#and a brand new tag for this specific au branch

[i-love-sweet-william]

out of context pre-stozyers #7

with context post-stozyers: byler branch

a collective 6k words of fic+rant. I tried so hard not to add byler but here we are.

"You're not busy unpacking, right?" What a weird tone…Mike hadn't heard Will use it before. "I'm not sure how long this might last."

"I'm free!" For you, always. "What's up?"

"Do you still love me?"

Mike dropped his fucking phone.

But only after performing a shitty juggling act in an effort to catch it, and then proceeding to eat the floor. With the sudden barrage of emotional and physical and property damage, it really would have been no big loss if his phone had dropped right on his head and knocked him out cold. Unfortunately, he was fully conscious, and aching, and on the verge of a fucking heart attack.

Will's distant voice continued as Mike tried to recover, patting around for his phone. "—you okay? Mike, are you still there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine! I just…fell. Uh, can you repeat that?"

"I asked if you still love me." Jesus fucking Christ. "Like, do you wanna date and—whatever comes with that territory, I guess."

(As if he ever stopped.) "I, I mean…Territory? Is dating a quest to conquer?" Shit, that was stupid. Why did he say that. He rolled onto his side and muttered, "Never mind, ignore me."

"I don't think I can do that." God, he could hear that soft, reassuring smile through his cracked phone. "Besides, you're the only other person in this call, and…Listen, it's okay if you moved on already. But if you—"

"I haven't!" Fuckfuckfuck, that was too fast. He didn't even know what Will was going to say. What if Will wanted him to move on. The initial rejection was offensively gentle and hadn't affected their friendship for years, but what if Richie and his weird friends said something to Will over spring break? "I…haven't…" Real fuckin' smooth, Michael. "…Why?"

[disclaimer: Will doesn't have all the vocabulary to explain what he's talking about, but he's gonna try to describe having a poly relationship and being aro/ace. there's a rant about his mindset (and byler backstory…and stozyers context) that's over half of this post]

Will hesitated. "So…the thing El is doing with Max and Lucas, would you do it with me?" What. "If I was with someone else first, would you still—"

Mike sat right the fuck up. "Are you dating someone?!" When did this happen? Mike didn't even know Will was considering dating yet, let alone have suitors lined up! (Well, of course he did…but he didn't show them any interest before!)

"I…think so. No, I definitely am. In some way." In some way? What the fuck did that mean?! "And I thought, I don't know, maybe I could date you that way. If it's…okay."

Okay with Mike? Of course it would be, because Mike was currently having heart palpitations over the option of dating Will in any way, but also, just to be sure, "If what's okay? Like, if dating me is okay with your…" What, his first partner? Fuck, Mike did not enjoy how that sounded.

"Oh, I already cleared that with them." Them? Is it not a guy? [note: Will labels himself gay, and in past conversations he's generally used he/him for a hypothetical partner (because his only point of possible reference was Mike) and it was just easier to say "gay but not looking to date rn" than "not actively looking to date ever"] "It's just, uh…Okay, y'know how Richie"—please, god, do not be dating Richie—"supposedly has a looong history of sex experiences. I mean, claiming to have fucked every mom in the city is his peak of humor. But turns out, he hasn't had sex in, like, five years or some shit."

Mike took a deep fucking breath. "Please hurry and tell me what Richie's sex life or lack thereof has to do with us dating. Please." I am not mentally or emotionally strong enough for this.

"Okay, so what if we dated…but instead of kissing and having sex and whatever, we did something else. Can you still be, y'know, 'fulfilled' in a relationship like that—"

"Yes." Not a moment of hesitation.

(Honestly, Mike would be fulfilled if he got to touch Will's hands and share deep eye contact everyday. Simp.)

"Wait, think about it for a while," Will insisted. "It might be more important than you realize, and…I don't want to hurt you again. If I can't—do something."

The "something" in question was Will's first and last kiss. Everyone else had had their first kisses (even Dustin when he was off at camp), and Mike had hoped that…

Well, Mike wasn't exactly expecting movie sparks to fly, but he thought Will would at least like it. Or maybe be neutral. And if it was bad, maybe they could've awkwardly laughed it off. But instead, Will reeled back to wipe off his mouth, grimacing like he'd accidentally eaten something rotten.

It took Mike several days to recover from that, even though Will had started apologizing immediately afterward.

It took Mike several years to fully internalize the fact that Will wasn't grossed out by kissing him, just kissing in general. And when Mike reached that stage, he also realized that he didn't need that shit! Sure, it was nice, but honestly even the fantasy of being with Will was better than actually making out. (Unfortunately, such fantasies also needed to end. At least a physical kiss didn't lead to reality crashing down on him. The reality in which Will did not reciprocate whatever Mike was feeling in the past, and would probably never reciprocate in the future.)

If they'd had this conversation when they were younger, Mike might not have been so confident; he might've been scared shitless of feeling that deeply repulsive again. But now he knew how to separate himself from initial reactions, things Will had no control over. Mike was ready for it, if ever given another chance…if he'd ever asked for another chance.

He had planned to wait for Will to show interest in finding a relationship, and thought up hundreds of ways to have this conversation…but among all his hypothetical scenarios, not once did he imagine anything close to what was happening right now.

Despite his complete lack of preparation, he could not afford to fuck this up. "You won't hurt me again," Mike promised.

"But how do you know?"

"Because—" Maybe it would be best to have that talk after this one, or the anticipation might literally kill him [read: I need to contain the word count]. "Because meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me…and no matter what happens or doesn't happen, that will never stop being true. Okay?"

Will fell silent…for an uncomfortably long time.

Fuck, was that too much? Did Mike get ahead of himself already? They were being so open and he—

"Okay," Will said quietly. "Then there's…one more thing I want to say. I've just…I'm not…I don't—"

He took a shallow breath. And tried again.

"I can't fall in love with you. But!" Will hurried to beat Mike's impending meltdown. "I think—I've already done the closest thing I'm…capable of. A long time ago, probably."

…Which meant those words were the closest thing Mike could get to a mutual confession! This was the best day of his life! Fuck!

"So, after hearing that, do you still…wanna try dating?"

Oh, there would be no fucking "trying" about it. They were gonna be SO good at this, immediately, without any challenges whatsoever. "Yeah. Yes."

This was happening. Holy fucking shit.

"Okay." The relief in that one word washed over Mike, and he almost felt bad for causing enough tension that Will could be relieved at all. "I just…I want to make you…so happy." Christ, how can you just say that shit without warning—"I think I can do that now."

Mike was going to fucking explode from the emotions rampaging inside. Each one was distinct and frantically clawing at his throat to be the first expressed, but they all sounded like I love you, I love you, I love you.

Unfortunately, before Mike could choose the perfect response, a distant door burst open, and Will let out a very tiny oh no.

"Will, what's wr—"

"Uh—"

"Oh shit, he said yes?" Richie's stupid voice. Of course.

Something fell with a dull thud, and the cord of Will's earbuds rustled in the mic as he moved. "Wait, Ri—"

"WELCOME TO THE HAREM!" Mike nearly threw his suffering phone against the wall to save his hearing. "We meet under every full moon to give thanks to William Byers for blessing our pathetic mortal lives," he informed, at a much more tolerable volume.

You only thank him once a month? Wait, that wasn't the fucking issue here—

Mike was so caught up in the euphoria of having Will's reciprocated love that for like a minute he lived in a world where he didn't sign up to share that love…but Richie made sure to give him a violent reminder.

"Give me my phone, Richard."

"Nooo, lemme bond with him, I'll be so civil, I promise—"

"Mike, I'm hanging up!"

"Mike, tell him not to!"

Hold the fuck up, did Richie just use his actual name? Was he being serious for once? "Wait."

And Will did.

After a few moments, Richie asked, "Is he still there?"

"…Ye."

"Okay, cool, everyone sit comfy for confession time!"

Richie really had to use that word right now, huh. If he interrupted this conversation just to ask Mike out as a joke—

Starting out with a dreamy sigh, Richie said, "Ever since I first saw your bitchy little face on that fateful video call, so many moons ago, I knew…" Mike braced himself. "I wanted to bully you. Relentlessly."

What the fuck.

"Bro, you got so pissy before I even did anything. I was just existing in this assigned room and you looked like I was fucking your boyfriend on camera—(Hey, was he like this with all your roommates?) Were you like this with all his roommates or did you just know I was special? That'd be some fuckin' ESP shit. You should've told me sooner, because then we…"

Richie trailed off and Mike could feel the intensity of a Will Stare radiating through the phone. Good. Keep him under control.

