare beds, Legend has given up self-soothing to curl in on himself. He’s still wet, still cold, and by now the damp on his face isn’t from the rain they came in from a couple hours ago. He’s exhausted and he really wants to pass out, but he’s too sore and distracted and that itself is enough to make his eyes water in frustration as his ringer fingers dig into his arms hard enough to leave bruises.

He hardly registers when something brushes against his boot, but then something warm is pressed to his cheek and the vet darts back in surprise and fear at the sudden sensation eyes wide as they stare up to meet twinkling blue.

Sun is as warm as her name and her eyes twinkle like the night sky itself, full of light and life and hope that Legend hasn’t seen on the face of any living being ever. “Hey,” the goddess incarnate hums softly, like she’s approaching a particularly skittish remit, head cocked and hand extended cautiously, “You okay there, little hero?” Her voice is warm, rich and deep in a way he hadn’t expected but that somehow suits her better than the voice he’d imagined his comrade’s fiancé to have.

He blinks up at her, startled, mind empty as Hylia herself stands over him with concern in her blue eyes.

This... is weird.

The goddess tilts her head softly, golden hair brushing over her rosy cheeks charmingly as thin brows pull together in a light frown that makes him feel guilty for being its cause. “Are you alright?”

The hand reaches out again, and he has to try hard not to shiver as it presses against his brow again, impossibly warm and gentle and...

“You don’t seem to have a fever.” Hylia herself hums softly, scooching closer with worry glimmering in her gaze, hand pulling back at his continued grimace. “Hey.” His ears flicker slightly at the call as the woman before his ducks her head to be closer to his eye level. “Is something wrong? Are you-” royal blue widens as the woman reaches out yet again, stopping herself inches away as he flinches back. “Are those tears?” She whispers softly, but the question isn’t directed at him, so he avoids her gaze and shuffles in on himself again.

He expects that Hylia- Sun? - will back away, will wander back to her bed with furrowed brows and a shaking head as she dismisses the sorry bundle of self-pity sitting in the corner from her mind. He’s expecting a heavy sigh and the rustling of fabric as she pushes up and away. He’s expecting the chill that travels down his spine at the thought of sitting alone while the others curl up in their shared beds. He doesn’t expect the warm hands that settle on his back as toned arms wrap loosely around him, golden hair drifting into his vision as warmth spread through at every place that the goddess incarnate’s skin pressed against him.

He doesn’t expect the sob that rises in his throat either, or the desperate clutch onto the woman’s blouse as he silently begs her not to let go.

“You’ve been sad for a long time, haven’t you?” Rich tones whisper softly into his ears as one hand rubs up and down his back. “I’m sorry.”

Tears prick at his eyes again and when the woman pulls him forwards, he doesn’t resist as he’s pulled up into her lap, strong arms wrapping tight around him as a golden-head rests against his own. He hardly knows Sun, but he hardly cares right now as warmth surges through him from where he’s tucked in her arms, and even if his back is cramping up and his fingers are sore from how tight they’re holding her blouse, even if he’s flushed and embarrassed and blubbering, he doesn’t care, because the empty cold inside of him isn’t as heavy, and the heavy weight on his chest has lifted enough for him to breathe.

“Hush,” The goddess breathes against his ears. “Let it all out, little chick.”

Sobs stutter in his throat as long fingers rub against his back, a light hum filling the silence between gasping sobs as the goddess's own ballad drifts through the air, the notes of Zelda’s lullaby lilting through the melody as Sun rocks gently in place, pressing a gentle kiss to the crown of his head as he continues to soak her in rainwater and tears.

They stay like that he doesn’t know how long, long enough that he’s sore and his eyes are puffy and his throat aches and everything is sore and darkness tints his vision as he sags in the arms that hold him. The Goose man’s voice rumbles something nearby, and Sun whispers something back, hands buried in his hair and brushing through it with delicious care as he lets the world fade from his mind. Briefly, he registers being shifted, lifted maybe as Sun continues to sway and sing. Numbly, he recognizes something warm being pressed to his lips and something warm and soothing trickling down his raw throat as he nuzzled closer to the damp fabric of Sun blouse. He’s past shame now, too tired to care how childish or ridiculous he may look as he revels in the touch, the gentle, goddess blessed touch of warmth that presses in around him and smothers the cold in his bones. Th empty cave in his chest is glowing softly with light, even as darkness washes over him and his eyes fall shut.

The goddess’s ballad- lullaby? - is the last thing he registers before the world fades.

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

you’ll never make me leave

I was feeling very whumpy after my nasty day at work, so here’s Jaskier being accidentally poisoned by, nursed back to health by, and confessed to by his idiot Witcher.

title from MCR’s “Thank You for the Venom”

thank you to @thecomfortofoldstorries for helping me out and giving me the good ideas (and also here’s some Julek content for ya)

tw: poisoning, Jaskier whump, angsty-ish but mostly just an excuse for Geralt to be real fuckin’ soft w/the bard

---

First Jaskier’s quiet fireside singing and playing slowed to a stop, his fingers slipping clumsily against Sexy’s well-tuned strings in a worrying kind of way. Geralt watched in silent confusion as Jaskier set his lute in its case and gently closed the lid. The bard’s usually bright blue eyes went glassy and glazed over. Any remaining focus in Jaskier’s gaze disappeared as he stared off at some distant point, pupils wide and unmoving. He sat like that for one minute, then two, totally unblinking. 

