#anyway there's like 20 fics for them on ao3 so i guess it's just me and my imagination tonight boys

[gregorycddie]

rewatching deadloch and oooh the big ep 6 fight between cath and dulcie, as a top 1% dulcie identifier, this is like pumping adrenaline straight into my veins, like yeah she did cheat in the past and used some harsh words at cath but i am glad to say i stand with my cancelled wife

[scarlettcryptid]

hardcore projecting my avoidancy onto dabi in this soulmate au thing i started in november

[chronicangel]

be cute, be dumb, be wise, be young

Link to this fic on AO3. Words: 3009 Date posted: October 20, 2024 Summary:

“Pacifica, tell me you didn’t get a tattoo just to seduce me,” he groans. “I didn’t,” she says, extremely matter-of-factly. “I got a tattoo, and now I’m seducing you.”

This is based on @flxnce's tattoo artist/barista AU, which is so so good and you should check it out!!

“Are you sure you want to put this on your body forever?”

“Oh shut up. You and Mabel have practically been harassing me to get a tattoo for the last six months and now the first idea I come to you with, you try to change my mind?” Pacifica glares at him, and it’s not quite as intimidating as it was when she had black hair, but he holds his hands up in surrender anyway.

“Not trying to talk you out of it!” He says, and his face flushes at how fast it peeps out of him. So it’s still a bit intimidating. “I just don’t want you to regret it and get mad at me or anything.”

She rolls her eyes and blows a cloud of smoke in his face in what he guesses is supposed to be a retort, but it’s hard for him to be anything but mildly annoyed about it because that was his cigarette a few minutes ago. “Look, I’m not gonna get into the whole tragic backstory or whatever to make this make sense to you. I thought it was a cool idea.”

Dipper wonders if there is a tragic backstory or if she’s just speaking metaphorically. He’s noticed that she doesn’t talk about her family. He figured they just weren’t close and didn’t think prying much further would be polite, but now that he’s been presented with the possibility that there’s something messed up about it, it connects some dots.

Before he can ask, she holds the cigarette back out to him, half-gone with the filter covered in her lip gloss. “I thought you were quitting,” he grumbles, taking a long drag while she just smirks at him. There’s not much left after that, and he puts it out on the railing. There’s no ashtray and he doesn’t want to litter, so he stuffs the butt in his pocket, where he’ll probably forget about it until it’s time for laundry and Mabel yells at him. “Why do you want me to do it, anyway? Wouldn’t Mabel be better for that sort of thing?”

“I’ve seen the tattoos you guys do. Mabel’s art is amazing, but your lettering is better.” Somehow, she manages to say it like none of that was a compliment, though she doesn’t make it sound like an outright insult either, so it’s at least better than it would have been a few months ago. He knows that she thinks his art is good, anyway, because he’s seen the way that she stares at his arms when he’s in short sleeves and he can’t think of any other reason she’d do that. “Do you not want to do it?”

She looks vulnerable in a way he’s never seen. She’s not making eye contact with him, and she picks at a loose thread in her ripped jeans, threatening to make them look a little less intentional and a little more ruined.

“Yeah,” he says somewhat absentmindedly. Then, realizing that that’s the wrong answer to the question she actually asked him, he adds, “I mean, yeah, let’s do it. Why not? I think my book is a little tight this week, but—”

“Oh, there is no way you’re getting me on that table during daylight hours for this,” she says, and he stares at her for a second.

“Uh, what?”

“I am not doing this in front of Leo, let alone a bunch of strangers. Don’t you have a tattoo gun at home or something?”

“Well, yeah, but my apartment isn’t exactly up to code for—”

“Don’t care, didn’t ask.”

He snaps his mouth shut, cutting off his lecture about sanitization and how he could lose his license if anybody heard about this. It’s not like he didn’t do his own tattoos in his bathroom when he was 18 years old and thought he knew better than the health department, and it’s not like his apartment is some sort of crack den or anything. Mostly, though, he just doesn’t want to have this argument with Pacifica when she’s clearly determined to do it no matter what he says.

It turns out that his apartment is within walking distance of hers. He shouldn’t be shocked, since most of Gravity Falls is within walking distance of most of the rest of it, but he is, a little. It feels like they should have met sooner.

Mabel isn’t home, which is a blessing. There is no way that she could be normal about this. He doesn’t know where she is, though, or when she’ll be back, so he gestures for Pacifica to follow him to his room.

This is the first time in his life that he’s ever regretted not listening to Mabel when she lectures him about tidying up his room. There’s all sorts of papers and soda cans at varying degrees of fullness littering the surfaces of his desk and his dresser, and he’s got various articles of clothing strewn about the floor.

“Wow, you live like this?”

His embarrassment immediately gives way to annoyance, and he shoots her a glare over his shoulder. “Okay, I don’t have to give you a tattoo just because you’re in my apartment.” Still, he picks up a few pieces of laundry and tosses them into his hamper as they pass. He knows the gun is on his desk somewhere amongst all of the mess.

It takes a few minutes of digging, but he manages to find the tattoo gun his great uncle had bought for him to practice with when he was 17 and decided that he wanted to go into the profession. His parents had not approved, but since when did his parents approve of anything Grunkle Stan did? And it worked out in the end, didn’t it?

Of course, he almost drops it when he turns around to see that Pacifica has taken her jeans off, standing in his room in a t-shirt, underwear, and a flannel she’d stolen from him about two hours ago like it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing. Fortunately,  he’s fumbled a lot of things in his life, so he’s able to catch it before it hits the floor and breaks.

“Um,” he says, his voice at least an octave higher and his face so red it burns. “I guess you can lay on my bed?”

If he wasn’t prepared for the sight of Pacifica half-naked, he’s definitely not prepared for the sight of Pacifica half-naked and laying on her stomach on his bed, her arms folded under her cheek, face turned so she can look at him over her shoulder. “Is the staring a part of the tattoo?” She asks, with a raised eyebrow and a tone that says she definitely knows it is not.

“I’m mapping it out,” he bluffs. He keeps that excuse in the back of his mind as he runs his eyes up and down her legs. Pacifica is not especially tall, but her legs are proportionately long. He can understand the appeal of the tattoo she’s asking for, at least in an abstract sense. If he was her, he’d want to draw attention to his legs, too. And it’s definitely going to draw attention.

He grabs her ankle and pulls her leg into his lap, or at least, he tries to, but she lets out a single snorting laugh and jerks her leg away from him. He raises his eyebrows at her, and she turns her head to hide in her arms and his pillows. “Sorry. Ticklish.”

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” She doesn’t answer him out loud, just nods against her arms and settles her leg in his lap. When he grabs her ankle this time, her muscle barely flexes under his fingers. “This isn’t going to feel great,” he warns.

To Pacifica’s credit, she doesn’t seem to react to the pain very much. When the needle first makes contact with her skin, he hears her hiss through her teeth, but after that she lays as still as anyone who’d gone under the gun a thousand times. The other thing he’ll credit her with is that the design she’s chosen for her first tattoo is extremely simple, all lines and letters. She didn’t give him a specific font, so he writes it in his own handwriting, and he tries not to think about the fact that his handwriting is going to be on Pacifica’s body forever.

When he gets up to the back of her knee, he offers her a break, but he’s a little surprised when she takes it. “Can you get me a glass of water?” She asks, and when he stands, she adds, “Or maybe a beer?” He laughs, which he knows is what she really wanted. Pacifica knows him and Mabel both too well to think there’s beer in their apartment. Mike’s Hard, maybe.

She sits up to drink her water, bending her leg so her calf isn’t against his sheets. He appreciates it, though mostly because he doesn’t know what kinds of germs are on his sheets to cause some sort of infection. When was the last time he washed them?

“Maybe you should let me wash and wrap those before we get started on the second half?” He suggests.

“You’re the expert,” she says with a shrug, and something about it strikes him as odd. It’s only when he gets back with the stuff for it that he realizes she hasn’t made a snarky comment since she took her clothes off.

“Are you doing okay?”

She tilts her head at him, flexing her leg like she’s testing out the muscles. “Yep, everything seems to be working fine,” she confirms. He just stares at her for another second, and he’s not sure if her face falling is because she realizes what he means or she realizes that she can’t pretend she doesn’t know what he means. “I’m okay,” she says.

“But?” He asks. There’s something about her tone… He doesn’t have the words for it, but he can hear it. There’s something wrong.

She heaves a dramatic sigh. “Well fuck, Dipper, can I just say I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Of course you can,” he says, faster than he means to. She doesn’t have to tell him anything that she doesn’t want to. But he’d like her to talk to him.

She stares at him for another second, and then her eyes drift over to his desk, and he feels another surge of embarrassment. He should have tidied it up after he found the tattoo gun, but he was so eager to get back to her, and then she wasn’t wearing any pants and he kind of forgot about everything else. “I still don’t want to get into the whole tragic backstory,” she says with a warning tone, and he holds his hands up in surrender as if he’d asked. “But my parents were—are the worst. And I guess this kinda feels like taking my body back from them. It’s… cathartic. It’s weird.” She laughs.

“I think a lot of people feel that way,” he says. Of course there are always the people who never thought that hard about it, the people who come in on impulse, but more often than not, he sees people who are very conscious of their bodies.

She looks down at the marks on her leg, twisting it around experimentally. “Is this the worst of it?”

“I can’t lie to you, the back of the knee is gonna suck. Like, one of the worst parts of the whole body to get tattooed suck. But it’s all uphill from there.”

“Guess we’d better get it over with then, huh?”

“No going back now,” he agrees. She sets the glass of water down on his end table, still half-full with marks from her lip gloss on the rim.

He holds her leg down against the bed while he works on the back of her knee, and he can feel her push up against it a couple of times. The only thing that keeps him from fucking the tattoo up is his own expertise, but he’s not about to scold her about it, not until it becomes a real issue anyway. That’s the reason that she asked him to do it, anyway, isn’t it? Well, this and his handwriting, he guesses.

He gets so absorbed in the work that he almost doesn’t notice the fact that he’s working his way up Pacifica’s leg, his fingers sinking into the flesh of her thigh. The room is quiet—just the soft buzzing of the tattoo gun and their breathing. Well, mostly Pacifica’s breathing. Dipper’s breathing is never more steady than when he’s working on someone, but his ears catch on every sharp breath and gasp she makes.

“Almost done,” he says in a way that he hopes is reassuring as he works on the last of the lettering under the swell of her ass. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been here—he thinks it can only have been an hour or two. All lines and letters, it seems impossible that it could have taken any time at all. He knows the only reason it feels like any time has passed is that it’s Pacifica he’s working on.

When he pulls away and immediately sets about getting it cleaned and wrapped, he glances up at her face to check in on her again. “Still doing good?”

“Do you worry this much about all of your clients, or is it just because we’re friends?”

“You know, I think that might be the first time you’ve ever admitted out loud that we’re friends,” he teases.

She gives him a curious look—not curious as in she looks curious, but curious as in he has no idea why the fuck she’s looking at him like that. “We’re friends,” she says, voice soft. Something catches in his chest. His breath? His heart? He’s not sure. “Of course we’re friends,” she adds, and he’s suddenly very aware of his hand against the back of her thigh.

He clears his throat and pulls away from her. “I think that’s, um, pretty much all taken care of,” he says, looking anywhere but at her while his cheeks burn. “You can remove the bandage after 24 hours, but make sure to moisturize it whenever you wash it and—” She reaches out to rest a hand on his arm, and his eyes flick over to her.

“Dipper.” She’s sitting up now, her leg bent up again to keep it off his sheets again even though the tattoo is all bandaged up.

He watches her leg slide around so she’s on a knee instead, and he barely has time to look up at her face before it’s right up against his and oh. She’s kissing him. She tastes like coffee and cigarettes and lip gloss, which are all flavors he’s extremely familiar with—some moreso than others. After a second of hesitation, he slides a hand up to cup her jaw while he kisses her back, and she doesn’t waste any time in climbing over him.

“Mnh… Mabel. I didn’t hear Mabel get home, but I don’t know when she’s—”

“She’s not coming home tonight,” Pacifica says hurriedly, her mouth hardly an inch away from his, and he blinks a few times.

He pulls away even though she whines about it. “Pacifica, tell me you didn’t get a tattoo just to seduce me,” he groans.

“I didn’t,” she says, extremely matter-of-factly. “I got a tattoo, and now I’m seducing you.”

“Then how do you know that Mabel isn’t coming home tonight?”

“Because I texted her while you were getting me water. Will you stop talking?” And, well, she doesn’t exactly give him a lot of room to argue. He doesn’t especially want to argue about it, anyway.

When he wakes up in the morning, closer to noon than usual, he hears the shower running in his ensuite bathroom, and it takes him just half a second to figure out who’s in it before he remembers, shit. Oh, shit. He gets up and scrambles to start putting his clothes on, whatever’s closest to the bed regardless of how dirty or clean it might be. He’s got boxers and one leg of jeans on before the bathroom door opens and steam comes rolling out of it.

She’s wrapped up in one of his towels, and that visual alone is enough to make his cheeks flush. (It shouldn’t be. He’s seen her naked, now. He’s done things to her. But it is.) “I was starting to think I killed you,” she teases, and he blinks a few times.

“Huh?” He says dumbly. Then, “Oh. Right. Because I…” He gestures vaguely at the bed behind him, but trails off. He’s staring. He should stop. He doesn’t.

She just stands in the doorway of his bathroom for a long minute, and he wonders if he’s supposed to be doing something here. He doesn’t… It’s not like he’s got no experience here, but he doesn’t have an abundance of it. “Do you like it?” He eventually manages to ask.

She looks confused for a second, and then her eyes drop down to her leg. “Oh.” She turns to let him see it, and the whole thing is visible with the length of the towel. She already took the bandages off, but he can’t find it in him to scold her.

Trailing up her leg are a series of lines with labels like “prude,” “flirty,” and “slut.” When she had told him about the idea, she explained this picture she’d seen circulated on social media a decade ago that had stuck somewhere in the back of her mind since. It was like a reclamation, she’d said. He’s not sure he gets it, but it’s hard not to let his eyes trail up her legs.

“Yeah,” she says eventually. His eyes snap back up to her face guiltily. “Yeah, I think I like it.”

[that1emowitch]

Hey I saw your ask for fanfics and I don't know if it still is or if you do AU....but my friend and I were joking about a Birdflash fast food AU...like in the mall food courts with the stalls all in the same area...thanks!

Thanks for the ask! I'm always open to any kind of fic ideas to feed my writer's block hehe I’m not completely sure what you meant, but here’s my fun little take on that! I got a cute idea and ran with it lolll Young Justice (show) AU, except Wally doesn’t know Robin’s real identity. Exists outside of the show’s canon timeline. Dick’s 18, Wally’s 20. Jason is Robin, he's like 12-ish. Alr established relationships are Artemis/Zatanna and Conner/M'gann. If you haven't watched the YJ show yet, dw, it'll still make sense. ALsO, GO WATCH IT IT'S SO GOOD

Word Count: 7191

TW: None

Summary: Dick playing games with Wally just for the heck of it and making Jason tag along. Wally’s a huge simp.

AO3 link

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Wally West, better known to the world as Kid Flash, was just exiting the changing rooms of Mount Justice with his iconic red and yellow uniform slung over his shoulder. He'd traded his speedster suit for a simple hoodie and jeans combo, his fiery hair tousled from the quick change. He didn’t mind the hustle—he was used to doing everything fast, after all.

As he walked into the lounge area, the familiar sight of Artemis and Zatanna caught his eye. The two heroines were seated on the couch, engrossed in a conversation with laughter bubbling between them. Artemis was leaning against Zatanna, both of them looking entirely too comfortable. They were dressed in casual outfits that hinted they were heading out rather than staying in.

"Well, if it isn’t our favorite lovebirds," Wally announced, his tone a mix of amusement and mock exasperation.

Zatanna looked up first, a playful smirk tugging at her lips. "Look who finally decided to join the living. What’s up, Wally?"

Wally shrugged as he dropped onto the arm of a nearby chair. "You know, the usual—saving the world, busting bad guys. But hey, speaking of ‘what’s up,’ where are you two headed? Doesn’t seem like a night for crime-fighting."

Artemis shot him a teasing glance, crossing her arms. "Not everything’s about crime-fighting, West. It’s date night."

Wally rolled his eyes dramatically, though a smile was already forming on his lips. "Date night again? You two are always on date night. What’s a guy gotta do to get some attention around here?"

Zatanna chuckled, nudging Artemis playfully. "You’re just jealous because you’re not invited. Besides, what happened to Conner and M’gann? Thought you were their third wheel."

"Please," Wally scoffed, shaking his head. "You think I’m hanging out with the golden couple? They’re in their own world. I’m starting to think everyone here’s got something better to do than hang out with little ol’ me."

Artemis smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Ever thought of hanging out with Rob— I mean, Nightwing? He’s always up for some action."

At the mention of Nightwing, Wally’s smile wavered just slightly, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face before he masked it with his usual humor. "Yeah, right. If only Nightwing wasn’t on a mission with the new kid. It’s Baby Robin’s first solo gig without Batman, so Nightwing’s got babysitting duty."

"Robin’s first mission?" Zatanna tilted her head, curiosity piqued. "He’s what, twelve?"

"Yep, and raring to go," Wally confirmed with a nod. "Nightwing’s been training him hard. The kid’s good, but he’s still just a kid. Guess that makes me the last wheel on this wagon."

Artemis gave him a sympathetic look. "Come on, Wally, don’t be so dramatic. You’ve always got something going on. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? How do you even find the time to whine about being alone?"

Wally grinned, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I’ve got time for everything, Artemis. Speedster, remember? But if you must know, I’ve got a job to get to anyway."

Zatanna blinked, her eyes widening in surprise. "A job? You? As in a regular, non-superhero job?"

Artemis looked skeptical. "Wait, you’re a superhero, a student at Central City University, and you have a normal job? When do you sleep?”

"Sleep’s for the weak," Wally quipped, but the grin on his face was more real this time. "Besides, gotta stay busy. You guys aren’t the only ones with lives outside of the team."

Zatanna looked just as surprised. “Yeah, what kind of job are you doing, Wally? I thought you were too busy for anything else.”

Wally shrugged, a grin spreading across his face. “Just working at the food court in the local mall. Gotta pay the bills somehow, right? I can’t let my parents cover all my tuition fees. Besides, it’s not like saving the world pays well.”

