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littlemisspascal · 4 years ago

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The Last Mandalorian

Chapter One: The Warrior in Carbonite Part 3

Fandom: The Mandalorian / Pedro Pascal

Eventual Pairing: Din x Togruta!Female!Reader

Word Count: 4,320

Rating: G

Summary: A series that is a mixture of Mandalorian, Star Wars, ATLA, and my own imagination. The Imps have seized control of the majority of the galaxy, including your homeworld Shili. You and your sister Ahsoka have developed a daily routine despite the stormtroopers keeping your village imprisoned. One morning you make a startling discovery that will change the course of your lives forever.

Warnings: I don’t know much about starship mechanics so probably nothing in this is accurate but it’s fanfiction people so cut me some slack please, reader gets a nickname 🥳, plot plot plot, discussion of loss of loved ones, worldbuilding, dialogue heavy, this is a slow burn but it’s also ridiculously self-indulgent so I’m including as many cute getting-to-know-you scenes as I can, reader is 17 and Din is 19 so I’m going to warn this as underage even though nothing sexual or even vaguely romantic happens in this chapter.

Author Note: Thank you anyone and everyone who has read even a sentence of this story! Special thanks and love to @dindja for creating this stunning, fantastic, amazing piece of fanart for me 💖💖💖 I still can’t believe how perfect it is. I mean, I’m such a sucker for pinky promises it’s not even funny and this is just beautiful 😍😍😍

Part 2

Cross-posted on AO3

For as grand and wide-reaching as the Galactic Empire has become in its ten years of existence, it had relatively small beginnings. A group of radical Force-wielders banded together under the leadership of an old, beady-eyed man named Sheev Palpatine who believed it was his divine destiny to seize control of the entire galaxy, rewriting the ancient laws to match his own beliefs. His cult, the Sith Order, gained attention by attacking Jedi temples, capital cities, places with large populations until every corner of the galaxy had heard of them. Most regarded them with fear, but over time they began garnering a startling amount of followers who were discontent with the status quo and willingly drafted themselves as soldiers in Palpatine’s fight for control.

At first everyone in your village thought Palpatine and his cult of followers weren’t worth worrying about—after all, Shili was a peaceful planet that never drew much attention to itself. But within the first year of its inception, the Sith Order captured Ryloth and the similar peaceful characteristics between the Twi’lek planet and Shili were too glaring to overlook. A seed of anxiety took root in every Togruta’s mind after that, and continued to grow with every planet seized as the years progressed.

The Decimation of Alderaan didn’t start as a tragedy, believe it or not. The Mandalorians, Jedi, and Alderaanians combined their numbers in an all-out fight against the Sith Order. It was the largest battle ever fought in the history of the galaxy, thousands of souls willing to die to defeat Palpatine’s followers. For the first three days of warfare, the fight seemed to be in favor of the allies with many noteworthy Sith members reportedly killed in the fray, such as Palpatine’s second-in-command Dooku and lethal Zabrak assassin Maul. You remember there was a sense of hope felt within your village as everyone listened to the news reports blaring across the Holonet. A belief that things were finally, finally going to return to normal after so much chaos.

But on the fourth day, the Sith Order brought their own ally onto the battlefield.

At the time there wasn’t a name for the droids that slaughtered every opponent they faced. They were described as indestructible, unharmed by blasters and the intense heat of Mandalorian flamethrowers. Not even lightsabers could damage them. The allies didn’t stand a chance, brutally murdered one by one, their dying screams echoing across the Holonet, forever haunting listeners far and wide.

The Dark Troopers were unleashed upon Mandalore afterwards and out of the ashes rose the Galactic Empire, except, in a twist nobody—not even the Sith Order—saw coming: Palpatine died before taking on the title of emperor, passing away in his sleep. A mediocre ending for the monster who permanently altered the foundations of the universe. One of his loyal followers from the cult’s early beginnings took control in his place, a vile man with a penchant for spilling blood and a deceptively bland name: Gideon.

Only seven years-old then, you didn’t understand the unbalance in the Force your aunt kept referencing. You didn’t understand the meaning of the word genocide either. But you did understand the galaxy would never be the same ever again, and the lesson was only further established as truth when the Imperials seized your village.

There is no normalcy to return to anymore.

And as long as Emperor Gideon remains in control, there is no future to hope for either.

Silence reigns in the aftermath of Maar’s explanation as the long list of tragedies hangs heavy over the four occupants. There is tension in the air as you await the Mandalorian’s response to the extinction of his people, whether that be an outburst of anger or tears, and each passing minute only intensifies the nervous energy thrumming through your veins. Your leg starts to bounce restlessly, a bad habit you have had since childhood.

The Mandalorian stands eerily motionless. Your eyes keep flicking from your lap to his visor though you know it is rude to stare. His helmet hides his expression, but you don’t need to see it to know he is floundering right now, mind scrambling to piece together all the details thrown at him. From personal experience, you know the loss of a loved one hits like a tidal wave, hitting you over and over again until you must decide if you are going to stand up or surrender to drowning. Grieving the loss of your parents is the hardest experience of your lifetime to date.

But this...this is vastly different. The Mandalorian didn’t just lose his loved ones. He has lost his friends, neighbors, comrades, acquaintances, everyone all at once. This loss isn’t a tidal wave. It is a kriffing avalanche, burying him ten feet under in total darkness, and there is no one he can count on to save him.

Finally, after the longest five minutes of your life, he shifts, resting his hands upon his belt with an unexpected air of seriousness. “I need to go.”

You frown, head tilting. That is his reaction?

“Go?” Ahsoka echoes, sounding as incredulous as you feel. “Go where?”

“To look for survivors,” he answers, blunt and harsh, the words forced through clenched teeth.

Ahsoka is struck silent, and you feel your heart break on his behalf. Your mother’s stories about the Mandalorians had always included, one way or another, their lifelong bonds with each other. You had felt those ties when you had connected with the Mandalorian, believed for a moment as strongly as he did that his fellow warriors would come search for him, that his absence would be noticed and missed amongst them. And here he is now, still desperately clutching to them, unable—or, perhaps unwilling is more apt—to believe a stranger telling him those bonds have been cruelly severed.

“What you need is to rest,” Maar says, gentle yet firm, letting her authority as the eldest in the room seep into her tone.

He shakes his head, not backing down. “I’ve been asleep for ten years. I don’t need any more rest.”

“Your ship, it, uh,” your shoulders hike up defensively when his visor snaps in your direction, pinning you with its blank stare. Clearing your throat, you continue with a slight grimace, “It’s going to need some repairs before it can take off. I can help you fix it.”

Ahsoka looks over at you in surprise, and then in worry. You don’t blame her, especially since the offer had slipped out without you consciously meaning it to. Once again, the Force is calling the shots and you are just along for the ride, a passenger in your own body.

He considers you for a long moment, then asks, “What do you know about the mechanics of a gunship?”

If anyone else had asked you that same exact question, you would have bristled at their condescension and retracted your offer in the next breath. But with the Mandalorian, there isn’t even the slightest hint of patronizing courtesy. It is a serious question prompted from genuine curiosity.

You sit up straighter, smiling at him now. “Enough to confidently say I’m your best shot at getting off the ground.”

“What’s your plan, exactly?” Ahsoka asks you, braced against the wall with one eye on you and one on the Mandalorian across the garage, patiently waiting for you to finish assembling your tool kit.

“Huh?” You reply distractedly, trying to decide if you should bring your carbon chisel or not.

“You don’t have one, do you?”

Not. There are bigger concerns than a bit of carbon scoring. You move to grab your favorite screwdriver with a tapered socket, only for Ahsoka to snatch it away, holding the tool hostage.

“Hey!”

“Have you thought about what you’re doing?” Ahsoka asks slowly, staring you directly in the eyes. “Once you fix his ship, he’s gone. And he’s taking our best chance at escaping Shili with him.”

A quick glance over your shoulder shows the Mandalorian studying the scattered BB unit parts on your workbench. You are missing a few vital components needed in order to bring the little droid back to life after a stormtrooper shot a plasma bolt through it for accidentally bumping into his leg, and haven’t had any luck convincing the village traders to track them down for you when they went to the capital.

“We can’t keep him here against his will,” you manage at last, turning back to your sister. “Otherwise we’re no better than the Imps.”

When Ahsoka doesn’t say anything, you shrug a shoulder, adding, “Besides, I think I’m supposed to fix it for him. The Force seems pretty insistent about it.”

She makes a face at that. “I liked you better when you ignored your Force instincts. You didn’t make me worry as much.”

A laugh escapes you, embarrassingly loud in the otherwise quiet space, and your cheeks immediately start burning. Ahsoka’s lip twitches like she wants to smile, but instead she schools her features into a blank expression when the Mandalorian’s head turns at the sound. Only once he diverts his attention elsewhere again does her stare lose some of its intensity, looking less like she wants to dissect him beneath a microscope. You can practically see her protective-older-sister-instincts buzzing, reacting to the warrior’s presence.

As much as he is a chance at providing an escape, he is also first and foremost a complete and total stranger. Even worse, he is a complete and total stranger who knows how to handle weapons.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” You squeeze her arm reassuringly. “Shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours. You’ll be so busy smoothing the Elders’ ruffled feathers you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Ahsoka finally relinquishes the tool, exhaling a quiet sigh. “You shouldn’t make promises you don’t know for certain you can keep.”

Walking side by side with the Mandalorian in silence isn’t awkward, per se, but it definitely isn’t comfortable either. He is close enough your arm keeps accidentally grazing against his, the cold brush of metal against your skin startling you each time. You would have considered his nearness strange if you hadn’t heard Ahsoka threaten to castrate him if you wound up hurt before she sent him flying at the juni tree branch outside your window with an unnecessarily strong push of Force.

To his credit, the warrior handled her rough treatment with the same ease he has handled everything else thrown at him. You are beginning to think Mandalorians don’t just wear beskar—they are made of it too. Other than the few glimpses of frustration earlier in Maar’s office, he keeps his cards close to his chest, impossible to read.

He watches everything though, reacting to the slightest of movements and sounds. Constantly alert. You are certain he is watching you right now, despite the fact his helmet is facing forward, your nerves prickling in response to the sensation of eyes upon you.

To your surprise, he is the one to break the silence first. “You sneak out often.”

It is a statement, not a question.

You suppose the dots are easy enough to connect to reach that conclusion. Still, the certainty in his voice has your heart skipping a nervous beat. He hasn’t even known you a day and yet he is privy to secrets no one outside your community is aware of. “Yeah,” you nod your head after a brief lapse of silence, “Ahsoka can’t train in the village. Not with the stormtroopers around.”

“Has your village tried to run them out? Fight back?”

It is only because you know he is just trying to understand your village’s predicament with the little bits of information he has that you don’t snap at him for being so insensitive. He has no idea what these past five years have been like for you all. No idea the amount of losses and sacrifices the community has suffered.

Your grip on your tool kit tightens. “I was twelve when they came. The community is mostly traders and hunters, not trained fighters. The few weapons we had were nothing compared to their blaster rifles, but some of the adults tried to defend the village, including our parents. They...” You swallow, or try to, at least, your throat suddenly dry as sand. “Our aunt looked after us until last year we woke up one morning to find a note she’d left to join the rebellion. We haven’t had any contact with her since.”

The Mandalorian’s gloved hand brushes against your knuckles. This time you think it might have been on purpose.

“I lost my parents as a child, too. There was a riot and they died protecting me,” he offers his own private details with the same reluctance as one volunteering to have their teeth pulled out. “The Mandalorians took me in, raised me as one of their own.”

You say nothing about the way his breath slightly hitches when he says Mandalorians, appreciating his openness as it puts you both on somewhat equal footing with each other.

“I owe it to them to look for survivors,” he tells you, and your montrals detect the quietest hint of a plea in his voice.

“I understand,” you answer, keeping your tone light to preserve the fragility of this moment. This kind of situation doesn’t happen often—two strangers on the same wavelength, exposing their vulnerable underbellies, desperate to be heard and yet skittish at the same time—and it is oddly therapeutic.

A decision is made right then and there in the span of a heartbeat. And even more significantly, it is 100% your own choice without any intervention or manipulation from the Force.

You stop walking, causing the Mandalorian to halt as well. He scans the area for a threat, then visibly jerks when he turns back to find you have your hand held out towards him, pinky raised high, reacting as if you are pointing a weapon at him.

“I don’t understand,” he says, blunt and almost suspicious sounding. Are you just imagining it or can you actually hear him frowning? “What are you doing?”

“Haven’t you ever made a pinky promise with someone before?”

“...A what?”

You snort, ducking your head to hide your smile, and then reach for his hand. Surprisingly, he doesn’t protest your touch.

“A pinky promise,” you repeat as you make his hand form a fist, curling his fingers towards his palm, and then adjust his pinky so you can wrap yours around it. He watches the whole process wordlessly. “It’s a sacred vow shared between two people. The Elders say once it’s sworn, the promise can never be broken.”

He cocks his head, skeptical. “Never?”

“Never,” you reaffirm with a nod. Licking your lips, you look at his visor, right where you instinctively know his eyes are staring back. “I promise I’m going to help you. No matter the odds.”

And something leaks into your voice then, something resolute and binding and otherworldly. A tremor shoots down your spine, too quick for you to make sense of it.

Your sister’s words echo in the back of your mind, ‘You shouldn’t make promises you don’t know for certain you can keep.’

You try to pull away, self-doubt gnawing a hole in your stomach, only for the Mandalorian to wrap his pinky tighter around yours, holding you still. A gasp escapes your lips, muffled by the bleeding sincerity in his voice as he swears:

“I promise I will be there when you need me. No matter the odds.”

And although your sister could undoubtedly provide you with a long list of reasons why you shouldn’t, you believe his promise to be true.

The Mandalorian heaves a heavy sigh at the sight of his crashed ship.

“I can’t do much about the landing gear,” you inform him, believing honesty to be the best policy for cases like this. “And I brought some foam-jet for the cockpit viewport, but it’s not a permanent fix. You’re going to have to find someone offworld to replace them.”