The worst sign of trouble came last, when the bard collapsed suddenly forward and began to shake uncontrollably atop his spread bedroll like a fish out of water. Geralt rushed to his side and dropped to his knees in the dirt, pinning Jaskier’s shoulders down so that he could assess the situation with his enhanced abilities. Already, he knew, this was very bad. 

The bard’s skin was white-hot to the touch, even through the material of his thick autumnal chemise; dangerously feverish for a delicate human like Jaskier. The Witcher tamped down his panic and tried to think as rationally as possible. It wouldn’t do Jaskier any good if he lost control now. The veins in the bard’s neck were pulsing with an odd violet tint and Geralt realized with a start that the thing ailing Jaskier was his fault entirely. 

The Witcher had only vaguely remembered the mushrooms from some book in Vesemir’s personal library. He thought they were safe for human consumption and that the poisonous hallucinogenic compounds would only affect Witchers like himself. As he knelt between Jaskier and the fire he had the sudden, gut-wrenching realization that he’d probably gotten it backwards, and that he was the one who would be unaffected by ingesting them. He couldn’t test it now, though, because he needed to tend to his sick companion.  

Jaskier arched up against Geralt’s restraining hands, his slender hips and surprisingly strong shoulders twisting in some kind of panicked attempt to relieve the pain. His spine bowed and buckled in oddly timed waves as the toxins from the fungus raced through his bloodstream and pricked at his nervous system. Guilt and terror twisted in Geralt’s stomach like twin knives and he leaned down to press an apologetic kiss to the bard’s sweat-soaked brow. 

The contact was brief and burning and the Witcher’s slow-beating heart caught suddenly in his throat. 

“Geralt!” Jaskier cried out, arms reaching and eyes searching blindly as if the Witcher wasn’t leaning over him. Wasn’t holding him tightly to keep him from getting hurt in his own frenzy. The bard released a low, shuddering moan followed by a harsh sob, begging: “Don’t leave me behind, please! I swear, Geralt, I can keep up! I can! I promise! Please!”

The Witcher had never felt such acute emotions so intensely before. The love he felt for Jaskier ached and stabbed and rippled out through him. The bard was afraid that Geralt wanted to leave him behind, which meant that somehow, in some way, the Witcher had failed to make his companion feel wanted or welcome. The truth was, the Path didn’t feel right when Jaskier was away.

“Julek,” the Witcher tried to sound as soothing as possible with his gravel-rough voice. He flinched when he heard himself and lowered his tone to a whisper, “Jaskier, I’m here. I’m not leaving you. I’ll take care of you; I’m so sorry.”

“Please,” the bard sobbed, wriggling violently in an effort to escape, “Please, no! Ger-a-a-alt! Come back!”

The Witcher’s heart cracked wide open in his chest when he heard the anguish in Jaskier’s voice. 

“Julek,” he breathed. He brushed the bard’s damp fringe away from his forehead and placed the back of one cool hand against heated skin. “I will keep you safe until you’re well again, sweet Julek, and then I’ll prove that I’m still worth all the time and effort and love you pour into me.”

“Hnn,” came Jaskier’s high whine in lieu of reply. “Don’t go.”

“I won’t,” Geralt asserted. “I swear I won’t.”

He wouldn’t. He would die here if he had to, curled around the bard, keeping him warm on the side that the fire didn’t reach in an effort to sweat the poison out faster. He would die protecting and caring for the one person who’d always cared for and protected him. In ways Geralt was only just beginning to properly fathom. 

Eventually, after much tossing and turning, Jaskier fell into a fitful but deep sleep.

---

Geralt stayed at his side all through the night, rotating which parts of him were facing the warmth of the fire and regulating his body temperature to the best of his ability. Jaskier released sad moans and pained whimpers every once and awhile, but what frightened the Witcher most were the snippets of sleep-talk,

“I swear I can be good,” he would whisper, sounding panicked. “I promise I’ll stay far away. I won’t touch you or Roach. I won’t. I just...”

Geralt’s heart clenched in his chest. Eventually he replied, trying to ease the bard from whatever hallucinogen-induced nightmare was plaguing him. “You just what, Julek?”

“I just want to be able to be near you.”

“Why?”

A flush lit up Jaskier’s pale cheeks, staining them violet with his tainted blood. “I- don’t make me say it, Geralt. You’ll run off again and I’ll be all alone. Always alone.”

“Say it, Jaskier. You’ll never make me leave.”

A sigh. Two blue eyes opened and met Geralt’s with a semblance of awareness and understanding: “I love you, Geralt.”

The Witcher leaned forward and pressed a soft, urgent kiss to Jaskier’s overheated forehead. “I love you, too, Julek. Now rest for me. Get better.”

The struggling stopped, then, and Jaskier sank into a deep and peaceful slumber.

---

“I had a horrible dream,” Jaskier rasped, waking Geralt from his slumber. “That you’d left me at some healer’s back down the road and continued on with out me. I don’t know why I would have such a horrible dream, but I’m glad it’s over and that I’m awake.”