Artemis rolled her eyes, but there was an amused smile on her lips. “Only you would find time to be a superhero, ace your classes, and work a part-time job. You’re insane, you know that?”

“Insanely awesome,” Wally corrected her, giving a mock bow. “Thank you very much.”

Zatanna chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re something else, West. But seriously, don’t overwork yourself. We don’t want you burning out.”

Wally waved off her concern. “I’ve got it all under control. Don’t worry about me. You two just go enjoy your date night. Try not to miss me too much.”

Artemis smirked as she grabbed her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. “We’ll try, but no promises.”

Zatanna winked at him as they headed for the door. “Have fun at work, Wally.”

“Will do. You two have fun too,” Wally called after them, watching as they walked out of the lounge, the door sliding shut behind them. Once they were gone, Wally let out a small sigh, running a hand through his hair. He loved Artemis and Zatanna, really, he did. But it was hard not to feel a little left out sometimes. Everyone seemed to have someone, whether it was M’gann and Conner, or Artemis and Zatanna. Even Dick had Jason to focus on. And then there was him, Wally West, the odd man out.

Shaking off the melancholy that threatened to creep in, Wally picked up his uniform and made his way to the zeta tubes. He had work to get to, and he wasn’t going to let himself get bogged down by thoughts of what he didn’t have. There was always tomorrow, always another chance to hang out with Dick, or to do something fun with the team. For now, he had to focus on the present.

“Zeta tube activated. Kid Flash, B03,” the automated voice intoned as Wally stepped into the zeta tube.

— — —

The night had settled into that dreary lull where everything felt slower, even for a speedster like Wally West. He stood behind the counter of the food court’s burger joint, absently handing out orders to customers with the practiced ease of someone who could do this in his sleep. Which, frankly, he felt like he was doing.

Boredom gnawed at him as he forced himself to smile at yet another tired-looking customer. I could have done this in seconds as Kid Flash, he thought, eyeing the clock that seemed to be ticking by at a snail’s pace. But, he reminded himself, it wasn’t about the speed. It was about the money. The money that kept him from having to burden his parents more than he already did, that paid for his textbooks, and that somehow made him feel like a normal guy for a few hours a week.

Not that normal was all it was cracked up to be. Wally stifled a yawn as the latest customer took their tray and walked off. Finally, a break. He retreated into the kitchen, slumping against the wall as he tried to muster the energy to make it through the rest of his shift. Maybe he could grab a snack or—

Ding!

The familiar chime of the front counter bell rang out, signaling another customer. Wally groaned internally, the small moment of peace shattered. Pushing himself off the wall, he mentally prepared to slap on his customer service smile and head back out.

But when he reached the counter, Wally froze in place.

Standing before him were two people—a young man and a tween boy. But it was the man who instantly caught Wally’s attention. He had tan skin that seemed to glow under the harsh fluorescent lights of the food court, paired with striking baby blue eyes and dark, tousled hair that looked effortlessly perfect. His smile was brilliant, the kind that could light up a room, and Wally felt his breath hitch. The man looked like he’d just walked out of a magazine, or like some kind of Greek god casually browsing for fast food.

Whoa, Wally thought, his mind suddenly blanking. He was vaguely aware of the younger boy at the man’s side, staring up at the menu with wide eyes, but it was hard to focus on anything other than the man’s presence.

The boy, who had the same blue eyes and dark hair as the man, was clearly excited as he scanned the menu, but his gaze lingered on the prices a little too long. There was something cautious in the way he looked at each item, like he was weighing his options carefully despite the fact that he was clearly well-to-do.

The young man nudged the boy gently, his voice smooth and encouraging. “Order whatever you want, Jason. It’s on me.”

The boy—Jason—looked up at him, his eyes brightening at the reassurance. After a moment of contemplation, Jason finally settled on his choices. With the man’s encouragement, Jason stepped forward, telling Wally the order for both of them. “Uh, two cheeseburgers, a vanilla smoothie, and a chocolate smoothie… oh, and a side of fries.”

Wally’s brain was still short-circuiting from the initial sight of the man, and it took a moment for the words to register. When he realized they were waiting for him to take the order, he snapped back to attention, his face heating up. “Uh, sorry, can you repeat that?” he stammered, mortified.

The young man chuckled softly, clearly amused rather than annoyed. “Two cheeseburgers, one vanilla smoothie, one chocolate smoothie, and a side of fries,” he repeated patiently.

Wally nodded quickly, punching in the order with a speed that would have been impressive if he wasn’t still flustered. He risked another glance at the man, who was now leaning casually against the counter, watching Wally with a relaxed smile. Jason was fiddling with the straw dispensers, blissfully unaware of Wally’s internal turmoil.

When the order was finally done, Wally hurried to grab the food, barely trusting himself to meet the man’s gaze again. As he handed over the tray, their fingers brushed for the briefest moment, and Wally’s heart skipped a beat.

“Thanks,” the young man said, giving Wally a smile that seemed far too dazzling for such a mundane setting. Jason took the tray, and the two turned to find a table in the food court.

Wally watched them go, a mixture of relief and disappointment swirling in his chest. The moment was over as quickly as it had started, and he found himself wondering who they were—especially the man who’d managed to leave him tongue-tied with just a smile.

As they disappeared into the crowd of the food court, Wally shook his head, trying to shake off the daze. He’d seen good-looking people before, sure, but there was something different about this guy. Something that stuck with him even as he tried to focus on the next order.

There was this lingering feeling that he’d seen that guy somewhere. Even the boy. He’d seen or met them before, but he couldn’t figure out where.

The night dragged on, but Wally couldn’t help sneaking glances at the table where the two of them sat, laughing and talking as they ate. He didn’t know why, but something about the man’s presence made his usual boredom feel a lot less heavy.

— — —

After finishing his shift at the mall, Wally had raced home, not because he had anything urgent to do, but because he couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had settled in his chest after his encounter with the young man and the boy at the food court. Something about them had lingered in his mind, like a song stuck on repeat.

Now, sprawled out on his couch with his phone in hand, Wally was absentmindedly scrolling through Instagram. He wasn’t really looking at anything in particular, just letting the stream of images and videos wash over him as he tried to unwind. But no matter how much he tried to distract himself, his thoughts kept drifting back to the striking blue-eyed man and his younger companion.

Why did they seem so familiar? Wally wondered, his brows furrowing as he scrolled past a series of memes. He couldn’t place it, but there was something nagging at the back of his mind, like he’d seen them somewhere before.

Suddenly, a post caught his eye. It was from one of the many celebrity accounts he followed, mostly out of idle curiosity. This one was a photo taken at a recent gala—a typical fancy affair, complete with a red carpet, flashing cameras, and enough designer clothes to fill a department store. But it wasn’t the opulence of the event that made Wally pause. It was the people in the photo.

There, in the middle of the shot, stood billionaire Bruce Wayne, smiling suavely at the camera. But it wasn’t Wayne who held Wally’s attention—it was the two people standing beside him. One was a young boy with dark hair and bright blue eyes, dressed in an immaculate tuxedo. The other was a young man, also with dark hair, the same electric blue eyes, and that same effortlessly charming smile.

Wally’s eyes widened as recognition finally hit him like a bolt of lightning. No way.

He quickly tapped on the photo, enlarging it to get a better look. There was no mistaking it. The young man and the boy from the food court were the same people standing next to Bruce Wayne. They were Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, Wayne’s adopted sons.

Wally sat up straighter, his heart thumping in his chest as he stared at the screen. That’s why they looked so familiar, he realized, his mind racing to connect the dots. He’d seen their faces a hundred times before, on TV, in magazines, and splashed across social media. They were practically celebrities, famous for being part of the Wayne family—a family that was almost as famous as the Justice League itself.

“But what the heck were they doing in a random Central City food court?” Wally muttered to himself, scrolling through the comments on the post, searching for any clue that might explain their unexpected appearance. There was nothing, just the usual gush of admiration for Bruce Wayne’s philanthropic efforts and the Grayson-Todd brothers’ good looks.

Maybe it’s just a rich people thing, Wally thought, trying to make sense of it. He’d heard that billionaires could be eccentric, doing things just for the experience or because they felt like it. Maybe they’d just decided to grab some fast food for the novelty of it. Yeah, that had to be it. Rich people being weird.

But even as he tried to dismiss it, Wally couldn’t shake the feeling of awe that had settled in his chest. He’d just served burgers to Dick Grayson and Jason Todd—two of the most famous people in Gotham, if not the entire country—and he hadn’t even realized it. And Dick… Wally’s thoughts drifted back to the way Dick had smiled at him, the way his voice had sounded so smooth and kind. It was enough to make Wally’s cheeks flush even now, hours after the fact.

Curiosity got the better of him, and Wally found himself searching for Dick Grayson’s Instagram profile. He didn’t follow it—he wasn’t really one to keep up with celebrities—but it wasn’t hard to find. Dick had millions of followers, his profile filled with snapshots of his life. Charity events, photos with Bruce and Jason, pictures of him hanging out with friends, and the occasional gymnastics video. Wally couldn’t help but scroll through the posts, his starstruck awe deepening with each passing second.

He’s really something, Wally thought, marveling at the way Dick managed to look effortlessly perfect in every shot. There was something magnetic about him, a kind of natural charm that seemed to leap off the screen. It was no wonder he was so popular.

Wally sighed, setting his phone down for a moment as he tried to process the day’s events. It wasn’t every day that you ran into someone like Dick Grayson in a fast food joint, and it definitely wasn’t every day that someone like Dick Grayson looked at you like you were worth noticing. It was enough to make Wally’s head spin.

But as much as he was drawn to Dick’s public persona, Wally knew that whatever fantasy he was entertaining was just that—a fantasy. Dick Grayson was a world apart from Wally West, living a life of luxury and fame that Wally could hardly even imagine. Still, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to know Dick for real, to talk to him, to maybe even be friends…

Wally shook his head, laughing softly at himself. Get a grip, West. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is. But even as he tried to push the thoughts away, he couldn’t help but take one last look at Dick’s profile before setting his phone aside for the night.

The image of Dick’s smile lingered in his mind as Wally finally drifted off to sleep, a small, secret part of him wondering if fate had more in store for him than just a chance encounter.

— — —

The familiar hum of Mount Justice’s security systems greeted Wally West as he arrived at the team’s headquarters the next morning. The sleek, futuristic corridors felt like a second home to him, a place where he could be both Kid Flash and Wally West without worrying about maintaining a secret identity. Today, however, Wally was more focused on the remnants of the previous night’s encounter, the memory of Dick Grayson’s smile still lingering in his mind.

As he made his way through the base, Wally found himself instinctively heading toward the training room. The doors slid open with a quiet hiss, and he paused in the doorway, his breath catching at the sight that greeted him.

Nightwing was there, moving fluidly through a series of acrobatic exercises on the jungle gym, his body twisting and turning with a grace that seemed almost otherworldly. Wally leaned against the doorframe, watching in awe as Nightwing flipped through the air, landing perfectly on a narrow beam before launching himself into another complex maneuver. There was something mesmerizing about the way Nightwing moved—every motion was precise, every muscle perfectly controlled. It was like watching a dance, and Wally couldn’t tear his eyes away.

For a moment, Wally allowed himself to simply enjoy the view, captivated by Nightwing’s smooth motions. There was an effortless beauty to the way he trained, a kind of controlled chaos that reminded Wally of why Nightwing was one of the best. It was hard not to be impressed—no, more than impressed. Wally felt a twinge of something deeper, something that he wasn’t quite ready to name.

After a few more minutes, Nightwing completed his routine with a final, flawless flip, landing on the mat below with a soft thud. He straightened up, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair as he reached for a water bottle sitting on a nearby bench. That was Wally’s cue. He sauntered into the room, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Showing off for me, Rob?” Wally teased, his tone light as he crossed the room to join his friend.

Nightwing took a long drink of water before turning to face Wally, a playful grin on his face. “You know me, KF. A performer can’t resist an audience.”

Wally chuckled, leaning against the bench as he watched Nightwing towel off the sweat from his workout. “Well, I gotta say, you make it look easy. Seriously, I was getting tired just watching you.”

Nightwing laughed softly, tossing the towel over his shoulder as he leaned back against the wall. “Comes with the territory. How’s life treating you?”

Wally shrugged, his thoughts briefly flickering back to the previous night at the food court. “Oh, you know, the usual. Classes, missions, and… working like fucking SpongeBob,” he added with a dramatic sigh.

Nightwing’s expression didn’t change, but there was a glint in his eye as he spoke. “Heard you picked up a part-time job. How’s that going?”

Wally raised an eyebrow, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “You heard, huh? Bats and their intel… Is there anything you don’t know?”

Nightwing shrugged, a mischievous smirk playing on his lips. “We have our ways.”

Wally rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the fondness that crept into his voice. “It’s not bad. I mean, it’s not the most glamorous job in the world, but it pays some of the tuition fee. And hey, it’s kind of nice to be normal for a while, you know?”

Nightwing nodded, his expression thoughtful. “I get that. Sometimes it’s good to have something that grounds you, keeps you connected to the real world.”

Wally appreciated that Nightwing seemed to understand. “Yeah, exactly. Plus, it gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Not that I don’t love our morning training sessions or anything.”

Nightwing chuckled, the sound warm and familiar. “Yeah, I bet.” 

“Speaking of which, how’d the mission with Baby Robin go last night?” Wally asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Nightwing’s face softened slightly at the mention of Robin, though his expression remained guarded, as it always did when it came to Bat-related missions. “It was… fun,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Wally tilted his head, giving Nightwing a mock-annoyed look. “That’s it? Fun? You Bat-types are always so cryptic. A little more detail wouldn’t kill you, you know.”

Nightwing shrugged, his smile turning into a smirk. “Gotta maintain the mystique, West. Keeps people on their toes.”

Wally huffed, but there was no real annoyance behind it. He was used to this kind of answer from Nightwing—and from Batman before him. The Bats never revealed more than they had to, always keeping their secrets close to the vest. It was just part of who they were, and as much as it could be frustrating, Wally had learned to live with it.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Wally said, waving a hand dismissively. “Gotham’s all about secrets and shadows. But one of these days, I’m gonna crack that Bat code of yours.”

Nightwing laughed, the sound light and genuine. “Good luck with that. You’re welcome to try, though.”

There was something about being around Nightwing that just… made Wally feel so light.

— — —

Wally was in the middle of refilling the condiment station when he spotted two familiar figures strolling into the food court. Wally’s heart skipped a beat as he recognized them immediately—Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. It seemed like they had returned, and this time, they weren’t just passing through.

Jason looked less than thrilled, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face as he followed Dick through the food court. Dick, on the other hand, seemed in high spirits, his usual easygoing charm on full display as he chatted animatedly with his younger companion. Wally watched from a distance, trying to suppress his grin as he observed the interaction.

“You know, you could’ve just said you wanted the fries,” Dick was saying, his tone light but teasing. “You didn’t have to complain about everything else.”

Jason shot him an annoyed glance. “It’s not about the fries, Dick. It’s about you dragging me out here again.”

Dick laughed, the sound clear and bright even from where Wally stood. “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. Besides, it’s been a while since we had a day out. And you’re the one who insisted we had to try this place.”

Jason rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a small smile at Dick’s persistence. “Yeah, well, next time, maybe pick somewhere less… mall-ish? And less here? We both know why you’re here—”

Dick gave Jason a playful nudge. “Alright, alright. You go sit at that table, and I’ll take care of the order. Deal?”

Jason muttered something under his breath but reluctantly headed towards a nearby table, his frustration melting away as he plopped down into a seat. Wally couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene. Even from a distance, it was clear that Dick and Jason had a unique, if slightly contentious, dynamic that was oddly endearing.

When Dick made his way over to Wally’s counter, Wally straightened up, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. He couldn’t deny that seeing Dick again made his pulse quicken, his thoughts returning to the charming young man he had encountered days before. Dick’s presence was like a magnet, pulling Wally’s attention as he approached with that same effortless grace.

“Hey there,” Dick greeted with a friendly smile, his blue eyes lighting up as they met Wally’s. “Back for another round of burgers and smoothies.”

Wally nodded, trying to maintain his composure despite the fluttering in his chest. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Two burgers, vanilla and chocolate smoothies, fries. Right?”

Dick laughed, his amusement evident. “Yep. You remembered, huh?”

Wally tried not to blush. “Uh, a lot of people order this. Exact. Combo. Uh. Anything else?”

Dick shook his head, his gaze lingering on Wally for a moment longer than necessary. “Nope, that’s it. Thanks,” Dick’s gaze moved to Wally’s name tag. “Wally. Cute name.”

Wally opened his mouth to respond, but his voice caught in his throat, cheeks burning. Dick Grayson knows my name! Holy shit— He quickly rushed into the kitchen.

As Wally prepared the order, he couldn’t help but steal glances at Dick. The way Dick moved, the way he spoke, even the way he smiled—it was all somehow magnetic, and Wally found himself captivated once again. It was almost as if every gesture was calculated to charm and disarm, and Wally was more than willing to be charmed.

When he finally handed over the tray of food, Dick’s smile widened, and he reached into his pocket. Wally’s eyes widened in surprise as Dick placed a crisp $100 bill on the counter, leaving Wally momentarily speechless.

“Wow, thanks,” Wally said, his voice betraying his astonishment. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Dick shrugged, a casual yet sincere expression on his face. “Just a little something for the trouble. Consider it a tip for good service.”

Wally watched as Dick turned and headed back to Jason’s table, his movements graceful and effortless. The sight of Dick settling into the chair across from Jason, their banter continuing as if nothing had happened, left Wally feeling both elated and perplexed.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to Dick and Jason’s visit than met the eye. Why did two Gotham celebrities choose a Central City food court for their outings? Was it really just a spontaneous decision, or was there something else behind it?

But as Wally watched them, a part of him dismissed the notion as typical rich people eccentricity. After all, he’d never be able to fully understand the lives of billionaires and their adopted kids.

With a sigh, Wally returned to his work, trying to focus on the mundane tasks at hand. But the memory of Dick’s smile, the warmth of his words, and the generosity of his tip lingered in his mind, leaving Wally with a curious sense of wonder and anticipation.

He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d get to see Dick Grayson again soon.

— — —

Happy Harbor Park was bustling with activity on this sunny Saturday afternoon. Families picnicked on the grass, kids ran around chasing each other, and couples strolled hand-in-hand along the winding paths. It was the kind of lively, vibrant scene that Wally West found himself unexpectedly drawn to.