“Right,” he agrees absently without turning his eyes away. It occurs to you then that this ship is the closest thing to a home he has now. One of the few precious relics from his past he can still physically cling to.

“Does your ship have a name?” you ask.

He looks at you, as if coming back to self-awareness, and answers, “Razor Crest.”

A good name, you think. Strong. A bit mysterious. Just like its owner.

You nod decisively. “I like it.”

His modulator crackles faintly, a quiet noise produced from a sudden exhale of air. You blink at the unexpected sound, surprised to realize you recognize it. A laugh. The Mandalorian just laughed at something you said. What is next in store for you? Are akul going to sprout wings and start flying?

He steps around you, heading for the side entry door still open from yesterday with its ramp laying on the ground, pebbles shifting noisily beneath his boots with each step. You don’t realize you are staring, oddly entranced by the swish of his cape and his purposeful strides, until he calls out your name to ask if you are coming.

You nearly drop your tool kit in your haste to follow after him into the Crest’s interior, ignoring the flaring heat radiating from your cheeks.

For the next few hours, you and the Mandalorian work in companionable silence, engrossed in rerouting wires and welding damaged components with your trusty hand torch. The gunship is older than you initially assumed, perhaps even as old as yourself, and you idly wonder if the Mandalorian found it in a scrapyard somewhere or maybe inherited it from another Mandalorian. You notice the way he handles each piece with an experienced and respectful touch; the same kind of care someone reserves for their most cherished possessions. Anyone with eyes can see how much he loves the Crest just by watching him.

Once you have finished sealing the numerous cracks dissecting the cockpit’s viewport like a spiderweb with foam, you approach the Mandalorian to see his progress on returning power to the dashboard. He is on his back beneath the steering controls, rearranging a mess of wires, and barely acknowledges your presence when you squeeze yourself into the tight space next to him.

“The red wire goes before the white one,” you point out, noticing the mistake immediately. “Fire hazard.”

He pauses, looks at where you have gestured, and corrects his error without criticizing your intervention. You bite back a smile, pleased to be heard. Within your community, even though you have proven your skills time and time again, some of the villagers, usually men, don’t always adhere to your advice, thinking you are too young and too female to know about technology, until they inevitably make their problems worse for themselves and come back to you with their metaphorical tail between their legs.

You help him reattach the cover plating once he has finished, screwing the bolts back into their corners, and then watch, fingers crossed, as he attempts the ignition sequence, flipping a series of switches.

None of them light up with even the faintest flicker of life.

“Dank farrik,” he growls under his breath, slamming a fist upon the console.

You take a tiny step forward, hesitant to direct his frustration your way. “Can I try?”

He tilts his head, probably thinking he knows this ship better than anyone and if it doesn’t work for him then you aren’t going to have any luck either.

Eventually he steps back with a shrug, uttering a simple, “Sure.”

Although you can’t remember the last time you were on a ship, it doesn’t take long to refamiliarize yourself with the various controls and screens once you take a seat in the pilot chair. When your hobby for fixing broken machines changed into a passion you wanted to pursue as a future career, you started memorizing any reading material you could find on the Holonet, including the flight manuals for different classes of starships. You flip through the stored information in your mind about gunships as you press a few buttons on the panel overhead, trying out different sequences for a response.

When your third attempt fails, you bite your lip, racking your brain for a solution. You think about Huno’s kitchen droid and how you had been on the verge of ripping off one of your head-tails trying to repair it after one of its fuses blew, causing it to malfunction. Your tools and knowledge hadn’t been able to fix it in the end. It had required a special remedy to bring it back to life.

You lay your palms flat on the console, just as you had held onto the droid’s square torso. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice the Mandalorian fidget, as if he wants to come closer but is hesitant to crowd you. You ignore him, pressing your fingertips harder against the metal, visualizing in your mind the unseen gears, cables, and components stiff and powerless. You imagine the parts working properly, a current of electricity running through each wire, life ultimately returning to the entire ship, and whisper under your breath a request to the Force.

“Please work, please work, please work…”

An invisible pulse of energy burns down the length of your arms and discharges through your fingertips, strong enough you jerk backwards against the seat. Every button and screen on the dashboard lights up all at once, beeping with alarm at being so rudely resurrected.

You sit there helplessly, stunned and breathless, hands twitching in your lap. The kitchen droid hadn’t required even half as much energy to restart, barely a pinch. Now your body feels like you have been thrown against the electric fence a dozen times. Wordlessly, the Mandalorian comes to your side to help, punching buttons and turning knobs until the alarms quit blaring. A distant part of your brain thinks the Razor Crest as a whole seems strangely soothed by his presence, not quite as cold and dark, but it is hard to follow that train of thought due to the distracting pain throbbing along your temples.

“That’s quite a spark you’ve got,” he says, not unkindly or accusingly, just a statement of the obvious. He looks down at you, not outright asking for an explanation, but giving you the opportunity to open up if you wanted to.

“Yep, that’s me,” you reply, forcing a cheerful smile, praying it doesn’t resemble a grimace. “Sparks Tano at your service.”

He chuckles again, oblivious to how your heart stutters at its raspiness. “Thank you, Sparks. I appreciate it.”

“Well, we’re not done yet.” You rub at your temples under the guise of adjusting your headband. “I need to take a closer look at the engines before we attempt flying out of here. I—”

“I’ll do it,” he cuts in, already heading for the ladder. “You stay here, see if you can update the navicomputer settings.”

You know he knows that updating the navicomputer is child’s play for you. Clearly you aren’t as great at concealing your pain as you thought you were and this is his way of giving you a break. A small part of you is irritated at being treated like a porcelain doll, but you push those negative feelings aside as quickly as they develop. Your aunt always used to remind you and Ahsoka it was okay to accept help when it was offered, that needing support didn’t in any way make you weak.

“Hey, wait a second,” you call out as you spin around in your seat, freezing him right before he disappears from view into the hull. He holds onto the ladder, waiting patiently for you to continue.

“Back at Maar’s place you didn’t introduce yourself and it’s weird just calling you Mandalorian in my head,” you say, awkwardly drumming your fingers on top of the armrests. He doesn’t answer, eliciting a sigh from your mouth after a drawn-out beat of silence. “What’s your name? You do have one, right?”

“I do, but I can’t tell you it,” he admits at last. “By Mandalorian Creed, only other Mandalorians or my riduur—my spouse,” he corrects, seeing your confusion, “are allowed to know my name and see my face. This is the Way.”

He doesn’t linger to hear your response, dropping down into the hull with a resounding thud. You slowly turn back around, staring absently out the glass. Every culture is unique, including your own, but you think there is something especially interesting about the Mandalorians’. It sounds like a lonely existence, only able to show your face while in select company. What would have happened if he had been unconscious and you had slipped the helmet off his head? What consequence would he have faced?

And if there truly aren’t any Mandalorians left besides him, his spouse will be the only one to ever know him completely. It almost sounds like a love story, if not a little bit heart-wrenching.

Two high-pitched dings from the console jerk you out of your thoughts with a wince. You look for the source, finding the radar lit up and actively scanning the area, and bristle when you see a pair of red dots moving across the screen.

Not even a minute later you are sprinting out of the cave, ignoring the Mandalorian’s alarmed shout from the roof of the Razor Crest. They’re early, you think with panic, looking towards the sky where two starships with Imperial logos are heading straight for your village. Why have they come back so soon?

You push your legs to run faster, your surroundings a blur beyond the trail in front of you, but the effort is meaningless. You won’t make it back home before they land.

And when your absence is noted, bloodshed is not a possibility.

It is a guarantee.

Series taglist: @pedro4ever @cannedsoupsucks

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Permanent taglist: @promiscuoussatan @vintagesaph @over300books @chibi-yuki @theocatkov @oh-no-a-whovian @absurdthirst @freeshavocadoooo @you-and-i-deserve-the-world @lin-djarin @happiestsparkleofall @randomness501 @gallowsjoker @coaaster @captain-jebi @leilei-draws @disgruntledspacedad @melobee @stilllivindue2spite @pointy-sharp @artsymaddie @waywardmando @asta-lily @thisshipwillsail316 @mylifeofcalculatedchaos @grogusmum @sherala007 @mejswho @uncle-kenobi @rogertaylorsfalsettogivesmehives @tacticalsparkles @mandocrasis @littlebopper96 @you-got-me-starry-eyed @kiss-evans @writeforfandoms @pbeatriz @anaaaispunk

#my fic #my writing #Mandalorian #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian fanfic #Din Djarin #din x you #din x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #togruta reader #ahsoka tano #the last mandalorian #pedrostories #art

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michellejackson · 4 years ago

Link

Prompt by @xphrnzrjh 💞

Fandom: Druck

Pairing: Fatou Jallow/Kieu My Vu

Wordcount: 2434

Acquaintances to study partners to friends to lovers AU

Chapter one

So, Kieu My never meant to go this far. Too bad she was a hopeless slash desperate romantic with horrible, horrible ideas which she just happens to be stupid enough to follow through with.

Being at school after hours wasn’t unusual, many would use the library and study rooms for homework or to work on group projects. So no, that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual however, was stealing keys from the teachers’ lounge, sneaking into the classroom reserved for the English class, finding the paper where the English teacher has partnered up the students for a future team project, stealing it, sneaking out, copying it, swapping around the names in a way that won’t be noticeable, sneaking back in and leaving the altered paper.

Kieu My could admit that that was an out-of-character move for her, but hey, it worked didn’t it? You might think, that’s kind of drastic, don’t you think? Well, yes, but also… let’s just start from the beginning.

Kieu My was about a week into the school year when she noticed her. She was skating around the schoolyard in khakis, a thin purple see-through sweater and a yellow and purple Hawaiian shirt, looking like she owned the place. The look really shouldn’t have worked, but it did, and she looked so damn good. The sight of her had stopped Kieu My in her tracks, forcing her to pay attention as she swiftly skated through the crowds of students until she stopped before a familiar blonde. Nora. Zoe’s sister. Interesting…

Later that day, during lunch, Kieu My tried her best to subtly ask Zoe about her sister’s friend, but she didn’t seem to catch on. Like at all.

“So... how’s Nora? She settling in okay? Got some new friends?” subtle, Kieu My, real subtle.

“Oh, she’s great! She got this new boyfriend, have you seen him? His name is Josh, and he is hot, seriously, wait let me show you a picture.” Turned out it was subtle. Too subtle.

“Oh, good for her, uhm, how about-”

“He’s just the sweetest guy, she’s really happy-” so she spent the next ten minutes looking at pictures of Nora’s boyfriend and listening to her best friend talk him up. Not the way she planned this lunch to go. Before she knew it, they parted ways and she was none the wiser.

She did contemplate asking Nora personally, but decided it would be weird considering she didn’t know her that well. So instead, she spent the rest of that day daydreaming. None of her classes got as much of attention as the skater did. How had she never seen here before? School had been in full motion for a week, and she hadn’t seen any traces of the girl before today, which would mean that they had zero classes together. Sigh.

The weekend was spent trying to find her on Instagram, which was a tedious job. First, she went to Zoe’s account to find Nora’s, which was easy enough, but as it turns out, Nora has a private profile, so she had to improvise further. She spent half an hour trying to remember her boyfriend’s name, and when she remembered that his name was Josh, she looked through the people Zoe follows to find him.

Bad news: Zoe doesn’t follow him.

Good news: Zoe did show her his photos on Instagram, which means he has an open profile.

Bad news: She had to actually find that profile.

Initially, she was going to just write in the name Josh and look through every profile Instagram recommended, but then she came to her senses and realized that that’s a shit idea. So, she logged into the school’s website and looked up the list of current students to go through until she found every single person named Josh.

And bingo. Josh Zimmermann.

Kieu My let out a cry of happiness when she finally found his profile but was again let down when she didn’t see any pictures of the girl. She knew this had been a longshot, but she was still disappointed.

So yeah, she gave up. She took her defeat with stride, and started look through Josh’s pictures, because let’s face it, she had nothing else to do. Maybe she’d find a comment left by the girl or something. Josh was cute, she’d admit. If she wasn’t so hung up on a girl she saw once for five minutes, maybe she’d spent more time admiring, but she was, so she didn’t.

She stopped scrolling when she landed on about the fifth picture Josh had posted of this one girl, a pretty brunette woman. The curiosity got the best of her, so she clicked on her tag. Her name was Yara, and her profile was filled with pictures of her with Josh, and some other girls. Her heart skipped a beat. She had a picture with Nora and another brunette. She was friends with Nora.

She quickly scrolled down her profile, continuously looking for the skater girl. She found it almost at the bottom. The picture was taken from the side, but it was without a doubt her. She was wearing glasses and had white locks in her hair, and she was holding a tortoise in her hands. The caption read “meet Maike” . It took an embarrassingly long time before Kieu My realized that Maike was the name of the turtle, and not the skater girl, but let’s not dwell on that.

Yara, bless her soul, had tagged the girl. Kieu My was in such a rush to click on the tag, she accidentally liked the picture. A picture from four months ago. The only picture of Fatou on Yara’s profile that was posted four months ago. She’d liked it. She wished she could say that she unliked it right away, but she was frozen for so long she was sure Yara had gotten the notification. Well, better late than never, right?

She unliked the picture as she cursed herself, and proceeded to click onto Fatou’s profile, which of course, was private. But she wasn’t mad, nor that disappointed, because she had a name now. Her name was Fatou. She’d found her! Fatou. Fatou.

She went back to the list of students.

Fatou Jallow. She continuously spun the name around in her head in English class the following Monday, she’d chosen a window seat this time, which she looked out of while daydreaming yet again.

So when someone sat down next to her, with a quick hello, she was startled to say the least. She was even more startled when she looked up to see the girl. The skater girl. Girl of her daydreams. Fatou. Fatou Jallow.

She just looked at her, in shock mostly, did she just manifest this? Is she starting to have visions now? Is she going crazy? And while Kieu My came up with a hundred reasons to how this could’ve happened, Fatou seemed to shrink under her gaze, seemingly backing off. Wait, no, no, no, no. Goddamn resting bitch face.