“I love you,” Geralt declared. The bard rolled over in his arms and stared up, shocked. 

“Come again, oh great and broody Witcher of my heart?”

“I love you, Julek.”

“Oh, Geralt!” A pair of warm lips were suddenly pressed against the Witcher’s. Geralt pulled back and glanced away, biting his lip anxiously. Jaskier’s brows furrowed cutely. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s my fault you got so sick in the first place and had that horrible dream,” Geralt explained. “I’m so sorry for hurting you like that. I should have paid better attention.”

“You’re forgiven,” Jaskier replied. He burrowed closer to Geralt’s chest and pressed a kiss to his Witcher’s clavicle. “But only if you hold me a little longer. I like this.”

“Hmm,” Geralt rumbled, finally content. “Me too.”

[you-go-kaboom-i-go-kaboom]

End of the Year Creative Wrap-Up

Thank you very much @holbytlanna for tagging me!! <3

1) What is your favorite thing you created? Which work are you the proudest of?

My favorite thing I did this year never got posted because it’s goofy, but basically Mac falls down a well and breaks his leg while trying to help a young girl out. I think I’m probably proudest of Arowana + Honeymoon + Trafficking Ring because I remember putting a lot of work into that one.

2) Is there anything else you are proud of that you achieved this year?

I finished NaNo successfully for the first time ever. My record in past years was somewhere around 25k, but this year I wrote 90k+ words (most of it unfinished/unposted fics)

3) Did you explore anything new this year? (A new way to be creative, a trope you didn't write before or an idea you hadn't thought of earlier, etc.)

I did a lot of stuff for myself this year, which surprised me. I have a lot of fics that I finished and then just never posted mostly because they’re really goofy or self-indulgent. Maybe I’ll work up the nerve to post them, but for now I’m happy keeping them to myself.

4) Which work gave you the most difficulty? What was your biggest creative challenge this year?

Bad things happen bingo. I think I only finished two of the prompts from my card this year. I started two of the others, but I haven’t finished either of those yet. Those prompts and I have gone ten rounds at least, and we’re still fighting 😂

5) Which work brought you the most joy?

All of comfortember made me very happy. I had taken a short break from writing prior to the event and decided to return and write whatever nonsense I wanted. (And I swear I’ll get to responding to the kind feedback I received, I’m just shy as hell about responding to that stuff 🙈)

6) Which of your works do you think people should check out?

Whatever floats your boat, man, most of them are whump or h/c with found family throughout. My ao3 is Sapless_Tree

7) Do you have creative plans for next year? Is there anything exciting you are currently working on?

I have so so so many wips right now. I’m only actively working on twelve of them at the moment, but there are plenty others in rotation for when my motivation wanes. Currently, I’m very excited about two in particular: my bthb fill for the prompt “missing and presumed dead” and a fic about the season one finale.

8) Lastly, any words of wisdom or anything else you would like to share?

Save all your scraped stuff somewhere. That paragraph you loved but couldn’t keep? That fic you only wrote 100 words of and then gave up on? That random idea you had at two in the morning and jotted down? Save that, you can use it later. I have a personal discord for myself where I keep and organize those things along with random excerpts of dialogue I didn’t use, concepts I tossed, and brainstorm sessions. That stuff seriously comes in handy if you get stuck on a scene (I’m still cannibalizing scrapped bits from whumptober 2020 for stuff haha)

I’m gonna tag @rosieblogstuff @whumpflumpthump and like anyone else who sees this and wants to do it can say I tagged them, I love seeing this kind of stuff :)

[gumnut-logic]

Interview with a Fic Writer Meme

Thank you to @tsarinatorment  for the tag ::hugs you:: Sorry for the delay in reply.

1. Your favourite fic that you’ve written (or the one you want to give a shout out to)

We’ll Be Home For Christmas, mainly because of how much fun I had writing it and the new friend I found and the Kermadecs are an amazing place and that fic changed how I write Thunderbirds fic forever because I now know Tracy Island’s place in the world and its ecosystem and yeah, I am such a geek.

Also, VT Green, cos smart!Virg :D

2. Your favourite fic title that you’ve come up with

No idea. But because I’m old and live in a popular culture that peeps twenty years younger than me probably don’t, you might want to check out the chapter titles of We’ll Be Home For Christmas and the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. In my total cluelessness, I didn’t realise how unobvious they were to peeps who aren’t as ancient as I am and didn’t grow up with sixties TV on loop through the eighties.

3. How do you get inspiration to write?

You name it, it hits me. I currently have several fics, including Wire, currently inspired by the fact I park my car in front of a farm every morning when dropping off my daughter to school. If I’m feeling down, Virg will either be whumped or end up in some hilarious situation (it’s weird, I’ve written some of my funniest stuff while feeling my worst). Sometimes I will be desperate to reach out to the natural world and can’t – that’s when Virg ends up on some beach and gets all arty-farty so I can reach out through him.

Often an initial scene will spark something bigger and I’ll be writing for weeks, desperately trying to keep a plotline straight and find an ending.