His usual routine had left him feeling restless, and as he wandered through the park, knowing Conner and M’gann were on a date here. They were seated at a quaint little picnic table, complete with a basket of food and a checkered blanket spread out between them. It was a romantic setup, and Conner’s mildly annoyed expression when he saw Wally approaching was also quite classic.

“Hey, guys!” Wally called out, waving as he approached the table. “Mind if I join you?”

Conner looked up from his burger with a frown. “Wally, seriously? This is our date.”

Wally shrugged, a mischievous grin on his face. “Come on, don’t be a stick in the mud. I’m just here to hang out. You two look like you could use a third wheel.”

M'gann looked up from her salad, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Wally, you’re crashing our date? How original.”

Conner shook his head, clearly unimpressed. “You could at least find your own date. You know, someone who actually wants to hang out with you.”

The comment stung more than Conner probably intended, and Wally’s mind immediately flashed to Dick Grayson. He couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to go on a date with someone like Dick—someone who seemed to belong to a world so different from his own. The thought made his cheeks flush with a sudden, unexpected warmth.

M'gann noticed the change in Wally’s demeanor and raised an eyebrow, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “Oh, I see how it is,” she teased, her tone playful. “Someone’s got a crush. And you don’t even need to be an telepath to figure that one out.”

Wally tried to play it cool, but his blush deepened. “What? No way. I was just thinking about—uh—something else.”

M'gann’s smile widened as she leaned in closer. “You don’t need to hide it, Wally. It’s written all over your face. You’re definitely thinking about someone special.”

Conner looked between them, a smirk forming on his lips as he picked up on M'gann’s teasing. “Come on, spill it, Wally. Who’s the lucky person?”

Wally laughed awkwardly, trying to brush off the conversation. “Oh, no one important. Just… someone I ran into recently. It’s nothing.”

Conner raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. “Nothing, huh? So why are you blushing like a tomato?”

Wally rolled his eyes, trying to regain his composure. “Alright, fine. Maybe there’s someone I’ve been thinking about. But it’s not a big deal. They’re way out of my league. Our encounters were probably just chance.”

M'gann’s eyes softened with a hint of sympathy. “Wally, sometimes chance encounters can lead to something more. You never know.”

Wally shrugged, trying to play it off. “Yeah, well, I’m not holding my breath. Besides, you guys enjoy your date. I’m just here to crash it and steal some of your fries.”

Conner grumbled under his breath but didn’t protest further as Wally helped himself to a handful of fries. M'gann continued to tease him lightly, but there was a warmth in her eyes that suggested she genuinely cared about his feelings.

As the afternoon wore on, the three of them chatted and laughed, the initial awkwardness fading into a more comfortable camaraderie. Wally tried to push his thoughts of Dick Grayson aside, focusing instead on enjoying the company of his friends. But even as he joked and shared stories, a small part of him couldn’t help but wonder about the possibility of seeing Dick again and whether there might be something more to their chance encounters than he had initially thought.

He wanted there to be more.

— — —

The food court was bustling as usual, the hum of conversation and the clatter of trays providing a familiar backdrop to Wally West’s evening shift. He was in the middle of restocking napkins when he saw the familiar sight of Dick Grayson and an annoyed Jason Todd walking into the food court again. This time, however, they were joined by a striking redheaded girl who looked to be around Dick’s age.

Wally’s heart sank as he took in the sight. The girl was beautiful, with fiery red hair that framed her face in soft waves. She laughed at something Dick said, and Wally’s chest tightened at the thought that Dick might be on a date with her. The pang of disappointment was sharp and immediate.

Trying to mask his feelings, Wally quickly composed himself and forced a casual demeanor as he went about his duties. He avoided staring too much as Dick and his companions made their way to the counter. Instead, he focused on the task at hand, attempting to ignore the fact that the very person who had captured his interest was now accompanied by someone else.

“Hey there,” Dick greeted with his usual charming smile as he reached the counter. Wally tried not to let his emotions show as he met Dick’s gaze.

“Hey,” Wally replied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “What can I get for you today?”

Dick seemed completely unaware of Wally’s inner turmoil as he placed their order with practiced ease. “The usual—two cheeseburgers, a vanilla smoothie, a chocolate smoothie, and a side of fries. Oh, and we’ll need it to go.”

Wally nodded, taking down the order and moving quickly to prepare it. He tried to keep his focus on the task, determined not to let his personal feelings interfere with his work. As he was assembling the order, he noticed that Dick and the redheaded girl were chatting animatedly, their easy rapport only making Wally feel more dejected.

After a few minutes, Wally handed over the completed order. Dick reached into his pocket and pulled out another $100 bill, which he placed on the counter. Wally started to thank him, but Dick had already turned to leave, carrying the bag of food with him.

Just as Wally was about to put the money away, he noticed something peculiar—a small note folded neatly under the bill. Curiosity got the better of him, and he unfolded the note, his heart pounding in his chest.

The note read: “Call me <3 – Dick”

Wally’s eyes widened as he stared at the phone number scrawled beneath the message. It took him a moment to process what he was seeing. The world seemed to slow down as he glanced up, searching for Dick, but the group was already making their way out of the food court. Dick didn’t look back, his attention fixed on the redheaded girl and Jason.

Wally stood there, dumbfounded, holding the note in his hand. The realization that Dick had left him a way to get in touch was overwhelming. A mix of excitement, confusion, and nervousness swirled inside him. Why had Dick left him his number? Was it a genuine offer to continue their conversations, or was there something more behind it?

The note felt like a lifeline, an unexpected chance at something Wally had only dared to dream about. But the girl with Dick had made him doubt, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he had misinterpreted the gesture.

As he watched Dick’s group disappear through the mall’s entrance, Wally’s mind raced with possibilities. He wanted to call Dick, to see where things could lead, but the uncertainty of the situation made him hesitate.

He glanced at the note one more time before carefully slipping it into his pocket. For now, he needed to get through the rest of his shift, but he knew that his thoughts would be occupied by the note and what it might mean.

— — —

The training room in Mount Justice was abuzz with activity as the team went through their morning drills. Conner Kent was working on strength training, M'gann M'orzz was practicing her telekinesis, and Artemis was running through archery exercises. In the midst of it all, Wally West was struggling to focus, his mind clearly preoccupied.

Nightwing, ever observant, noticed Wally’s lack of concentration. He had been working with the team on hand-to-hand combat drills, and Wally’s distracted demeanor wasn’t going unnoticed. After a particularly grueling set of exercises, Nightwing called a halt to the session.

“Alright, everyone, take a break,” Nightwing announced, his tone authoritative but calm. The team dispersed to grab water and catch their breath.

Nightwing approached Wally, who was leaning against the wall, absentmindedly rubbing his shoulder. “You seem off today, Wally. Something on your mind?”

Wally looked up, momentarily startled by the direct question. He tried to mask his unease with a casual shrug. “Nah, just a bit tired. Long night, you know?”

Nightwing’s eyes narrowed slightly, a sly smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Long night, huh? Anything in particular keeping you up?”

Wally frowned, sensing an undercurrent in Nightwing’s tone. “Just… stuff. Nothing to worry about.”

Nightwing’s smile widened, as if he found Wally’s evasiveness amusing. “Well, if you say so. But you know, if there’s something you want to talk about, I’m here.”

Wally hesitated, feeling a mix of embarrassment and vulnerability. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt compelled to share a bit more. “Actually, there is something. I’ve been thinking about this… hot guy who gave me his number.”

Nightwing raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “Oh? A hot guy, huh? Sounds like something worth looking into.”

Wally rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a flush creep up his cheeks. “Yeah, well, he’s been showing up at the mall where I work. The thing is, I’ve kind of had a crush on him for a while. But he left me his number, and now I’m not sure what to do.”

Nightwing’s grin turned sly. “You should definitely call him.”

Wally blinked, taken aback by the straightforward advice. “Wait, seriously? You’re just telling me to go for it?”

“Why not?” Nightwing replied with a shrug. “If he’s interested enough to give you his number, there’s probably something there. And you never know unless you give it a shot.”

Wally couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt. He had been harboring feelings for Nightwing, too, and the idea of pursuing someone else felt like a betrayal, even if it was unintentional. “I guess so. It’s just… I’m a little nervous, you know?”

Nightwing’s expression softened slightly, though the playful edge remained. “I get it. Nerves are normal. But sometimes, you have to take a leap. And who knows? It might turn out to be something really great.”

Wally looked at Nightwing, taking in his encouraging words and the genuine warmth behind his smile. Despite the conflicted feelings he had, Nightwing’s support was comforting. “Thanks, Nightwing. I’ll think about it.”

Nightwing clapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit. Just remember, sometimes the best things come from taking a chance.”

With that, Nightwing turned and walked away, leaving Wally with a swirl of emotions. He couldn’t deny the lingering feelings he had for Nightwing, but the prospect of calling Dick Grayson left him both excited and anxious.

— — —

Wally stumbled through his front door, a whirlwind of thoughts racing through his mind. He quickly dialed the number from the note, his heart pounding in his chest. As the phone rang, he paced back and forth, trying to calm his nerves.

After a few rings, the call was answered. The voice on the other end was unmistakable.

“Hey, Walls.”

Wally froze. It was Dick Grayson’s voice. But it was also Nightwing’s voice—the same voice he heard over his comm during missions. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and he felt his face flush with a mix of shock and embarrassment.

“No way,” Wally groaned, slapping a hand over his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Dick– Nightwing’s laughter came through the phone, warm and teasing. “What’s wrong, KF? Didn’t expect to hear from me?”

Wally’s mind raced as he tried to piece it all together. “So, let me get this straight. You’re Nightwing? The same Nightwing I’ve been working with on missions? The Nightwing and Robin who won’t tell me his secret identity? And you’re the guy who left me his number?”

“Guilty as charged,” Dick replied, still chuckling. “I didn’t think it’d be such a surprise. I figured you’d recognize my voice eventually.”

Wally’s cheeks burned with a mix of frustration and embarrassment. “Seriously, Rob? How long have you been playing me? Were you just messing with me all this time?”

“Come on, Wally, don’t be mad,” Dick said, his tone playful. “I thought it would be fun to keep you guessing. And, well, I didn’t want to make things too obvious. I figured you’d eventually put two and two together.”

Wally tried to keep his composure, though he couldn’t help but be flustered. “Oh, sure. Real funny. I’ve been going around with this huge crush on you, thinking you were some mysterious celebrity. And all this time, you were just messing with me.”

Dick’s voice softened a bit, though the teasing undertone remained. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was playing you. I just thought it would be… more interesting this way. And, in all honesty, I was kind of hoping you’d figure it out.”

Wally sighed dramatically, though he was secretly thrilled. “Well, now that I know, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’d say you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage,” Dick replied smoothly. “But I’d also say that I’m so glad you called. I was hoping we could get to know each other a bit better. Out of masks and capes. Maybe even go on a real date?”

Wally’s heart skipped a beat at the suggestion. “A date, huh? So now you’re asking me out after all the drama?”

“Yep,” Dick said with a grin in his voice. “If you’re up for it. I promise I won’t be too much of a tease this time.”

Wally chuckled despite himself, feeling a mixture of exasperation and joy. “Alright, fine. I’ll play along. But only if you promise not to make me look foolish in front of everyone else.”

“Deal,” Dick agreed. “How about we meet up at that new Italian place in downtown Star City? I hear they have amazing pasta. We could also go bother Roy afterwards — you know him as KF, I know him as Dickie Grayson. Say, tomorrow night at seven?”

Wally tried to sound nonchalant, but he couldn’t help the smile spreading across his face. “Sounds good. I’ll see you then. And, by the way, I’m still not letting you off the hook for all the sneaky stuff.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Dick replied. “I’ll be looking forward to it, Wally.”

Wally ended the call, staring at his phone with a mixture of satisfaction and disbelief. It was true—Dick Grayson and Nightwing were the same person, and he had a chance to go on a date with him. The thought made him giddy, despite his earlier irritation.

He took a deep breath and grinned, trying to contain his excitement. “Well, this should be interesting,” he muttered to himself, already anticipating the upcoming date.

With a renewed sense of enthusiasm, Wally went about his evening, mentally preparing for what promised to be a memorable night. Despite the teasing and the playful deceit, he couldn’t deny how thrilled he was at the prospect of spending more time with Dick. After all, the two people he had a crush on had turned out to be one and the same—an outcome that was both surprising and incredibly exciting.

[wikiangela]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @dangerpronebuddie @diazsdimples @aroeddiediaz @underwaterninja13 @nmcggg @ladydorian05 thank you <33

How many works do you have on ao3?

right now it's 90! (57 of these are 911 lol)

What's your total ao3 word count?

535,450

What fandoms do you write for?

currently just 911, but I have some destiel and sambucky fics and who knows, I might get back to them at some point haha

Top 5 fics by kudos:

For a holiday (and forevermore)

I can't love you any more (than I do now)

I'd marry you with paper rings

the next best thing

There’s no way that it’s not going there (with the way that we’re looking at each other)

(they're all buddie and I just noticed that the top 4 are all over 1k kudos?? when did that happen lmao)

Do you respond to comments?

I do! sometimes it takes me a while bc i get lowkey overwhelmed lol but I always do!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

there's not a lot bc I prefer happy or hopeful endings, but I guess by post 6x10 fics? Fine and don't know what I'd do if your tomorrow never came idk lol

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

most of my fics have happy endings, but I guess I'd say For a holiday (and forevermore) 

Do you get hate on fics?

not really? got like one or two not very nice comments but generally no haha

Do you write smut?

yes I do 😁 not often and it always takes me forever but I do have two smut fics in the works (one buddie, one bucktommy lol)

Craziest crossover?

don't have any

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no, as far as I know

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

Have you co-written a fic before?

no

All time favorite ship?

buddie

(ngl, bucktommy is a veeeeery close second rn🙈)

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

there's two that have been fighting me for so long they're lowkey abandoned now and tbh I don't know if I still want to finish them? one is a 5+1 nicknames, and the other just a silly idea about eddie flirting with buck since they met but buck being veeeery oblivious lol

What are your writing strengths?

I think (usually) I'm pretty good at staying true to the characters and not making them too ooc (and I know when it's ooc, okay, I have one wip rn where I just don't give a fuck, I'm writing it anyway lol), and I can get into their heads pretty well. Also I think I'm good at the cute fluffy stuff lol idk

What are your writing weaknesses?

there's probably a lot lol - rn the one that comes to mind is descriptions probably, which is why writing fanfic where we have established characters and settings is so much easier than og stuff haha

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I don't mind it but I don't do it a lot aside from a pet name here and there bc I just don't wanna get anything wrong lol

First fandom you wrote in?

for tv shows supernatural, but before that I did write rpf which i just wanna forget about lol

Favorite fic you've written?

rn it's three:

we don't know where this is going now (don't be afraid of heights, let me open your heart wide) - my tommy pov fic <3

I'm comin' back, don't let me go - buck driving/breakdown fic

baby, you drive me wild - car smut - might not be my best but it's my fave smut lol

tags: @elvensorceress @eddiebabygirldiaz @watchyourbuck @loserdiaz @evanbegins

@wildlife4life @lover-of-mine @monsterrae1 @weewootruck @loveyouanyway

@spagheddiediaz @rainbow-nerdss @epicbuddieficrecs @pirrusstuff @spotsandsocks

@rogerzsteven @hippolotamus @sunshinediaz @honestlydarkprincess @exhuastedpigeon

@jesuisici33 @steadfastsaturnsrings @buddieswhvre @theotherbuckley @daffi-990

@hoodie-buck @tizniz @bidisasterevankinard

[cecilysass]

Shine On (4/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 4: The Art of Profiling

Farrs Corner, Virginia February 20, 2015

The pizza that Fox Mulder ordered isn’t from a pizza place Jackson has ever heard of, like Domino’s or Pizza Hut, but it’s really good anyway. Or at least it tastes good to someone who hasn’t eaten all day. Jackson eats the first piece really quickly, then he grabs for a second without thinking, forgetting his manners. When he realizes what he’s done, he hesitates.

“Go for it,” the older man says, his eyes darting sharply back and forth between the pizza and Jackson’s face. “Eat as much as you want.”

Fox Mulder has been acting much more intense ever since Jackson told him about the red-headed lady.

Jackson’s tired, and he has only barely skimmed the surface of the man’s difficult mind, but he can tell that the guy’s stunned by the news. Fox Mulder’s mind is channeling down a dozen different paths right now: fast, mazelike thoughts, like bobsleds going down tracks. A current of sharp worry running through like a winter chill.

It’s honestly exhausting to try to figure out. Jackson closes off the shine for now, takes another big bite of pizza. This sausage is a little spicy, which is exactly how he likes it.

“I have a lot of questions for you,” Fox Mulder says, his voice low. “I don’t want to overwhelm you. But I … gotta ask some of them.”

Jackson nods reluctantly, his mouth full. He doesn’t feel like answering questions at all. Still, he supposes the more he gets out of the way, the better.

“You said you have visions,” the man says, setting his own piece of pizza down. “Do you have other … abilities?”

Jackson studies him cautiously as he finishes chewing his bite of pizza. He’s not in the habit of discussing what he can do. It’s only really ever been trouble when he has, so he’s almost instinctively secretive about it. But things are different now. And Fox Mulder, well, he seems to know all about this kind of thing.

“Yeah,” Jackson says carefully. “I do.”

The man runs his hand over his mouth. Jackson notices he’s only eaten half of his slice of pizza. Either he’s not hungry, or he’s too distracted.

“You can read thoughts,” Fox Mulder guesses, leaning back, speaking with certainty. He folds his hands in front of him. “You can focus on other people’s thoughts. Not just one person, but several at once.”

Jackson sets his slice of pizza down in shock. “How did you know that?”

“You can move objects, too.”

Jackson blinks at him. “I have been able to do that. Some. I could do it easier when I was little.”

“What else?”

“I can, like, change people’s perceptions. What they see. Not for forever, just for a little while. So, if I, like, need a distraction in class or something, I can make the teacher think someone opened the door and mooned us. Stupid stuff like that.”

Fox Mulder looks undeniably fascinated. “Wow,” he says. “Interesting.” He taps his fingers on the table. Jackson doesn’t have to use his shine to see that the man is thinking this over. “So does that mean you could effectively shapeshift? If you wanted to?”

“Yeah,” admits Jackson. “At least I can make other people think I look like someone else.”

“Huh,” the man says, squinting thoughtfully. He tilts his head, looking at Jackson again. “Are you reading my mind right now?”