She was just about to speak up when the teacher clapped his hands, demanding attention as he started the class, and she was left looking like an asshole. She would’ve physically banged her head into the table if that wouldn’t turn Fatou even more off her.

“And you must be Fatou, nice of you to finally show up-”

Five seconds ago, Kieu My wouldn’t be so sure that Fatou could get any smaller, but the teachers comment seemed to make her especially uncomfortable, and Kieu My found herself wanting to chop his head off. Respectfully.

But Kieu My didn’t say anything, she never did, and she always cursed herself for it. Instead, she found herself looking at Fatou’s hands, placed on the desk next to her. She was fumbling with her thumb ring, which was yellow, and while focusing longer on it, Kieu My realized it was a mood ring. She had half a mind to whip out her phone right then and there to look up the different colors and their meanings, but instead made a mental note to do that later.

“Kieu My? Are you paying attention?”

Her head whipped up as the teacher said her name, and she blushed as she looked to Fatou who had clearly noticed where her focus was as the teacher called her name. The girl displayed a knowing smile, and instead of looking bashful as she did before, she almost looked a little smug. Her ring had turned into a blue-green color and Kieu My’s blush deepened as she caught herself looking at her hands once again.

She just nodded to the teacher, willing him to move on.

“So, as I was saying, I’m pairing you up to work on a project that’s due at the end of the month. You and your partner will be tasked to pick a classic work, rewrite it, and then perform it in front of the class. Got it? Great. Before anyone asks, you will not get to pick your partner, I have already paired everyone up randomly-” he pulled out a paper from under the desk, quickly displaying it before putting it back into the drawer. Fatou groaned and Kieu My rubbed her forehead, already hating this assignment.

“You’ll get more info on Wednesday, but if you go onto page 16-”

Kieu My made sure to pay extra attention to the rest of the class and when it was over, she had almost forgotten about the girl next to her.

That was a lie, she didn’t forget, quite the opposite actually, but she wasn’t about to flaunt that. She took her time packing up her stuff, seeing if Fatou would try to talk to her. She couldn’t be sure if Fatou had left yet, seeing that Kieu My had used up all of her will power to not look her way, but when she’d finished packing up all of her stuff and went to leave, she could see Fatou spending even more time than her to pack her bag.

Fatou looked up from her bag when she finished, smiling at Kieu My. God, she had a beautiful smile. As she stood up to leave, she looked into her eyes and said, “too bad we can’t pick our own partners” . Kieu My doesn’t remember how she reacted, all she remembers is the heat taking over. However, the way she’d reacted had seemed to delight Fatou though, who grinned at her as she left the classroom.

At lunch she sat with Ismail, Zoe being off somewhere with Finn. Kieu My didn’t say much, her mind somewhere else, but that didn’t stop Ismail from talking their head off. As they were talking, Kieu My was only half listening while looking up mood rings on her phone. She looked through different type of mood rings until she found one that looked like Fatou’s, and quickly found the color chart.

So, it seemed like her mood ring consisted of seven main colors, black, gray, yellow, green, blue-green, blue and violet. She thought back to this morning, and what colors Fatou’s ring had been.

At first it had been yellowish, when Kieu My had accidentally blown her off with her deadpan. Okay, yellow; “nervous, mixed emotions, unsettled”. Great. She had unsettled her. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she reminded herself that mood rings weren’t necessary correct. She’d get a chance to fix it, it was fine. It’s fine.

“and you have English with Mr. Strauss, too right? That paired up assignment is already enough for him to be my least favorite person in the world-”

“yeah, and we can’t even pick partners…” Kieu My adds absentmindedly, just to keep them going. She thinks about what Fatou had said, and her smile.

The second color she’d seen on her finger was blue-green, after she’d caught her staring at her hands. Kieu My cringed at herself just thinking about it. Blue-green; “inner emotions, charged, somewhat relaxed” hmm…

“Right?! What an idiot. God, I swear, we should break into the classroom and swap the papers or something…” Ismail joked with a laugh. This got her attention though. She looked up from her phone as Ismail just kept on rambling, further joking about hacking into the school system or something, but she again wasn’t paying attention, because now she was stupid enough to form an even stupider plan.

And that’s how she ended up here. Broken into the classroom, swapping the papers. It seemed like a bad idea when she thought about it after Ismail had said it, and now that she’s doing it, she knows it’s an even worse one than previously imagined.

Kieu My wasn’t one to speak up when she wasn’t called for, or to do anything that would incriminate her, so to say that her hands were shaking and that she was freezing cold out of her own skin was an understatement. She cannot afford to be expelled. But the worst was over now. On the way out she didn’t even bother to drop the keys off where she found them, she was too scared to, so she simply dropped them right outside of the teachers’ lounge and didn’t stop running before the school was too far away to see.

That following Wednesday Kieu My was so paranoid and so sure that she would be found out. When the time for English class came around, she seriously contemplated skipping class for the first time ever. She didn’t though, but she purposefully came just a little late so that the teacher wouldn’t have time to speak to her before class. She was freezing and her hands were shaking.

When she entered the class, the only seat available was the same she sat in last, and she was confused at first, because Fatou sat at the same place at last too. Not the window seat, but the one next to it. She hesitated towards the seat, not sure if it was held off for someone or something, but when Fatou saw her she smiled. And Kieu My melted onto her seat.

The class was surprisingly uneventful, and towards the end she found herself relaxing. Or that was until the teacher decided to announce the partners. As he went through the list, she didn’t blink once.

“Kiey My and Fatou-” …he didn’t even flinch. Kieu My waited just a little longer before letting out a huge breath. Oh my god. He didn’t even notice.

She looked to Fatou, who was already looking at her, smiling.

This time Kieu My smiled back.

#druck #please this is so chaotic idek #read this with a grain of salt #or like a lot of it #kieutou #fatou x kieu my #druck fic #kieutou fic #druck fanfic

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klancefics-cache · 4 years ago

Note

Uuhhhhh shamelessly self-promoting here, but I've got a few klance aus that are ongoing series! There's a Spider-Man au called Power and Responsibility, as well as a military au called Soldier, Keep on Marchin On. There's lots of different friendships in both, but they both have romantic klance. The Spider-Man au is more fluff than angst, though there is quite a bit of that, and the military au is the opposite. Plenty of angst with some fluff. There's also a Klance Anastasia au that I'm working on right now that'll be posted at some point this week (hopefully)

On another note, I'd like to rec one of my all-time favorite klance fics. Idk if it's already been done on this blog, but I highly recommend Surviving Space With Your Ex Fiance. It's basically a voltron fix-it rewrite where Adam was with the main cast from the very beginning. Technically, adashi is the main focus of the series, but there's enough klance moments that I personally consider it a Klance fic as well, which is why I'm reccing it. It's been very fun watching their relationship develop. Adam's characterization is probably the best I've ever read in a VLD fic, and he ships klance as much as the readers do 😂😂 but the writing is GORGEOUS, there's lots of family bonding between the whole space fam, and Adam is frickin hilarious. I can't even count the number of times I've snort-laughed over his sass

omg absolutely self promo here i’m all for it!! these sound really amazing!!! i’m reading the anastasia au next 😏

Power and Responsibility: a Klance Spider-Man AU by firedragonworks (firedragon32)

(works: 2 | 29,136 words | T)

A (mostly) true account of Keith Kogane navigating through teenage life with a part-time job of being a masked vigilante under the nose of his police officer brother and his suspicious future brother-in-law. He falls in love, faces criminals, ungodly amounts of schoolwork, and battles supervillains.

You know, a normal high school life.

But the mutants just keep coming, each more powerful than the last, leading to a terrifying and dangerous enemy. Will Spider-Man, with the help of his family and friends, be able to save the city from utter destruction?

Or will they all go down in flames?

Soldier, Keep on Marchin' On by firedragonworks (firedragon32)

(chapters: 9/? | 18,643 words | T)

The Galra have taken everything from her; her father, her home, her people. The terrorist known as Zarkon had slain her father, burned her country to the ground and salted the earth. But he forgot to take one thing: her determination, her patience. For years she bided her time, making preparations. And now she is ready to fight back. Because Allura is putting together a team, a group of the very best the Garrison has to offer.

A hacker with a hidden mission

An explosives expert just trying to support his family

A sharpshooter with a thirst for revenge

An assassin with a problem with authority

A soldier trying to escape his past

Allura's team are the only ones standing between the Galra terrorists and utter chaos. Only they can defeat Zarkon and free the enslaved countries under his rule; that is, if they don't kill each other first.

Life is a Road (That I Wanna Keep Going) by firedragonworks (firedragon32)

(chapters: 9/? | 28,850 words | T)

For the first time in centuries, the Galra and Altean kingdoms were united. Akira Kogane-Shirogane, the son of the late king and queen, was the symbol of this union. He, along with his half-siblings Takashi and Allura, were destined to rule the kingdoms when they all came of age.

But then everything changed.

A group of Galra extremists were determined to bring down the new regime. In a horrific attack on the palace, dozens of soldiers, servants, and nobles were massacred--and Akira disappeared. Shiro and the others fled to the safety of Altea. They searched for the lost prince for months...

...but Akira was never seen again.

Years later, an orphan boy chases the ghosts of a past he has lost. Keith has these dreams--elegant parties, eerily familiar faces, a warm embrace--and he's desperate to find where he came from. His only clue? A dagger with the inscription, "Together in Altea." With the help of a kind engineer, a snarky tech genius, and a smooth con man with a mysterious past, Keith may find the key to finding his family.

But dark forces are rising, an ancient evil that is determined to find the lost prince…and finish the job. No matter who gets in the way.

Surviving Space With Your Ex-Fiancé by subtlehysteria

(works: 8 | 541,523 words | T)

A (mostly) true account of Adam Wadekar's adventures as he tumbles into a 10 000-year-old war with Space Daddy (aka The Ex), their four surrogate children which includes a 14-year-old genius, a knife-wielding emo, a bi disaster who doesn't know he's a bi disaster and a ray of sunshine/Gordan Ramsey. They are joined by a badass elf princess and Space Nigel Thornberry as they fly their giant robotic kittens to free the universe.

Did he mention there are purple furries?

(shiro/adam)

#klance #klance fic recs #klance fic rec #klance fics #voltron keith #voltron lance #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #military au #spider man au #adashi

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littlemessyjessi · 4 years ago

Text

Torn: Remus Lupin Story: PS OC:Chapter Four: Ninja

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Remus Lupin Imagine Turned Story

Re-Written and Edit of an old story of mine I had on Mibba that deserved some more love and attention, lol.

Remus Lupin x Vega Black (OC, OFC, PLUS SIZE OC, PLUS SIZE OFC)

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"Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us."

- Virginia Woolf

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

Song that inspired the vibe, lol. I literally listening to this while writing it.

“Get Off of My Back”- Bryan Adams

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

It had been three weeks since the incident and Vega was once again in the hospital wing. Not for injuries this time but instead helping Madame Pompfrey. During her brief stay, she found many things about the Healer that interested her. When a seventh year Quidditch scrimmage went wrong and poor Jeanette McDonald was carried in almost unconscious...she jumped into action clearing a bed and getting Madame Pompfrey's kit. Vega, it would seem, was a rather natural at this kind of thing. She assessed the situation, analyzed the details and sought out the proper ingredients...all while jumping into action very quickly and keeping a cool head. For a first year, it was rather impressive and Madame Pompfrey had offered her a spot on the Early Healers program. It was rather odd for a first year to do this but she seemed to have natural talent. After her discussing her outstanding work in Potions with Professor Slughorn along with her impressive talents in Charms and Transfiguration according to the other Professors....Madame Pompfrey felt it a true waste to not at least entertain the idea. Vega had jumped at the offer. It was all very exciting to her and though it was stressful...it was extremely rewarding. She felt a sort of passion for it as she worked as assistant to the school's resident Healer. However, at that moment in time...something sour had settled in her stomach because Remus Lupin was laying in the hospital bed looking extremely worse for wear. Madame Pompfrey had initially told her that she would deal with it alone but upon seeing his wounds...she called for the quiet girl. "Pat the wounds." she said quietly, as to not waking the sleeping boy. Vega steadied her hand as she cleaned the blood from her friend's chest. "What goes on here is secret." Madame Pomfrey told her. "What you see and come to know stays here. Do you understand?" The young Black nodded. "They are not our secrets to tell, Miss Black." she said and Vega simply nodded. She didn't know what had happened to Remus but she had an inkling of a thought. She desperately hoped she was wrong but she was far too smart and read far to many books to believe that. She had her suspicions, of course. She was very observant and had noticed little ticks of his that tipped her off. But she just...she didn't want to believe it. But after this. The full moon, the horrible sounds last night and now here he was looking almost ripped to shreds....she'd be stupid if she denied it. Remus Lupin...was a werewolf. She finished him up with Madame Pompfrey before helping the woman with the necessary potions. The Healer told her she was finished for the night and to go and get some supper at the Great Hall. She was tired but a violent rumble from her stomach told her that bed was not an option at the moment. She was almost there when she heard a familiar laugh behind her. "Well, if it isn't the itty bitty baby Black." Vega bit her tongue. Bellatrix.

She really wasn’t in the mood for Bella and her childish antics.

Not today.

Not after the week she’d had.

Not after she’d spent so much time with her own hands drench in Remus’ blood.

Not after she’d spent so much time in her head worried about him. "I believe Regulus is less cowardly than you are...and he's not even in school yet." she teased. Vega turned to stare at her cousin.

“Go away Bella.” she said. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Oooh, grown a bit of backbone have you?” Bella sneered. “Good, it’ll be all the more fun to break.”