But my best stories happen from a solid idea of something that I don’t think has been done in the fandom before and is something I would like to explore – Sotto Voce, VT Green, We’ll Be Home For Christmas (which was a prompt but I actually developed and planned it before writing), Callisto, Gentle Rain – these have coherence, and while they may have wobbled crazily on their path, they mostly had a plan.

4. Your favourite genre/subgenre of fic to write?

I’m a whump girl, but I love a good plotline to go along with it. This often requires brain power, not something I always have. I also like a challenge and to try new things, which is why we have a romance, a boat trip and a space voyage in my stash.

5. Do you have other hobbies?

I have far, far too many hobbies. I rotate through them and obsess at times – anything in the art spectrum from traditional through to graphic design and a multitude of crafts, geology, botany, ecology, marine life, genealogy…lots of ology in the science spectrum, but the closer you get to the physics end, the less I understand due to my brain’s inability to process certain concepts. Oh and a variety of history, both local, and world-wide human, and definitely palaeontology. But yeah, lots of lovely knowledge and things to play with :D

6. A fun fact about you that a lot of people may not know

I’m a synesthete.

7. Pick one character to self project onto

Sorry Virgil :D

8. Favourite genre of music

Whatever my brain needs at the time, usually in concert with whatever I am doing. Lots of film soundtracks through to popular music. Very picky and suck at finding new stuff to listen to. Will listen on loop until both brain and track is fried.

9. Your favourite singer/band

I rarely know the singer or the band. Though Nick and Ben Foster are pretty cool :D

10. How have your experience in fandom been?

I have been properly active in about three fandoms over the years, though I have read in many more and even written in a few others. One was a big one, the other two were small.

The big one was good with the occasional odd encounter, but I kept to my little corner. The first small one was very small and was going very well until I had a falling out with another fan. Being a small fandom, it was very difficult for everyone involved. I also, at the time, was at a very hard spot in my life and that, in part, led to my withdrawal from fandom (though I eventually had kids so that really yanked me out of everything). Ten years later I found Thunderbirds and everything has been absolutely lovely. If I wasn’t enjoying myself, there wouldn’t be 200 fics to show for it :D (yes, I’m going to repeat that number repeatedly cos I’m quite happy I’ve been so productive :D)

Thunderfam rocks! :D

I’m tagging @onereyofstarlight @scribbles97 @godsliltippy @vegetacide

[ao3theskyisblue]

From the outside

Summary:

“You look like you could use a coffee.”

Kegan turned towards Officer Reyes, who was looking at him bemusedly, one arm leaning on the driver-side door and the other on the steering wheel, his fingers drumming on it rhythmically. He could also see the hint of concern in his gaze, no doubt seeing through his façade but also kindly didn’t ask questions Kegan wasn’t sure how to answer.

"Woke up late today."

Written for @911lonestarangstweek Day 2: Physical whump + “Does it hurt badly?” 

Just a heads up it’s OC-centric (outsider’s POV) 

Read on AO3

When Kegan woke up to complete silence, the light brighter than it should have been at 7am in the morning peeking in through the gap between his curtains, he should have known it was going to be a terrible day. There were no birds chirping, no neighbours yelling about broken lawn gnomes, nothing.

The quiet was always a cue for sudden disaster.

Fumbling for his phone on the bedside table, he lifted the screen only to fall off the bed with a loud thud and a string of curses at three realizations.

One: his snooze was a lie.

Two: he was going to be late on the last day of his trial week.

Three: he forgot to iron his uniform yesterday.

“Fuck me in the ear with a corn.” Kegan groaned, giving up on saving his duvet and instead shoving it in the general direction of the bed before sprinting to the bathroom. He shoved his toothbrush into his mouth, squeezing toothpaste on at the last second and hoping the brushes hopefully scraped across a few of his teeth.

He dampened his skin underneath a stream of cold water, but it wasn’t hardly enough for a towel to wipe off as he shimmied into his work clothes, slipping on his duty belt last. Grabbing a comb on his way out of the bathroom, he jumped the entirety of the stairs, miraculously without breaking a knee, and slid into the kitchen.

With his comb stuck in his curls.

His mother visibly startled, spinning around to look at him with eyes widened in shock, almost dropping the bowl of strawberries in her hand. Kegan snatched a few, ignoring his mother’s disapproving look before shoving them down his throat.  

“Shove them any harder and you’ll choke.” His mother says drily, placing the bowl onto the counter and Kegan works to swallow the three he managed to stuff in his mouth. He can feel the lumps slowly moving down his esophagus, the slight pain of the movement a nice distraction as he thought of all the excuses he could for why he would be showing up late today to the precinct.

Unfortunately, he knew who he would be shadowing today and lying to this man in particular twisted more guilt in his stomach than anyone else in the police department.

“Not the worst thing I’ve choked on.” Kegan shrugged, smiling at his mother innocently when she scrunched up her nose.

“Sorry I didn’t wake you, I thought you’d already left.” Kegan stilled at that, the smile on his face now a mere gesture of courtesy rather than truth as he looked away.

They both knew why she didn’t bother waking him up. He didn’t need to be studying to become a police officer to hear the blatant lie through his mother’s voice, and that phone call he happened to overhear a few days ago suddenly rang loudly in his ears.