“No,” Jackson says honestly.

“Why not?”

“I’m tired,” Jackson says. “It’s work, sometimes. And no offense, but you’re kind of complicated and hard.”

Fox Mulder chuckles. “I don’t know if I should take offense at that or not.”

“I did read your mind earlier,” Jackson confesses. “And the red-haired lady …. she was really easy. I hardly had to try with her at all. It was like her thoughts just flew at me. I was wondering if that was because she was my birth mom. Do you think that could be right?”

The man stares at him blankly, not directly answering. “Her name is Dana Scully.”

“Dana Scully,” repeats Jackson.

“Have you ever heard that name before?”

“No,” Jackson says. “I don’t think so.”

“Did your parents tell you anything about your birth parents? Who they were, where you were from?”

“I don’t think they knew anything about them,” Jackson says. “It was a closed adoption.”

Fox Mulder nods, scratching his chin. “Yeah,” he says. It’s like a cloud of sadness has fallen over him. “Yeah, it would have been.” He fixes Jackson with a curious look. “Do you … have any questions for me? About any of this?”

“Uh. Sure.” Jackson looks around the room, slowly, as if the best question to ask might be scrawled on the walls. The faces peering out of the framed photos draw his attention again, but it’s all so much. He looks away, back at the box of pizza in front of them instead. “Is it… okay if I have another slice, Mr. Mulder?”

The man laughs a little, crossing his arms. “You can just call me Mulder.”

“I think I’m eating more than you, Mulder,” Jackson points out seriously. “It doesn’t seem fair. It’s your pizza.”

“I told you, eat as much as you want.”

Jackson feels like he has been polite enough. He shrugs. “Thanks,” Jackson says, taking another slice.

“Jackson,” Mulder says, watching him eat, his voice suddenly too casual. “Do you have any idea who your birth father is?”

Jackson picks up his piece of pizza and studies it, pulling off a particularly delicious-looking piece of sausage and sampling it. “Well,” he says, through a mouthful, “I’ve got a guess. Based on certain clues. But I don’t know for sure.”

“Clues you’ve read in people’s minds? Or clues you’ve noticed?”

Jackson shrugs again. “Both, I guess.” He gives Mulder a look, raising his eyebrows.

There’s a pause.

“What clues?”

“Well, I’m not stupid,” Jackson says matter-of-factly. “That woman, Dana Scully, was here, fighting with you. Lots of big feelings. Then, the way you’re acting now. Like you think I’m a brand new iPhone and you can’t stop looking at me. And how you seem to know things about me. That’s a bunch of clues.”

Mulder has been sitting with his arms crossed, and he hasn’t moved the entire time Jackson’s been talking. But now Jackson can see a tear sprouting in his eye. It surprises him. Wayne Van De Kamp, his father, would never have cried in front of him. Mulder blots it with his sleeve, and Jackson sees his hands are shaking, too.

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that so carelessly, kind of flippantly. It’s obviously a big deal to Mulder. Really, truthfully, it’s a big deal to Jackson, too—something he’s wondered about his whole life. But right now he just can’t have everything feel like a big deal all at once. Or he’ll explode or something.

He meets the man’s damp eyes.

“Yeah,” Mulder says roughly, trying to smile. “Okay. A lot of clues.” He pauses, uncrosses his arms, places his hands on the table. “I get the sense you can’t handle a lot more emotional drama right now, Jackson, and I get that, I really do. Believe it or not, I’ve been in that place myself.”

Jackson’s speechless. It’s like the man read his mind, but that’s not possible.

“I just want to say, we can talk about it whenever you want to,” Mulder adds. “No pressure.”

Jackson nods his head up and down, licking his lips nervously.

***

After dinner, they go back into the part of the room with the couch, which is surrounded by all the messy piles of books. Jackson sits on the floor and starts picking up volumes curiously. “The Art of Profiling?” he says. “Is that an art book?”

“No,” Mulder says with a smile, trying to kick piles out of the way. “It’s psychological profiling. Like for criminals.”

“Oh,” Jackson says, making a connection. “Like on Criminal Minds.”

“What’s that? A TV show?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says. “My parents love it. It’s about a team of FBI agents who profile dangerous criminals.” An exciting thought occurs to him. “Wait, is that what you did?”

“Yes,” Mulder says. “No. Kind of. I was a profiler, years and years ago. But then I was put on the X-files, where I investigated cases that had unexplainable, supernatural associations.”

“That’s why you have books like this,” Jackson says. He lifts the book Sasquatch: Diverse Perspectives. “Or this?” Extraterrestrial Abductions Beyond the Media.

“Yeah,” Mulder says, a self-deprecating shrug. “That’s right.”

“That’s badass,” Jackson says, a root of an idea occurring to him. He belatedly realizes his mistake. “I mean, that’s cool. Very cool,” he corrects himself.

“It was badass,” Mulder agrees, seemingly unaffected by Jackson’s profanity. “Although… it could be difficult. We went through a lot, working on the X-files. Scully and me.”

Jackson absorbs this information. “So you and Dana Scully worked together on the X-files. In the F.B.I.. That’s how you knew one another?”

“We were partners,” Mulder says with quiet precision, like this sentence is very important.

They’re just three words—we were partners—but Jackson can tell they tell an entire complicated story the length of a book or more. His shine cries out to be used, but Jackson pushes it aside.

“Mulder,” Jackson says slowly. “Is it a coincidence that you and my birth mom worked on these X-files … and that I have these abilities?”

“No, Jackson,” Mulder says, sighing heavily. “It’s probably not a coincidence.” He sits on the couch, looking down at Jackson still sitting on the floor. “There are things that both of us were exposed to that could have … caused the abilities.”

“But you guys don’t have them yourselves, right?”

“No. Not like you.”

It’s a frustrating answer. “Not like me? Or not at all?”

“Some things I want to wait to talk to you about,” Mulder replies. “Until we’ve had a chance to talk to your mother, too.”

Your mother.

Jackson inhales sharply, the words sending an unexpected shock through him.

“I meant Scully, of course,” Mulder says quickly, noticing his reaction. “I’m sorry.”

“Dana Scully isn’t my mother,” Jackson says with emphasis. “I have a mother.”

“I know.” Mulder’s eyes look impossibly sad. “I’m sorry, Jackson. I know.”

“I’m not looking to replace my parents,” Jackson says tightly. “That’s not why I’m here or what this is about. They’ll always be my parents. I love them.”

Mulder appears to sink further into the couch. “Yeah,” he says. “I can tell you do.”

Jackson looks down quickly at the stack of books again, playing silently with the cover of Criminology Through The Ages. He knows he shouldn’t have gotten angry. He knows Mulder didn’t mean anything by it, and he’s having to struggle with his shine now to keep from sensing any bad feelings or thoughts coming off of Mulder.

It’s just Jackson feels almost disloyal, sitting here talking to this man, learning this information about his birth parents’ lives, when his parents just died. When they probably died because of him.

“Jackson.” Mulder’s voice is kind. “What were they like? Your parents. Do you want to … tell me about them? I don’t know anything about them.”

Jackson pauses, still staring at the book in his hand. “Yeah,” he says. He tries to find the right words. He has to be the person who remembers them, who speaks for them to the world now. “They were … they weren’t anything like me. But they were great.”

Mulder waits patiently, his soft eyes on Jackson. Jackson puts the book back carefully on top of a pile.

“My dad was the shop teacher at Rawlins High School. He was good at woodworking, cabinetry. He was always trying to teach me.”

“Were you good at it, too?”

“No,” Jackson says with a tiny smile. “I was really, really bad at it.”

“Oh yeah?” Mulder echoes the tiny smile.

“I couldn’t cut straight. I forgot to measure,” Jackson says, shaking his head. “I was always disappointing him.”

“Not really,” Mulder guesses softly.

“No,” Jackson agrees, just as softly. “Not really.” He’s quiet, thinking more about his goofy, sweater-vested dad. “He was always cheerful. He thought you should look on the positive side of things, you know? Really into baseball. He coached my Little League team for a while.”

“That’s good,” Mulder says encouragingly. “It’s good to play sports.” He’s quiet, too. “And your mom?”

“Her job was running the church preschool,” Jackson says. “She was always singing. She loved holiday decorations, and to cook and bake.” He feels tears threatening. “She is just … she was a really good mom to me. Like, she hugged me all the time. I acted like I didn’t like it, but I did.”

“I’m glad she did that,” Mulder whispers. “I’m so glad.”

“She was really Christian. Really into church. They both were.”

“You were raised religious?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says. “Lutheran.” He glances at Mulder wryly. “But I was really bad at that, too.”

Mulder returns the look. “I’m not very good at that myself,” he says. “Scully’s religious, in her own way. But I’ve never been … that kind of believer. It’s just never made sense to me”

Something warm blooms in Jackson at being understood in this way. It’s never made sense to him, either.

“What are you good at?” Mulder asks. His tone is gentle, but Jackson’s shine is suddenly alert, suddenly aware of what’s underneath the man’s exterior. Mulder is hungry to know more about him, desperate for any detail. His need is so overwhelming, Jackson closes the door on it quickly.

“I don’t know,” Jackson says casually. “I’m good at math, I guess. Math comes easy to me.”

Mulder’s face lights up. “Scully’s amazing at math.” Looking over at Jackson, he seems to regret his words. His scolding to himself shines through. —stop making everything he says about me and Scully. “Sorry. You’re telling me about yourself.”

“I like to run,” Jackson continues. “I’m pretty fast, and I think I’m a good distance runner. I was thinking maybe I’d try out for the track team in high school.” He pauses. “But I guess I’m not going to high school now.”

“Come on,” Mulder says. “Of course you’re going to high school. Your life isn’t over.”

“I’m most likely going to prison,” Jackson mumbles darkly.

“Nah. Not going to happen.”

“I don’t even know where I’m going to live,” Jackson adds. “Where I’m going to stay tonight.”

“You’re obviously going to stay here tonight,” Mulder insists. “After that, we’ll figure it out.”

The lightning-fast image of a school building with a sign— Farrs Corner High School—and then another fast image, the two of them, Mulder and Jackson, running side by side on a country road, a road that looks a lot like the road right outside the farmhouse. Then almost instantly, more scolding in Mulder’s mind: Way ahead of yourself. Stop it. Haven’t even told Scully. Need to confirm.

“How will we confirm?” Jackson asks quickly. “What does that mean?”

Mulder’s eyebrows shoot up. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Sorry,” Jackson says. “That was kind of rude of me, probably.”

“I have to remind myself you’re listening,” Mulder says with a small smile.

“I normally try to hide it more,” Jackson says. He stands up, stepping around the books to sit next to Mulder on the couch. “But I mean … what’s the point if you already know, right?”

“I was just thinking that before we introduce you to Scully, we should run DNA,” Mulder says. “Yours against mine. To confirm it.”

“Why?” Jackson says, frowning. “You don’t believe me?”

“Can’t you tell that I believe you?”

Jackson sighs. “Yeah, I think you do.” He kicks out his long legs and leans his head back against the back of the couch. “But like I said, you’re not the easiest.”

“The people that Scully and I used to be involved with,” Mulder says, “were the kind of people who would go to extremes. Even extremes like convincing a kid his birth mother was someone she wasn’t. Like planting ideas into people’s heads. I don’t think you’re lying, but I think it would be smart to know for sure.”

Jackson swings his head to look at Mulder. “Who were these people?”

Mulder regards him with a troubled expression. “I’ll answer that, Jackson. But I think you need to answer this, too: who drove you here? To Virginia?”

“I told you,” Jackson says, folding his arms defensively, “I can’t tell you that.”

“Why?” Mulder’s eyebrows draw together in concern. “It worries me a little. Did the person who drove you ask you not to tell me?”

“Yeah, they did,” Jackson admits. “But I don’t think they’re one of these bad people you’re talking about. They were just trying to help me.”

“But Jackson,” Mulder says urgently, “you need to understand that—”

“You’re just going to have to trust me,” Jackson insists, and his voice sounds younger than he intends. “Please. Just trust me.”

Mulder rubs his temple with one finger. “Okay,” he says simply. “I can do trust.” He leans forward on his forearms. “But still, Jackson, I think we gotta do the DNA test. If you’re not … the person we think you are—and who Scully thinks you are, it would be too hard for her.”

“She’s been wanting to see me that bad?”

Mulder is surprised. “Of course she has. Of course.”

“But it was a closed adoption. Her choice.”

Mulder opens and closes his mouth, again seeming not to know what to say. “Since the second she let you go,” he says, his voice strained, “she’s been wanting to see you again.”

Jackson’s shine pulls in an image then of a baby in a crib, crying, and then the woman Mulder calls Scully, younger, crying and crying, inconsolable.

It’s all too sad, and Jackson is sad already.

“Okay. DNA test tomorrow then,” Jackson says, shrugging. “No big deal.”

“Great,” Mulder says, standing up. “Now I thought I’d show you where you’ll be sleeping if you want. I’ll have to put sheets on the guest bed first. Maybe you can help me. This place used to be a little more organized when Scully lived here.”

“You have a guest room, huh?” Jackson says. “Fancy.”

“Yeah,” Mulder says in a strange voice. “It’s just an extra bedroom. Small. Not too fancy.”

It was supposed to be your room. In case we got you back somehow. Mulder’s thoughts are suddenly and unexpectedly clear.

“Then I guess I better sleep in it,” Jackson responds flatly, following along behind him.

***

[snowivyimconfusi]

Hi! I'm SnowIvy, you can call me Ivy if you'd like 🩷

I write for Once Upon a Time, mostly SwanQueen but I love and write for other ships (see below😅.)

I guess I should do an about me section? Idk I'm not very internet savvy, but anyway:

Age : mid 20's

Timezone: Central Europe

Pronouns: she/her or they/them (irl it's she/her but you know I have a job so idc. (I don't actually have a job that's just a quote))

Oh yeah I'm bi in a straight relationship, so everyone thinks I'm straight (would they be shocked if they saw this blog and my ao3? Oh yes) I'm in the proverbial closet, everywhere except here.

I don't like DNI's. Interact with me, just be nice about it or you'll hurt my feelings. Thanks.

OUAT ships and my ratings :

Canon:

1.OutlawQueen - 8/10 - I liked it, it was good, it had potential. It didn't fully realize its potential. And Robin's death killed me.

2.CaptainSwan - 1/10 - sorry it's just one of those I don't see, I just didn't see any chemistry between them, which is sad because I like Killian.

3.CharmingSnow - 10/10 - I do love them, they're so sweet and wholesome. Yes.

4.Rumbelle- 0/10 - Boring. Toxic, and not in the fun way.

5. Rumple/Cora (Goldenheart? Idk) -8/10 - THEY BROKE ME. Such a good storyline, Cora's decision to rip her heart out, Rumple's heartbreak, how that makes him harder and more ruthless. Then of course how that influences his behavior towards Zelena and later Regina. Ugh. Doomed love is so good. And they are doomed by their own characters!! God.

Kinda canon I guess? :

6.GoldenQueen - 11/10 - I like this ship in all its iterations, Rumple and young Regina, Mr.Gold and Regina, Rumple and the Evil Queen, Roni and Weaver. It's so good. The potential is *chef's kiss*

7.DragonQueen - 9/10 - this is kinda canon. Fight me. I like it as a past relationship for Regina. It's good.

8.CaptainQueen (Killian/Regina) - 8/10 - yes. Tell me they didn't give "we fucked" vibes?? Tell me that.

Not canon:

9. SwanQueen - 100/10 - perfect. Amazing. Incredible. Meant to be. I could go on.

10.GoldenCaptain (Rumple/Killian) -6/10 - It's cool, it's not something I think about, but in theory it's not bad.

11. Killian/Belle - 9/10 - YES. this would've been so much better than CaptainSwan 😭

12.GoldenSwan - ?/10 - I have never thought about this ship, it just literally never crossed my mind.

13. SnowQueen - 2/10 - no. Sorry. (I'm thinking about it)

14. WickedQueen - 4/10 - I guess...whatever floats your boat? Not for me, but I get it.

15. WickedSwan - 7/10 - I get it. I'm not into it. But I get it.

I FORGOT SEASON 7

16. StepQueen (Ivy,drizella/Regina) - 10/10 - Give me all the master-pupil dynamics, and all the Evil to Good teaching Evil trying to make her good 😭 I want more fics of these two tbh.

17. Alice/Robin - 10/10 - I love them. No notes.

18. Ivy/Henry - 9/10 - they had so much chemistry!!! And it would've been so fun to see Henry fall for a villain 😭

19. Facilier/ Regina - 8/10 - you know I love any ship with Regina (if that wasn't obvious) I just wish we'd known a little bit more!!