“Get off my of my back, Bellatrix!” Vega snapped as her anger bubbled. Bellatrix was flanked by her Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphous Lestrange. "What the matter?" she taunted. "Scared? Maybe we should sing a song for the baby? What was it that the blood traitor used to sing? Oh, yes! Row, row, row your boat...gently down the stream...scarily, scarily, scarily, scarily, life is but a SCREAM!" Vega’s stomach churned as Bella turned the innocent song her father used to sing to her into something sour and dark. Her cousin cackled manically. "She's scared boys!" she erupted. "Look, she's shaking!" But Vega was not scared. She was angry. She was shaking because she was trying to keep from drawing her wand. Bella smirked, "Get her, boys." Vega braced herself for a moment before something washed over her...and she changed.

She was done.

So done. Rodolphus was first and when he came at her she pulled her foot back and landed a hard kick to his chest before using the force to spin around and kick Lucius in the nose....effectively breaking it. Bella snarled at this unexpected rebellion and drew her wand. However, Vega was quicker and bellowed, "Expelliarmus!" Bella's wand flew into her hand and she gasped. Vega arched a dark brow at her cousin and said, "One more move and I snap it in half." Bella almost growled but there was still clear shock on her features at this unbridled attack. "I'll get you for this you little blood traitor! We're cousins!" Bella snapped. "Yes, we are and you've done nothing but torment me since the day you met me. I've had enough. The next time, I won't be as lenient, Bella. The next time...it'll hurt." Vega told her very seriously. "Now get out of my face.” Lucius and Roldophus skittered up to their feet, the blond leaning on the other for support as his nose bled profusely. "My wand." Bella pressed. "I'll give it to Andromeda. She can decide if you get it back." Vega told her, staring her down with stormy grey eyes. "You little-!" "Or would you prefer I take it to Slughorn...or perhaps Dumbledore?" she challenged and Bella bit her tongue before sneering and heading off after her friends. Vega watched them go and let out a deep breath only to tense up when something grabbed her. Only...she couldn't see what it was. Something had her....that she could tell...and it felt soft. She hesitantly reached out and grabbed it. It crumbled in her hand and she pulled it off to reveal a disheveled, well more so than usual, James Potter. "James!" she gasped. "What the?" "Vega, that was brilliant!" he exclaimed as he hoisted the little girl up and twirled her around in the air. "Sirius, will be so proud!" "Don't tell him!" she rushed out with panic in her eyes. "Tell me what?" She looked past James' horribly messy dark hair to see her cousin looking at her with an odd look on his face. He looked between her and James' rather compromising position with an arched brow that mirrored Vega’s own almost identically. It seemed to dawn on them and they backed away from each other. "So?" he pressed, curiosity clear in his grey eyes. "What wasn't I supposed to know?" Both were silent. James was dying to tell his friend...but he hated to betray Vega like that if she really, truly didn't want him to know. "James." Sirius pressed, looking his friend in the eye. Well, he tried to. If James hadn't been avoiding eye contact like the plague. Sirius glanced at Vega again before his eyes drifted down to her hand. A grin overtook his features. "Is that Bella's wand?" Vega sighed sensing the inevitable.

"Yes!" James exploded. "It was amazing, Sirius! She was incredible! Like some kind of ninja! She broke Malfoy's NOSE! And she disarmed Bella and send them on their way, sassed them into oblivion!" Sirius grinned but then his eyes narrowed, "And how do you know this?" James shrugged and held up his Invisibility Cloak. "And you were just doing to watch?" Sirius pressed, irritation growing at the prospect of James standing by and letting Vega get hurt.

Again. "Well, I was gonna step in if she needed help but Andromeda did say to let her fight her own battles....and she was great!" he said before looking at Vega. "It was really impressive." Her cheeks flushed red. "I'll see you later." she told them. "I'm starving and if I don't eat something soon, I might attack someone." James dramatically cleared the way, "By all means, Great Ninja of Ravenclaw. Lead us to the bountiful mountains of food. I, Sir James Potter of Gryffindor, shall accompany you into the journey of badassedness in exchange for lessons on your mad skills." Vega and Sirius cracked up at that and the three of them headed off to the Great Hall for something to eat. She headed for Ravenclaw but instead Sirius pulled her over to sit with them. "Sirius." she pressed. "I'm not in your house." "It's fine." he rolled his eyes. "Besides...I want to hear how you smashed stupid Malfoy's nose to smithereens." She scowled at him making him smirk. "You tell me or I'll have James tell it...and the more he repeats things...the wilder they get." he warned her as the very boy in question was currently retelling the story to an older Gryffindor...this time saying that Rowan was a jujitsu master.

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Chapter Three

Chapter Five

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Hello my lovelies!

Woooo child! We got some friction! How do we feel about Vega fiesty retaliation? I’d love to hear from you!

Here is another rewrite of a previous work of mine that I had on Mibba! I did a bit of reworking on the character, her name and her backstory because I just felt like she deserved more! I would love to know what you think of little Vega!

So please comment, reblog with thoughts and/or smash the ask box! I do so love hearing from you my loves!

Love,

Kenny

————————-

@frankie2902

@pleasantdreamqueen @becrazy–beyou

@littledeadrottinghood @blackirisposts

@therealmrshale @woodworthti666@thegreatirene@fanfictionandjunk

@angelus320

@alanlizzingtonshore@buriednurbckyrd@disneymarina@tubbypeachwriting

@sullybot @georgiagrl1990 @whenallsaidanddone

@mischiefnevermanaged94 @inumorph

@congurl

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@qtmeryr

@thisismysecrethappyplace

@tnupsweetpie

@alisoncdariel

@hannahloveslife

@wormyboi

@blackirisposts

@maggyme13

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@ibenkastberg

@fanfics1717 @mrscasnovak

@thickemadame @babygirl-barnes

@theladyofmasks @aengsty

@kalliravenne

@witchygagirl

@gruffle1

@writtenbywolfie

@kribbydahhufflepuff

@leah-halliwell92

@thelastwildangel

@silent-browser

@simplymagical@simplymagicalwritings

@lilacflicker

@malulucifer

@minxyvixen

@moncheriemoony

@queenlexusloverofbts

@criminalyetminimal

@plus-size-reader

@owenniasstars

@adventuresofnight

@tuutifruuti

@ tb-ctn

Love, Kenny

#remus lupin #remus john lupin #remus lupin x vega black #remus x vega #marauder #marauder era #marauder era remus lupin #young remus lupin #sirius black cousin #sirius black sister #vega equuleus black

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ddixons-angel · 4 years ago

Text

Fated: Season 5

Summary: Gloria Rhee narrowly escapes Atlanta with her brother as the outbreak reaches the city. Luckily, they find a camp outside the city and together, they fend through encounters with the living and undead.

Starts a little before Season 1 and then follows the main storyline of the show.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Glenn Sister!OC

Warnings: major TWD spoilers, language, violence (the typical TWD stuff)

A/N: And we’re on to Season 5!!! Who’s excited??? 😁 I am more than halfway done with rewriting this season so I don’t think I’ll need to take any breaks to finish this one ^^ I know last week’s chapter ended with a cliffhanger (as it did in the show) so I won’t keep you guys from it any longer, off we go!

Chapter 1

Terminus was a complete bust. The place was a self proclaimed sanctuary but it was no sanctuary at all. It was hell for anyone who fell into their trap. The people there, no, the monsters there put on a facade to lure desperate people in only to capture them and eventually butcher them for food. Gloria and her family had to learn that the hard way as they waited for their chance to escape the dark train car they were all forced to stay in. The only thing good about the place was the fact that they all found each other there.

They’d been left in that train car for at least a day, but that was enough time to prepare for their attack. They’d practically taken apart the inside of the train car, taking any loose metal scraps and breaking off pieces of wood that they could sharpen into weapons. Sasha had even broken her belt buckle to create her own form of brass knuckles. Now, all they needed was to wait for their captors to come and open the door. Soon enough, they all heard men talking amongst themselves, their voices seemingly coming closer to the train car.

“A’right, got four of ‘em pricks comin’ our way.” Daryl says as he peeks through the crack of the door.

Everyone gets into position, preparing themselves for the attack as Rick makes his way towards the door, “you all know what to do. Go for their eyes first, then their throats.”

They all gather around the door, waiting for it to open. The men from the outside shout at them, ordering them to line up on either end of the train car; as if they thought they were stupid enough to listen to them. Unfortunately, their plan to ambush the Terminus men didn’t go as planned as a hatch from the top of the car opened instead of the door. They all look up as light pours inside then an object is thrown into the car; a smoke bomb.

“Move!” Abraham shouts as everyone takes cover.

The bomb explodes, filling the entire train car with smoke and the door to the car opens. Shit! That was their chance but they couldn’t see anything, at least not until the smoke cleared. By the time it did, the door had already slammed shut. Gloria waves her hand around to fan away the rest of the smoke from her face as she looks around.

“No...” she says, panic rising in her chest.

Daryl, Glenn, Rick, and Bob were gone. She looks over to Sasha and Maggie who both have the same expression of panic at the realization. Gloria lets out a breath and her expression softens when she sees Carl and Michonne looking at her. Rick is their leader, Daryl and Glenn are their best fighters, and if anything happened, Bob could help them with his medical knowledge. Gareth and his men took their strongest people, and that was a mistake on their part. Knowing their capabilities and how well they worked together, it was no doubt that they would get out of whatever situation they were put in and come back to get the rest of them out. All they needed to do now was wait for them.

After what seemed like an hour of waiting, their signal finally came. A sudden explosion from outside rumbles the train car.

“What was that?” Rosita asks.

“Our help,” Gloria says with a smile.

“What are you doing?” Michonne asks Eugene who was hunched by the door of the car.

“I might be able to use this shell to compromise the door.” he says, not looking up at her as he continues to try and break open the door with the smoke bomb that was thrown in, “from the sound of things, there may not be anybody left to open it.”

“Hey,” Carl says, walking towards him with Maggie behind him, “my dad’s gonna be back.”

“They all are,” Maggie says, “and we need to get ready to fight our way out with them when they do.”

Gloria nods at her with a tight smile, “it’s just a waiting game now.”

With that, the others continue sharpening their makeshift weapons. Gloria takes off Daryl’s shirt that she was wearing and proceeds to tear off the sleeves to wrap around her hands; she knew Daryl wouldn’t mind, plus she likes his shirts sleeveless. She puts it on again once her hands are covered then goes to pry off a sharp piece of wood from the inside of the train car. Not long after, they all hear footsteps approaching the car and soon the door opens. Carl is the first one who runs to the door as he has faith that it’s his father coming to save them.

“Come on! Fight to the fence!” Rick shouts at them before turning around to shoot at the walkers that had infiltrated Terminus.

Gloria ushers everyone outside and makes sure that no one is left behind before jumping out herself. She jabs at the walkers closest to her before she feels a warm hand grab her wrist to pull her away from the walkers. Gloria quickly turns and sees Daryl as he pulls her away, leading her towards the others.

“C’mon, let’s go!” he shouts above all the noise.

She nods at him then runs with him towards the fence, killing the walkers that got too close. Finally, they reach the fence and climb over to the other side, narrowly escaping the nightmare that was Terminus. Daryl and Rick lead the group around the perimeter of the place, apparently they had buried a bag of weapons so that whoever ran the place couldn’t take it from them. Smart. Rick wanted to use the guns to take down the rest of Terminus, however, the majority ruled as the others believed that Terminus and all of their people were as good as dead.

Gloria stands beside Daryl as she watches Rick retrieve the bag of weapons when she feels a tug at her arm and she turns to look at Daryl. It was only then when she saw the cuts and scrapes on his face, she couldn’t see much in the dark train car and they were in a hurry to get out that she didn’t have time to carefully inspect him.

Daryl seems to notice her change in expression as he is quick to reassure her, “‘M okay. Jus’ a few scratches.”

She furrows her brows and steps to him, carefully raising her hand to brush away his hair that was covering his eyes. Gloria gently trails the side of his face with her fingertips, making Daryl lean slightly into her touch. She moves her hand to brush her thumb on the cut on his lip, her skin just ghosting over his.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Nah,” he says.

Gloria smiles softly at him and she’s about to lean into him when a figure behind Daryl catches her eyes. She looks at the figure and lets out a gasp as she recognizes Carol, there was dirt smeared on her face but she knew it was her. A tearful smile pulls at Gloria’s lips and Daryl sees the change in her expression, then he turns to follow her line of sight. He freezes for a split second when he sees Carol and in the next, he’s dashing over to her and enveloping her in a hug. Gloria lets out a light chuckle as she walks towards the pair of best friends, happy that they’re finally reunited.

“Carol...” Gloria whispers as the older woman pulls away from Daryl and looks in her direction, Gloria makes her way to her and hugs her tight, “I’m so glad you’re okay...’

She smiles tearfully and pulls away from the hug, caressing Gloria’s cheek with her hand, “me too... here, I believe these are yours.”

Carol lifts her hands to give Daryl back his crossbow and Gloria her daggers, “I found them in their storage room and thought they looked familiar.”

Daryl and Gloria look at her in awe and chuckle at her words. Apparently, Carol was the one who shot at Terminus, blowing up the place and giving them all a chance to escape. She brought the group to an old cabin where Rick and Carl were reunited with Judith, and Tyreese with Sasha. After a tearful but happy reunion, they all decided that it was best to get away from Terminus and so they all began their way into the woods. That night, they decided to camp out in the forest, setting up alerting traps so that they had a safe place to rest for the night.

“What are you doing?” Glenn asks Gloria who’s sat on the ground using one of her knives to dig out something.

“You remember that thing I had with squirrels?” Gloria asks back as she keeps digging.

“You mean that time you were obsessed with squirrels and watched them from the window every chance you got?” Glenn recalls with a chuckle.

“She did wha’?” Daryl asks as he comes back to their temporary camp with two jugs of water.

“Way to make it look like I was weird,” Gloria eyes Glenn as she continues to dig, “I was watching them at first because they were cute but then I saw how smart but dumb they are. 74% of squirrels forget where they bury their food.”

“You say that as if it’s not a weird thing to know,” Glenn chuckles.

“It’s a fun fact,” Gloria says with a cheeky grin.

Daryl sits beside Gloria after putting the water down near the campfire Abraham was building, “what ya doin’ ‘ere then?”