"Anyway, now that we are officially boyfriend-in-laws, I have taken it upon myself to begin the painstaking process of not taunting you on sight…no matter how fun and easy it is to piss you off. But also! Also! It's illegal for you to be jealous of me ever again, so jot that down."

Since when was Mike fucking jealous? Richie was just annoying as hell, why would he even think—

"I'm gonna be on your little screen, touching his hair and holding his hands, and you're gonna have to roll with that." Motherfucker. "But on the bright side, you've only got a couple more months to go before you can be here too! Well, not here, in this dorm, but somewhere…Eh, those details aren't important yet. What is important is I am going to befriend you by force, so be fucking prepared." Richie put on some weird villain voice, rasping out, "You have two months left to steep in your loathing before I drain it all out and flavor you with love. Enjoy being bitter while you still can."

So this was what Mike would have to deal with for the rest of his life. Agony. But it didn't matter because Will Byers could cure all his pain with ease and grace. (And regrettably he trusted Will's judgment enough to accept that Richie must have some redeeming qualities…deep down, beneath that obnoxious surface, so it might not be as excruciating as he anticipated. Hopefully.)

"Okay, that's all!" Richie said, returning to his usual aggravating tone. "Just wanted you to be aware that you will be fundamentally changed as a person soon. Love you, bye~🙈❤️🧂👌👨‍🍳😘"

…How the fuck did he say that out loud? And what did it even mean?!

And then Richie disappeared as abruptly as he'd intruded, and Mike absently muttered, "I'm going to suffer. So much." However, he made sure to speak up when he added, "But you are so worth it. I hope you know that."

"Um…thanks?"

"But also please, please, please, fill me in on why and when you started dating him," Mike said.

"Okay, so over spring break, I found out—how did he word it…I guess Richie and Stan have been 'courting' me. And they—"

"Both?" Where the fuck did Stan come from?

"Yeah," Will said. "For at least a few months or so."

Months?! At least? But he hadn't even known Richie for a year yet, and Stan even less than that, and—and Will was okay with it? Immediately after finding out? They just told him and he accepted? That was it? "What did—" What did they do that I couldn't? "Why exactly did you start dating?"

"I discovered a lot of things this week…about them, and about me. And I think you might learn a lot too, if you felt like talking with them." He paused and reconsidered. "Well, with Stan anyway—because with Richie…y'know."

Yeah, he knew. Yet despite this, Will chose to date that fucker before Mike. A tragedy and an injustice, truly. This was not at all like "the thing El is doing with Max and Lucas", and Mike had no fucking idea how he was meant to interact with them. He hardly knew a thing about Stan, and he only knew annoying things about Richie. (But remember, trust Will's judgment! Redeeming qualities, redeeming qualities, Richie has redeeming qualities…and Stan has…unknown positive qualities? Well, if nothing else, he has good taste in men.)

As if reading his mind, Will continued, "Now that I think about it, Stan isn't that far away from you. He's just a state over, if you happen to wanna meet him before graduation…But you're not obligated to have interest or go out or anything—"

Fuck it. "I want to."

"I mean, he's never talked to you directly before, and you probably want to have some sort of online friendship before meeting him in real life anyway, and there's not a lot of shared interests (except me), and—What?"

"I want to meet him." And see if he's really good enough for you.

"…Okay!"

BYLER BACKSTORY

okay so after the kiss (the kiss Mike asked for, the kiss Will agreed to, the kiss that was just supposed to be Getting It Over With so they could say they did it, the kiss without any explicit feelings attached to it), Will discovered he might actually be thoroughly disgusted by things he previously thought he was neutral about. he was forced to acknowledge how little he could assume about his own limits. before that, he thought "well I don't particularly want to kiss people but I think it'll be fine when it happens" and then it Wasn't Fine. what else would be like that? what else couldn't he do? he had no way to find out without Finding Out and he didn't want Mike to be on the receiving end of such a visceral reaction again (and also didn't want Mike to be the cause of such a visceral reaction again) which is why he rejected Mike later on. he thought that Mike needed the kinds of things that all their friends talked/joked about, and giving him that chance would probably just make them both hurt worse in the end.

Mike was about halfway through his personal journey when he decided to try to confess properly, he was working through what he really wanted in a relationship and wanted to see if they could figure things out, but Will didn't accept it. and made the rejection as gentle as possible and took all the "blame" and looked so fucking Disappointed in Himself that Mike just. chose to wait until Will was ready to pursue his own relationship…which he didn't do, up until now, when bringing up Mike's confession out of the blue. (even tho Mike was somewhat confident that they could figure it out, he didn't want to risk crushing their chances by forcing Will to do something like this before he was equally open to it)

in that time frame Mike did try to date other people eventually. at the start it was casual teenager shit to take the weight of his confession off Will's shoulders, but later on it was because he was mentally preparing for Will to never want a romantic relationship and was genuinely making an effort to move on and be able to just be his platonic best friend. he hadn't been successful, but he was still friends with those exes, because that's the kind of connection he created naturally when he actually chooses to date and isn't pressured into it without an escape. he is full of love and affection and support but in the end Mike's the one that Wasn't Enough because those partners could tell he wasn't fully committed emotionally

(actually they all went into it Knowing he wouldn't be emotionally committed at first because Mike's pining is radiating out of him at every moment. everyone at his college with bare minimum romantic attraction or functioning eyes knew he was fucking whipped for someone from home that he didn't seem to have a chance with. or else they would be together already. there is no way Mike "Where's Will" Wheeler could interact normally with this unfortunate one-sided love. and they thought they had a chance to help Mike move on, especially since Mike was also making a conscious effort to do so. but they gave up within weeks or months because it was honestly kinda depressing that even with his best efforts and genuine emotional connection, the pining for who he Actually wanted to be with was still blatantly clear)

(IMPORTANT NOTE: Will's disappointment was entirely built around "I wish I could make Mike happy" and not "I wish I enjoyed the kiss/I wish I wanted a normal relationship/I wish I felt what everyone else feels/etc". he didn't care much about his own enjoyment or being able to blend in. if he was at least Neutral about that kiss, he would've accepted Mike's confession and fully appreciated the emotional intimacy that came with the physical shit. but he wasn't neutral, and didn't want to submit Mike or himself to that.)

(bonus note: in this au, Ben is that type of asexual. having sex and anything relevant to that is pleasant only for the intimacy he gets with his partner. otherwise it doesn't matter and he has no need or desire for it. but also he is absolutely not anywhere on the aromantic spectrum he is All Romance All The Time. the main difference between how he and Mike see sex is that Mike does actively like the idea of sexual intimacy as its own thing despite not Needing it in his relationship, vs Ben never actively wanting sex itself but he always wants to make Bev feel as loved as possible and sex happens to be one option at his disposal.)

WILL'S MINDSET

okay so Will's not trying to invalidate being poly or aroace by not outright stating the terms or phrasing things oddly, he was just never really concerned with being able to discuss his sexuality with specific words (obviously if someone told him they preferred certain labels he would acknowledge and respect that, he just doesn't care about searching for more terms for himself. he So Much does not fucking care when he could spend his time thinking about like…monsters and shit). "I like boys" "I like girls" "I like both" "I don't think it matters as long as they like science" statements like that were enough for him to comprehend. and for him it was just "maybe I like boys (mike)?" until Stan exposed him to the option of not liking anyone, not in the ways people usually mean when talking about their sexuality (which probably contributed to why he gave so few fucks. everyone around him had preferences that could be labeled and worried over, while he had a severe lack of preference and didn't feel the desire to look for something that wasn't needed)

(also after everything he still calls himself gay and that's his Right, he doesn't have to change the label if it still does its job for him. and he's a dude that's now dating three other dudes. sounds pretty fuckin gay) ngl I didn't know I was aromantic until a friend was talking about their Stan for an au and called him aro and I was like. Wait. that?? counts as aro??? that's a defined thing???? so Will got my Stan Awakening in this au.

btw Will (and hanbrough, the Other Byler) is trans (but hanbrough Fucks, because 99% of the time I make a character trans they're also some kind of asexual. and I think they deserve to Want To Fuck sometimes) so Will's also passively aware of there being more than just two possible genders. but again, he isn't real concerned with learning or claiming specific labels, he just does what he wants. (he and El still look really similar but Also they're the same height now. and depending on who gets seen first when they're standing near each other, a stranger might think they're both girls or both boys, but willel isn't bothered by this. it just happens. then the difference in vocal range makes the stranger change their mind)

anyway finding out stozier had been happily dating for years also showed Will that even someone that really enjoyed sex and romance could be satisfied in a relationship with "someone like him". he didn't think he could do that before, he didn't think he was going to be "enough'', but Stan was more than enough, so maybe Will could be too. that was his thought process when deciding to start the phone call.