I'll be updating this with all the ships I think of 😂

~~~~~

You can find me on AO3:

[toastbaby]

Summary: Peeta finally gets a chance to talk with his childhood crush when she shows up at his door to sell some ingredients for his pastries.

for @isarnicole

a/n: A little something I wrote for @thgseasonofhope holiday gift exchange! Hope you enjoy! (Ps. this is my first - but hopefully not last - Everlark fic, so I'd love to know what you think! But please be gentle since English is not my first language!)

words: 3900+

Rated: T

Read on AO3

...

“Peeta!”

The 20-year-old baker pulled his attention away from the dough he had been preparing, turning his head towards the source of the voice. His dad was standing in the doorway, his face glistening with sweat because of the rush hour at the bakery.

“Yes, dad?”

“Someone’s coming to sell some herbs and other things we could use in our pastries. Could you please take care of it? My hands are a bit full right now,” the older man huffed, gesturing towards the busy cafe area.

“Sure. Not a problem.”

As Peeta had gotten older, his dad had gradually started giving him more responsibilities at the bakery, intending to leave it to him one day. Peeta’s older brothers weren’t interested in running the place, and Peeta knew he was a better baker than them anyway, thanks to excessive training he had done since he was a kid. Despite that, sometimes the voice of his mother nagged in his head, calling him useless, but the signs of confidence his father showed towards him helped him to ignore it.

He continued kneading the dough once his dad left, but about five minutes later there was a knock at the backdoor of the bakery.

“Just a minute!” Peeta yelled before quickly pulling his hands from the dough and rinsing them under the sink. In his rush he didn’t realize that he had a bit of flour all over his body, including his hair, from carrying a huge bag earlier.

The smile he was wearing on his face when he opened the door froze when he saw a short young woman with a sleek, black braid, olive skin and piercing, gray eyes standing right in front of him. The very same woman who had been a part of his dreams for longer than he could remember: Katniss Everdeen.

“H-hi!” he stuttered, just standing there dumbly as she was taking his floury frame in.

“Uh, hello?” Her greeting sounded almost like a question. When he didn’t move for a moment, she asked: “Can I come in? It’s kind of cold out here.”

That made Peeta finally snap out of his daze.

“Yeah, of course.” He backed up into the kitchen. “Sorry, I was just… surprised, I guess. When my dad told me I was going to have a business meeting with someone, I didn’t realize it was going to be you.”

Katniss gave him a strange look.

“Well, your dad seemed to think that my herbs and vegetables are what he’s looking for, so here I am.”

“Right. Um, listen… Could we start this over? I swear I’m not usually like this.” When Katniss gave him an expectant look, he extended his hand to her, like he would with any guest. “It’s good to see you, Katniss. What did you bring with you?”

Katniss’ mouth twitched ever so slightly at Peeta’s attempt to fix the situation, a sight that made Peeta happier than he thought was normal, but she did take his hand and gave it a firm, warm squeeze. After that she went straight into business mode and marched to the baking counter where she could display her products.

“Some dill, mint leaves, rosemary, basil, oregano, peppers, tomatoes, even a piece of the goat cheese made of the milk of Prim’s goat… Well, Lady’s the only goat we have so our cheese supply is limited right now but you could have whatever we can sell.”

Peeta looked in awe at the impressive collection of herbs and vegetables. The smell of the herbs was truly quite delicious and he could see that they were well taken care of. However, focusing on his actual task of buying Katniss’ products was a bit challenging when she was standing so close to him. Even with the herbs right in front of him he swore he could sense a whiff of pine trees coming from her hair.

“Would you like to taste the cheese?” Katniss asked, unwrapping the foil the cheese was kept in.

“Sure. I’ll get a knife so I can cut it.”

Peeta had been prepared to lie in case he wouldn't have liked the cheese, but turned out it really was worth all the praise he could give. It seemed that Katniss was far prouder for her sister’s achievements than her own, so she accepted the compliments he gave her sister happily. After that the talk moved to the herbs.

“The rosemary could go well with the cheese buns, and mint is good in some sweet things… Smoothie? Mousse? A chocolate cake?” He started listing ideas that came to his head as he tried to keep his focus on the things Katniss had brought. He didn’t miss the way Katniss’ eyes lit with interest when he mentioned the chocolate cake. “Hey, as controversial as this opinion may be, I’ve always liked mint chocolate. Maybe you should sell some of this to my brother; he runs a small chocolate factory nearby.”

“You think he’d buy it?” Katniss asked, a little shyly.

“Oh, absolutely! He’s always on the lookout for new products that make his business stand out. What’s better than combining the chocolate with fresh, local ingredients grown with love?”

“I do love chocolate as well,” Katniss admitted. “I guess you’re going to have to give me his contact info.”

Peeta wasn’t quite sure what got to him when he raised his eyebrow playfully and asked: “What about me? Would you like to have my contact info too?”

For a moment Katniss looked utterly confused.

“But I already know where this bakery is, and I already have its phone number…”

“That’s not quite what I meant…” Peeta shook his head, scratching the back of his head. “Um, never mind that. So, about the price. My dad left some suggestions here,” he dug out a paper where his father had written down what the usual price for specific herbs was, “But he said that he trusts us so if you think that these are too little, we can still change them…”

Katniss’ eyes moved rapidly as she took in the numbers, her frown deepening with each word.

“Peeta… I can’t accept this much. This is way more than what I get when I sell my herbs at the market.”

Peeta stopped her before she could resist even further. “See, that’s the thing, Katniss. Both my father and I agree that for all the hard work that you do on your own you deserve a hell of a lot more than what you get. I don’t think you even understand how much people appreciate local, freshly picked products these days. So, this is the least we can do to both support other local entrepreneurs and also boost our own image! Please, just accept the offer.”

Katniss bit her lip for a moment, her frown still visible. “Fine,” she said finally. “But you’ll have to let me do something in return for you.”

Peeta grinned mischievously, already feeling a lot more relaxed than in the beginning of this meeting. “Well, I would appreciate it if you remembered to mention to your customers that Mellark’s bakery makes the best cheese buns in the entire country.” He winked and Katniss’ cheeks got some extra color. “I’m just kidding. You don’t have to do that. Not saying that I would complain about free advertisements, but really, we would be happy to simply get to use your products.”

He stopped for a moment, gathering the nerve to say what he had been itching to say for a while. “Oh, and I might also be in need of a test taster. Can’t sell products without even knowing if they’re any good, right? My dad has probably never said a critical word in his life so he isn’t the right person for that job.”

Whatever Peeta had expected Katniss to answer to his request, it was not this: “I’ve eaten your cheese buns. And cinnamon rolls. And if those are any indication of what you can create, I highly doubt that you are capable of making anything that tastes bad.”

Did she really just compliment my baking? was all that Peeta could think of, and it took him a while to realize that she was probably expecting him to say something back. The small, shy smile on her face wasn’t really helping him to come up with anything coherent enough.

“I… You would be surprised to know how much trial and error really goes into making new recipes. You should have seen that one time when I thought it’d be a good idea to mix black pepper into a red velvet cake batter. What was worse, my brother accidentally used the peppery layer in a cake that had been ordered for a wedding. The bride wasn’t very happy about it!”

Now Katniss was actually laughing, and it softened the blow of him remembering that his mother’s reaction afterwards had been far from funny. Her voice was soft and bright and it made Peeta’s heart skip a beat.

“Poor thing,” Katniss chuckled. “That must have been quite a surprise.”

“Yep,” Peeta cringed at the memory. “We did luckily have an extra cake in the freezer that only needed to be decorated so they did get a better cake in the end, but the damage was already done. I learned my lesson, though: do not mix black pepper with anything sweet.”

Katniss rested her hand on Peeta’s shoulder for a moment, and that alone made him forget about all the unpleasant thoughts he had had earlier.

“How old were you when that happened?” she asked, more seriously, almost as if she had sensed the negative undertones the story had had despite his attempt to keep his appearance cheerful.

“I think maybe 12-13. I know it sounds young but I had already made plenty of cakes and done decorating at that point.” He shrugged.

“You decorated cookies too,” Katniss said, more of a statement than a question. Peeta wondered if she was thinking about the same thing he was, a memory from years ago.

“I did,” he nodded. Her eyes didn’t leave him for quite a while and it looked like she was about to say something, but then thought better of it.

“So, a test taster?'' She returned to the original topic. “And you think I’d be suitable for that job?”

“Absolutely. I need someone who isn’t afraid to say what they think, and I mean that in the best way possible. Your opinion does mean a lot to me, Katniss.” He gave her a reassuring smile, and she finally relented.

“Alright. Just tell me when you want me to be here.”

…

The next weekend Peeta was bouncing on his heels in the backroom of the bakery as he was waiting for 6 pm, the time Katniss was set to arrive. Since it was almost time for the holidays, he was dressed in a green sweater instead of his usual work attire, and he had also picked one of his nicer pairs of pants and even tried to tame his curly hair a bit beforehand. His brothers had given him a lot of shit for his not so subtle attempt at trying to impress his guest, but he knew that they were actually happy that he was finally taking the chance that he should have taken years ago. Happy enough that Rye had even helped Peeta with some last minute preparations and left the bakery with a wink, promising to stay out of his way. Peeta’s dad was also aware of the test tasting plans and he had only patted encouragingly on his son’s shoulder before closing the door behind him.

Finally, Peeta heard a quiet tap at the backdoor and he got there embarrassingly fast. Behind the door he found a heavily glad Katniss, who seemed to be wearing multiple sweaters under the big leather jacket he was used to seeing on her. Her shoulders were covered in a thin layer of snow from the snowfall outside and her cheeks had gotten some extra color from the cool winter air, so she managed to look even more adorable than usual in Peeta’s eyes as she was standing there in front of him.

“Hi,” she greeted him first.

“Hi. C’mon in. I’m glad you could make it.”

He moved to let Katniss into the bakery, and when she was removing her jacket, the first thing he noticed was that the sweater underneath it was soft orange.

“What? Is something wrong?” Katniss asked when he wouldn’t stop staring.

Peeta shook his head, his lips tugging upwards. “Nothing. I just like the color of your sweater. It reminds me of the sunset.”

Katniss looked down at her sweater and after that took in his outfit. “I guess it kind of does. And I like the green of your sweater. It makes me think of a forest.”

Peeta tried to not look too happy about his successful sweater choice. “Or the plants you grow.”

Once Katniss had left her outdoor clothes on the coat rack, he led her to the big dining table in the middle of the kitchen. “Um, here we have some things for you to taste. I haven't had time to test them myself, but I do promise you that none of them have black pepper in them.”

“Good to know,” Katniss smiled at him, and his heart did something weird again. “I would say that’s a great start.

“So, I thought you could first try the rosemary cheese buns. Sorry, I may have gone a bit overboard with these…” He gestured in the direction of the huge pile of pastries.

“They smell incredible!” Katniss exclaimed, her eyes wide, as she hovered over the freshly made cheese buns. She took one into her small hand and buried her nose into it for a second before taking a small bite. “Oh my god, Peeta! These…” she searched for the right words for a moment, “somehow these are even better than the regular cheese buns!”

Something melted in Peeta’s heart when he saw the contentment on Katniss’ face. “I guess I need to make a note to have cheese buns ready whenever you’re about to visit.” He grinned. “As the creator of the recipe it makes me really happy to hear that you like them”

“Like them? I think I could eat 10 of these at once and not regret it a single bit.” she mumbled while still eating, not even caring there were cheese bun grumps on her sweater. That just made her more endearing in Peeta’s eyes, somehow.

“Good thing you know someone who can make them, then,” he said, entirely incapable of keeping his face straight as he saw her enthusiasm.

They kept chatting while Katniss ate. At first the talk was about more mundane things, such as their old school days, new recipes Peeta still wanted to try and his plans to improve the bakery in the near future. But after Peeta had told Katniss he enjoyed working at the bakery because it allowed him to be creative, she shyly told Peeta about what had originally inspired her to start her own business. When she had been little, both her parents had enjoyed growing their own garden and they had encouraged their daughters to do the same. Her mother had been particularly interested in the medical properties of various herbs and she had been selling them before the accident that took her father’s life changed everything for the Everdeen family. But gardening brought Katniss memories of happier times and she had a natural love for all kinds of plants from being out in the woods so much as a kid, so continuing the work had felt like the right decision after finishing high school. Maybe one day she would manage to save enough money to continue her studies, but for now, she was happy the way she was.

“That makes sense,” Peeta commented. “My mother would have wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer or something like that, but really, I was never that into studying – my favorite subjects were English and arts so those were the only things I could have imagined studying further. I think I knew from pretty early on this is what I wanted to do, and when my mom left a few years ago, that kind of sealed the deal for me… I had nothing stopping me from staying.”

“So you were happy your mom left?” Katniss asked hesitantly.

Peeta nodded. “I think you already have an idea about what kind of person she is. My dad stood her much longer than he should have. What she did… It was more verbal than physical abuse, constant reminders of things I couldn’t do… But sometimes she’d hit us too.”

Katniss’ gaze turned to the gingerbread cookies that were laid on a plate near Peeta. It seemed to be drawn to a very specific cookie: a round one, with a dandelion frosting

“I remember wondering why you had a red cheek once when we were eleven… Did she do that?” She asked, surprising Peeta by stepping closer to him and cradling his cheeks between her hands.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, unable to look into her eyes. He remembered that particular occasion Katniss was referring to all too well.

Instead of saying something like “I’m so sorry”, which was what Peeta usually got when people discovered the real reason for his mother leaving her family behind, Katniss took an entirely different approach. Her voice was quiet and her eyes shone with unshed tears when she said:

“You know… a very kind boy once left me dandelion cookies very similar to those right next to you… Although admittedly, the frosting was a little sloppier, but still, definitely recognizable. It happened during a time when I was this close to just giving up on everything. But that small act of kindness reminded me that there was hope. That no matter how dark things seemed, there was someone who cared. Even if the giver himself didn’t think of his deed as anything huge, it meant a world to me. One time I caught him by my locker, sneaking those cookies in from the small gap on the top, but he left before I had a chance to say anything. I always wished I could thank him for his kindness, but I never seemed to find the right words. But I guess this is as good an opportunity as any, so: thank you. Sincerely.”

“I… I’m glad I could help. But to be honest, I often felt like I should have done more, should have actually talked to you, but I always chickened out… Looks like our thoughts were pretty similar back then.”

“I guess so.” Katniss shrugged, her hand still lingering on his cheek.

“But I suppose it’s never too late to fix our past mistakes,” Peeta whispered.

There was a weird kind of tension in the air between them. Peeta wished he could close the gap between them and just kiss her, but that would certainly just freak her out, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. And so, mainly to stop himself from doing something he’d regret, he put some distance between them, cleared his throat and noted: “You haven’t tried the chocolate cake yet. I saved the best for last!”

“Oh?” Katniss cocked her eyebrow playfully. “Be careful of what you promise. You should know that after the cheese buns my expectations are impossibly high.”

Peeta snorted. “You really liked my buns, huh?” Katniss rolled her eyes at the double entendre. “Sorry, don’t mind me. Would you like something to drink with the cake? Tea? Hot chocolate? Juice?”

“Maybe some tea, please, since the cake already has chocolate in it.”

The pair cut small slices from the cake and Peeta poured them some tea before they sat down to eat. However, Katniss had barely tasted the piece when she started coughing and took a napkin to spit the rest of it out. “Peeta, what’s this?”

Peeta tasted his piece carefully and immediately understood what had happened.

“The frosting… tastes like garlic? Is that on purpose?” Katniss asked.

“I swear I didn’t know about this!” Peeta raised his hands in the air. “I think my lovely brother Rye just paid back for that time when he had to take the blame for the pepper cake. He knew you were coming here and he was helping me before you arrived…”

“What do I have to do with this?” Katniss questioned.

“Nothing,” Peeta rushed to answer before he had to explain to Katniss that his brothers knew about his longtime crush. “Ugh, I really am sorry. I promise I will bake you another cake in the near future and make sure no brothers are nearby to mix the wrong ingredients into it… That is, if you allow it.”

He must have looked miserable because Katniss’ scowl melted into a smile.

“I’ll allow it.”

And suddenly, both of them were laughing so hard that Katniss had to lean against Peeta’s shoulder, and they didn’t stop for several minutes.

“When I said it was going to taste even better than the cheese buns this definitely wasn’t what I had in my mind,” he finally said while swiping the tears of laughter from his cheeks.

“I bet you didn’t,” Katniss grinned, and the weight dropped from Peeta’s heart.

“Here,” he threw her a chocolate ball from a bag Rye had left behind and she caught it. “Something to take the garlic taste from your mouth. I tasted these myself before you arrived so I know they are fine.”

“These are really good,” Katniss commented after popping the chocolate into her mouth. “Tell Rye I might forgive him for the garlic trick if I get a bag of these for free.”

“I will let him know,” Peeta smirked.

The two of them kept eating the chocolate balls, occasionally throwing them into each other’s mouths. Just when Peeta was about to voice a question that had been bothering him the whole night, his dad entered the room. It was only then that Peeta realized how close he was still standing to Katniss.

“Peeta, I wouldn’t interrupt you if it wasn’t important but it seems there’s been some mix up with an order and I need you to check it quickly.”

“Alright,” Peeta sighed. “I’ll be back soon,” he told Katniss before following his dad out of the kitchen.

When he came back, he found Katniss loading their dishes into the dishwasher and humming a Christmas song quietly. When she noticed him, she seemed a bit startled, as if she had been caught doing something wrong, but when Peeta reassured her he had liked her humming, she soon calmed down.

“Actually…” He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to another as he debated if he should really say what he wanted to say next. “I remember you singing in front of our class when we were five. That was the first moment when I really noticed you. Your voice was the prettiest thing I had ever heard… and still is.”

Katniss was quiet for a moment. “Peeta… When you gave me those cookies, why did you do it?”

“Why do you think I did?”

He didn’t have a chance to say anything else when her lips were on his, causing his brain to malfunction entirely. Somehow he still managed to respond to the kiss, not quite able to believe that it was actually happening. The moment was over too soon for his liking, but the feeling of her soft lips still lingered on his when he asked:

“Do you think… there is a chance you would be willing to go out with me some time? And not just for test tasting?

“Yeah. I think I might,” she smiled shyly, and kissed him again.

[scary-grace]

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 4) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 4

You don’t see Tomura the next morning, but when you come home from work, Phantom is loose in the yard, and Hizashi is hanging out just beyond the fence, studying an empty jar. “I came to get this, since we’re out,” he remarks. He has sharp teeth, just like Himiko. “So, what happened last night?”

You play dumb for all you’re worth. “Something happened last night?”

“Of course it did. The vibes coming off this house are impressively horny,” Hizashi says, and you cringe so hard you’re surprised you don’t explode. “I’ve been there. Consequence of spending too much time embodied – you start feeling things a normal human body feels, and going incorporeal doesn’t make it go away. That was a nasty shock for me, too.”