“Seeing if I can find any nuts or acorns,” Gloria answers, then stops digging to point at the patch of dirt, “if you see a random patch of dirt in the middle of a patch of grass, the chances are a squirrel buried something here.”

“Yeah, definitely not a weird thing to know,” Glenn teases as he walks towards the camp.

“Won’t see you laughing when you don’t have any acorns!” Gloria mutters as she digs.

Daryl chuckles at her as he shakes his head, “ya learned tha’ from jus’ watchin’ squirrels?”

“Yeah, I could only watch them from my window because my dad didn’t want me to get to close in case they decided to attack me,” she chuckles at the memory, “so when they left my yard I’d go out to see where they dug and I found a pattern each time.”

“Ya watch ‘em and take their food... but ya can’t hunt ‘em,” Daryl smirks as he leans back on his arms.

“I make do with my own resources, thank you Mr. Dixon,” she rolls her eyes playfully then finally pulls out the acorn from the dirt, “I got one!”

“Jus’ one?” he says, smiling lovingly as he watches her look into the small hole she dug.

“Yeah, just one... sometimes they bury two or three if you’re lucky,” Gloria says then turns to face him, “you want it?”

“Nah, ya can keep it,” he says as he tugs her arm gently so he can wrap his arms around her, “‘sides, ya only got one, don’ wanna just take yer hard find from ya.”

Gloria scoffs as she puts her finding in her pocket, then she snuggles into his side, her arm wrapped around his torso, “I’ll let you know, I dug up a hundred acorns in a day before.”

“A hundred squirrels didn’ eat that day ‘cause o’ ya,” Daryl snorts a laugh, his joke earning a defeated chuckle from Gloria.

“God, I missed you,” she sighs as she rests her head on his shoulder, smiling softly when he kisses the top of her head.

“I missed ya too... oh,” he says then gently pushes her off of him and reaches into his pocket, “a’most forgot, here.”

Gloria lets out a quiet gasp when she sees the necklace she lost dangling in Daryl’s hand, “I never thought I’d ever see this again.”

Daryl smiles and gestures for her to turn around so he can help her put it back on, “how’d ya lose it, anyway?”

“Got taken by a group of guys when I ran into Nina, they took our stuff,” she shrugs then looks back at Daryl when she feels him stiffen up at her words, “they didn’t do anything to me, I promise.”

He just nods, pursing his lips and Gloria sighs, knowing that he didn’t fully believe her, “Daryl, they didn’t touch me or anything. Nina... wasn’t very lucky in that sense... they took her first, gave me time to figure out how to get out of there... but I could hear her screaming... sometimes I can still hear her.”

“‘M sorry,” he says, caressing her cheek with his thumb.

“It’s fine,” she says then moves to put her head on his chest, as an automatic reaction, Daryl wraps his arms around her shoulder.

“They kill Nina?” he asks quietly.

“No, I did.” Gloria tells him, earning an acknowledging hum from him as if he expected it already, “how’d you get my necklace?”

“Got caught up wit’ a couple o’ pricks, Rick killed ‘em, foun’ this hangin’ out o’ one o’ their pockets an’ thought it looked like yers ‘r Glenn’s. Noticed ya didn’ have yers.” Daryl explains.

“What happened to you after the prison? Where’d you go?” she asks after a moment of silence.

“I ran with Beth, she told me ya were already on that bus an’ I wanted to chase after ya... but there were too many walkers on the road, couldn’ risk makin’ it to ya without gettin’ chewed up,” he tells her.

“You couldn’t risk Beth,” she says, reading his mind, “what happened to her?”

“She got taken by some assholes in a car... house we were stayin’ in got swarmed, told her to run... tha’s when they took her... tried to track it but they were too far gone...” he says, his voice trembling in guilt.

“It’s not your fault,” Gloria pushes herself up to look at him, knowing he wouldn’t listen to her, “we’ll find her, it’ll be okay.”

“‘M sorry,” he says as he looks her in the eyes.

She frowns at this, “for what? Daryl, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I almos’ gave up on tryin’ to find ya... when the prison went down, I didn’ know if I’d ever see ya again...” he admits, “Beth... she was the one who told me not to give up.”

The guilt in Daryl’s eyes told Gloria that he expected her to get mad at him for even having the thought of giving up on finding her. He expected her to get upset and leave him alone, deprive him of any affection no matter how much he craved.

“Then I’ll just have to thank her for snapping some sense into you when we find her,” Gloria says with a hint of a smile.

Her smile was enough to tell him that she wasn’t angry or upset, it was more than enough to chase away his inner demons and light up his heart. Daryl wasn’t able to stop himself from pressing his lips to hers in a deep, tender kiss. He caresses her face with his hand and she giggles softly when he gently pushes her to lie on her back.

Gloria pulls away from the kiss slightly, their lips barely a millimeter apart, “the others are around.”

“They ain’t watchin’ us,” he says, pecking her lips, “‘sides, camp’s far enough from us that they can’t see shit, ya jus’ gotta keep quiet.”

Before she can respond, Daryl captures her lips with his once again. Gloria lets out a soft breathy moan as his lips trail her jaw in light feathery kisses but just as soon as it started, Daryl quickly pulls away from her and looks behind him, seeming to be on high alert. Furrowing her brow in concern, she props herself up on her elbow and follows Daryl’s line of sight.

“Do you see something?” Gloria asks, trusting his hunter instincts.

“Nah,” he says, getting up to inspect the area, “more ‘bout what I felt.”

“Let’s just keep watch then,” she suggests.

Daryl sighs as he turns around, not finding anything, he makes his way back to her, “nah, ya should sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

“Fine, I’ll sleep,” she says and waits until he’s sitting back down beside her, “but only if you let me cuddle you.”

He chuckles at her words and pulls her into his embrace, holding her close as she lays on his chest. Soon enough, Gloria’s drifted off to sleep in the arms of the man she loves.

---

Next Chapter

And that was the first chapter of Season 5!!! How’d you all like it? They’re all back together, yay~~ I felt the need for some cute fluff here because of everything they went through, and there will be more fluff to come, I promise! and of course there’s gonna be a bunch of angst too hehehehe Please let me know what you thought of this~! It means a lot!

And as always, I would really appreciate any comments left for me! I’ll be replying to any comments in a new post because this is a sideblog!

Taglist (please let me know if you’d like to be added/removed!):

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seyaryminamoto · 4 years ago

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Masterpost: answering a single anon in a single post

So. I wasn’t going to answer asks today but frankly, considering what I should be writing I’d rather answer asks, might actually get a laugh out of it. Most of all, because of what I intend to answer here.

To spare y’all from the pain and annoyance of having to read through any of my answers to we-know-who, I’m going to do it differently this time. All in one post. Because frankly, filling my blog with their TWENTY asks, no less (and it’s official this time, used to be sixteen but then I reblogged that post about conflict in stories and they went wild, as usual) isn’t worth anyone’s time. Hell, it’s not even worth mine, but procrastination is overpowering.

Here we go. If you’re not the anon in question and still want to read this, I hope you have fun.

This is a free world. That means multiple things some people can’t seem to accept. One such thing is that people have no obligation to even interact with each other, let alone to do what others demand of them, especially when they don’t want to. The fact is, being harassed (because, yes, there’s no other word for it) by someone has been a pretty irritating and stressful thing for me, to the point where it has impacted my ability to write...

And the harasser doesn’t give a single fuck about it and just keeps going :’)

With such introduction, I decide to engage my least favorite person in this site once again because clearly, ignoring them, blocking them, closing asks, deleting and rewriting reviews, is still not enough to get across the message that reiterating an opinion a million times doesn’t automatically make it more valid. So let’s see just what’s going on with this very much desperate person who apparently can’t stop seeking my attention:

First of all, I asked this person, point-blank, to address their asks, if they would continue sending them, to my main blog. Let’s see how that request turned out:

Oh my, astonishing! They sent it to Gladiator’s blog instead! And what a bigger shock: they’re, as usual, trying to control and direct what I write and how I write it. While sprinkling empty compliments that don’t mean a thing, such as claiming RESPECT for me and my work when every single ask they’ve sent is an outright disrespectful act against me, considering how many times I’ve requested, directly, that they stop this, and how many times they’ve ignored me. It even is extra poignant considering my request for them to send asks to my main blog instead, and yet they deliberately sent it to Gladiator’s blog. This is what RESPECT looks like, in this anon’s head. Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?

And then comes the mad onslaught that left me facedesking for days:

... I mean. Can someone please read this and tell me the person on the other side, with their vague condition, whatever it may be, has any idea what an apology even MEANS?

For someone who’s so obsessed with alleged consistency, you’re damn bad at it yourself, Anon. You can’t send four asks in a row, to the WRONG BLOG, demanding for explanations you don’t even care to read, because every single time I’ve taken your whining seriously you’ve disregarded all my responses and gone right back to the same BS as before, and THEN pretend you’re here TO APOLOGIZE.

You don’t feel any remorse. To this day, you don’t even KNOW what you did wrong. This is NOT expressing yourself: THIS IS HARASSMENT. Need me to define the word for you to understand what it means, seeing as it’s becoming abundantly clear your reading and interpretation skills are not the greatest?

Definitions of harassment:

1. (n) the act of tormenting by continued persistent attacks and criticism 2. (n) a feeling of intense annoyance caused by being tormented

I’ve said it before: PEOPLE HAVE HAD COMPLAINTS ABOUT THIS STORY, FAR MORE VALID THAN YOURS, AND I’VE NEVER REACTED THIS WAY. Care to guess why?

Because you NEVER stop. Because you keep going, constantly, never slowing down to think YOUR behavior is affecting a REAL LIFE HUMAN BEING. You’re obsessing over what happens in a fictional story that, by the way, is a fanfic, ergo, it obeys certain rules that general fiction does not. Among such rules is abiding by ORIGINAL characterization to a certain extent, and that means, hahaha, that Azula ISN’T an experienced character in any social or romantic situations because she ISN’T in canon, and there was no reason to change that, especially considering the worldbuilding I crafted, which makes it CRUCIAL for Azula to be careful with her virtue, despite she doesn’t want to be and realizes the whole notion of female virginal purity is absolute BULLSHIT.

But why am I explaining anything anyway? You won’t understand it, because you don’t want to. You claim, constantly, that you’re asking things OUT OF CURIOSITY, as if that makes ANYTHING better, when the truth is you’re just here to impose your cursed opinions on everyone else, especially me, and pretend you somehow own this fic and ship and your demands mean more than anyone else’s. Meanwhile, oh, I understand you PERFECTLY: you don’t want Sokka to ever have any experiences with any other women because you only believe in pure, untainted love of virgins who wait for each other and don’t ever make mistakes or are forced into unwanted situations. Because, again, you can’t understand that those sorts of things CAN happen. Because you don’t see there’s nuance to human beings, nuance I attempt to capture through my characters too.

I said it semi-jokingly, back in my past answers, now I say it directly: IF YOU CAN’T STOMACH THESE SITUATIONS AND CAN’T ACCEPT THEM, THIS STORY IS NOT FOR YOU.

An M-rated story doesn’t owe you any apologies for being what it is. An M-rated story, at the end of the day, is a STORY. You are a human being who should be capable of controlling not only your impulses but your reactions to things, at least to some degree, and yet you refuse to. You, in fact, continue to prove you CAN’T control yourself in the least because hey, just now, halfway through writing this post? I got THREE MORE ASKS by you. No less than three. And you finished them off, again, with a pretense that you’re going to stop pestering me...

... But hey. You said that at the end of the last ask I pasted up there. Hmm. And yet...

You came back, over and over and over again? :’)

RIGHT ON ALL ACCOUNTS! So... how do TWENTY ASKS, after claims that you’d finally stop, count as “regret”? You’re not changing at all, anon, because YOU DON’T WANT TO. You don’t, to this day, see what you did wrong. You don’t get it. And you won’t get it. So how about we just keep going with the next four?

Oh! But hey, you actually switched blogs this time. Super sweet of you to finally listen to ONE thing I said. Very nice.

I’ll just point out: I received the last NINE asks I’ve pasted here in a SINGLE DAY.

Nine. In one day.

I only ever got that many asks in a single go during review parties (admittedly, there were more than that, but still). The fact that you felt the need to send me NINE ASKS, to beg for forgiveness with a completely dishonest apology, is all the proof of harassment anyone could possibly ask for, right? If you weren’t an anon and at least had the GUTS to own up to your opinions, which you seem to consider absolutely sacred and completely correct, you’d have never gotten away with this. Ergo why you don’t have those guts, and why you keep sending anon reviews and asks too.

The fact that you’re so obsessed with this problem, to the point of believing Sokka’s best sex was with JUNE? We’ve literally finished an entire arc of Sokka and Azula banging across the Fire Nation with no restraint, with the two of them repeatedly remarking this is the best time they’ve ever had, and you’re so completely obsessed with this problem that you apparently think Sokka angrily fucking someone WHILE DECEIVING HIMSELF INTO THINKING IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE is... better? Are you FOR REAL? Are you seriously THAT BAD at reading?

Please, click here. I can’t even stand it anymore. It’s not even for my own sake but yours. You need it.

Also... you’re projecting so bad. Like, so bad. June’s teasing in that chapter is 100% intended to piss them off. The fact that she starts asking for Azula to lend her her “second boyfriend”, AKA Rui Shi, should tell you just how much stock June puts in what happened between her and Sokka: SHE DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN. She’s honestly more entertained by pissing off Azula as a consequence of it than over the sex she had with Sokka, especially considering she even lost her temper with him after he started apologizing in 28. You’re so completely beside yourself you can’t see ANYTHING clearly?

If you REALLY need it spelled out, no, Sokka wasn’t June’s best sex. June has probably done anyone and everyone she ever wanted to, and chances are she absolutely found someone, or several someones, who actually wanted HER, for HER, just as much as she may have wanted them. And that, you insecure mess of a human being, would absolutely make for a much better lay than what she got with Sokka. Why don’t I outright state this in the story, you’ll ask? Because despite what you may believe, this story ISN’T a love triangle between Azula, Sokka and June! Oh my, the horror! We’ve literally spent 198 chapters building up the story and developing Azula and Sokka’s relationship but the ONE TIME encounter with June apparently makes her that pivotal for your whole existence?