the way Will describes his feelings to Mike is partially copying how Stan described his connection with Richie (because Will didn't know they were dating and didn't even think it was possible for Stan, which is one of the things they bonded over, so Stan had to explain). Stan's not exactly In Love with Richie and probably never will be, but it doesn't matter because whatever feelings he has, it feels right for them. and they're all that matter in the relationship they've chosen to commit themselves to (well, plus Will now. and potentially Mike. if he gets there. he'll take a bit more time than Will for that tho…or he might only ever date Will, but he'll at least become less jealous of stozier over time)

(when Will was younger and other people talked about romance, he usually assumed "eventually that'll happen to me. it hasn't yet but it will, because everyone does that, right?" and once he became aware that he treated Mike a little differently than his other friends, he just Expected to fall in love with him. he was waiting for it to happen. he was waiting to wake up one day and just be like "aight cool. I feel distinctly different now". feeling like that is about the closest he'll get to actually Falling In Love. but even if he had fallen in love, he wouldn't have felt the need to ask Mike out. he'd still have been like "I'll keep all my emotions right here, and then one day I'll die". he wouldn't have wanted to date Mike until Mike wanted to date him)

when Will brought up the topic of Maybe Possibly being able to date Mike (he's dating for the first time in his life and it's with two people that have open communication down to a science, so yeah he's gonna bring up his hesitant Mike Thoughts), Stan emphasized that, naturally, they (stozier) don't know what Mike needs in a relationship and can't say whether Will could give it to him. Mike isn't Richie, he might not have any alternatives that Will could do with him. but they won't Know that unless Will asks and byler have an actual discussion about what they can and can't do/try with each other, a conversation that Will had closed off before (a conversation which…kinda becomes unnecessary because of the self discovery Mike had gone through already, but it's still a good conversation to have).

stozier didn't plan on their efforts causing Will to consider dating someone else, but they're definitely aware of Mike being "different" for Will, and they would rather give him the chance to find out if byler could survive than for Will to continue wondering about it. tbh they weren't even 100% confident that Will would choose them if Mike was an actual option but refused to date Will with other people involved. but I think the most simple kind of love is wanting someone to be happy, regardless of how it happens. and after finding out that Will deadass wasn't aware of a single mcfuckin stozier thing going on, they kinda feel like it wouldn't be the worst thing if all they did was teach him it was possible to have a relationship like theirs. (but Mike also wants Will to be happy in whatever way he chooses, so even tho he really fuckin wanted to be Will's only partner, he wouldn't ask Will to immediately dump stozier. his general displeasure with Richie's presence will be fucking suffocating, but he won't make it about Will's choice in dating. it will be entirely Richie's Fault Always Forever. and as long as Mike continues not to take his jealousy out on Will, Richie really isn't that bothered by it since he constantly provoked Mike before this all happened. but someday Mike will notice that Richie's no longer actively doing things to upset him.)

PREFERENCES AND SHIT

Mike can make out or have sex without repulsion but he doesn't require a particularly sexual relationship, his needs are primarily emotional and just having that general physical intimacy, which byler already did Without actually dating…but now they can get Even More Emotional!!! and Completely Erase their Already Minimal Personal Space!!!! they can add another dynamic to their life long friendship, and try out things that even Mike "I'm gonna get you home (to our nerd basement)" Wheeler couldn't pass off as platonic, and continue to discover shit about their boundaries and preferences, and it's gonna be a good fuckin time.

Will and Stan both lack romantic attraction but in different ways, and they chose to date for different reasons. Will was aware a lot earlier than Stan that he wasn't going to fall in love the "usual" way (tho he didn't have a word for it), but once Mike confessed Will Did actively wish he could date just to make Mike happy, and would have done it if they hadn't kissed. for him, the idea of saying "we're dating" is kinda like giving Mike a limited edition cd for a band Will thinks is average at best. he doesn't really care about it but he Does care about the happiness Mike would get from it. but dating isn't a cd, and he knows he has to address the expectations that come with that word before even considering using it (but he kinda shut down the possibility because he would rather Mike be sad from not dating him than purposely put themselves in the path of his repulsion).

meanwhile Stan was Full of dating thoughts but wasn't super interested in pursuing them, he treated them more like a blorbo thing than a personal goal. he wasn't actively disinterested (in fact he really wanted to have a romantic relationship "eventually"), he was just more preoccupied with the fantasy of romance. but when Richie asked him out he wasn't opposed to trying, and he became a little disappointed as he slowly realized he wasn't going to get to experience a romance out of a story, but he still enjoys doing some traditionally romantic gestures (and Richie likes them too)

(when it came to Will accepting stozier's confession/proposal, it was more like informing him that they were already acting like they would if they were dating. because before stozier did Anything, Richie basically asked if it would be okay to so much as flirt, just in case Will would be uncomfortable with an established couple having interest in him (Will is fine with it because people have Apparently flirted with him before and he's never noticed until told, so he figures it won't bother him if people are expressing their interest. it's not his problem if he's not aware. but he didn't explain this logic to Richie, he just said "it would be okay/fine" or "I don't really mind"). and after they had Permission to Pursue, they did just that, gradually building up their individual and shared bonds with him (with Richie increasing the intimacy and affection in his body language and crafting his own Soft Will Voice, since he already uses dramatic romantic/sexual displays with everyone, and Stan changing his actual verbal language, since he only had online contact). but they never stated in Extremely basic terms "we are already in a serious relationship but would like to also maybe date you. can we try that out and see what happens? also this is Not a joke." so Will just did not process anything as having actual romantic intent. oblivious aroace representation)

on the sexual side, while Will has felt "bad" about not being able to do something Mike would like, he's never felt guilty or wrong or anything. just disappointment or sadness. about equal to being disappointed he's severely allergic to Mike's favorite food or something, unable to even touch it let alone eat it together. not a personal failure, just an unfortunate fact. and after entering his first relationship(s), he continues not to have any guilt about what he can't do for Mike or Richie, because they are clearly satisfied in the relationship. he can make them happy. meanwhile Stan occasionally feels guilt about it despite how aware and accepting he is about shit. logically he knows that there's nothing wrong with not wanting to have sex or kiss or whatever, but he can tell himself that as many times as he wants and it won't stop the feeling from popping up (partially because he wanted it so much, and he can imagine Richie wanting it too. but unlike Stan, Richie actually Could have that kind of romance if he was with someone else). he's also open with Richie about when it happens and gets reassurance that he's enough

one big issue Will had with dating Mike was not wanting Mike to miss out on doing things. but stozier was literally already dating long term and had been gradually involving Will in the level of intimacy they were used to, so he wasn't worried about not being able to give them what they needed. he accepted without much thought. honestly Richie's type of personality is probably the only reason they were able to get to this point. Will wouldn't feel the desire to "try" dating if he wasn't already confident he could offer what the relationship required, so basically anyone could ask him out and he would immediately say no. but Richie didn't ask him out, he just asked for Permission to fucking Pine and Express Interest and Flirt and shit, and because Richie already made a big show of general physical and verbal intimacy with everyone, Will didn't even notice it shift from casual/joking to a genuine pursuit.

Richie (and losers in general) is a lot more experienced and chill with sex-repulsion (Stan and Eddie). that disgust is treated kinda like offering someone a really shitty candle and saying "this is so bad. you have to smell it." and giving them the choice to smell it or not. sometimes the scent is intense enough that they Know it's bad even without getting close, but with a weaker scent they can go into the situation knowing that it'll Probably be a negative sensory experience, while also acknowledging that candles only make it to the shelf because Some people like it, so there's a Possibility that it won't be that bad. because of that casual outlook, Will is eventually (Eventually) going to start his Fuck Around and Find Out phase with Richie, and slowly begin to define his physical limits more explicitly.

Will was fucked up about Mike getting that fucked up over their failed kiss, but also he was fucked up about Mike ever being a source of that kind of disgust and he doesn't want to be in that situation again. even if Mike thinks he can handle it now, that doesn't mean Will can handle it. he wants to know what actions he's capable of doing and what things he can never do. and for stozier, Richie Being Gross is like a core part of their dynamic. so Will wants Richie to show him the Shitty Candle Collection and be able to comfortably enjoy being disgusted or pleasantly unfazed (or maybe possibly find a slightly good candle) even if he gags or pukes, even if he can only smell one candle a day or week or month, he wants to know his limitations. he wants to learn that for Himself so he's never surprised by sudden repulsion again. and he wants to do it with someone that's not Mike. 