You really don’t want to ask Hizashi any questions at all, but you’ve got one – and it’s a subject change, so you seize it. “Is it true that ghosts’ power levels are stagnant? Are you just stuck with what you started with?”

“That’s not what I thought you were going to ask.” Hizashi tosses the jar from one hand to the other. “I’m guessing you’re asking because of our sexually frustrated friend in there?”

“I’ll pay you to never say that again,” you say, and Hizashi laughs. “Yes. He said –”

“That he didn’t want to come here. I’d buy that, easy.” Hizashi glances over his shoulder at the house, then beckons you away down the block. You’re not sure how far you have to go to be out of Tomura’s earshot, but you stop when Hizashi does. “Here’s the thing. He and I are the oldest ghosts in this neighborhood, but we’re not the same kind of old. I chose to be here.”

“Why?” you ask. Hizashi stares at you. “Did you come here to hurt people?”

“I came here because I wanted to be people,” Hizashi says. You stare. “Ask him what it’s like in the world between and you’ll understand. But to answer your question, we don’t spend our whole existences at the same power level. There are two kinds of ghostly power. There’s what you get right at the start. Then there’s your potential. Conjurers – the worst ones, anyway – they want potential. That’s why they grab the youngest ghosts.”

His expression darkens, and your legs almost give out beneath you. Is this how Tomura makes other people feel? You’re surprised that anyone’s ever set foot in your house. Hizashi doesn’t notice what he’s doing to you, or if he notices, he doesn’t care. “Eri had low surface power but massive potential. Her conjurer bound her in the worst situation possible, figuring she’d have to tap into that potential to take control of her environment and make it her own. She found another way out, but your ghost didn’t.”

He glances back at your house. “Based on how strong your ghost is now, his potential was massive. He probably hasn’t even found his limit yet. What’s weird is that he hasn’t used it.”

“Did you use yours?”

Hizashi grins his sharp-toothed grin. “Why do you think it took them so long to burn my opera house down?”

You’ve wondered, every so often, what it would have been like to be haunted by Hizashi instead of Tomura. Now you’re pretty sure you’d have had a breakdown. Aizawa must have nerves of steel. “Anyway,” Hizashi says, “he’s not smart enough to tell a lie that big. He’s telling the truth.”

He tosses the jar at you and you barely catch it in time. “And whatever you did last night, don’t do it again. I can handle his mood, but it’s messing with the little ones.”

You cringe. The last thing you want is for Eri and Himiko to pick up on whatever Tomura’s doing – even if they do know all about sex from observing humans already. But you also don’t know how to fix this problem you apparently caused. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Ask Keigo,” Hizashi says, already walking away. “He’ll know.”

Keigo? You’ve talked to Keigo some, since he’s the only person in the neighborhood who’s actually in your age range, but it’s occurring to you now that you’ve never actually met Keigo’s ghost. You pull out your phone, considering texting him, but there’s no point when his house is across the street and his car’s in the driveway. You walk back to your house, retrieve Phantom’s spare leash from your car, and take her with you when you head across the street to knock on Keigo’s door.

Keigo answers it pretty fast. There’s a handprint-shaped hole burned in his shirt, still smoking faintly, and it draws your attention like a magnet. “Uh, what is that?”

“Ask Dabi,” Keigo says.

“Ask her damn ghost. It’s all his fault.”

“No, it isn’t. You can control your behavior, you just don’t want to.” Keigo rolls his eyes. “I saw you talking to Hizashi. I’m guessing he sent you?”

“Yeah. Can we talk?”

“Yeah. Just let me get my shoes. And a new shirt.” Keigo ducks back into the house, and you wait on the steps, wondering if you’ll get a glimpse of the former ghost who lives here. Keigo’s voice issues from within the house, but he’s not talking to you. “Don’t go out there if you’re just going to get into a pissing contest with the guy across the street. He could crush you with both hands tied behind his back.”

“He can’t cross that fence, and I didn’t give up my powers like an idiot. That means I can do whatever I want with his human –”

“He’d blow that house apart and come get you, and you know it.” Keigo reappears. “Sorry about him. He’s in a mood. Let’s go.”

“Hey, who said you could leave? I didn’t say you could leave! Get back here –”

“I’ll be back when I feel like it! Bye-bye!” Keigo waves and then slams the door. He hurries down the steps and you follow him. He doesn’t stop until you’re at the top of the street. “Sorry about that. I’m guessing you’ve got questions.”

You have a lot of questions. “Aizawa said Tomura was the only ghost left in the neighborhood.”

“He is,” Keigo says. “You know how ghosts have to want to be embodied more than they’ve ever wanted anything for it to work? Dabi tried to change his mind halfway.”

“Oh,” you say. “So that makes him half ghost?”

“It makes him a scar wraith. Half of him is permanently materialized, half of him isn’t, and most of the time he’s a total bitch about it.” Keigo crouches down to tie his shoes. “He lost half of his ghostly powers and picked up most of the downsides of being embodied. He’s going to be like that until he makes up his mind.”

“Oh,” you say again. “That’s, um – is that why your house is always on fire?”

“You got it.” Keigo straightens up again. “I know we got out of there in a hurry, but you’re not actually in danger from him. I just wanted to teach him a lesson. Like you do to yours when you leave.”

Is that what you’re trying to do? You don’t know if you’re trying to punish Tomura or just trying to figure out a game plan before you go back in. In this case it’s definitely the latter. “Hizashi says my ghost is, um –”

“Horny,” Keigo says. Your face heats up. He starts walking, and you follow him. “Yeah, they get like that sometimes. And they don’t like it. Usually they dematerialize to get away from feelings they don’t like, but it doesn’t work, and that pisses them off, too.”

Phantom stops to sniff a tree, and you let her for a second before tugging her along. “Why?”

“Maybe you don’t know, because you’re a girl –”

“Girls get horny too,” you say. This is maybe the dumbest conversation you’ve ever had, excepting the one you had with Tomura about why Phantom can’t have dead birds even though she really wants them. “Are you saying it’s because they have to do something about it? They don’t. They can just wait for it to go away.”

“Yeah, but waiting for it to go away is uncomfortable,” Keigo says. You’re not going to argue that one. Being horny when you don’t want to be is deeply unpleasant. “And ghosts suck at tolerating discomfort. Yours is pretty inexperienced with everything from what I’ve heard, so he probably doesn’t know what to do, and unless you want to leave a copy of The Joy of Sex lying around –”

“I don’t.” You shudder. “I don’t want him getting ideas.”

“Then you’re going to have to explain,” Keigo says patiently. You give him a pained look, and he sighs. “Tell him to materialize fully and get it out of his system. That’ll solve the initial problem.”

The thought of heading back to your house and telling Tomura he needs to masturbate makes you want to die. But you’re even unhappier about Keigo’s second sentence. “What do you mean, the initial problem?”

“Hizashi and Magne gave me the ghost sex talk when we moved here. Kind of late, but it helped, sort of.” Keigo rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Once ghosts figure out how it works, they go one of two ways. Either they decide it’s gross and they’re not interested – that’s what Magne did – or they decide they’re really into it, which is what Hizashi did. And they can’t generate that feeling on their own the way people do, so they go after the people who made them feel that way the first time.”

That sinks in fast, but you’ve got no idea what to think or say or do about it. What comes out is the last thing you wanted to tell anyone. “I just held his hand. That was it! I was just trying to prove that there’s a difference between physical contact that hurts and stuff that doesn’t hurt because he won’t quit scratching his neck until it bleeds – and I’m pretty sure he hated it –”

“If he hated it, then you’re fine,” Keigo says. “Honestly, most of the adult former ghosts I’ve met aren’t into it even after they embody themselves permanently. Hizashi’s only like that because he spent enough time embodied to get used to it before he made it official. If it was a common thing Aizawa would have written a guidebook on it by now.”

Aizawa does have a lot of guidebooks. It took you a while to realize that most of the literature he sent you home with was stuff he’d written himself. “Although,” Keigo muses, “I guess Aizawa never hooked up with an actual ghost. He and Hizashi didn’t bang until after Hizashi was embodied.”

“So, um –” You can’t believe you’re about to ask this. “Did you, uh –”

“Did me and Dabi hook up before he fucked up his embodiment? Yeah,” Keigo says. You thought he’d be embarrassed, or proud. Instead he looks sad. “He didn’t use to be like this, or go by Dabi. His real name is Touya, and he was a lot, sure, but he wasn’t like this. I wouldn’t have gotten into it with him if he’d been like this the whole time.”

“I get it,” you say. You’ve had bad relationships before. “Do you think he’d go back if he embodied himself all the way?”

“Probably? I don’t think he’ll do that, though.” Keigo sighs. “They almost never decide consciously that they’re going to embody themselves. It happens because of how they feel. The little ones, they embodied themselves because they wanted to be with their families. They wanted to be seen and loved more than they wanted to be powerful. Magne jumped because Spinner didn’t have anybody but her, and as far as I can tell, she’s sort of surprised she did it. Hizashi did it on purpose, but Hizashi’s different – and from what he’s said, he’d probably have done it unconsciously at some point. He loves Aizawa that much.”

Now you get why Keigo looks so sad. “I bet Touya just got nervous,” you say. “I mean, it’s kind of a big decision, right? The biggest one they’ll ever make. And it’s not like he left. Even after you left his old haunt he stayed with you. That’s got to mean something.”

“Maybe.” Keigo smiles halfway. “A guy can hope, right?”

“Of course,” you say. Personally, you’re hoping for something different from Tomura.

You spend way too long pacing up and down the street after you say goodbye to Keigo, trying to work up your nerve. But eventually the weird tension from the house becomes perceptible to you even from outside it, and you remember what Hizashi said about the kids. You order yourself to suck it up, unlatch the front gate, and make your way inside. You can tell Tomura’s watching you, marking you closely, while you give Phantom a treat and some water. Once you’ve gotten her settled, you make your way upstairs to your room and shut the door. You can’t look at him while you have this conversation. You squeeze your eyes shut and speak up. “I know how to fix your problem.”

“What problem?” Tomura’s voice sounds tight and uncomfortable. “I don’t have a problem. You have a problem. You hung out with that guy across the street –”

“Because I needed help with you,” you say. It’s quiet for a second. “I figured out a solution to your problem. So you won’t feel the way you’re feeling anymore. I know it’s uncomfortable.”

“No, you don’t. Humans don’t feel like this.”

You manage to laugh at that one. “Humans feel like this all the time, Tomura. Half the dumb decisions people make in movies are because they feel like this.”

It’s quiet again. “How do I fix it?”

You bury your face in your head. “You have to materialize all the way. Then you have to touch yourself.”

“What do you mean, touch myself? You said I wasn’t supposed to scratch.”

“Not there.” You’re pretty sure your face is melting off from sheer embarrassment. “You know where that feeling is? The one you don’t like? You have to touch yourself there to make it go away.”

“Why?”

“It –” You chicken out. “You’ll figure it out once you try it. Go in the bathroom and shut the door.”

“Why do I have to go in there?”

“Privacy,” you say. There’s no way to tell him that you don’t want to have to clean ghost cum off the hardwood floors.

You hear footsteps down the hall, followed by the bathroom door opening and closing. “This is stupid,” Tomura says. You couldn’t agree more. “I’m doing it. It still feels – weird –”

That catch in his voice is something you really could have gone without hearing. “You don’t have to narrate,” you say. “You deserve privacy. I’m giving you privacy. I can leave the house –”

“No, don’t.” Tomura sounds pretty sure about that. “This was your idea. Don’t you want to – ugh.”

You don’t want to know what that was about. At all. You think about getting your headphones, except if you don’t respond when he talks to you, he’ll come looking to see why, and you really don’t want him to come talk to you in whatever state he’s in at the moment. Maybe it’s over already. Maybe he’s one of the vast majority of ghosts who think it’s gross and this will never happen to you again. You’re sure that’s it. It’s over already. It –

A low sigh echoes through the house, and you freeze in place. There’s a few uneven breaths, and then another sigh, followed by a sharper sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. “What is this?” Tomura asks, his voice strained in an entirely different way than before. When you don’t respond, he says your name, followed by another one of those sharper sounds. “I don’t understand. Why – ah –”

You clamp your hands down over your ears, but it’s like your ears are attuned specifically to him. You can hear everything. Every ragged breath, every whimper, every needy, desperate moan, and suddenly you’re sure that you got the other kind of ghost, the kind that finds sex and lust fascinating instead of gross. You’ve made a mistake. Not just in telling him to solve the problem like this, but in sticking around to listen. Because listening to this, knowing that you touched his hand and turned him on so badly that it’s been permeating the neighborhood all day, is doing something to you, too.

Your face is flushed, but it’s not just from embarrassment. When you touch your wrist to feel for your pulse, it’s fast. And worse than all of that, you’re wet. Knowing it’ll make things worse doesn’t stop you from sliding one hand down the front of your jeans, recoiling when you realize just how wet you are. This is a disaster. You can’t let him know.

There’s only one solution you can think of. No time to get to the bed, or to do anything more than sink to the floor, unzipping your jeans just far enough to give your hand room to move. You shove the heel of your other hand against your mouth, because you’re not loud but you’ve never done anything like this before and you’re not sure what will happen. You squeeze your eyes shut as you brush your fingers between your legs, the sound you make muffled by your hand and drowned out by the almost-agonized moan that issues from the bathroom down the hall. “I can’t,” Tomura pants. “I can’t – stop – how does it stop –”

“You’ll know.” You think your voice is steady enough. How is he still going? The first time you masturbated, you were so wound up that you were done almost faster than you could think. And he’s a guy. “Just keep going.”

“Keep talking.” Tomura’s voice is just as raspy and ragged as his breathing is. It shouldn’t be hot. You shouldn’t find this hot. “Is this –”

He breaks off in a whine. “How it’s supposed to feel?” you ask. You increase the pressure of your fingers against your clit in spite of the fact that he’s clearly expecting you to talk and you don’t want him to know what you’re doing. “Like you’re going to fall apart, but it feels so good you don’t care?”

“Yeah. Ah –”

“Like that,” you say. You find yourself spreading your legs wider, giving more space for your hand to move. “Exactly like that, Tomura. Don’t stop.”

You’re telling him how to touch himself, but it’s all wrong. It sounds the same as what you’d be telling him to do if he was here, if the fingers slipping inside you were his. What is wrong with you? Thoughts flash through your mind, thoughts you shouldn’t have, and your breathing turns shallow and harsh. “Say something,” Tomura whines, begs. You picture what he must look like right now, face red and hair stuck to his neck and forehead with sweat, completely at the mercy of a body and a need, and crook your fingers, shuddering. “Come on. I need you. Don’t leave me. Please –”

“I’m here.” The strain in your voice would let anyone else know exactly what you’re doing, but Tomura doesn’t know – and even if he did, the sounds you hear tell you that he’s lost in his own touch, chasing his own high. You might as well not be here. All you are is a friendly voice, a guide in uncharted territory. “You’re doing great. You’re almost done, aren’t you? You know what you like by now. Do that, and keep doing it. Don’t stop until –”

The sound he makes is inarticulate and absolutely filthy. Your muscles clench around your fingers, and you rub desperately at your clit with your free hand. Without a hand over your mouth to muffle yourself, you’re reduced to biting your lip until it bleeds as you listen to Tomura shuddering through the first orgasm of his existence. And that’s what tips you over the edge, really – the thought that it’s his first, the thought that it’s because of you. Blood spills into your mouth as your hips jerk against your hands, your vocal cords straining with the effort of holding back the sounds you want to make. You can’t remember the last time you came this hard. All you want to do is sprawl out on the floor and go to sleep.

But you can’t. You need to hide the evidence. You can’t let Tomura know what you just did. You zip and button your jeans, cringing at the slickness of your fingers, and leave your room, hurrying to the downstairs bathroom to splash water on your face. You get a glimpse of what you look like in the mirror and stare in horror. Your face is flushed and your eyes are dilated and there’s a drop of blood at the corner of your mouth that you smear away with the back of your hand. You look like a mess. The only thing that will save you is that Tomura doesn’t know what to look for.

His voice drifts through the house, still unsteady. “There’s a mess in here.”

“I’ll clean it later,” you say. “Since it’s my fault.”

The floor creaks once or twice, then stops, and you know Tomura’s dematerialized. It’s not a surprise. You can’t imagine how much energy he burned through, and sure enough, when you look out the kitchen window, you see a line of dead blackberry bushes along the back fence. Sex stuff takes more life-force than anything else. All the more reason for this to never happen again.

Tomura’s presence slips into the room, surrounding you like he does sometimes. Usually you shoo him away, or threaten to leave until he slinks off, sulking. Today you can’t. You coped okay with your first orgasm, but you were alone. You know you’d have felt weird if you hadn’t been, and if the person who talked you through it had ignored you afterward. You let him settle in, staring fixedly at the dead bushes along the fence. Only one or two are still alive.

Tomura’s voice rasps against your ear. “Do I have to do that every time?”

“There’s not going to be another time,” you say. “It’s my fault for touching you like that last night, and you told me not to do it again. So we’re good.”

“It felt good.” Tomura sounds sure about that. Your stomach twists. “It only felt bad because I didn’t know what to do. Now I know.”

“I’m still not touching you like that again. You said no. I can’t ask you to respect my  boundaries when I don’t respect yours.”

“What if I take it back?” Tomura asks. The twist in your stomach is painful this time. “What if I want you to touch me?”

“Then it starts being about what I want,” you say. “And I don’t want to.”

It’s a lie. You’re lying. Another human would know you were, would know by the heat of your body and the flush in your cheeks and the heavy, painful sound of your heartbeat. “You don’t want to,” Tomura repeats. His presence slips away again, going to some place far enough that you can barely feel it. “I didn’t say I wanted it. Like I’d ever want you to touch me.”

His voice is the last thing to vanish. You want to stick your head under the faucet and drown. “Fine.”

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it, and after the hand-touching incident and everything that followed, the atmosphere in your house feels worse than it ever has before. You don’t know where Tomura’s going, but there are times when his presence vanishes almost completely, and when it does, you can barely stand the emptiness he leaves behind. You never lived alone until you lived here, and you thought you loved it. Now you realize that you were never living here alone at all. Until now.

The jar of bugs start piling up on the front porch, and rather than letting them die, you let them go. You don’t tell the others to stop bringing them. Some part of you is hoping Tomura will come back, that you can go back to the way things were before, but you don’t need one of Aizawa’s guidebooks to tell you that it’s not happening. You rejected him. And if there’s anything you’ve taught Tomura about how humans work, it’s that no means no.

You start spending extra time at work. Sometimes you bring Phantom with you, with Mr. Yagi’s permission, and it makes you popular with your coworkers like you never were before. You still hate it, but it makes it easier to be at work. And it means you don’t have to go home until you’re ready.

At least, most days you don’t. But you woke up with a splitting headache today, and a sore throat, and because you weren’t coughing, you decided that you didn’t have an excuse to skip work. You leave Phantom at home and drag yourself into the office, and you get through four hours of your workday before Mr. Yagi spots you and sends you home. Your pleas not to go home fall on deaf ears, and you drive home slowly, struggling to keep your eyes fixed on the road in front of you.

When you get home, Phantom greets you anxiously. She knows you’re not feeling well, and when you sit down in the front hall to pet her, you realize that you’re going to have a hard time getting up. It doesn’t matter. You can take a break. You let your eyes fall shut.