Dude, I literally don’t look at 28 AT ALL these days, because I don’t care to. Because even when I wrote it, it hurt me so bad having written it that I was crazy about getting to everything else so I could put it behind me. Whenever I reference it, I do the same way I reference ANYTHING ELSE. The only person who seems to think I’m doing it to further torture anyone IS YOU.

And yes, did I just say it hurt me too? Oh, my, what a SHOCKER! The fact is, that scene is only as intense as it is because I literally couldn’t bring myself to write it. It wasn’t until it came to mind that Sokka COULD imagine Azula in June’s place that I finally found the way to do it: it wasn’t just Sokka imagining Azula instead, it was ME. Because if it had been anything else? I wouldn’t have been able to write it at all. I basically wrote it as hatesex Sokkla because I NEEDED to in order to write it. “THEN WHY DID YOU EVEN WRITE IT?!?!?”, you’ll scream, I’m sure: BECAUSE I TREAT MY CHARACTERS AS HUMAN BEINGS WHO MAKE MISTAKES AND DO THINGS THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE. BECAUSE SOKKA WAS IN A DARK PLACE AND DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT AZULA WAS FEELING OR THINKING. BECAUSE AZULA WAS IMPULSIVE AND CONTROLLING AND COULDN’T REALIZE THAT THE MORE SHE TRIED TO FORCE SOKKA TO BEND TO HER WILL, THE MORE HE WOULD TRY TO BREAK FREE.

But all this is clearly too complex for you. Can’t even fathom understanding anything remotely close to characterization and conflict within relationships, no. You’re something else entirely.

And so, we move on to the post-apology Anon: you DO realize that forgiveness is something earned? I mean, it’s kinda funny because Sokka actually earned his own. He spent ages working for it, and even AFTER Azula told him he was forgiven, he still feels so bad about having hurt her that, to this day, he regrets it. Being FORGIVEN was not a condition for him to feel remorse. He regretted his actions because HE KNEW THEY WERE WRONG. Because he’s an actual, decent human being who, when faced with a catastrophic mistake, actually wants to amend it and wishes he had acted differently despite he can’t take anything back anymore.

But you? You can’t even begin to understand what regret means. I guess another dictionary definition would help?

Definitions of regret

1. (v) feel remorse for; feel sorry for; be contrite about

2. (v) feel sad about the loss or absence of

3. (v) express with regret

4. (v) decline formally or politely

5. (n) sadness associated with some wrong done or some disappointment

So, your attempts to beg for forgiveness fall completely flat. And I say it in plural, ATTEMPTS, because in case you think I’m daft and forgot your old reviews and asks, I didn’t: THIS ISN’T YOUR FIRST ATTEMPT TO APOLOGIZE FOR THIS BULLSHIT. I thought I should clarify that, because heh, you have claimed you won’t come back, you have claimed you’re sorry, you have said many platitudes in the past that actually had no meaning... and I could tell they didn’t, which is why I never answered them. Because there was no way someone who had exhibited such obsessive behavior would actually control themselves and get over their issues after MONTHS of persistent harassment.

And so, you didn’t disappoint, because I had zero expectations that you’d actually abide by your apologies. Empty apologies, again, because to this moment you don’t even know what you did wrong. You don’t get it. To put it in the way I did for someone else who talked to me about this mess:

You could be complaining to me about something else entirely. You could be here, demanding that I explain why I’ve been writing Sokka killing people, for instance. You could be disregarding all sense, reason, historical precedents and what-have-you as to why a warmongering, canonically genocidal nation like the Fire Nation would ever have a system like the Gladiator League and enslave other cultures to do their bidding.

And if you came back with those complaints PERSISTENTLY, FOR A YEAR, I’D BE JUST AS ANGRY AS I AM NOW.

It’s NOT about the situation you’re throwing a fit over. It’s NOT about me having it out for you. It’s about YOU not knowing limits or boundaries, going as far as you constantly, consistently have, ever seeking to twist my story into whatever warped, fucked up perception you’ve developed over it, without ever slowing down to think that your actions and your behavior are affecting someone else. I’m not just a rambling robot who can’t seem to stop talking or writing or whatever you may think I am: I’m an actual person with a FUCKLOAD of problems, who literally just had the WORST year of her life, and you just decided to continue adding to the pile, never slowing down to consider that your feelings, and your opinions, and your pain, does NOT invalidate other people’s, let alone does it make you EXEMPT of hurting others. Which, heh, if you knew how to read, you could’ve even LEARNED this from Gladiator! :’D

Because Azula, so hurt as she was, took to hurting Sokka too, in many, many ways. And Sokka, once he understood how wrongly he had judged Azula, simply let her hurt him because he thought he deserved everything she threw at him. Later on? Azula realizes all the pain she caused Sokka COULD have led him to choose the White Lotus over her. She’s in a life-or-death situation, unable to fight back, and the ONLY reason she doesn’t get screwed over and captured by the enemy is because Sokka decides she matters more to him than joining forces with sketchy people who are out for revenge. But what if she’d hurt him more than she had? What if she’d done WORSE than she did? Maybe he would’ve been so hurt too that, at this point, he would’ve chosen the White Lotus and not only abandoned her but handed her over to her nation’s enemies! :’) oh, the horror. Is it really that unthinkable? Why, it’s not to me. And why not? Because if Azula had been as unforgiving and unyielding as you are, if she had been so obsessive over whatever caused her pain and refused to move on... this story would SUCK. BADLY.

Makes you wonder what that says about your mentality, doesn’t it?

Alas, after all this digression as to why your behavior is absolutely appalling to me, let’s see what you did indeed, right after your absolutely shallow apology that was obviously not sincere, because you don’t regret having bothered me at all, you just regret that I won’t abide by your whining...

Is THIS what an apologetic, remorseful person looks like? Really, now? Honestly, if Sokka were half as bad as you are, he would’ve slept with half the Fire Nation by now while constantly coming back to Azula like “Oh woops did it again, sorry!”

Yes, I can honestly make the link pretty easily. Must be why you keep assuming he’ll ever be with someone else, because if you were in his place, you would do exactly that :’) beautiful how things just come full circle, isn’t it?

That ask came as a response to another, potentially ill-intended one, potentially sent by you too. An ask I answered with a whole list of unique things Sokka has done for Azula. Not only did you NOT understand the list’s purpose despite you may have even been the one to ask for it... but you took a line directly referencing OBVIOUS events like chapters 64, 69 and 93, moments in which Azula either put a stop to opportunities where she and Sokka might have ended up going too far, and he accepted it without complaint... or Sokka himself put a stop to them, KNOWING that Azula would be taking a huge risk if she gave herself to him completely as she does from 97 onwards. That you literally took something that was SO VERY OBVIOUS, and twisted it into chapter 28 again speaks LENGTHS of how absolutely messed up your perception and interpretation of this whole story is. You have issues. Serious issues. And I’m not saying this just to be an ass, I’m saying it because it’s clear as day that if you CAN’T stop linking absolutely everything I say or do to chapter 28, whether it’s being referenced or not (and in this case, it was NOT), the problem isn’t me, IT’S YOU.

And here we go again. You are actually trying to POLICE the Sokkla fandom at this point? An ANON? And hey, you returned to the Gladiator blog! Which means you were so pissed that I didn’t answer your previous asks and your phony apology because I KNEW you’d come back that even your teeny, tiny behavioral correction was pulled back because you were MAD. And you HAD TO MAKE YOUR OPINIONS KNOWN, AGAIN.

Do tell, are you the same ass who harassed a pretty new friend I’ve made in this fandom? An honestly solid writer who happens to feature Sokka having other, prior relationships to Azula because, haha, if you work with CANON settings, that’s basically guaranteed since Sokka already has canon relationships before even knowing Azula exists? And then, even if in those experiences Sokka ends up going “... I bet it’d be better with Azula”, you STILL take this as a slight and you consider it a reason to go around harassing writers and potentially even THREATENING to report their content because you’re mad that Sokka isn’t exclusively Azula’s in every single story you pick up?

The worst part is, I actually wrote at least 2 stories in my Saturdays’ oneshots where Azula and Sokka are each other’s first everything, absolutely so. And I got nothing from you for it, not even a teeny tiny “HEY THANK YOU YOU FINALLY WROTE WHAT I WANTED TO SEE!”. No, you only come out of your hole to ATTACK writers. To tell us what to do when you think we’re not doing it right. As if you had the SLIGHTEST right to tell ANYONE what to do.

I literally have been here for EIGHT YEARS. I’ve been creating content for this ship for that long, when nobody else was anymore. I won’t take credit for the ship’s rise in popularity, despite yes, it’s far from a major ship no matter how far we’ve come... but my story didn’t reach the heights it has out of sheer dumb luck. I worked my ass off with Gladiator in every way I could to make it a story of the scope and depth it deserved to be, and the fact that people who didn’t even ship Sokkla were interested in reading the story all the same has always been something I take pride on. A ton of multishippers read this story, and support Sokkla too: neither you nor ANYONE has any right to demand or claim or pretend that someone else has no right to be part of this fandom or to set guidelines as to what their content should be. There’s LITERAL stories out there of Sokka having a goddamn HAREM, just so you know, with Azula included amongst the women involved in it... and you’re here, throwing a fit over people featuring Sokka having one-time encounters and brief relationships with other girls before committing completely to Azula.

I’ve been here, working my ass off for Sokkla, not only in writing but literally developing my art skills to the best of my ability so I could ONE DAY create the visuals and images these two evoked for me...

And yet I don’t feel I have any right to tell ANYONE how to make their content.

If there was a set number of words in fics or artworks someone needed to make for a ship to prove themselves worthy of obtaining the skill of GATEKEEPING, I am 100% positive I have more than outdone that limit.

And yet I DON’T play gatekeeper. I NEVER have, and I NEVER will. People can create whatever they want to create, whether I enjoy it or not is up to me, and if I DON’T enjoy it, I DON’T read it. If there’s Sokkla content out there I can’t even STOMACH? I would ignore it and move on with my life. You? You make it your whole life’s crusade to attack people over anything that tickles you wrong. That’s how it works, isn’t it?

Unless you’re planning on pulling a Scooby-Doo-esque twist where you remove your mask and reveal you were a known Sokkla fan and content creator all along, which I find ABSOLUTELY unlikely, then this means you haven’t done anything, ANYTHING, for this fandom beyond sending anonymous harassment to people who are actually taking time out of their lives to create content for this ship. The main reaction I’ve seen at you from ANY of us, whether anons like yourself or actual content creators like myself, is that you have too much time on your hands and need a better hobby. And I agree, completely.

So, where people like me and my fellow Sokkla creators are actually making content that convinces people, if not to ship it, to at least CONSIDER this ship a possibility... you’re out there, in hiding, pretending you have any right to tell us what to do and going ignored on most accounts. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if I had any respect for someone, and they either stopped responding to me or started responding by telling me to leave them alone, I’d feel like such stain of garbage I’d never even try to interact with them again. While people absolutely can be different and react differently to things... I can’t see how, exactly, you have any respect for me when knowing you’re a problem for me has never stopped you and most likely never will.

I’ll admit, this one actually made me laugh. Like... you’re seriously trying to tell me that a sex scene was way too good and that’s why I have to change it. I actually disagree on every account, because the last time I revisited 28 I thought the scene was absolutely distant from my best work? I’ve written soooo much smut recently and literally any of those scenes kicks 28 out of any “best smut” contest by MILES. But... heh. This one, apparently, was too good.

I mean... thank you? For telling me that my smut skills are apparently that great they need to be toned down? Fascinating, really.

But again, “it sadly seems to be a too late to write chapter 28″. Sadly?

SADLY?

You can stick your sadness up where the sun doesn’t shine, dude:

SOMEONE WHO THREW SUCH A FIT OVER THEIR REVIEWS BEING REWRITTEN SHOULD

NEVER

TELL SOMEONE ELSE THAT IT’S TOO BAD THEY CAN’T REWRITE ANY OF THEIR CONTENT.

EVER

You can’t pretend, again, that you were EVER sorry for ANY of what you did... while still trying to tell someone they should rewrite their content. Honest to gods, you’re an asshole. You are. And if you think I’m one too, great, I own up to it gladly. But you’re the one willingly intoxicating their brain with my content, only to consistently go MAD over it, and then unleash this kind of illogical nonsense right back at me. I know art can generate a myriad of responses, but I am NOT responsible for your immaturity and inability to handle serious subjects and topics that SHOULD MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. If you don’t KNOW how to deal with the fact that there’s a lot of questionable, dislikeable things in this world, then my damn story is the least of your concerns because you’re well on your way to leading a VERY miserable life, Anon. Better get ready for it, will you?

And again, the Gladiator blog. Again, pretending to be well-mannered, and also, again, using the world “sadly”, same as the ask above. Like... man, what on earth is wrong with you. Are you seriously this masochistic? Do you also drink arsenic for sport? What on EARTH brings you the belief that asking how far or how much was done between Sokka and his previous one-night-stands would help you IN ANY WAY, WHATSOEVER?

I think I’ll answer that question, for once, with actual quotes, taken right from some of your favorite chapters, no less:

"When you and Ruon Jian got married, was he…?" she asked. Mai only raised a confused eyebrow, and Azula had the distinct feeling that Mai knew what she was talking about, but would force her to blurt it out anyways. She sighed: "A virgin."

Ty Lee's hands flew to her mouth as Mai raised her eyebrows. To Azula's astonishment, she merely shrugged.

"I don't know. I never asked," she said. Azula snorted.

"Then you're smarter than me. By far," she grunted. Mai smirked.

And as things digress there into Azula explaining what happened, let’s skip that and go straight to Mai’s direct answer:

"I've never asked Ruon Jian about whether or not he had anything serious with other girls before me because I seriously don't care," said Mai. "If I knew about it, I'd probably have a bout of jealousy like yours, I suppose… but it's in his past, and he left them behind to make me his present and his future. So, whatever he might have experienced before, with however many women there were, isn't something I'm overly concerned about."