Kegan didn’t bother with a response, instead heading out of the kitchen and towards the entranceway, grabbing his keys from the bowl by the door. He didn’t look up to know his mother was watching him, eyes piercing him like a hawk as he stood in uniform.

“I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to prove a point.”

The words came out quiet, as if just an absent thought that was accidentally said out loud, but Kegan looked up this time, eyes blazing with a ferocity that had his mother stepping back in response.

“I’m not doing this to prove anybody a point,” Kegan says lowly, anger prickling along his spine and making the hairs on his arms stand on end. “I’m doing it for me. You don’t need to understand, or support me. But say it to my face next time instead of behind my back. Stabbing me would hurt less.”

Kegan didn’t wait for his mother’s reaction before pulling the front door open roughly and slamming it shut behind him. The bright sun seemed to be taunting him with its brilliant presence, as if shining any brighter would overcloud the dark shadow that seemed to never stop looming over him ever since they packed their bags and left Venice.

It was going to be a terrible day.

 .

Two hours into his shift, and Kegan already wanted to drown himself in his bathtub while holding onto a plugged-in toaster.

Two fender benders that involved idiots and their screaming that probably left permanent scarring to his eardrums. A woman who thought her neighbours had gotten into a fight with all the banging on the walls until they arrived and saw things that almost made him grab the nearest bottle of sanitizer and scrub his eyes clean. Then there was the elderly man who thought someone was trying to break into his house only to find a woodpecker innocently drilling a hole on the side of his doorframe.

It couldn’t get any worse, could it?  

“You look like you could use a coffee.”

Kegan turned towards Officer Reyes, who was looking at him bemusedly, one arm leaning on the driver-side door and the other on the steering wheel, his fingers drumming on it rhythmically. He could also see the hint of concern in his gaze, no doubt seeing through his façade but also kindly didn’t ask questions Kegan wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Woke up late today. Didn’t have time to grab anything before we were called in.” Kegan sighed, not bothering with keeping his guard up. He’s shadowed Officer Reyes a few times during the trial week, and he was one of the few officers in Austin PD that he actually liked. One thing he’s learned from the first time he shadowed him was that the man had no time for bullshit. Emotions, including ones that told him to just punch straight through walls were valid as long as he talked about it.

Open communication and all that.

They were doing a routine patrol, eyes peeled and other senses alert for any calls that could come through the radio. So far, the calls had been mostly in other districts that already had their own patrols answering, and the next light was the indication they successfully drove one full loop. So, when Officer Reyes suddenly turned right when they were supposed to go straight, Kegan frowned.

“Uh, were we supposed to make that turn just now?” Kegan peered back, not like that could have done anything to change the direction they were driving but Officer Reyes just shook his head.

“There’s a café nearby.” At his skeptical look, the officer rolled his eyes. “The city will be fine if we take a five-minute break.” Officer Reyes says, making Kegan raise an eyebrow. Of the limited time they’ve spent time together, he never pegged him to be a complete rule-sticker, but this unexpected gesture still caught him off guard.

They stopped next to a fairly busy café, the store sign making him snort in disbelief as he got out of the cruiser, shutting the door behind him.

“Definitely not ominous.” Kegan says wryly, looking up at the vibrant ‘The Hideout Café – Seek Out Your Poison!’ sign above his head. There was a quiet chuckle beside him, and he turned to see Officer Reyes sporting a wide smile, amusement dancing across his features. He looked around the area and frowned when he saw a red minivan travelling suspiciously towards them.

“Hey, isn’t that car driving too fast?” Kegan moved to get a better look, frowning when the vehicle not only didn’t slow down, but instead seemed to be deliberately heading towards them.

He turned towards Reyes, about to ask what they should do in this situation but frowned when his eyes widened in horror.

His hand was already on his radio, but nothing could have prepared him for a shout, a hard shove, and the equivalence of his soul being knocked out of him.

And just like the day the cops showed up to his doorstep with bulletproof vests and guns raised in search of his father, his world stopped.

.

The individual granules of sand in an hourglass.

He remembered staring at them when he was younger, fascinated as the particles slowly trickled down with time. It was hypnotizing, but he would glance up occasionally to gaze at the clock hanging above the piano, watching the minuscule tilt of the hour-hand each time the minute-hand made its rotation.

It was a weird sensation, the brief moment where your life flashes by in old film. But just as quick as they came, they’re abruptly cut off as if given to him at the wrong time.

There were thoughts sluggishly trying to make sense in his mind, and Kegan wondered if memories could transcend the living and stay with the dead.

He winced against the sun’s rays, the crick in his back making itself known before he was assaulted by a cacophony of sound.

“-okay? Someone call 911!”

“They literally are 911-”

“I don’t think the other officer’s breathing.”

Kegan sat up abruptly at that, testing his fingers and toes and letting out a breath of relief when he felt them both. He couldn’t help but notice the red minivan speeding off, his training kicking in and automatically memorizing the license plate before it disappeared in the crowd.

“Are you alright, officer?”

Kegan turned his head towards the voice, seeing a barista leaning over him slightly, eyes wide with shock and concern. He opened his mouth to reply, before the entirety of his memories kicked back in.

Where was Officer Reyes?