(about kissing specifically, one reason Will was particularly confident that it would just be neutral is because Byers openly do kisses on cheek/forehead/hand/etc and he never had any reactions stronger than exaggeratedly wiping off his cheek or fake gagging at Jonathan or some shit. he didn't think a kiss on the mouth would affect him like that. anyway plot twist even tho Will was always half-assed grossed out by kissing and pretended to throw up when he walked in on El and Max making out, now he's gonna be one of the the gross ones. he absolutely can't do mouth kisses and doesn't enjoy being kissed in general but he's fairly neutral about Giving kisses (Stan doesn't give or receive any kisses anywhere, stozier makeout session is pure forehead touch babey) and Will's gonna get to see Mike collapse to the fucking floor from a gotdam palm kiss. fucking simp.)

ONE FINAL NOTE

since byler are equally stupid and Mike got the majority of his stozier exposure either through Will or from Richie butting in on their calls, Mike Also did not realize that Richie and Stan were dating. literally from his pov rn, it just looks like Will's annoying roommate fell So fucking hard that he must have gone on lovesick rants that made a whole second person also fall for Will. and since Will's mostly talked about Stan in reference to roasting Richie together, Mike hasn't yet made the connection that Stan is the reason Richie hasn't fucked in "five years or some shit" (more like 3-4, but no one ever accused Will of being good at math) and is also the one that encouraged Will to try to explore multiple ways to have and define a relationship. not that Richie didn't also encourage him, it's just that Will never took anything he said seriously until Stan's comments made him realize that Richie was in fact Not fuckin joking or talking purely in hypotheticals over the past several months.

(for the record Will takes Richie seriously with other topics, it's just the romantic/flirty shit that he is fucking physically incapable of processing as genuine (especially when directed at him). it was like that with Mike too, Up Until he was forced to acknowledge that Mike was serious and actually did want to date and be gross)

aight if anyone made it to the end…god bless. I hope you're fed because this won't be happening again soon

my favorite parts of Mike's very uninformed narration…

"what if Richie and his weird friends said something to Will over spring break?" what if Richie and his weird friend told Will it was okay to ask you out a couple days after he started dating them

"please, god, do not be dating Richie" guess what bitch

"well, if nothing else, [Stan] has good taste in men." Guess What Bitch

[intertexts]

OK HI. HELLO ROS <3 standing in ur doorway like this 🧍 listen i will read worm eventually i just have so much HAPPENING. ALL THE TIME RIGHT NOW. AND DONT HAVE THE TIME. and also jrwi has me in a chokehold u know how it b. ANYWAY. i need u 2 tell me as much about new haven wards as u can without like major insane spoilers for worm. little spoilers r ok. i watch/read everything with a few lil spoilers 2 look forward to anyway <3 i know nothing abt the universe of worm (<<has barely made a sizeable dent in it but god i will i prommy) but i wanna know what exactly nhw is about. how does the universe work. how do the powers work. what is the situation with the nhw how and why are they working together where did they all come from!! gimme the nhw lore!!! as much as u can!!!!! looking at u with the biggest saddest wettest eyes rn pls pls pls infodump abt nhw 2 me!!!!!!!! ros pls 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

HIII HI HI WHISKEY <333 UR INSANE FOR ASKING THIS. BTW. literally insane. grabbing u so hard by the shoulders there is a crazed look in my eye. anyway. FIRST i am tagging @stuck-in-the-ghost-zone here also!!!!!! bc it is his au as much as mine & i am NOT qualified 2 talk abt nhw mark n such. augh.

ok. ok. ok. new haven wards. putting the cut here.

so the basic movement of worm is that powers are from trauma. ridiculously simplified, but that's the base of it-- if you have superpowers, you have them because you went through traumatic events so severe to you specifically that it broke ur brain a little bit. the powers manifest in some way as a reaction to the traumatic scenario. (it is also more complicated than this. playing the spoiler card.) OR secret second option u put urself into indefinite debt to an extremely shadowy and ominous.... organization? person? shadow government branch? conspiracy? and get superpowers in a can, with like, a 10% chance they'll backfire and mutate u into some fucking terrible inhuman shit and then they'll completely memory wipe you and brand you and dump you off somewhere. not really relevant here. because the main way of getting superpowers is to be violently traumatized, cape society in worm tends to be grittier, more violent. there's more villains, the heroes are less shiny marvel or dc and more making whatever moral compromises they need to get the best outcome possible. at one point one of the main heroes in the city worm takes place in tells the sixteen-year-old protagonist "i don't care, there's a kill order out on them, just put a bullet in her brain if you see her, it's fine" and then a while later goes "yeah i'd vote for a kill order out on you guys too," directly to her face. worm is always going "hey, wouldn't it fucking suck if superheroes were real?". there are many horrifying and inhuman and violent threats. sexual and racial and physical violence aren't swept under the rug. these seventeen year olds are sent to crime scenes where flayed and gutted corpses are suspended from the ceilings because they're heroes! ^_^ but this aint about worm this is about the new haven wards!!!!! [wards are the child soldiers junior hero branch of the main syndicated/unionized hero organization, w/ placement in every major city alongside regional protectorate headquarters]

>key things for this au:

--william wisp changed his last name to bell when he moved to new haven (where his brother david lives :) and joined the wards, for another layer of anonymity ^_^ (he is. severely paranoid about his identity & privacy. <- also a Big and Heavy thing in worm/parahumans world. it's a Big Fucking Deal to unmask a cape regardless of their alignment)

-dakota never got the mechanical heart & biomedical augumentation so didn't meet mato cole at that time! he's still dakota damascus :]

-virion... idk why he's still virion & not vyncent actually. probably just because that was the name his parents gave him? we can't change it now though nhw virion & canon vyncent r two different guys to me...

-ashe is the unluckiest fucking guy in the world!!!

their powers are a little different from canon both bc of the ways powers work just being different frm how they do in pd & also because of the "they're always a reflection of the worst moment of ur life that you're just dragging around with you reminding you of it" thing. <333

wibby / whisperer is a breaker/shaker (<- power classifications meaning he has another form he shifts into, and also an area of effect] in his breaker form (crackling white-blue energy) he 1) can control how corporeal he is, or *how* corporeal he is, from "walks into the brick wall" to "doesnt notice there's a brick wall and goes straight through it", to "goes incorporeal to stick his hand in a guy's chest then resolidifies to instakill him" w/ some tradeoffs. & 2) shape/control energy manifestations in a fairly wide radius around him, where the power of the shaped energy is in proportion to the amount of recent death in the area-- if there's a ton of casualties in the area, he can do a lot more than he could in a peaceful small town in the middle of nowhere. the situation with his trigger event was him. growing up socially isolated and half convinced he was going crazy and everyone else Also thought he was fucking insane (deadwood is still haunted!! more haunted :]) for years & years + the loneliness + frustration + unsureness if he's actually the one just. losing it or if it's all really real + the constant feeling of being in danger, that the town is bad and malicious and out to Get you. anyway. he fell, take that as ambiguously as u do for that in canon, didn't die, but was severely injured & couldn't move. just laid there for maybe a day or so in the woods that wanted to kill him. anyway he triggered when he was found! the catalyst was not "the place that's been out to get me my entire life finally succeeded" but the helpless incandescent frustration of "actually nothing i ever do is going to make you understand. i've been trying for so fucking long to make you See It but you won't!!! you never will and you just think i'm crazy or stupid or making it up for attention even though it has such obvious fucking consequences and is manifestly Real!!" he was recruited to the wards by miss g herself, who was like hahahhahaa this kid could be a Really Fucking Big Problem if he doesn't have an eye on him!! ^_^ he never wanted to be a hero, and still doesn't, really, but he's terrified of accidentally hurting people & deadwood is like a weight around his neck and maybe things will be better if he just gets out of here. for a while they're not, of course. he just feels like. y'know. he's another sick thing that crawled out of deadwood, and his powers make that obvious. the way they interact with recently dead shit makes him sick!! living with david is awful-- a big, lovely, lonely high rise apartment, an older brother who barely bothers to speak to him, calls to their mom through the walls going "why is he here? why would you send him here? can he like, go anywhere else?"