"You're awfully mature compared to me if that's the case," said Azula, slipping her fingers through her hair again. Mai smirked.

"You've been complimenting me quite a lot today, Azula, that's not like you…"

"Shut up," Azula grunted. Mai chuckled.

:’)

This is the only answer this ask warrants. The fact that you’re so immature and so obsessed as to want to know more about what happened with something you HATE is completely cringeworthy and absurd. If you want to get angry imagining Sokka having wild sex with every woman who crosses his path, go ahead and do it, but do us both a favor and torture yourself, and yourself alone, with those thoughts rather than coming back TWENTY TIMES to my inbox looking for MORE reasons to get angry. You’re honestly unbelievable.

You know, that reading comprehension site I linked up there? Courses, 20% off! Seriously, perfect fit for you. You need it, direly.

Like... how can someone read a story built on the premise of Azula literally defeating Sokka painfully in battle to the point he’s left unable to move, taking Sokka away from home, turning him into a slave, being objectively responsible for the WORST TWO YEARS OF HIS LIFE... and then come to my inbox asking if Azula will ever hurt Sokka?

Dude, you’re off the deep end. You can’t even pretend you have a grasp on reality if you SERIOUSLY THINK Azula has NEVER hurt Sokka. Like, seriously, it feels like you’re reading this truncated version of Gladiator that’s only chapters 28, 111, 112 and perhaps 123? Is that what’s going on?

I’ve had Sokka and Azula arguing over ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING, whether for humorous or for serious purposes, since the very beginning of the story. Their first serious falling out is LITERALLY caused by the direct conflict of their worldviews clashing in chapter 12. Their second falling out was indeed caused by women: by Azula’s discovery that Sokka didn’t want to fight women, which of course, doesn’t bother you in the least because you and I both know that’s NOT what your problem was.

I could literally run through the whole story listing every single argument they’ve had, every single time they’ve hurt each other if that’s what you want: their first time? It literally comes from a very serious argument where Sokka believed he had reached the pinnacle of his potential as a fighter and feared Azula would need someone else to achieve her goals instead of him.

AND YOU’RE SERIOUSLY HERE ASKING IF THEY’LL EVER ARGUE OVER ANYTHING ELSE.

You don’t read this story. This ask absolutely proved it to me. You only read chapter 28 and everything potentially connected to Sokka having anything with other women. You don’t CARE about anything else, simply. Because if anything actually had ANY impact on you? You’d say something about it. But the only thing that touches your weird heart is Sokka sleeping with anyone else or having any potentially romantic interactions with someone else, whether he rejects them or not.

You don’t care about Gladiator. You only care about your ego, and the validation of your worldview and puritanic morals.

And to that I say, fuck that noise. I write whatever the hell I want to write, and you’re not going to rope me into playing it safe just to please insecure harassers who don’t know boundaries and are completely incapable of empathizing with anyone while demanding everyone should understand their feelings.

Final note on this matter: you, also, have no idea what love is. You plain and simple don’t understand it. You’re even more confused by what love should be than Azula was at the start of this story. You don’t get it, AT ALL.

All you want is for them to get even on things? You literally asked me, when I was in my angry spree of deleting your bullshit, to make Azula and her future husband have happy consensual quality sex with who knows how many orgasms... because it was only fair!

AGAIN: YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND LOVE IN THE LEAST.

If you think love is about getting even, you’re seriously an asshole. If you think love is about both people being 100% equal in social regards and experiences, you don’t even UNDERSTAND human relations. Do you live in a bubble, by any chance? Maybe you do! You must have zero contact with anyone other than people with your same puritanic beliefs, right? So that means you assume everyone who’s different from you is fundamentally a bad person? I take it?

Like... literally at this point I think you’d hear about someone who was abused in their childhood, molested, and your reaction would simply be “Oh wow I hope someone molests whoever they end up marrying too, so that way they may be even in the future and been molested by the exact same number of people, otherwise it’s not really love”.

This is fucking sick. I’m not holding back at this point, it’s SICK. It’s TWISTED. It’s VILE. Your mentality is absolutely repulsive to me. You don’t know what love is, and you have the most literal, obvious change to understand it better by reading this story properly, but instead you just read chapter 28 over and over and over again, isn’t that right?

And here’s the evidence of that. You really want me to answer that last question?

No, it doesn’t bug me to read that AT ALL. Because unlike you? I don’t obsessively reread 28 while disregarding everything else in the story. Unlike you, I don’t revisit the chapter every day to pick apart every line to look for reasons to get extra angry at those developments.

Most of us, when faced with things we DON’T like in fiction? We move past it. You, instead, dig yourself into a hole and continue digging, and then pretend to hold other people responsible for whatever impact this may be having on your psyche. Because yes, you’re holding me responsible for whatever trauma or insecurity this is awakening inside you when you continue to pester me as you have: if you’re an adult, you should have the tools and brains to determine what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior, as well as to curate your own experiences with media, with fandom, with EVERYTHING to do with these communities. If you choose to look for things to hate instead of things to love, THAT’S ON YOU.

And if you’re allegedly looking for things to love but can’t find ANY that suit your purposes (which... is bullshit. Clearly, your only priority is “Sokka must be a virgin who never had anything with anyone else”, and such stories DO exist, which I guarantee considering I’ve written at least THREE of them, where it’s absolutely stated that Sokka’s first and only one is Azula)...

Well, it’s funny. Because when I got here? I was looking for some very specific fics so I could explore whether or not Sokkla made any sense. And I didn’t find them.

Which resulted...

... In me writing the very stories I wanted to see.

Oh, my. Imagine taking your impulses and channeling them into something productive rather than looking for reasons to get angry 24/7! Must be such a NOVEL CONCEPT for you!

Seriously, you have no right to dictate what anyone does. Again, worth bringing up because you INSIST on the rewriting matter. Even if you’re claiming you’re done asking for it, you somehow KEEP bringing it up. And then you act like me mentioning 28′s events here or there in the story is absolutely outrageous... but you just go right on ahead and do the same thing yourself, don’t you? Funny how much of a hypocrite you really are, isn’t it?

The fact that you’re bringing up something I have NEVER written, and have NO INTENTIONS of ever writing, as some sort of stupid, ridiculous argument to be made AGAINST the post I literally reblogged TODAY... is just absurd beyond belief.

The fact that I ever even wrote Sokka cheating on Suki with Azula, which I DID, still bothers me. Because yes, it made for a good story, but the truth is, it doesn’t sit well with me. It worked in The Reason, worked in my collab story with a friend, but it doesn’t mean I feel 100% happy with that choice. Even if the cheating only amounted to a kiss in The Reason, and then a lot worse than just that in the other story, it’s still not cool! :’) I know this!

... And yet no one, NO ONE, has ever caught me writing Sokka cheating on Azula. In fact, when my collab story with my friend seemed to start moving towards that angle I BEGGED her not to do it, and then she didn’t, and my heart was deeply relieved and blissful for it. Because not only did it mean we wouldn’t have to deal with the very controversial and unsettling notion of someone in a good relationship cheating on their significant other... but because in that story, it also showed how much he had grown, and how he was truly devoted to Azula despite he hadn’t been to Suki.

But alas, I have my qualms with that concept, of course I do. And I don’t like it. Ergo, I’ll never write it.

Which begs the question as to WHY, exactly, you’re so obsessed with the notion of Sokka cheating on Azula? Like... do you get off on it? Are you wanking at the idea of Sokka and June every single night and then wake up feeling like crap and then take it out on me, by any chance? Is that what’s going on? Because I’m seriously starting to believe it is.

You clearly don’t understand anything about storytelling, which is probably why you don’t have the guts to create your own content in the first place. But the fact that I reblog a post about how conflict in a story is GOOD, and your first thought is “THEN THAT MEANS YOU APPROVE OF SOKKA CHEATING!” actually says A LOT MORE about you than it says about me. You need help. Clearly, the therapy site I was sending you to the last time wasn’t much good, was it? I guess you just ignored it in the end. Hopefully the reading comprehension one will suit you better, right?

Fuck you, seriously, for coming to someone who has been working this hard for this long, for a ship that they’re completely devoted to, to spout this kind of senseless shit. To think you seriously ever believed I’d accept your half-assed apologies when you’ve been doing this sort of bullshit for this long... you’re a piece of work. If you have the time to write that BULLSHIT into my inbox, at the very least use that time to look INWARD and ponder just what your damn problem is, resolve it on your own, AND LEAVE ME THE HELL OUT OF IT. Someone as immature and unstable as you has no business reading M-rated fiction, and I honestly rue the day you ever clicked my story. Both your life and mine would be countless times better if you simply had scrolled past it.

And on and on we went today. The THREE MORE ASKS that arrived as I was typing this insanely long response. Which resulted in you bumping the total, successfully, to 20. MIGHTY NICE OF YOU TO PROVE ME RIGHT! :’)

Now then, getting serious here... I must say your priorities are fucked. Like. Really fucked.

You’d rather Sokka tries to KILL AZULA than have a one-time sexual encounter with someone?

Like... you’re here, condoning VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN to that extent...? :’D and then you... you actually have the balls to whine because apparently him hurting her feelings is WORSE?!

Are you EVEN LISTENING TO YOURSELF???

You know, I think I have to offer you some REALLY good advice right now: go watch Naruto. Seriously, all of it. Go watch it, and enjoy your sweet loins’ release once Sasuke and Sakura start trying to kill each other, ONLY TO END UP TOGETHER AT THE END! :’) They were both 100% faithful to each other too, in the sense of Sakura getting depicted as a girl who can’t ever get over the guy she had a crush on when she was 6, no matter if he tries to kill her or her friends once he starts to go off the deep end, and Sasuke getting depicted as a guy who treats everyone like garbage, even the people he loves, because his manpain story somehow validates him being absolutely toxic to everyone he knows, so that’s absolutely up your alley! 100% the love story you’ve been looking for! You’re gonna LOVE IT.

Man, I just can’t believe you. I really can’t believe you. You’re seriously asking me to feature Sokka trying to kill Azula because that’s more acceptable to you. There was a story out there, you know? With Azula basically using Sokka to commit suicide, impaling herself on his sword and dying? You should just go look for that too, perfect fit for you (though it may be gone from the depths of this wretched site by now, which tbh I’d be grateful for, since it was the most unsettling, disturbing read).

Also? Thank you, truly, for all the remarkably shallow compliments you’ve thrown at me to “soften” your “criticism” (which, again, is whining, not legitimate criticism). Calling me a capable writer is super NICE of you, especially after all these months of persistent harassment and constant repetition that I should rewrite whatever you don’t like. I mean... that’s definitely the way someone treats a capable writer, isn’t that right?

“The problem isn’t conflict it’s what the conflict is”, the anon says. I’ve been writing a story for 8 years, 198 chapters and counting... and I’ve had a ton of different types of conflicts for Sokka and Azula to deal with. If your problem is “I don’t like this conflict”, FINE. But... hey. There have been THOUSANDS of other sources of conflict across the story, so many I don’t think I can even promise I’d ever take my time to count them all... there’s whole ARCS with conflicts regarding world politics and the war’s consequences and both Azula and Sokka completely changing their worldviews as they realize their realities are soooo much more complicated than they ever knew...!

Ergo. There ARE other conflicts. There are SO MANY of them that there’s no point in even listing it all out.

And yet you are obsessed with the one conflict you didn’t like, outright acting like THIS IS THE ONLY CONFLICT THERE EVER WAS, as proven by that preposterous and mindless “when will Azula ever hurt Sokka” ask. The one development you were pissed at, because it tickled your loins the wrong way. Oh yes, I’m a capable writer, I could’ve done things differently...!

BUT I DIDN’T!

And aren’t you thrilled that I didn’t? You would be a complete nobody in this fandom if this hadn’t happened, because otherwise what would you POSSIBLY have to complain about?! To harass someone about?! You’d be SO BORED! You’d be so unknown, nobody would even be aware of your existence...!

Though.

Wait.

You’re an anon.

You’re unreachable and nobody really knows who you are.

... So never mind, you actually still are a complete nobody in this fandom and your only attempt to even take part in it is to be a negative, irritating presence that literally makes people facepalm, laugh and ridicule you to the extent I and many others have laughed at you.

And yes, that post I reblogged was 100% worth reblogging. Why? Because it hits the nail on the head:

I DIDN’T WRITE 28 SO YOU’D BE HAPPY WITH SOKKA.

I DIDN’T WRITE THAT CHAPTER TO MAKE PEOPLE THINK “OH WOW WHAT A WHOLESOME SITUATION”.

I WROTE IT BECAUSE IT WAS MEANT TO DETONATE CONFLICT AND SPEED UP CHARACTER GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT, WHICH IT DID.

And the thing is? Maybe, in the future, I’ll write other stories, just as I wrote the Saturdays’ stories, and Sokka won’t have either meaningful or worth mentioning encounters with anyone else in them. Maybe I’ll write original fiction, and there won’t be any twists like what happened in 28!

But you will never get over this.

You will never care about any other content beyond this.

And that’s your failing, not mine.

If you would rather obsess over what makes you angry, that’s on YOU. But I’m damn sure I wrote a pretty reasonable conflict, character-wise, that was not only consistent with characterization but with the slightly darker take of the Avatarverse I’ve been working with. Not only that, but I NEVER skipped the consequences of their actions. I literally had them facing those consequences for whole arcs. Sokka assumed he’d never have a chance to be with Azula and made his peace with it, WITHOUT EVER PRETENDING HIS DEVELOPING FEELINGS FOR AZULA WERE ANYTHING THAT ENTITLED HIM TO HER LOVE IN RETURN. But oh, that’s too complex for you to understand, isn’t it? The fact that Sokka actually loves Azula for her, and not for himself, that he devotes himself to her in every imaginable way, that he fights people who dare disrespect her, that he would stop at NOTHING, even coming close to killing someone, to keep her safe despite he’s completely against killing people? That all means NOTHING to you.