Kegan scrambled up, staggering and clutching onto the barista’s shoulder when he reached out to steady him. His eyes darted around the crowded street, ignoring the phones and insistent chatter and focused on something a little way away from him.

No.

Stumbling forward, he forced his legs to move towards the man sprawled down on the sidewalk, one hand leaning down to feel for a pulse and the other reaching for his radio.

“This is 363-H-20. I need medics at Congress and 7th, officer down! Send out an APB for a red minivan with Texas licence plates Alpha-Charlie-Foxtrot-3875.” Kegan didn’t know how he hadn’t stuttered when his heart was currently beating outside of his chest, barely clinging onto the last moments of clarity.  He barely heard the affirmative through dispatch for both his requests, before leaning down to see if the man laying so still beneath him was still breathing.

He was, and his pulse was steady, but he wasn’t awake.

“Officer Reyes? Can you hear me?” Kegan pinched his earlobe, his instincts and training working on autopilot, and slapped the ground beside Officer Reyes’ ears a few times.

The man didn’t so much as stir.

Kegan made sure to consistently check his pulse and breathing, prodding his body gently for any injuries he might have missed, eyes flitting up every few seconds to watch for eye movement. He didn’t move the man, the paramedics would be the judge of that, and he couldn’t see anything else other than a nasty bruise starting to form just above his lower back.

“How is he?”

Kegan barely spared the barista, who was still crouching beside him for some reason, a look as he shook his head.

“I don’t-”

“Rossi?”

Kegan’s whirled his head, letting out a choked sound of relief when he saw Officer Reyes blinking blearily at him, looking beyond confused. There was a 7-second delay before he seemed to remember what had happened, and Kegan didn’t hesitate to hold him still when he tried to get up.

“Are you okay? Did you get hit?” Officer Reyes asked, and Kegan let out a sound of disbelief, hearing the barista beside him scoff incredulously. That sound almost validated everything he was thinking at the moment, and absently noted to buy the barista a drink for their service.

“Officer Reyes, was it? You were just thrown in the air like a sack of potatoes when that idiot driver decided the sidewalk would be the perfect place to take his new wheels for a spin,” The barista said, and Kegan glanced at the name card that read ‘Lawrence.’ Kegan startled when Lawrence turned towards him, a kind but worried smile still present on his lips. “If you hadn’t pushed this one out of the way and yelled that warning, things could have gone a lot worse.”

Kegan bit back a sharp retort on how it was already a worse case scenario because someone got hurt, but his mother had always told him to bite his tongue when emotions were running on fumes, and he knew nothing would come from yelling at a barista for something out of his control.

“Well, at least I can skip the paperwork.” Kegan narrowed his eyes, sending the other officer a dirty look.

“Oh, you’re doing all the paperwork. I’m even giving you mine, seeing as you just stripped at least five years off my lifespan.” Kegan glowered, and Reyes had the sheer audacity to laugh weakly. “Can you wiggle your toes?” He sighed in relief when he saw the slight movement, though still kept the officer as still as possible for the paramedics to confirm.

The sound of distant sirens grew closer, and Kegan immediately spun around from the noise when he heard the officer groan.

“What? What’s wrong? Where’s the pain?” Kegan asked, ready to dive in at a moment’s notice but Reyes was focused on something past him.

“I’m about the get the lecture of a lifetime. From all three of them.” The man muttered, and Kegan looked back to see the ambulance parked by the sidewalk, three figures hopping out. One of the female paramedics tossed something to the male, who caught it without even looking at her. They were making their way towards them, and Kegan frowned when the male paramedic suddenly froze, eyes widening at their figures on the ground. He could have sworn he didn’t blink, but one second the paramedic was by the ambulance, the next he was crouching down next to Officer Reyes, stethoscope ready and already checking ABCs.

“This isn’t your usual area.” Officer Reyes says in lieu of a greeting, and Kegan unconsciously stepped back to give them some space to work and to avoid the dark aura encircling the male paramedic who looked up, unimpressed.

“I could say the same for you.” There were some medical words exchanged then, and Kegan heard what he guessed to be the Captain spell out a series of tests they’ll do at the hospital. He couldn’t help but feel another wave of anxiety when the C collar got strapped on – that’s usually a bad thing, right? The male paramedic barely spared him a glance before shining a flashlight in Officer Reyes’ eyes.

“Name.”

“Really?”

“Answer the question.”

“Carlos Reyes.”

He stood to the side, watching as the Captain cautiously lifted Reyes’ uniform and frown at the bruising, prodding it skillfully and gauging the officer’s reaction. He could see the male paramedic flinch as if just the sight of the injury caused him insurmountable pain.

“D-does it, um, does it hurt badly?”

Four pairs of eyes turned to look at him, and Kegan really wished he had heeded his mother’s advice to just keep on sticking his foot in his mouth.

“No,” the male paramedic started sarcastically, a TK Strand that Kegan could make out now stitched on his uniform, “He’s just fine and dandy being run over by a four thousand pound moving brick. He can finally check it off his to-do list for the day.” TK scowled, his movements more aggressive than usual when swinging the stethoscope around his neck again, but Kegan could still see how the anger seemed to fade when he worked with the others to prod the officer for other injuries.