virion sol / imprint is a trump (meaning his powers interact With other capes powers.) he can copy powers by touching other parahumans-- the copied power is just as strong as the original, whatever the original is, but he doesn't have an innate sense of how to use it; he can easily be overwhelmed or overstimulated by powers that involve a ton of sensory input, or accidentally loose cannon something he wasn't expecting and can't easily control. regardless, this is a fucking insane power to have. it's so cracked. like within the parahumans-- world, this is something so rare, especially being able to copy the full strength of the power. the very few examples in canon of something similar, the copied power is always inferior. his situation was similar to canon-- the greats were a team of independent heroes, & were like, extended family to virion. he grew up unpowered, but in the cape world-- so many aunts and uncles teaching him security, standard protocols, how to fight capes, how to run cape business and independent team business, how to handle guns and tasers and safely run background checks. y'know. a family's worth of professional knowledge. he never really wanted to be a cape, anyway, he was more than happy to do all the unpowered stuff at home that needed to be done. occasionally he came with them on patrol n stuff or snuck out to watch them. the greats' long term goal was prying out the lich, an extremely heavyweight warlord who had control over most of the city. virion's father struck a deal with the lich-- virion knows as little what the deal was For as he does in canon, but he double crossed the entire team. virion snuck along to the confrontation with the lich (setup) & watched his father turn & murder all of them. still not sure if he did it all himself or just watched as the lich's minions did it, but the way they knew all their weaknesses, how efficient and brutal and unexpected it was-- it was his dad feeding the information. virion stays frozen in shock and horror & hidden during all of this. can't do anything to help. is fucking useless, despite all he knows and has done. for the first time in his life, he wished he had powers, that ram and min and everyone could have taught him how to have and use their powers like they taught him everything else. he triggered watching it all happen. after this, he went on the run, terrified that someone would Know that he saw, that they'd be coming for the loose ends, that his dad would come back for him. all he has of his family is a couple piecemeal things he could grab before he ran-- ram's favorite revolvers, a holy medal of alphonz's, some of his mom's sturdy jewelry. anyway, he ran, moved to a different city, new haven. started figuring out his powers, started targeting specifically other capes who were up to bad shit-- minor to mid league villains, the occasional local hero who would Look squeaky clean, but after their sudden death dirty secrets would come out, etc. all very low-key, very subtle. none of the disappearances or deaths looked related. during this period he is SO fucked up. he is so fucked in the head. he's incredibly hypervigilant and paranoid and jumpy (good at looking unbothered and still clocking every single sound and movement and always facing doors and windows), mired in the grief and guilt and horror at. watching his entire family slaughtered and life shattered in a night. sleeps for no more than two hours or so at a time. even on top of the lich and his dad... what he's been doing puts an even bigger target on his back. doesn't have time or heart for anything but the dirty work. is dissociating through the periods of time where he's not actively hunting someone down or on the job. silhouette is the one who puts the pieces together-- of course he's on the protectorate (hero organization) radar. sure he's only been targeting bad guys, but how clean each one was? how well covered they all are? how whoever this is has allegedly killed at least almost two hands' worth of capes in cold blood by now? sets off alarms, if you're looking!!

anyway, silhouette tracks him down, says hey, i know who you are, i know what happened. you're just a kid. you join us, and you'll gain the resources and skill to be able to get revenge. aren't you tired of running? now... virion took to this fast and well when he did, but. before it all, he was just a teenager. despite the family business, he was just some guy! he helped his mom cook and got help with schoolwork at the kitchen table and his cool aunts took him out for lunch. he never wanted this or expected it. and of course he doesn't trust the heroes farther than he can spit, but... it's something. it's better than this. anything has to be better than the way he's driving himself into the ground. & also, of course. if silhouette can find him. anyone else who's looking for him can too. (i don't think he's even registered on the radar of anyone. his dad didn't actually survive the lich, obviously, & he was the only other one who really knew abt virion + nobody knew he triggered. he's just. so fucking paranoid.)

dakota damascus / failsafe is a thinker/mover. he 1) has a precognitive sense of any pain that anyone in a radius around him will feel in the next short amount of time. this is-- varyingly difficult to block. he can't just Choose not to feel it, although the intensity of the feeling, again, varies. mostly proportionally to how severe the pain actually is, or how many people are hurt, but, with time, he can dull or sharpen it + follow the threads of it to discern Who exactly is in pain, rather than just an ambient sensation. 2) is VERY fast & has matching enhanced cognitive speed. these two abilities work SO good together, both in combat situations & also just day to day patrolling. man. i love dakota. anyway, he triggered young-- he was out with his parents (maybe 7/8) and they got caught in an attack by siberian-- a genuinely indestructible, incredibly powerful villain who can just,,, run her hand through a concrete foundation like it's butter & collapse buildings, or scoop out peoples insides in a heartbeat. and also likes to eat people, like, raw and bloody after dismembering them. whatever level of ultraviolent shocking horror u are imagining. double it. anyway. they got caught in the scene of this attack, dakota got separated from his parents in the panic and stampede and rush to get out-- he's seven! it's terrifying levels of panic and claustrophobia and people shoving and trampling and he's not gonna leave without his parents!! of course not!! he triggers from the fear and the disorientation and the panic & he can't find them & he's trying to fight the crowd but he barely comes up past their knees & there's awful sounds of fighting & he's close enough to see her... things are doubly disorienting with the echo of the agony from everyone who gets Fucking Siberianed. he sees most of the fight. um. a while after she's driven away and it's finally finished he finds what's left of his parents. there's a beat in worm, during an encounter with siberian and the Big Heroes, the prime force equivalent, where they just.. give her a victim to chew on because it makes her happier and less of a nightmare to fight. which is something i think about frequently. anyway, after this things are kind of loose, similar to canon. he does the same shit. it's also quieter and you can feel less people hurting the higher up u are. yk? OH GOD. YEAH. at some point after this we still have not hammered it out. he confronts the slaughterhouse 9 (the supervillain group that attacked/siberian is part of) about it & gets his face slit open (half chelsea smile style) & makes a deal to either kill a guy in [n years] or that guy will kill him & several hundred other people!!!!!!!!!!!! dakota damascus killing a man baked into the bones of nhw!!!

anyway he & cat still fell. he underwent a second trigger event when this happened, actually-- the panic and desperation of that situation + the way it echoed his first trigger, etc. this is also super fucking rare, btw. there are very few second triggers & it is almost Never good. (u cannot trigger more than twice + a second trigger is always a refining or an improving of the intent of the original trigger) so that's where the speed etc. came from. tide found him, gave him. a better support system (low bar!!) + a real purpose in joining the wards. i have a lot of feelings abt this.

ashe / auxiliary / muse is also a shaker/breaker!!!!! his backstory i cannot talk too much about because it is Big Spoilers. but he is a fucking powerful telekinetic (around when he joins the wards, having not really used his power in years, he has an upper weight limit of a couple times his body weight & a fairly large radius of effect). he also has a breaker form that only triggers in certain situations & if he really really pushes himself to breaking w/ his powers-- when he enters it, he loses lucidity, for the most part, & starts warping and stretching and breaking space-time in strange, dreamlike ways-- the pavement melts, or everything gets bouncy, or cars and concrete chunks and things with no business moving float slowly around like balloons, or he pulls and crumples reality to move without really moving.... it gets Real fucking bad, real fast. ANYWAY. he eventually sneaks out one night, walks to a gas station to get. snacks. it-- okay, i'm fucking linking mac's post, i CANNOT summarize all of this concisely. go read that. so. that's ashe's deal!!!!!!!!!

THERE'S ALSO. MARK. ASK MAC ABOUT MARK i have typed this entire thing out on myfucking phone keyboard i literally Cannot keep going. help. and also their mark stuff is so fucking good its so. auuuhhgh. AND ALSO DAVID BELL. WHO WORKS FOR THE ORGANIZATION THAT SELLS U SUPERPOWERS IN A CAN W A CHANCE OF GETTING TURNED INTO AN UNRECOGNIZABLE MONSTER AND DOES HUMAN ABDUCTION AND EXPERIMENTATION. AND JADE AND X AND ALLEN ARE THE FREEDOM CITY WARDS AND GRAYSCALE SHAKES OUT EVEN FUCKING WORSE THAN IT DID IN CANON. YEAH.

SO. YEAHG. THATS. THATS THE MOST OF IT. um. yeah. theyre a dreadful little polycule they are. So fucking clingy they r traumabonded. like little trembling chihuahua puppies. separation anxiety and all. virion and dakota share a comfy old victorian house in a suburban neighborhood maybe a fifteen minute walk from the protectorate hq. wibby starts out living w/ david and eventually just... all his stuff moves over to their place. their clothes r all mixed up they know each others blood types they're all sleeping together on the couch. eventually their house gets blown up. they all get various flavors of nightmare & are 1 million shades of debilitatingly mentally ill but like-- it works. they r good for each other. theyre good together. do not separate them. etc. i'm not even gonna fucking START talking abt their dynamics other than that but like. i mean. if you want a repeat of THIS u can always ask!!!!!!!

[viola-ophelia]

2021 Fanfic Year in Review

thanks @hmsannlett for the tag! :))

Total Completed Works: 11

Word Count: 67,231....... wow holy shit, that’s way more than i was expecting it to be!! though, to be fair, i think a large portion of that was taken up by my silmarillion longfic grieving for the living, as well as my (sadly unfinished) andre turns au, color of blood. 