When you wake up, it’s to grey, rainy, late-afternoon light falling over your face, the sound of Phantom whining in your ear, and a voice you haven’t heard in three weeks. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Tomura,” you mumble. You were hoping sleep would make you feel better, but it feels like your headache’s actually gotten worse. “I’m fine. Just wanted to sit down.”

“Don’t be stupid. And don’t lie.” Even the sound of Tomura’s footsteps across the floor hurts your head, not to mention Phantom’s whining. “You fell asleep on the floor. You’re making this weird face. You don’t look right. What’s wrong with you?”

He almost sounds worried. “My boss sent me home. He thinks I’m sick.”

“Are you sick?” Tomura asks. You think about lying, decide not to, and nod. The pain that splits your skull makes you want to throw up. “Can you fix it?”

You have cold medicine somewhere, and pain relievers, but you’d have to get up to get them, and you’re so dizzy. Maybe you should call somebody for help, but who would you call? Nobody in your neighborhood is going to set foot in your house, and you don’t have any friends from work. And all your old friends have started to slip away, courtesy of your new world, your new friends, your new life. Who do you have to call? Nobody. The thought makes you sad, and feeling sad makes you even more tired than before.

“Wake up,” Tomura snaps at you. Phantom whines and licks your face. “Stop it. Wake up!”

Phantom’s worried. Tomura’s mad at you. Somewhere in your clouded mind, it occurs to you that you need help. That maybe it doesn’t matter who you call as long as you call somebody. You pull your phone out of your backpack and get as far as unlocking it. Then your head starts to ache worse than before, a dull pounding that fills every crevice and corner of your skull. Everything feels hot and humid and awful. You shut your eyes again. Anything to make it stop.

You’re cold when you wake up again. Well, some of you is cold. There’s a small warm patch on your stomach, but the rest of you is cold. Not regular cold. Tomura’s cold. He’s materialized, completely or close enough, and he’s holding onto you awkwardly with one arm while Phantom rests her head on your stomach. You can hear Tomura’s voice. He sounds pissed. “If I knew what was wrong with her I’d say it,” he snaps at whoever he’s talking to. “She keeps falling asleep. She’s not supposed to be home yet. She’s too warm.”

“So she’s sick.” That’s Keigo’s voice. Is Keigo here? Why did Tomura let Keigo in the house? “And she’s sleeping a lot?”

“I said that already. Stop repeating what I already said.”

“What are her symptoms?” That’s Aizawa’s voice. It starts to dawn on you slowly what’s happening here, and you almost laugh. “Symptoms. You named some of them already. Fatigue. Fever. Is she coughing?”

“No.”

“Does her breathing sound different than it usually does?” Jin’s mom is talking. Now you know for sure. “Does she have a rash?”

“Her breathing sounds normal,” Tomura says. He’s on the phone. He somehow unlocked your phone, went into your text messages, and conference-called the entire ghost friends group chat. You’d laugh if you weren’t worried it would make your head explode. “What’s a rash?”

“It would be on her skin. Does her skin look like it usually looks?”

An ice-cold hand brushes over your cheek. “It’s too hot. Her face is red. The rest of it looks okay.”

“Check for bites. We brought over tons of bugs. If enough of them bit her –”

“Hitoshi, hang up the phone,” Aizawa orders. “You’re supposed to be at school.”

“You’re supposed to be driving,” Shinsou fires back. “You’re picking up Eri from school early because she’s sick.”

Eri’s sick. You claw your way out of semi-consciousness and grasp the phone. “Does she have what I have?”

“Oh, good. You’re alive,” Keigo says. “Your ghost was pretty panicked.”

“I wasn’t panicked. Shut up.” Tomura’s grip on you tightens. “Someone else is sick?”

“She fell asleep in class. She has a headache and a fever,” Aizawa says. He sounds unhappy. “When would she possibly have been exposed?”

“We brought over some bugs last night,” Shinsou says. “Maybe it was then.”

“It could have gone the other way, too,” Jin’s mom says. “Kids get sick a lot easier than adults.”

“Good point. Maybe Eri got it first and brought it –”

“But Shinsou isn’t sick. If Shinsou lives with her and isn’t sick, how come –”

“I don’t care,” Tomura says loudly. “I don’t care about your sick kid. I want to know how to fix my human.”

Tomura’s making a great first impression. You’ll be doing damage control with Aizawa later, once you feel less like a puddle of body aches and sweat. “If she’s got what Eri’s got, it’s probably the flu,” Jin’s mom says. “She should have cold medicine on hand. Most people do. Pain relievers for the headache and body aches, cough drops if she has a sore throat. And she’ll need to eat. Do you know how humans eat?”

“I’m not stupid. I know how food works.”

“Don’t cook,” Aizawa, Shinsou, and Keigo all say at once. Keigo keeps talking. “You’re not embodied. You don’t have tastebuds. Whatever you end up cooking is going to be –”

There’s a scuffle on Keigo’s end of the line. “It’s going to be fuck awful,” Dabi announces, and Shinsou snickers. “Go ahead and poison your human. See if I care.”

“The next time you even look at my human I’m going to disintegrate your ugly face.”

“My ugly face? Have you seen what you look like? I’m surprised your human hasn’t gone blind.”

Tomura snarls. “At least I never set my human on fire –”

“You’re both pretty,” you mumble, and Keigo cracks up laughing. “I’m not that sick. I can heat up a can of soup in the microwave.”

“You’re so stupid. You fell asleep on the floor,” Tomura snaps at you. “You can’t do anything. I’m going to have to drag you everywhere.”

“No one made you touch me,” you protest. “If you weren’t here –”

“Well, I am here. So shut up and let me –”

“If you two are going to have a domestic, hang up the phone first,” Hizashi says loudly. You didn’t realize he was there. You jump, and your head collides with Tomura’s chin. He swears and so do you. “One of us will stop by later to make sure neither of you are dead. Goodbye.”

There’s a click as he hangs up the phone. Shinsou hangs up a second later. Jin’s mother hangs up after promising to bring over some food, and Keigo stays on the phone a little longer. “I’ll drop by in an hour or two, like Hizashi says. Can you promise not to kill me if I set foot in the house?”

“The only person I’m going to kill is your idiot ghost.”

“Cool,” Keigo says. You can hear Dabi arguing in the background that it’s not cool at all. “Bye.”

He hangs up the phone, too. Now it’s just you and Tomura and Phantom, piled up on the couch in the living room. You don’t remember getting to the living room. Tomura must have dragged you, like he said. You thought he was so mad at you that he was never going to show himself again. Apparently not.

“What’s a domestic?” Tomura asks after a while.

“A fight,” you say. “Just another word for fight.”

“Then why didn’t he just say a fight?”

You really don’t want to get into this right now. “A domestic is a kind of fight. The kind couples have. He was making fun of us by pretending we’re a couple.”

“I don’t like him,” Tomura says after a moment. “I can kill him for you.”

“Don’t do that,” you say.

“He scares you.” Tomura scratches at his neck with the hand that’s not gripping your shoulder. “If I can’t not scare you, I might as well be the only thing that does.”

Maybe you’re just sick and stupid, but you don’t hate the sound of that. “That’s kind of sweet.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tomura says. He slides out from behind you and drops you onto the couch with a thud. You see a patchy flush on his face before he turns away. “I’m getting your medicine. Stay there.”

You’re not really in a position to go anywhere. You scratch behind Phantom’s ears with a shaky hand and close your eyes again.

When you wake up, you find that Tomura’s turned your medicine cabinet inside out and brought you absolutely everything. Sorting through it is the first laugh you’ve had in a while, and once you’ve got a double dose of painkillers on board, you’re willing to risk it. “Why did you bring this?” you ask, waving a box of band-aids at him. “You’ve seen me use these. You know they’re not for this.”

“How am I supposed to know that? You use stuff that’s not for the stuff you’re using it for all the time.” Tomura snatches the band-aids away and picks up another box. “What are these?”

“You definitely didn’t need to bring those,” you say. “They’re condoms.”

“What?”

It figures. He didn’t know male from female until Hizashi told him, but he clearly has certain associations with condoms, and he doesn’t like them. Probably because of all the movies you didn’t know he was watching with you. “Relax. Does that box look open to you?”

“No,” Tomura says, inspecting it from all angles. “If it’s not open, why do you have it?”

“In case I need it,” you say. “I don’t need it right now.”

In fact, you’re having a hard time imagining that you’ll ever need condoms again. You can’t exactly bring anybody home to hook up with, not with Tomura constantly lurking around, and you like sleeping in your own bed too much to spend the night at anybody else’s house. Beyond that, if you ever wanted to get serious with anybody, you’d have to explain about your house, about Tomura. There’s no way to explain that. No way to explain him in a way that won’t end any relationship instantly. Maybe it’s just that you’re sick, but you find that you don’t mind the thought.

You choose a box of cold medicine and swallow a dose of it, then pop a cough drop into your mouth to soothe your throat. Tomura watches you the entire time, only partially materialized. “Does that taste good?”

“No. It numbs my throat so it hurts less.”

“What do you do when things hurt?”

You were going to try to fall asleep again as soon as you’re done with your cough drop, but Tomura’s in a mood to talk. And as much as you hate to admit it, you miss talking to Tomura. “There are different kinds of hurt, for people. If it hurts physically, like this does, I can take medicine. I can put ice on a bruise or use a heating pad for cramps. There are ointments that have numbing agents in them, same as the cough drops. There are lots of things to do when something physically hurts.”

“If something hurts my body, I can dematerialize,” Tomura says. You wish it was that easy for you. If you could evaporate right now, you’d do it in a heartbeat. “What about other kinds of hurting?”

“Um –” You break off, trying to wrap your head around it. “Emotions hurt sometimes. The bad ones, usually. Being sad or angry or lonely or scared – all of those can feel like they hurt. They can hurt a lot.”

“How do you make them go away?”

“You can’t,” you say. Tomura’s expression darkens. “There’s not medicine that fixes feelings, at least not all the way. You just have to live with them until they stop. Or until you get used to them.”

“That’s stupid,” Tomura says.

“You’re telling me.” You close your eyes. “I guess talking about them helps sometimes. Not for everybody, not all the time, but it can make you feel less alone.”

“I didn’t hate being alone before,” Tomura says. You open your eyes and find him scowling, his face flushed. “Now I do.”

You want to remind him that he’s the one who pulled away, that he’s the one who left, but there’s no point. You roll over instead, facing the back of the couch, and the words slip out of your mouth before you can stop them. “I missed you.”

You couldn’t have picked a dumber thing to say. Tomura’s got the emotional maturity of a frat guy – he gets mad easily and takes “no” poorly and makes you explain your boundaries five billion times before he even thinks about respecting them. Telling a guy like him that you missed him is a one-way ticket to being mocked for being needy and clingy and pathetic. You can already feel your eyes burning in anticipation of being humiliated.

But Tomura’s not a human man. He’s a ghost. The rush of air filling a previously occupied space tells you he’s dematerialized, but the cold settles around you, and his voice rasps in your ear. “I missed you too. Idiot.”

“You’re the one who left,” you answer. “You’re an idiot, too.”

You’re expecting him to slip away again. Instead the cold spot envelops you more securely than before. “Shut up.”

You fall asleep like that, and when you wake up, it’s to the sound of the fire alarm going off. Tomura’s watched you cook plenty of times and probably should know better, but apparently when you mentioned sticking a can of soup in the microwave, he took it literally. You should be pissed. You probably will be, once the cold medicine wears off. But at the moment, when you’re dizzy and sleepy and feverish, all you can think to do is be pleased that he tried at all.

[cheesenames]

20 Questions for Writers - I was tagged by @batrachised and then took forever to actually do this, oops.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18, but some of them are anonymous so officially it's 16

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

65,647

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Star Wars (a shocking confession to make on my Star Wars sideblog) and Jane Austen

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The one where Anne de Bourgh is the Regency It Girl who everyone's desperate to marry

The one where I lost steam and will never finish it and kind of just ignore that it exists <333

The one where Mary Bennet is a serial killer

The one where a bunch of normal office workers and medical experts exchange increasingly concerned emails about the Vader suit

The one where Bail Organa accidentally starts a rumor he had an affair with Darth Vader

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes, and I always overthink it and worry I'm annoying whoever I'm responding to

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't know if this would really be considered angst, but the "Mary Bennet serial killer" fic I wrote ends with the implication that she's going to kill again lol

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is hard to quantify, but Bail Organa's accidental affair reveal does distract everyone too much to blow up his planet, so I guess that one

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, I'm unanimously loved but I sometimes get people telling me I should have done something differently

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No, but I write innuendos if I think they're funny. I've got one fic that's just "how many double entendres can I fit in 850 words?" and it's incredibly immature but I'm told it amused people

10. Do you write crossovers?

Officially no, unofficially I've had a concept marinating in my brain for like three years and simply haven't bothered to do it because I got distracted by Star Wars

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If I have, I don't know about it yet!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I started translating one of my own fics, and then I never finished it. It's really difficult!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes and it was a DELIGHT. It felt like it transformed the entire process to be only the fun parts (bouncing ideas around) and none of the difficult parts—just like yayyyyyyy I'm having fun and then suddenly you look up and realize you've hit 10,000 words

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Yodpatine

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have been working for a while on a Padmé + handmaidens fic that's mostly just me projecting about "how do you move on when your lookalike dies?" and I would like it to become a coherent story I can share someday but I am not optimistic about its prospects

16. What are your writing strengths?

Being silly

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Being serious

18. Thoughts on writing in another language in a fic?

Please stop using google translate for this, I find it so jarring when a character starts speaking a comedically poorly translated version of a language I actually know. In my own writing, I would much prefer to use the "'Words words words,' said Character in Language" construction, even if it's a language I speak

19. First fandom you wrote for?

sigh. I think it was Sherlock

20. Favorite fic you've written?

anyway I think the one where Palpatine lost his job and ended up becoming roommates with Anakin and Obi-Wan was fun, so we'll say that one

tagging: @no-where-new-hero @animazi @ozvezdja

[fresne999]

For the Story is Long and Takes a Long Time

Every now and then I see a post float across my dash about younger folks (my lawn is a field of local plants and and drip watered, please enjoy) wanting an algorithm for AO3 or only wanting longer fic, or blah, blah. Not sure how much of that is pervasive and not folks grumping at the sky.

But this is the grumping at the sky site, so whatever.

Ever wondered what the labor involved in a long fic looks like? Wonder no longer, here's a line graph.

This represents the kind of sustained labor required to finish a maybe (I'm not done yet) 350k work. 

It's not a single story. It's 18 stories from 18 POV that braid around similar (but not identical because people observe different things) events. It's OFMD modern AU. 

Nothing is posted. I don't post unfinished stories. I learn too much while I write for that to ever work for me. Even if I have an outline. 

Now you may wonder, how did I come up with graph? Probably not, but I'm going to explain anyway. 

After working on and off on the project (the reason it doesn't start at zero) I decided to apply some techniques I use for project management. What I'm about to describe can be used for any type of complicated project.

Step 1

-Break the "project" down into milestones. 18 stories. I've also broken it down into 4 phases per story:  1) Write draft 1, 2) Edit, 3) Have you heard of 2nd edit? 4) Hopefully we're at Spag edit. 

Step 2 - 

Assign points to every milestone.

I use this sequence of #s*: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34. Want to sound fancy. That's a Fibonacci Sequence. Now you know. 

Using this numbering sequence keeps me from getting bogged down trying to decide if a big story is say 8 or 9 points if I were using a 1-10 sequence 

The principle behind this kind of point assignment goes something like this. It's hard to look at Stede and know how tall he/the actor is. But if you look at Stede and Izzy standing together, I roughly know who is taller.

A - Or in this case, I guess the Stede story will be longer than Izzy's story. So Stede= 34, and Izzy=21.

B - Break down the phases of writing and assign them points. 

3 Start writing. At the end of one week, figure out my points completed. Should be a % of the total possible points for that milestone/phase. My method involves a lot of formulas based on 20 years of project mangagement experience. You should just guess. Divide by 7. That's the "build" rate.

Divide the total number of points for the project by the build rate, that's the # of days it will probably take. That seem to long, establish an arbitrary date to finish and divide the number of points by that number of days and that's you're "Management Assigned an Arbitrary Date and I don't know if we can finish, but let's try" rate.

4 Keep writing and editing. Track as you go. Having a much smaller goal each day than "Finish it" to reach each day makes it easier to do. It's also easier than an arbitrary # of words a day, which, shrug, we're not Dickens. We're paid by the kudo, not the word.

Know how I know? I've been working on and off on this for 2 years. Here's what that (roughly) looks based on knowing how long I spent getting 4 of the stories thru writing and first edit by the time I got to March of this year. I file creation to last revision date, but not including the long periods in between writing, and knowing several times I had to remove huge amounts of writing. So, points went away. Sad sound.

That looks like this. 

Brought to you by, I need to finish more points today, but am tired.

[thetriggeredhappy]

sorry for cloggin up your ask box, but i don’t have an ao3 account, so i hope this will do

i love the way you write the kids, especially nikki. she’s so mature, funny and polite, makes my mouth hurt from smiling hearing her and scout talk

another thing, thank you for having the kids act normal around scout and sniper being romantic‼️ they’re not homophobic, just the usual little kid “eww kissingg”

the descriptions of panic attacks are incredibly realistic

also as someone with adhd, you wrote scout SO well. i have the inattentive type and i relate so hard, despite not being hyperactive. forgetting things that i just put in my pocket, wondering if i have my phone while literally being on it, losing your train of thought, drawing constantly, and rejection sensitive dysphoria

i hope it’s okay i’m writing you fan mail in your ask box, i don’t really read fanfic but you’ve got me hooked here. i don’t even know how i started liking sniperscout, but before i read yours i read… ah what’s the name… i forget (searched ao3, it was called “somethin’ stupid, like “i love you”” by preciousposey. man that was a good fic too)

anyway uh

thank you for being a great author!! hope you sleep well and have zero writer’s block forever <3 (and i hope your living situation gets better, i’ve made it up to ch 18 so (why am i getting deja vu writing this im sorry if i did this last time))

thank you! yeah i love nikki. i used to work with kids a lot (a LOT) and they’re just hilarious dude. sometimes these kids will say some shit that’s so excellent and so fun and so entertaining and will know what’s up and she’s kind of a representation of that. kids are great.

and yeah i guess i just don’t personally see like. the value in putting overt homophobia into the tf2 universe. there’s not really the overt expectation of ‘realism’ with the tf2 canon, and while i consider grounding these characters and putting them in more normal circumstances to expand on their more human characteristics to be kind of A Thing I Often Do, i don’t think i need the blunt instrument that is Gritty Realism Through Onscreen Bigotry to make any of the points i want to make in this series. the flavor is kept intentionally lighter throughout that series so that when it gets heavy, it hits a little harder. in other things ive written, and in things i might write in the future, that might pivot, but i don’t ever see bigotry being something necessary to the plot or development of characters in the RB universe.

writing scout as adhd feels kind of inevitable at a certain point if you’re diving into his characteristics and the way he tends to behave. we don’t have a ton to work with but, c’mon. intentionally or unintentionally, he always ends up adhd. the relatable king