He heard a few snickers from the other two female paramedics that were quickly covered by badly hidden coughs, and really wished Mother Nature would offer him a hole to climb into.

Officer Reyes, who was still a little out of it but thankfully very much alive seemed to be on the verge of laughter himself. “TK, stop scaring him. I’m fine.”

Kegan winced, feeling the change in atmosphere before TK’s eyes even narrowed, and if he wasn’t quite frozen in place he would definitely have stumbled a few steps back from avoiding the icy chill that filled the air around them.

“You and I must have very different definitions of ‘fine.’” TK muttered. Kegan felt chills running down his spine at the deadly glint when those eyes passed over him for a millisecond.

It suddenly sent him back to when he was five years old, when he had brought a stray puppy home and learned how to fear a human being for the first time. His father had looked at the puppy like it was the worst thing created by mother nature, before taking it away and he never saw the little golden retriever again.

Now he knew why.

But he also attributed green eyes to his grandmother, who was an entire ball of warmth.

Who knew green eyes that had always felt so comforting whenever his grandmother smothered him with hugs and kisses when he was younger could feel like daggers that could skewer you alive on another person?

“I’m sorry we never got your coffee.” Kegan looked down at Officer Reyes, who was looking up at him apologetically, and Kegan didn’t know whether he should cry or punch something at how unreasonably nice he was being. They weren’t close, but Kegan respected him immensely, and he could tell from the way TK’s shoulders hadn’t relaxed from their tense position that he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

“I’ve already received the wake-up call of the century. Coffee’s on me next time.” Kegan says lightly, before his eyes widened in horror as TK turned his stormy gaze on him. “Not that I want you to get hit by another car! I’ll gladly take the coffee over any car. And I’ll stop talking. Like right now.”

Yeah, he really needed that bath with the toaster. Maybe he’ll even add in his mother’s hair straightener just to seal the deal.

“Why don’t you sit down?” The Captain, Vega, says kindly, eyes shining with exasperated amusement as she shoots TK a look, and Kegan looks at her, puzzled.

“Why?”

“We need to check you over, too.” The other female paramedic, Gillian, says. She’s looking at him kindly, but doesn’t leave TK’s side as they make sure Carlos is stable for transport.

“But I’m fine? He’s the one who lost consciousness for a few minutes.” Kegan frowns in confusion, and sees TK whirl his head back towards the officer, looking like he wanted to throttle the man.

“And you didn’t think that was vital information?”

“It wasn’t that long!”

“Any length of time being unwillingly unconscious is important, Carlos.”

There was a moment of unspoken words between them and an exchanged look with Captain Vega before Gillian started checking for head injuries. There weren’t any visual signs of trauma, but Kegan has seen enough medical dramas to always expect the impossible.

“And to add on to earlier, no one who gets manhandled by this guy ever ends up fine. The shock may be hiding injuries you can’t feel right now.” TK looked up at him, but not before giving Officer Reyes another glare when he makes a noise in protest.

“I’m not that bad!”

“Tell that to your kitchen counter. And the bedroom wall.” The smallest of smiles lights up TK’s face, and Kegan watches in awe as Officer Reyes grins unabashedly at that.

He didn’t even know the man had any other expressions other than polite smiles and stoic everythings.

“You were on scene for all of them, care to share the grievance?” The soft look they exchanged made something in Kegan’s brain click in place, and he felt himself smiling despite current events.

In the end, they had been lucky. Had Officer Reyes not pushed him away when he did, the accident would have ended up with a black bag and cops knocking on his mother’s doorstep, when the last thing he said to her wasn’t ‘I love you.’ He would be walking away with minor aches, and Officer Reyes-

Had closed his eyes.

He wasn’t the only one that noticed, judging by how TK’s face drained in colour, eyes wide as he tried to get Officer Reyes to open his eyes.

“Carlos? Hey, stay awake – Carlos?! Cap!!” TK immediately reached his fingers to check Carlos’ pulse, and Kegan watched with bated breath as medical jargon sprout out from all three of them, with Captain Vega swearing under her breath when Gillian mentioned something about chest movement.

“We need to get him to a hospital, now.” The other two paramedics immediately lifted Officer Reyes on the stretcher, running towards the ambulance and Kegan could only watch, horrified when TK yelled that they had lost a pulse.

He had been conscious earlier.

He had been talking.

And now he could be –

“Go.”

Kegan startled, turning his head to see Lawrence gently guiding him towards the ambulance.

“I’ll keep an eye on your police car. You’re in no state to drive, and I think you’ll feel better if you go with them.” Lawrence urged, and Kegan didn’t know what else to say but a quick ‘thank you,’ receiving a shoulder squeeze in response before jumping into the back of the ambulance, the paramedics not even batting an eye as they sped off.

They must have gotten Officer Reyes’ pulse back in the time between his hesitancy and the nudge from Lawrence, so Kegan tried his best to focus on the weak but steady rhythm of the heart monitor as TK and Captain Vega worked to make sure his heart kept on beating.