Fandoms I’ve Written in: turn: washington’s spies, the silmarillion, and for the first time, marvel! (mostly loki-related stuff, let’s be real.) 

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?: hmm... i’d say i wrote the amount that i expected, though i was definitely writing more prolifically last winter/spring and tapered off in late summer/fall as i got busier with college and enjoyed a relatively non-pandemicy social life lol. one thing that 2021 taught me is that i’m definitely a one-shot only kinda girl... i struggle too much with plots, pacing, and motivation to maintain a good longfic, but that’s okay because i do love me some short and sweet storytelling! 

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year?: honestly, i’m so proud of this marvel one: all the tears i’ve shed, love. loki is a hard character to get right for me despite relating to him so much, but i think i really got his voice right in this one. also, it was the first time that i felt like i successfully pulled off a very different structure than i’m used to, while still sticking to my trademark narrative style (which is heaps of introspective character study held together by a feeble excuse for a plot, if you’re into that haha). 

Do You Have Any Fanfic Goals For The New Year?: honestly, my goal is simply to keep writing, to keep having fun with it, and to hopefully keep producing pieces i’m proud of. :)  

though, i would like to write something with a proper plot this year. maybe even an AU! *glances awkwardly at my ao3 full of canon-compliant character studies lol* 

Most Popular Story Of The Year?: i’m not counting grieving for the living because i wrote most of it in 2020, sooo... by kudos it was all the tears i’ve shed, love! (only 39 kudos... shhh it’s fine i’m a small writer and i write for small fandoms haha) 

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: i would say all of my turn fics, but that’s because turn itself is woefully underappreciated by the universe haha! so i humbly submit my wanda/vision story brand new sounds in my mind, which, to be fair, i wrote after watching only one (1) marvel movie, but i still quite like lol. 

Most Fun Story To Write: swaying as the room burned down was my andre/peggy story for turn week 2021. there’s something about their dynamic and the juxtaposition in this fic that was immensely satisfying to write! 

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: i wrote the opening scene of all the tears i’ve shed, love during a really tough anxiety flare when my anxiety was manifesting specifically as hypochondria. looking back on it now..... well uh. i see now why i related so much to kid loki accidentally discovering his jotun heritage and thinking there’s something wrong with his body and that he’s dying. 

Biggest Disappointment: that i wasn’t able to finish color of blood, tbh. well, i learned my lesson about starting to publish a longfic before i’m actually finished writing it and haven’t figured out how it ends yet!  

Biggest Surprise: probably that i branched out into writing for the mcu! it’s something that i never could’ve envisioned myself successfully being able to write for back in 2020, but i’m so glad that i tried it and will definitely be continuing to do so in 2022! 

i’m tagging... hmm let’s see. @thatfeanorian @maironsmaid @sauronnaise @deepfried-shortpeople @moodrose @tallmadgeandtea @wmhowe @elrondsscribe and any other writers who follow me! (feel free to ignore this if you want lol. also i don’t mind if you reblog or make your own, either is good!) 

[sagemoderocklee]

2020 has been a weird fucking year, to put it mildly. There have been a lot of ups and downs, and with New Year’s Eve and the start of 2021 upon us, focusing on the ~positive~ seemed like a better way to end the year, and hopefully start 2021 feeling inspired and proud for overcoming this horrendous year.

For many people, it was difficult--even impossible--to get anything done this year (myself included), and that’s okay! But if you were able to make progress on writing projects, even if it was just one or even if it was just part of one, you should celebrate that! I wish I’d thought of this sooner and organized it better, but regardless I wanted to celebrate my own accomplishments with regards to my writing, and encourage others to do the same! I was going to tag people, but I’m not sure with it being 2 hours til midnight for me if that would feel like putting too much pressure on others, so if you want to do this too please do!

This wrap up is honestly just a self-indulgent look back on the works I’ve made and what I learned/gained from each, maybe what I don’t like about them, some totaling on what I did, and some resolutions for the next year. It’s silly, but I think it’s kinda fun and if you missed any of the things I have posted this year, you’ll find them here!

2020 Fic Wrap Up:

Kado: Parts II+III (COMPLETED)

Kado was started in September of 2019 for the @puregaalee​ summer event. This was a last minute thing that I started the day the prompt was due and managed to write the first part in about 6 hours while sitting in a cafe--remember that? Sitting in cafes? Man, I miss that. I hadn’t anticipated working on Kado, but I decided that I was going to finish it this year, and I’m honestly amazed that I did. This fic is sweet and fun, and surprisingly popular, though it isn’t my favorite of my works. However, it is a light, fluffy little romcom modern AU, and I learned a lot with it because despite my struggles with modern AUs and their horrible lack of political intrigue, this fic forced me to work within set parameters. I was only writing a 3 part story, and each part could only be 9 scenes long. For those unfamiliar, kado is another term for Ikebana, and in Ikebana there are specific elements to follow. Certain styles will only use three branches, some will use nine. So my goal was for the structural elements of the fic to mimic Ikebana. In doing this, I was able to do something I don’t usually do, which is keep this story more concise.

I’m still not sure how I personally feel about the ending, but I think endings are always a struggle, especially with something like this.

Gate of Dreaming (COMPLETED) 

This is a fic that I started last year, then left to sit untouched with only 2k words. Getting back into it was a bit difficult because I was writing something very different from my usual: stream of consciousness. This fic was very experimental for me not only because of the stream of consciousness, but also because of the changing tenses. This was another exercise--unexpected though it was--in brevity. With this particular story, it couldn’t be dragged on and on, because--despite the 100 year time span--the events take place within the Infinite Tsukuyomi. This was also the first time I’d worked from Lee’s PoV in quite some time, so that was fun because I do enjoy writing him, but usually write from Gaara’s PoV. This is definitely one of my favorites from this year, and since it had been sitting on the back burner for so long, I’m so excited that I could finally get it done.

Another one where the ending really wasn’t easy to achieve, but I did end up liking it more than I expected, and I think the best thing is that it’s open-ended which leaves room for others to guess at what the future holds.

It Eats Your Heart (WIP)

This was an unexpected fic for me in every way imaginable. Starting another fic? Making another modern AU? Tackling the horror genre? None of those were things I’d planned to do this year, but lo and behold, that’s just what I did. I really enjoy a good bit of horror, but it is NOT an easy genre to work within, and this fic has definitely been a push for me. But with it being such a push, the payoff is far more. Stepping out of my comfort zone is something I like doing, but I think this is the biggest step outside of that and I am so incredibly proud of how that first chapter turned out because of it. I was really able to surprise myself with this fic, and I am hoping to update the next chapter early on in the year.

Absolution (WIP)

This fic is probably the second oldest idea/longest unpublished fic I currently have up. Formerly a much longer title, the idea for this fic came to me in May of 2017 when a friend, @brianadoesotherjunk / @brianadoesart, posted a piece of GaaLee fanart that sparked inspiration. The fic took off, morphed into something much bigger than the one scene depicted by the art, and now 3 years later, the first part is up. Initially, this was meant to be a long shot, but after sitting with this for so long, I realized that I needed to split it up into 9 parts, which allowed me to use this for GaaLee bingo and finally publish it. Much of the first part was already written before this year, but I’d been quite stuck on it until now. This is actually probably one of my favorite GaaLee concepts to date. I remember back in the day, there weren’t a lot of different takes on getting Lee to Suna so he and Gaara could fall in love, so (at the risk of sounding cocky) I think that Lee as a nanny is rather inspired. I think with this fic, I pushed myself the hardest to get past the hurdle of writer’s block and accepted that publishing is probably the best way to motivate myself to keep going. The feedback for this fic has been really motivating, so I think I’m probably right about that.

I do think there are some parts in the middle or towards the end that could maybe use some tightening up, but I’m just happy to finally have this fic out in the world.

The Art of Love: Chapter 11 (WIP)

TAoL is such a ridiculous labor of love. The chapters for this fic are novellas in and of themselves, so each time I update it takes a lot of work to get them out. This fic is one of those like magnum opus type fics. I have put so much into it, and I’m honestly amazed that it’s only been up for 3 years because I’m approaching the halfway mark on it, and I don’t think I expected to be there by now. Despite being able to churn out 30k chapters, I have a hard time focusing on one thing and I often struggle with mental health related writer’s block, so big works are always sort of sporadic in their updates. 

This particular update of TAoL was definitely one of my favorites though. Initially, I didn’t plan to go the sort of dark fantasy rout that I did with Shikamaru, but I actually really love what I’ve done with him, though I worry others won’t be as into it or that the execution isn’t quite there. One thing I would like to work on with future chapters of TAoL, however, is maybe pairing things down a bit--though I’m not sure that’ll always be possible. The next chapter is a Naruto PoV chapter, though, so I expect that one to be a MUCH shorter chapter than the last three and should be able to get it out sometime next year.