and no lie i’ve been listening to ‘still alive’ a LOT lately idk what happened. i listened to that song back in like 2015 a lot then didn’t again until like. three weeks ago. portal was too good for any of us

also just goddamn the fuckin horror movie violins when someone is pre-chapter 20 of taking shots. me when i’m 2/3rds of the way through “sniper dies in this”

[msmargaretmurry]

I’ve recently got into hockey fics and it’s completely taken over what little brain space I had left. Do you have any recs for a baby new to this wonderful new world? 💕💕

hello friend and welcome to hockey! i’m sure you sent this ask looking for a nice little list of links but unfortunately because of who i am as a person i’m about to give you way more information than you asked for. 

before we dive in: i have a terrible memory when it comes to stuff i’ve read, and i have a pathological lack of bookmarks, and there is a LOT of hockey fic, so despite a fair bit of crowdsourcing from friends this list is obviously by no means exhaustive. there is SO much good stuff out there that isn't linked here. hockey fic to me has always felt like a very choose-your-own adventure fandom, and i want to empower you to choose your own adventure. there is so much hockey fic, there is truly something for everyone, but of course it’s all also subject to personal taste, so please read on for a little smorgasbord from which hopefully you can find some stuff you’ll love.

a very brief history of hrpf

when i say there is a lot of hockey fic, i feel like it is fun context to know that people have been posting hockey fic on the internet for more than 20 years. i have not been reading it for 20 years, so even having many years of this fandom under my belt, i am still building off the hard work of the beautiful weirdos who came before me. a lot of the pre-ao3 stuff has sadly but understandably been lost to time, but if you’re interested at all in seeing a bit of how we got to where we are now, @lovethygoalie has compiled some links here, and he has an nhl fandom history tag with some more fandom history!

hockey fic, due to the nature of the sport and the inexorable march of time, has always kind of happened in waves/cycles of certain players/pairings/teams being popular in the fandom for a little while, then fading away as new players/pairings/teams become the new hot thing. every time there’s a new wave of a popular thing, new people get sucked into the fandom, which creates this very charming-to-me phenomenon where i can often guess the ballpark of when they joined hockey fandom based on who their faves are, what teams they’re into, even what teams/players they’re NOT into, lol. (but obviously there have also always been people shipping rare pairs and medium-popular pairs and rooting for less popular teams and players, too! it’s a big fandom!)

anyway, that’s something i have found super fascinating to observe over the years and also something i wanted to touch on here to explain why there’s going to be some fic recs in here featuring players who you might never see mentioned the current hrpf zeitgeist. some of the players have retired, some of the pairings have simply waned in popularity, some of the teams are just not currently “in” in hockey fandom, but i still think it’s totally worth going back to dig into older stuff in addition to having fun with the current popular narratives and pairings, etc.

but onto the recs!

(it should go without saying, but please heed the tags/warnings on anything linked here! i’m offering these links mostly without commentary, but a lot of it is going to be mature/explicit-rated, some of it will deal with sensitive themes, some if it might have stuff you just don’t care for! not knowing your personal tastes, i tried to curate a selection of various lengths, types, tropes, pairings, teams, etc.)

i saw you just read my behemoth matthew/leon fic, so let’s start with more of that. it’s a popular pairing right now! very fun characters and narratives to work with! here are a few authors whose matthew/leon stuff i definitely recommend across the board (links go to their ao3 pages; there’s no point in linking individual fics because i would just be linking all of them):

bropunzeling

daisysusan

ohtempora

and some short one-shots that i really enjoyed:

if you handed over your body by photovoltaic (mature, 2.7k)

truce by anonymous (explicit, 2.1k)

and i will not come back the same by void_fish (explicit, 4k)

partly crowdsourced from pals, here are additional fic recs for pairings/players/narratives that are varying levels of currently relevant:

Fragments by heartequals (cole caufield/nick suzuki, explicit, 20k)

wait a year by daisysusan (quinn hughes/brady tkachuk, explicit, 16.8k)

cover love’s bruise by addandsubtract (johnny gaudreau/sean monahan, explicit, 8.3k)

don't ever be a stranger by bropunzeling (jamie drysdale/trevor zegras, explicit, 24k)

For the Summer by gigantic (jack hughes/trevor zegras, explicit, 3.5k)

Lionheart by Aliquis (nico hischier/jonas siegenthaler, explicit, 53k)

All Your'n by jvrcus (mathew barzal/anthony beauvillier, teen & up, 13.8k)

let's make it cinematic by kitnita (mathew barzal/anthony beauvillier, explicit, 13.2k)

@grittyreadsfic is a mostly-hockey fic rec blog! they read much more widely than me and definitely have recs for a lot of currently popular pairings not covered here, as well as rarepairs and more niche stuff.

@postoperation compiled a great list of older-ish hockey fic recs that i HIGHLY recommend, and not just because one of mine is included in there. 😂

more older fics, in no particular order; a once again partly-crowdsourced-from-my-friends list of recs:

so collect your scars and wear them well by addandsubtract (connor mcdavid/dylan strome, mature, 26k)

A Month of Sundays by Kelfin (erik johnson/gabe landeskog, mature, 68k)

Friday Night Arrives Without a Suitcase by marycontraire (danny briere/claude giroux, not rated, 14.6k)

Something Old by uraneia (danny briere/claude giroux, explicit, 13.4k)

if courage is a live wire by redheartglow (adam henrique & taylor hall friendship, teen & up, 15.5k)

Like an Explosion by Dark_Eyed_Junco (nic dowd/derek forbort, mature, 4.3k)

Lions in Arms by xihale (alex ovechkin/sidney crosby, mature, 4.7k) 

Hockey at the End of the World by ionthesparrow (jeff carter/mike richards and tyler toffoli/tanner pearson, mature to explicit, a series of five fics totaling 383k)

@deepbutdazzlingdarkness has a washington capitals fic rec list; i haven’t read everything on there but i have liked what i’ve read! [i am very picky about caps fic because a) i’m a snob about local details and b) i can only read so much smut about dudes i might run into at the jeni’s ice cream in tysons corner. but there is some very good stuff. similarly, a rec i haven’t read but it comes from a friend whose writing i deeply admire and whose taste i trust implicitly:

mouth-deep by saintsideways (nicklas backstrom/mike green, explicit, 30k); the reccer says, “it’s a wild time and coated with an absolutely visionary layer of grime I can only aspire to.”]

@bunnymcfoo also has an extensive rec list, much of which i have not read, but definitely worth checking out if you need more!

anyway, sorry if that was too much, but hopefully it is just enough to get you started chasing your own hockey fic bliss. my ask box is open if you have any questions! ❤

[olderthannetfic]

I'm in a fandom with a lot of virulent antis (surprise surprise, it's heavily dark source material and I don't know why they're here at all) and a lot of the pairings that aren't the main badwrong ship on ao3 now have DNI tags on them for shippers of the badwrong ship. I guess not enough to break the TOS (no direct threats?), but still full of stuff like "x shippers DNI", "get help you freaks", "You're disgusting" etc etc.

Its just... so frustrating. Like that's a pretty red flag for me that a fic probably is going to be in an immature writing style so I probably won't read it anyway, but every time I see it I just.... heave a big sigh. Why these people are in this fandom or on Ao3 at all I'll never know. Its not even helpful - the tags are there to help describe the fic, if I didn't want to see that kind of content I could just... avoid content that's tagged that way. Why even add that to a fic that's not even about those characters at all?

Honestly, my real question is.... Olderthannetfic, how do you do it?

I feel like I do it "right", in fandom, or at least I try. I always just block and move on. I don't follow the discourse where I can help it and block a lot of the relevant tags. I keep to a small circle of folks that have the same fun brainrot I do and have fun, generally. But this kind of stuff still slips through the cracks in a way that's unavoidable if you're ever online at all. To be honest, it still hurts a lot to see each time, and be reminded that some people seem to literally want me dead over reading a story. And I can't help the doubt and the self-flagellation that creeps in. Despite my best efforts, and all my research, and living to the ripe rip van winkle tumblr fandom spinster age of 27... I sometimes have a moment where I think, maybe I really am a freak or a degenerate, or an evil predator waiting to bloom.

Do you ever experience this? Does this feeling ever go away, or at least dull to a more bearable exasperated eye roll? Do you ever see these anti idiots grow up or grow out of this mindset? Is it just a matter of time, age or experience? Is there a point at which you felt like it affected you less, or perhaps it didn't affect you like that at all? Is there a secret to navigating it calmly and with confidence? Do you have any advice to give in the, er, art of not giving a fuck?

--

Why would I quail at a stupid child on the internet after coming out as queer when I was 14 in the 90s?

I grew up with very open-minded, supportive family aside from my mother's conviction that BDSM was something people were into because they'd been abused. Even then, I remember privately snickering because I was super kinky, and wouldn't that upset her given this silly world view?

I had it easy compared to most in the 90s, but I still saw a lot of nonsense, like good old Mom on the topic of kink or murders in the media. But I also spent a lot of time reading educational sexuality books that debunked myths about fantasies and kinkiness.

Maybe a firmer grounding in sexuality stuff would help you? Nancy Friday's work on women's fantasies is a common starting point. I'm partial to The Topping Book, which is full of "it's great to be a top, actually" and not "you only do it for the sub".

Getting older does usually help though. Most 20-somethings are insecure in their sense of self. Middle age is when people's fucks generally run out, and that only continues to grow. Watch a stupid child go after some 60-something zine writer lady. She's going to laugh in their faces. Some people remain insecure forever, I suppose, but not anybody who had to woman up to be in fandom in the first place.

It's not just that these little idiots are wrong about us being predators: it's that they are the morally degenerate ones for spreading the psychological equivalent of "vaccines cause autism" or "Jews want to steal your Christian babies".

This idea that The Bad People are infiltrating our minds with their propaganda overlaps heavily with anti-semitic conspiracy theory right wing fundie nutjob ideas, and yet these young fools claim to be pro-queer and pro-civil rights. They're an embarrassment to any progressive movement and it disgusts me.

When someone goes "You're not a Christian, so you're going to hell", do you have a moment when you wonder?

Because that's the level of absurdity here.

Even if they don't bully, even if they don't include threats in their DNIs, the fact that they're spreading myths about sexuality that have been thoroughly debunked many times means they're doing something unethical, anti-intellectual, and anti-science.

I'm not afraid or guilty. I'm embarrassed for them.

--

Do antis grow out of it? Yes, frequently.

They are—either literally or functionally—victims of right wing Christian cults. They have the same trajectory of realizing they've been had and slowly trying to work through the raging guilt and religious trauma.

I have limited patience but some sympathy. Like other victims who were indoctrinated to hurt people, escaping the cult is hard. It means not only giving up your false sense of safety and all of your friends but facing what you've done.

[cutestkilla]

20 questions for fic writers!

Thank you for the tags @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @artsyunderstudy @aristocratic-otter @prettygoododds @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @hushed-chorus (and @orange-peony for the tag on the fic writer self rec post which I’m rolling in here because…I only have 4 fics). I have never answered one of these before because I’m always like, am I a fic writer? I don’t even have enough works of my own to do a top 5… But anyway, here goes.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

9! But only 4 are my own fics + 1 collab (Birthday Man). Of the rest, 2 are collabs where I did the art, 1 is a fansong (also a collab), and 1 is a podfic.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

233,419, but adjusting for the works that aren’t mine and the words of Birthday Man that I did not write, it’s more like 190K.  

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Only Carry On!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This Is Your Place

Slamming and Smashing

What’s Left

Hiding Out In The Open

(see, only 4… And so @orange-peony this is my answer to the self rec post. I rec them all!)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Oh yes! Commenting on other people’s fic was my door into participating in fandom. I spent months and months just lurking, and a whole new world opened up to me when I started commenting, and then the authors responded to me and suddenly I was interacting with people. I really love and appreciate the comment culture in our fandom, and I really like talking about my writing with people, so I always respond.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don’t have a fic with an angsty ending. YET. Realistically, will I ever? Probably not. Like @artsyunderstudy said, I love writing angst in every other possible part of a story EXCEPT the ending. I guess I could say This Is Your Place because the ending is open. The plot of 8th year has not been resolved at all (and god when I say it was hard for me to do that!), shit could still hit the fan, Baz doesn’t even know yet why his mother visited.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

That would have to be What’s Left, I think. The story itself was pretty angst-laden (MCD is angsty, you don't say?). I wrote the fluffiest, bow-tying epilogue for the ending to the point where I even warned people that it may have no artistic merit relative to the rest of the story and they should feel free to skip it because it was 100% self indulgence on my part. But I have had a few folks tell me they were grateful for it as a palate cleanser after reading 120K of intense emotional stuff.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope. Not to my face anyway!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes… All of my fics are rated M or E for sexual content. What kind? I mean, 3 of my 4 fics have the tag “Rated M Like AWTWB Is Rated M” if that gives you a hint of my smut vibe. Emotional for sure, is what I am for. Even the smut in Slamming and Smashing, which is very much E, is pretty rooted in the emotion of the story. I do love reading every kind of smut, but the thing I really connect with in it is the emotion, so that’s what I write.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Doubt it, except by a web scraper.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Only Birthday Man, which was written as a round robin and was a totally fun and freeing experience. Especially since I didn’t have to think about plot, just moving things forward a few inches. (Of course my part still ended up being longer than the average one-shot someone else would write…) I’ve collaborated with my writers on COBB and CORB projects in ways that influenced the story, which is SO FUN, but nothing I would ever elevate to the status of co-writing.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Snowbaz

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Well, I have about 17K of a canon divergence fic about Simon and Baz both being at a wedding the week before 8th year starts. (The wedding mentioned in canon as being the one where one of the Grimm cousins got into it with Premal’s friend Sam, and ended up being on trial for using banned words.) I really do want to finish it, but it was one of those projects I never had a deadline for, so it has languished. It’s fully outlined, though, so maybe one day…

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I’m good at characterization, making the characters’ actions internally consistent, bringing them from point A to point B in a believable way. Probably also plot, I do love a slow burn twisty turny plot reveal. And writing a solid Baz rant/meltdown!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The one thing I get anxious about sometimes is my inability to write short. (Hi @aristocratic-otter, my sister in long-form storytelling!) I always think I can do it, but then I’m not satisfied with the emotional journey unless I add more beats. Telling a concise story is a skill I envy in others for sure.

Currently, this is happening with my wip Hiding Out In The Open, which I originally (delusionally) though would be a one-shot and is now probably going to be 60K by the time I’m done. In fact, This Is Your Place and Slamming and Smashing were supposed to be one shots too, but they all went multi-chap on me in the end.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I’ve never done this, except to help @artsyunderstudy with a French translation for some cute dialogue in Someone Wicked. I think it can work, but I tend toward always wanting to explain something like that on page, unless the point is for it to not be understood. But I've definitely read some really great takes on "lost in translation"!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

This is it! What’s Left was the first piece of creative writing I did of any kind since the year 2000 (which funnily enough was first-person Jean-Paul Sartre RPF for my philosophy seminar).

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Definitely What’s Left. Never would have expected to fall so in love with writing the Humdrum, but he owns my soul, still. I think what I did there is probably the most interesting idea I will ever have (in this fandom at least), and that’s probably why it was so much easier to write than anything else I’ve attempted since.

So, who to tag in… How about @bookish-bogwitch @facewithoutheart @shrekgogurt @ivelovedhimthroughworse @iamamythologicalcreature @whatevertheweather @fatalfangirl? And anyone else who wants to share, please say I tagged you if you haven’t been tagged already.

[hornystiel]

tagged by @thisisapaige thank youu 💙

20 Questions for Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 6 (i'm new to posting my stuff there)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 33,807

3. What fandoms do you write for? Spn, tho back in the day i wrote weird ass crossover things for some games + comics + films and manga lmao. and none of those were in english

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

dressing down, shotgunning gone right, a couple of firsts, dancing moves, chipped coin

5. Do you respond to comments? i try to respond to all of them, even if with just a thank you, and i cherish them all very much

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? umm for now it's dancing moves i guess? because it's very open and they're nowhere near done resolving their issues

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? a couple of firsts. they will be fine and they will have a lot of sex :3

8. Do you get hate on fics? not that i know of? i mean in the comments everybody is very nice :')

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? WELL. the thing is. i only read and write fics with smut because yolo carpe diem and i love smut and i think when it's well written it adds A LOT to the characters. or i just want to read steamy stuff for my own benefit hehe. anyway yes i write it and it can be anything really, but usually it's on the verge of desperate and they're very obsessed with each other. i'm also a monsterfucker and love wing kink so that too. aaand i like writing d/s dynamics <3

10. Do you write crossovers? in my earlier days - yes, i've written a couple but it's just some bits somewhere in my folders and only one person besides me saw them. in spn fandom i'm not really interested in it

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that i know of and i don't think i'm that popular lmao

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? as of now - nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no and i honestly don't think i'll be able to because i'm too protective and too 'it should be my way and style and nothing else' person so i'd be a nightmare to co-write with

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? destiel (duh) and mckirk (so many years have passed and yet they still hold a place in my heart)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? idk i have hope that i will be able to finish them all eventually. but probably the 'Skating Gays' fic because i can't focus enough to do a proper research on all figure skating shit and i don't want to write it half blindly and also in my head it's like at least 40k long and it intimidates me because i usually write much shorter stuff

16. What are your writing strengths? dialogues and smut (or i hope so at least)

17. What are your writing weaknesses? can't stay motivated and focused to write Big Works and probs the whole 'what's around the characters' descriptions

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? i'm bilingual myself with knowledge of bits and pieces in other languages and it doesn't bother me even if it's in a language i don't know, it can even be left without any footnotes if the meaning of this bit is for the audience/another character to fail to understand the character speaking. other than that i can read the translated text and be okay

19. First fandom you wrote for? hmm. hard to remember but if we're digging deep enough it was probably tsubasa reservoir chronicle

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? i love all of them? i put my whole pussy in all of them and i enjoy them after. but IF i have to choose...dancing moves and dressing down probably. still. HARD

tagging @jactingjoices @hauntedpearl @angelcasendgame 💜