He’s never had a problem being a shadow on the sidelines, and ever since his father’s arrest he’s been walking on eggshells around everything and everyone. Which is why he sat, stock still, and didn’t say a word as Captain Vega quietly murmured how Carlos was stable for now, the words doing nothing to rid the fear still present in TK’s eyes.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off the officer laying on the stretcher before them, and Kegan wasn’t sure he had even blinked. Their hands were tightly linked together, and there was a wet shine in his eyes.

“Come back to me.” He heard him whisper, and his own heart bled with guilt and despair as TK bowed his head, seeing his frame shaking as he clung onto a hand that just wouldn’t squeeze back.  

He should have been the one on the stretcher.

Why didn’t they take him instead?

It wasn’t fair.

.

“I’m sorry.”

The hospital waiting area was mostly empty, and he hadn’t allowed himself a moment to breathe until he heard the doctors give TK and the rest of the 126 who had all arrived one by one to make one big family the all clear. That had been minutes? hours? ago, and Kegan still couldn’t get past the roaring in his ears, the tightness of his chest as they all waited for the officer to wake up.

He was staying overnight for observation, and he faintly remembered being checked over himself in the blurred haze of everything. He couldn’t for the life of him remember who did it, or what questions he was asked, just that he would be walking away with minor bruising and some superficial scratches.

Officer Reyes on the other hand…

He had heard through the grapevine that they had caught the guy, and it was a brief moment of satisfaction that didn’t do much other than give him the relief that he was behind bars instead of behind another wheel of a car.

He looked up for the first time since entering those hospital doors. TK was staring at him with an unreadable expression in his gaze before Kegan could make out the small upward twitch of his lips.

“You’ve done nothing to apologize for,” TK says quietly, wincing a little. “In fact, I’m the one that’s sorry for my attitude back at the scene. I was a little – I was worried.” TK lifted a hand to run through his hair, before giving him a more genuine smile.

Ah, he was starting to see why Officer Reyes always seemed to melt underneath that gaze. The paramedic’s eyes were a couple degrees warmer than they had been earlier, the irises reflecting pools of green in the bright ceiling lights.

“He’s a good cop, and an even better person. He did what he thought was right, and it wasn’t your fault. You were just doing your job. And you were the reason they caught the guy, they found him not long after trying to cross state lines.” Kegan swallowed down the lump in his throat at that, the subtle acknowledgement warming him up inside.

Moving half-way across the globe to escape the scars his father left on their family was one thing, enrolling into the police academy and painstakingly working his ass off to show that he belonged was another. Ever since the arrest, being the son of a notorious serial killer had become his identity. Suddenly, his childhood dreams of becoming an officer of the law meant nothing – all washed down the drain by his father’s blood-soaked hands.

He would never understand why he deserved to live when the people his father killed did not. Years of pondering potential what if’s and self-loathing slowly ate him up inside, and he knew his mother only wanted what was best for him. He didn’t enroll in the police academy to prove anyone a point, to show that their family still had some sort of light worth saving but because he wanted to help. Because he wanted to be better, and he wanted to work for it.

But that didn’t mean the world wasn’t cruel in other ways.

Being labeled as the ‘grim-reaper’ certainly was one, where people assumed that anyone who came into contact with him were automatically doomed to die. It didn’t help that his own father had used it to his advantage, and it was something he would probably never forgive himself for.

And today was just shot to hell with the almost-death of his superior driving him over the edge. He had almost been indirectly responsible for another death of a good man, so when the doctors had given them good news, Kegan almost sobbed in relief. He’s been on the receiving end of looks of anguish, of dismay, of anger and frustration.

Seeing someone look at him with hope and reassurance was new, and hearing words that weren’t laced with malice and false approval made the heavy load of the day lighten a little.

It hadn’t been a good day. And tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed for anyone.

But as Kegan accepted the gentle pat on the shoulder and a friendly smile, he knew that through the dark times, he will find the light.

He wasn’t there yet, and he didn’t know if he would find it at all – but he would try.

And that would have to be enough.

He calls out to TK again, and watches as the man pauses in his steps, turning to look at him curiously.

“So, how long have you two been married?” He asks, a playful grin stretching across his lips, laughing when he sees the paramedic’s cheeks go through the different shades of red in a fascinating colour show. His eyes narrow, but his lips are twitching in amusement, and he waves for Kegan to follow him to Carlos’ recovery room. He’s about to protest, not wanting to intrude, but TK just rolls his eyes and grabs his arm gently to tug him along.

“So, you’re the cheeky new rookie Carlos mentioned,” TK muses, and Kegan raises an eyebrow.

“Didn’t know I was such a hot topic of conversation,” Kegan responds, not liking how TK’s grin suddenly turns wicked.

“Oh, he told me all about that time you knocked an entire crate of fresh tomatoes onto a perp who tried to escape. The street vendor wasn’t very happy, now was she?” TK winks, and Kegan feels the tables turn, his cheeks lighting on fire at the memory.

No, she certainly was not happy. Getting chased by an elderly woman who spent hours arranging her food stall while holding a broom above her head through the entire marketplace was not something he wanted to re-live. Ever.

“And, to answer your question, we’re not married,” TK continues, his smile turning a touch soft, and Kegan makes a sound of disbelief.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

He doesn’t dodge the shove he receives at that, and as they close the rest of the distance to Carlos’ room, Kegan smiles.

He could get used to Austin.