Before I could publish this chapter, however, I did go through and make some big changes, which is something I often struggle with because of such long breaks in between working on certain projects. I will say, though, that TAoL continues to push me to greater heights as a writer, and I look forward to actually finishing this fic someday.

Thirteen Strokes: 1 + 2 (WIP)

Another unexpected fic this year, however, this one was actually an idea for about a year, unlike IEYH. This fic has really given me a lot of perspective on my own writing and world building, and has inspired me to sit down and really start committing the things I’ve developed to paper to create a cohesive view of Suna, Wind, and the shinobi world. This fic is meant to be a Romance. Like just full on Romance. I write a lot of tragedy and focus on a lot of darker themes in my writing, so while I don’t think of this as stepping outside of my comfort zone, it is very different from my usual, and a really nice change of pace. I think, in all honesty, it is one of my best works, and I do hope I can continue to deliver on the remaining 11 parts of this story.

if this were the last i felt you breathing (COMPLETED)

Ugh. This fic has been my enemy for 2 long years. I signed up for a Secret Santa exchange, and of course, I regretted doing it when I found that I was not motivated and, after the month of October where I was churning out fic after fic for GaaLee Bingo, that I was massively burned out. I wasn’t able to think past writer’s block, and so I ended up settling on dusting off an old, unfinished piece for my giftee, and I hope they can forgive me for not coming up with something brand new for them.

This fic was a struggle. Working so closely with the canon--following the Rescue Kazekage Arc as closely as I did for this fic--made this a much bigger challenge and this fic sat and sat and sat for two years, untouched and incomplete. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I know it’s not my best work, but I am glad that this fic isn’t hanging over my head and that I was able to deliver something to my secret santa giftee.

My goal with this fic was to rewrite this particular arc from Lee’s PoV to give more depth to the arc and shift the emotional core of it away from Naruto. Naruto as a character has a lot of flaws that never get addressed, and one of the things that is consistently frustrating for me is the way the emotional core of the series rests on him in unrealistic and often superficial ways. Naruto hasn’t spoken to Gaara in three years, but I’m supposed to believe he’s this affected by Gaara’s kidnapping? Temari and Kankuro are right there! Lee is right there! I wanted to see that, so that’s what I set out to do, and ultimately I don’t think I fully succeeded, but I tried. I guess not everything can be a resounding success

---

This year I managed to do a lot more than I realized. New works, updates, and COMPLETED pieces?! I never would have thought, but staying home gave me more free time, and when I was too broke to work on costumes, writing fanfiction was something free I could do.

Total new works: 5 Total updates: 9 Total completed works: 3 Total words this year: 143,587

---

I have a lot of goals for the coming year, and I know I won’t make all of them, but that won’t stop me from trying.

2021 Writing Resolutions:

Reach 1million words (+238,073 words)

Finish IEYH

Finish Pearl-Filled Lungs

Update TAoL (Chapter 12 and 13)

Update Absolution

Update 13S

Update Find Me (Chapter 6)

Start the Ballad of the Dragon and the Phoenix

Start editing Alliance

Return to working on Honor Bound

Return to working on We Need Not Be Yellow Tulips

[adelmortescryche]

YOI Academic Week - Day One

AN: Not sure if I’m going to be able to contribute to every day of this event, not with how weird my health has been off-late, but here I am with my day one fill, @yoiacademicweek! This fills the prompt “Sleeping in Random Places on Campus”. It got a lot longer than I thought it would, but hey, slice of life and fluff.

Premise: Victor and Yuuri keep running into each other on campus whenever Yuuri falls asleep in strange places. They somehow manage to fall for each other over a course of multiple meetings anyway, no matter how weird the circumstances. AU in that Victor and Yuuri are both studying at the same, unnamed university, and Victor isn’t a figure skater. He still skates, though. *wry grin*

As a disclaimer, I came up with all the instagram ids at the end on my own, if they happen to correlate to existing accounts, it’s a complete coincidence.

“We really should stop meeting this way.”

Still in the throes of sleep, Yuuri blinked blearily, registering after a long moment that he wasn’t at home, instead curled up in a comfortable niche he’d found at the integrative learning center. He’d had over an hour till the next bus home showed up, and after a long day, he’d figured he may as well catch a few winks when he got the chance.

It took another moment before he registered he’d been spoken to.

Warily peering over his shoulder, he almost collapsed and rolled right out of his niche in relief. Not a stranger deciding to pick on the creepy Asian dude curled up in a ball; probably overdressed for the weather, but who gave a fuck. Well, the man was still technically a stranger in that Yuuri still didn’t actually know his name, but- he was a stranger-friend bearing hot coffee that smelled divine. And Yuuri was poor and weak and cold, and-

His stranger-friend gave a warm laugh, surrendering the coffee without any complaint. Yuuri already had a quarter of the cup down his gullet, groaning happily, before he registered that the man actually had another cup to himself, and was leaning against the wall beside where Yuuri had been curled up, smiling softly into his cup. Oh.

“Um. Thank you,” he offered awkwardly, forcing himself to stop guzzling coffee like a rude ass. It just earned him another laugh though, the other man’s lips rounding out into an adorable heart-shape that had Yuuri’s mouth going dry. And had Yuuri rushing for the coffee, again, just to give himself something to do that didn’t involve staring like a thirsty fool.

Well, it probably made him look thirsty, alright, but at least he didn’t seem thirsty-

Oh god.

“I need more sleep. And probably a lot more coffee than this,” he mumbled to himself, a little helplessly, and managed to reduce his stranger-friend to tiny little snickers that he made no effort to hide. Well, at least he was cute. Even if he was laughing at Yuuri.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Yuuri didn’t make it a habit of accepting coffee from strangers, no matter how lovely the stranger or how delicious smelling the coffee. He had at least some preservation instincts. Even if he did have the bad habit of falling asleep in strange places all of the time. Phichit had actually started making a gag reel for it on YouTube, had created a brand new tagging system on Instagram just to capture Yuuri in different stages of slumber in unexpected places. Like, oh, at the side of a fountain. Under a tree. In a tree, on its branches, because that got Yuuri away from the bustle of students on the ground. On a bench by the lake, in nicer weather, because right now everything outside was a frozen wasteland and Yuuri would rather find nice, cozy corners that came with central heating.

Anyway, back to the topic. Yuuri didn’t make it a habit of accepting coffee from lovely strangers. But he’d run into this specific stranger-friend enough times that he had to admit that his stranger-danger gauge had run a little low.

“We could just go and get coffee at the coffee shop in the library.” The stranger-friend offered, and Yuuri turned to eye him through narrow eyes.

He just kept smiling, though, his icy-blue eyes lit up with good humor, ash-blond hair ruffled slightly and damp from melting flakes of snow. He didn’t even have the decency to wear anything warmer than a light peacoat and shirt, damn him, while Yuuri felt like he’d be frozen stiff if he didn’t bundle into multiple layers. At least it wasn’t a bloody hoodie, but then, from what Yuuri had seen of the other man, hoodies were beneath him, outside of exercise days. No matter how comfortable.

“Maybe we’d actually get to talk for once? Without you needing to go running to catch a bus home, or needing to rush off for your next class? Or, oh, what was it last time-”

“Books that I needed to drop off in my advisor’s office,” Yuuri muttered, feeling his cheeks burn. They weren’t excuses, okay, he’d actually had to do all of those things. The accusation that he’d been making excuses to run away would make him irate, but really, there’s not much accusation in the other man’s tone. And so much more honest amusement, like he’s laughing with Yuuri at their situation, instead of laughing at him for being such a dumpster fire at life.

“So? Want to get that coffee?” he asked, again, and Yuuri’s about to say yes. Except that he noticed the time and fuck, there goes his bus, and there isn’t going to be another one that night if he doesn’t catch this one-

The stranger-friend took one look at his face, sighed, and nodded, still smiling.

Yuuri catapulted himself out of his niche, scrabbling on the waxed floors, and all but dived through the doors he shoved open. It isn’t till he’s standing and heaving for breath on his bus, still clutching at his coffee cup, that he realized that he’d somehow run without getting the stranger-friend’s name yet again.

*

It started something like this. They’d still been in fall, and Yuuri had already started delving through the sweater bins in the discount sales sections of any store he headed to. Mostly so he could buy them in bulk to supplement his need to stay warm, with the constant litany that there would be a day he would hit it big as a skater and then he’d be able to get all the expensive sweaters and coats he wanted on sponsorship money. A complete filthy lie, Yuuri would never do anything of the sort, but it was something to tell himself.

It had been a really long day, and he’d just hunkered down on the stairs, close to the wall, trusting the fact that he’d picked the side stairwell of the library to ensure that no one would bug him. Head down on his knees, arms hiding most of what could be seen of the top of his head, and dead to the world within thirty seconds. And yeah, that’s how tired he’d been.

When he’d woken up, he almost crashed into the person crouching in front of him, reaching out as though to shake him awake.

“Uh, it’s just, you’ve been here for at least three hours, I promise I’m not a creep?” the stranger stuttered, his pretty blue eyes really wide.

Yuuri gaped back at him, not sure how he was supposed to react to that. Except, fuck, yes he did know how to react to that. And it was-

“MY BUS! God-fucking-damnit, this had to happen the one time Phichit-kun wasn’t in town, didn’t it-”

And off he’d rushed before the beautiful stranger could get any more words out.

*

It hadn’t ended there, oh no. Yuuri might have had some sanity left if it’d ended at there. No, instead, he’d somehow managed to run into the stranger, quickly dubbed the stranger-friend in his head, all over campus. And these meetings happened only when he’d been asleep first, because someone out there loved to see Yuuri squirm. Obviously.

From lonely stairwells to booths in cheap restaurants to underneath desks in their library and, one particularly embarrassing time, dozing at the counter during the shift Phichit begged him to cover at the coffee shop. He’d come awake with a start, and had almost toppled over – the only reason he hadn’t was because the stranger-friend had nearly dived over the counter, arms outstretched, to keep him in place.

Then there was the time he’d fallen asleep at the fucking bus stop-

What Yuuri was trying to say, was… there had been many, many times he’d been caught sleeping at strange places by the stranger-friend. It had gotten to the point that Phichit actually asked him about the meetings with his mysterious, handsome stranger-friend, tongue in cheek. While Yuuri valiantly protested that there weren’t any ‘meetings’ to speak of.

*

Yuuri blinked awake, promptly jerking in shock when he noticed the particularly familiar ash-blond haired form curled up on the couch opposite from where Yuuri was curled up into his own armchair. Staring in disbelief for a few seconds had apparently been enough to make the other man register the scrutiny and blink awake as well. When he noticed the way Yuuri had been staring, though, he just offered up a sheepish grin.

“You look so comfortable sleeping all the time. I thought I’d wait to say hi, but I ended up falling asleep too.”

The words made Yuuri flush, just a bit, but they also made him laugh. How could he not, really, when he saw how awkward the other man looked. His laughter had the added effect of making his stranger-friend relax immediately, too, so win-win.

“I’m Yuuri,” Yuuri managed to get out, once his laughter died away. When the other man’s brows rose, Yuuri cracked a wry grin his way.

“Katsuki Yuuri. Or, uh, Yuuri Katsuki, you’d say. Hi.”

“Hi,” his stranger-friend repeated, bemused, before cracking a grin of his own.

“I’m Victor Nikiforov! I’ve seen you practicing at the rink a couple of times, I doubt you’d have seen me, we have different practice times and I know you’re very focused when you’re on the ice-”

The words had Yuuri gaping. Because he hadn’t expected anything of the sort.

*

For the first time in months, Yuuri had nowhere to rush to, and so, he had all the time in the world to curl up in a booth in the coffee shop with Victor opposite him, finally getting the chance to actually talk. It turned out that Victor was not only older than him, but he was also at the University for a Graduate Degree in Comparative Literature. They were in completely different departments, and Victor took classes in Russian for beginners, not English 101 like several others in his cohort, so there hadn’t been any chance of them running into each other in a more formal setting there either.

And the first time Victor had seen him, he’d been rushing down the stairs and had nearly tripped right over Yuuri when he’d been sitting in the stairwell.

The expression on Victor’s face had Yuuri collapsing sideways, shaking with hilarity. Victor just watched him with an exasperated smile, sipping slowly at his black tea. Yuuri had seen him dart across to the abandoned breakfast counter to grab a couple containers of jam to empty into his cup, early on, much to his horror, but Victor had seemed very happy with his choice of drink. Victor had seemed about as horrified by how dark he took his coffee, anyway, so Yuuri supposed they made a good pair.

Adding as much sugar and milk as he’d have liked would have pissed Celestino off, anyway, so Yuuri would just have to abstain. At least until the off-season.

“And why did you try to wake me up?” he asked breathlessly, peering over the edge of the table once he managed to bring his laughter under control.

Victor was still watching him with that smile of his, his expression something that Yuuri couldn’t understand too well all on his own, but Yuuri stared back at him anyway, waiting patiently for a response. Victor hummed thoughtfully, after a moment, and pressed his chin into the support of his hand, his elbow balancing on the table.

“I’d had to head out and get some work done, after almost tripping over you. And then I’d come back, and had been heading back to the reading rooms above, but there I found you, still fast asleep. You’d looked so peaceful, and I’d gone multiple nights without sleep, and I’d probably been a little jealous-”

“Hey, now-” Yuuri cut in, beginning to grin, but Victor cut him off in turn, smiling softly.

“But mostly, I’d woken you up because I knew you’d been sleeping there for a really long time. And judging from where you’d decided to take a nap, I didn’t think you’d actually planned on falling asleep for that long. So I thought I should be a nice guy and nudge you awake.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack, you know,” Yuuri countered mildly, trying to hide his grin. Victor didn’t make any effort of the sort, his lips rounding out into that heart-shaped smile that Yuuri had seen the last time around all over again. Yuuri wished they wouldn’t, that expression did weird things to the organ pumping away inside his chest.

“You did the same, I think, when I saw you dozing at the bus stop. I think you nearly mowed me down while trying to catch your bus.”

“Hey, I didn’t have any other buses left to catch, that night. It’s not my fault if we keep running into each other right before I’m about to miss my bus.”

“Or hand in a paper, or running late for a meeting, or-”

“Hey.”

Victor’s just looked more delighted than before, damn him. So Yuuri had to admit defeat, instead levering himself upright again, and grumbling into his coffee.

They exchanged phone numbers before heading out for the night, and the sight of Victor’s name in his contact list left a warm glow in Yuuri’s chest. Even if it did make Phichit go around with a smug expression for the rest of the week.

*

The next time he fell asleep in the lobby of his department, he woke to Victor scribbling away in a notebook beside him, intimidatingly thick and musty texts sitting open on the table before them. When he made a muzzy, questioning sound, Victor glanced back at him, and waved at him to go back to sleep.

Well. Okay then. If Victor said so.

The next time he managed to get himself back awake, it was to find that Victor had managed to fall asleep as well, heavy books pushed haphazardly to the side and head pillowed on his arms, somehow managing to look like a vision of beauty even while drooling in his sleep. Yuuri had to muffle his laughter into his sleeves, instead doodling a quick message into the side of Victor’s still opened scribbling notebook before heading off. It made sense to be the one buying the hot drinks for a change, right.

The way his eyes lit up when Yuuri proffered a cup of tea, plus teeny-tiny packets of jam on the side, was worth everything, anyway.

*

phichit+chu

[ image: a lithe figure wearing the JSF’s official Olympic jacket zipped all the way to the top, fast asleep with his mouth hanging open slightly, blue half-rimmed spectacles hanging low on his nose. Pillowed on his lap is another figure, face hidden, recognizable only by his ash blond hair and the name visible on the back of his Team Russia jersey. The first figure has an arm wrapped loosely around the second figure’s shoulders. ]

7,523 likes

phichit+chu look at my boys being #relationshipgoals even years down the line! congrats on winning gold yet again, @katsuki-y and @v-nikiforov! #showstoppers #yuurikatsuki #victornikiforov #teamrussia #pyeongchang2018 #olympicgold2018

mayamaylou aw they’re so cute they must be so tired #relationshipgoals

ammellorine d’aww zzzzz :D

phichit+chu @mayamaylou hah more like one fell asleep and the other tracked the first one down and then they were both dead to the world! but yeah they’re cute

christophe-gc sleeping so soundly, the both of them

y-plisetsky ugh

mila-babicheva don’t be mean yura but hey now we know where vitya’s gotten to #imsleepytoo #zzz #relationshipgoals

katsuki-y phichit-kun!

phichit+chu welp guess who’s awake save me from your husbando @v-nikiforov i’m too young and pretty to die

v-nikiforov my sleeping beauty and the prince of my heart in one ❤❤❤ #lifeandlove #alwayswakethesleepingbeauty

naiagurl theyve been together since college gimme a gf like that #relationshipgoals

katsuki-y vitya!

phichit+chu *laughs forever*

y-plisetsky why do all of you have to be so gross

mila-babicheva vitya abandon ship i think yakov spotted you

viktuurifan101 this entire thread is #blessed