And again? THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM. THAT’S YOUR FAILING. THAT YOU’RE SO OBSESSED WITH 28 AND CAN’T MOVE PAST IT IS NOT MY FAULT, IT’S YOURS.

Because I damn right moved past it. I’ve moved so far past it I literally don’t ever THINK about that damn situation until your stupid asks start arriving. Heck, maybe if you didn’t ASK so much about it, I’d stop bringing it up in recent chapters of the story :’) how do you feel about that particular kernel of unexpected information? Maybe you’re impacting the story in a whole shocking manner by inception-ing 28 into my head all the time and that’s why I can’t seem to stop throwing in lines referencing it for you to go completely BONKERS over. How about that? :’)

Say... how exactly do you think this fic is special? Literally all I know is you think I’m a capable writer who can create something perfectly catered for you, and yet ALL the feedback I’ve ever gotten from you is “REWRITE 28 AND EVERYTHING ABOUT SOKKA HAVING ANYTHING WITH OTHER GIRLS I DON’T UNDERSTAND ANY OF THIS I’M GENUINELY CURIOUS THIS IS LEGITIMATE CRITICISM SIGNING OFF BYE”. Your compliments are completely devoid of meaning because they’re literally just a handful of “you’re a good writer” and you don’t even say WHY you think I’m good. You don’t ever come here to tell me how much you enjoyed a certain scene, or how happy you are with a certain development... No.

Because when Sokka and Azula got married? What did I get?

“HOW CAN YOU LET SOKKA AND AZULA GET MARRIED NOW WHEN HE SLEPT WITH SOMEONE ELSE IN CHAPTER 28?!”

I wish I had screenshots for those, but you and I both know the truth, you irksome anon, and the truth is you did exactly that. And with every new development in Shu Jing, I got yet more reviews and ask(s), persistently whining about how UNFAIR it is that now Azula apparently is locked in marriage with this unfaithful man who has been unfaithful to her a grand total number of ZERO TIMES ever since their relationship began! How DARES he even think about marrying her?! Scourge of earth, let’s murder him in cold blood because DEATH IS BETTER THAN CHEATING!!!

If you think highly of Gladiator for ANY REASON, you’ve kept those reasons well and safely tucked away in the depths of your broken heart or shared them with anyone but me. Look at all these asks, damn you, and tell me at what point in time did you convey ANYTHING beyond “why don’t you write what I want you to write?”, huh? Because hell, I don’t see it in any of them. Literally nowhere. No backwards (: emojis are compliments or evidence of how much this story allegedly means to you. All I know is that you hate 28 and everything about it.

And you see...

I don’t give a flying fuck.

I don’t.

You can hate 28 all you want.

You can hate June.

You can hate Sokka.

It is, INDEED, a free world.

But you have no right, NONE WHATSOEVER, to commit to this level of harassment as you have, for A WHOLE YEAR, and pretend the problem is that I, Seyary, the “evil super-sensitive author who writes Sokka sleeping with other people and doesn’t even break a sweat but then crumbles to pieces when “negative” feedback arrives”, can’t handle your comments properly.

I’ve said it before, damn you: NO ONE NEEDS TO REITERATE THEIR OPINIONS A MILLION TIMES. NO ONE. NOT YOU, NOT THE PEOPLE DEMANDING FOR THE PLOT TO KICK INTO HIGH GEAR, NOT THE ONES WHO THINK THIS SHIP IS GARBAGE, NOT ANYONE.

NO ONE HAS ANY RIGHT OR REASON TO COME BACK PERSISTENTLY THORUGHOUT A YEAR TO HARASS SOMEONE NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES THEY’RE TOLD TO STOP IT.

Point being: HATE WHAT YOU WILL! But keep it the fuck off my blog. And if you CAN’T? Get used to these responses. Because you’re going to get them, constantly. I guarantee it.

I know your damn opinion already. I know it by heart and I damn wish I didn’t. You are perfectly free to go read all the other stories where I’ve had Sokka staying faithful to Azula, with Azula being his first, or with Azula being much more experienced and sleeping around while Sokka stays mostly chaste... but you don’t. You come back, every time, to my miserable inbox that must cry every time you show up in it, to make these demands and pretend you have any power over what I should be writing.

Again, no, I have no idea why this story matters to you at all. And at this point? I’d rather NOT know. Because I’m 100% sure the only thing that matters most to you is chapter 28. So you know, go ahead, wank to it again and cry yourself to sleep. It’s kind of fascinating to have written something that has such a visceral emotional impact on a complete and total stranger. Makes it clear I’ve made a lot of progress as a writer if I can fuck up someone’s life to this extent with what I’ve written.

Yeah. Sure. You really think I’ll buy it? You really think this is goodbye? Oh, no, Anon. You can’t stay away. You’ve been told to, you’ve been asked to, but you can’t.

So no, I’m not wishing you good luck back. And I’m certainly not wishing you any fun with my fic, because it’s more than clear that the only source of entertainment it provided you was chapter 28, seeing as it’s the only impactful thing I apparently ever wrote. And someone who’s that obsessed with one of the chapters I most disliked writing despite I knew the plot would benefit from it in the long run simply can’t deserve to have fun. So... good suffering over Gladiator, if anything? Go ahead and continue to wrack your brain while trying to unravel why, oh, why would ANYONE ever write what I wrote and still call themselves a Sokkla shipper?!

I dunno, maybe go on and write something similar yourself. Could be you’ll finally figure out what your problem is if you take to writing the cheating storylines you’re so very much obsessed with. Only, heh, I can guarantee I’m not touching anything you write, out of principle more than anything. I plain and simple don’t want anything to do with you... but as I don’t intend to close my inbox again, it seems I have no choice, do I?

Good fucking luck sticking to this alleged goodbye... but we both know you’ll be coming back very soon, won’t you? No worries, Anon, I’ll be waiting this time. Let’s see if you can break your 20-ask-streak record next time, shall we? :’)

It’s December 13th, at 2:32 PM, in my location. Let’s see how long it takes you to come back, shall we?

EDIT: I neglected to check constantly so it definitely arrived earlier than this, but officially received a response at least 2 hours after this post went live.

Didn’t I call it? Yep, absolutely called it.

#I need a name for this anon #though I guess stalker-harasser anon would work?#yep #stalker-harasser anon #there we go #honestly it feels so utterly backwards to still talk about this to this day #and yet #it never ends #:')#here we go have this dumpster fire of a post #I'm legit going to time this shit #and report right back to you all #once the stalker-harasser comes back #it's the only genuinely hilarious part of this whole thing after all

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songfell-ut · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter 9 is done, urgh

This one was quite the exercise in rewriting All The Phrasing. Stoopid fortunes. I ended up splitting it off again. Here it is! Hi, @lostmypotatoes! Next one very soon!

Sans and Frisk did not have a slumber party that night.

No, once they returned from the festival and she finished telling Sans exactly what she thought of his behavior, Frisk sent him to his room, then went to the office and stayed there. Not on the couch: she sat down at her desk to make a few notes while the fortunes were still fresh in her mind. By the time she was done, it was after dawn, her hand was one solid cramp, she'd lost all feeling in her rear, and she had filled up five sheets of paper.

Regarding the child – the one from her nightmares – there wasn't much to write, just key phrases that she suspected would be more intelligible when she'd tracked down the man who spoke in hands. Would Sans have mentioned it if he knew some way in which he didn't belong here? It could simply be his stay in the castle, but it felt bigger than that. She'd had nightmares about that horrible child throughout her entire life, and it had never wanted her to do anything before; had it known she'd meet him, and would its "business" be finished if she killed him?

For now, it was all morbid conjecture. She'd put it aside until she could talk to Sans without wanting to pull his arm off and slap him with it.

So. If she didn't open the box, her life would be adequate. There was a lot to be said for adequacy. Her children would have wealthy, loving parents, and never suffer from hunger, loneliness, beatings—the kind of pain that was all behind her now, the same way a loaded wagon is behind the horse pulling it. Staying busy with her lessons in the strict, orderly convent and then her duties as High Priestess had kept Frisk going, preventing her from having to look over her shoulder. Would marrying Luke keep it that way?

She had gone years without really thinking of her life before St. Brigid's, except for fleeting apprehensions about having to explain the scars to her future husband. Why in God's name would she want to dig that up in the course of remembering something even worse?

By definition, she didn't know the exact contents of the rosewood box. She just knew that when she was about thirteen, one of her teachers had finally explained to Frisk why she couldn't recall anything between her tenth birthday and her second month at the convent: "We could do nothing with you when you first arrived. No food, no rest, just tears and 'Take me back, please' for weeks on end," Sister Clair had told her, almost accusingly. "Your father came to see you for himself, and he was so distraught that he gave the Mother Superior his blessing to do whatever she thought needful."

Frisk had always accepted that the sisters knew best; her father's influence had probably been a factor, but it wouldn't have pushed them to take such a drastic step if it hadn't been absolutely necessary. She herself had done her fair share of comforting frightened or homesick new arrivals, and no matter how distressed they were, none of them had had their memories removed.

She also had come to terms with her father returning home from his visit without her. Her first solid recollection at the convent was of the Mother Superior taking her aside to tell her exactly who her father was, ensuring she understood why he hadn't been a more direct part of her life and why she would be staying here from now on. Accustomed to receiving girls born out of wedlock, the Mother had emphasized how lucky Frisk was that her father had come forward – discreetly – to acknowledge her and pay for her education, and that he would ensure she had everything she needed from then on. Even as a child, Frisk had appreciated how superior the convent was to her prior circumstances, and agreed that she was fine at St. Brigid's.

The only mystery to Frisk was why she had initially been so desperate to leave. She couldn't have been crying for her father; she'd always been told that he was dead, and never thought to question it. Frisk had seen over and over again that mistreated children never wanted to leave their parents, no matter how awful they were, but her mother had only visited her every few months throughout her early life, and once Frisk realized that Mama was never going to keep her promise to take her with her, Frisk had grown to hate seeing her. She hadn't been attached to anyone at the group home where she'd stayed as a very little girl, and when she was old enough to work in the castle kitchens, her only goal had been to avoid being noticed. What had she wanted so badly?

Since Sans had arrived, she had been more and more tempted to try something stupid and just crack the orb or chip off a few figuratively bite-sized pieces. But that wasn't how the magic worked, was it? The sisters had been very specific on how to take the memories back if she so chose, and her fortune had also made it clear that this was an all-or-nothing proposition. She would fully open the box and reclaim the contents, or throw them away for good, no peeking allowed.

At that point, Frisk almost stopped writing and tossed her notes into the fireplace. What was she doing? Why wouldn't she choose a long life with a respectable husband and four children? True, her efforts to free monsters from slavery wouldn't work, but that didn't mean she'd be totally useless. Besides helping humans – always a full-time job – there was still plenty she could do for monsters in captivity, and she'd lay the groundwork for others to finish what she'd started. After centuries of hatred and mistrust, it made sense that humanity wasn't ready yet to accept monsters as equals; she couldn't change the entire world on her own, so—

Except that she could. She could change the world for the better if she worked hard enough to achieve her goal, which she knew in her bones to be humans and monsters living in peace. But how could her lost memories possibly be the one thing that made the difference? And if they were, how was she supposed to deal with that much pain, knowing it would also affect at least one other person?

...But what about the joy, the love, the power, also to be shared? What about the child she'd bear in time for next year's All Souls festival?

That was another worry: the ferryman had said "your husband" for the first future, but "your child's father" in the second. That didn't seem accidental. Frisk knew herself, and she had no idea what would induce her to conceive a child with someone she wouldn't or couldn't marry, no matter how attractive he was or how lonely she might be. With her own morals and her mother's example to go on, she'd sooner die than let a married man near her, and she'd kill him if she found out after the fact!

Surely the fortune-teller would've mentioned the child resulting from violence or coercion? Its wry tone had implied that the father would be unable to talk her out of going to the festival, not that she'd escape from his clutches, which also eliminated the possibility of one night with someone she'd never see again or a man who would die before the baby was born.

So, in summary, she would have little triumphs, large regrets, old age, a decent husband, money, kids, in-laws, and grandkids. Very simple.

...Granted, it...didn't sound quite like the life she'd always craved, with joy and love, real parents, a huge family, and monsters freed in her lifetime, not to mention a man she loved enough to have his illegitimate child...and maybe Frisk could see Luke assuring her with a straight face that he'd "take an interest in her happiness," and maybe it was already making her cringe. Maybe she was already wealthy enough to marry anyone she wanted. Maybe she intended to keep working hard enough that, when she thought it over, she found she would much rather have one child than divide her attention between four who could very well end up being raised by servants. Maybe all these things were true.

...What was she trying to say again?

Right. Maybe all these things were true. There was still no avoiding the fact that she'd be exchanging a life of peace and stability for every bit of the heartbreak that had nearly killed her as a child, and somehow also share it with someone else. Was she stupid enough to open the box anyway out of curiosity, like the woman in the fable?

A treacherous little voice whispered in reply: Are you selfish enough to keep monsters enslaved because you're afraid of being hurt?

Frisk shoved the papers into a drawer and eased out of her chair, shaking her hand vigorously as the sun peeped in through the high window. It'd be time for breakfast soon. She wouldn't take Sans to pieces; she'd let him sleep in, then have him experiment with the alfalfa mixtures while she napped, though they'd need fresh seedlings before he could really get started. The supplies she had already ordered should be arriving this afternoon, which would enable them to try even more—

Sans was not sleeping. Sans was sitting in the middle of the workroom floor with no clothes on. He was holding a book up over his head and squinting at the words as though he'd never seen letters before, and gave a very elongated "Heyyyy" when he heard the door open.

Frisk stopped dead. "Hey," she responded. "What are you doing, Sans?"

"Wheeee," the skeleton said, and demonstrated by falling onto his back. The book stayed up, and his legs fell every which way, one bumping into a chair pulled away from the worktable and the other almost hitting the bedroom door. "'s hot in here," he explained, pointing at the ceiling.

Frisk looked at the ceiling, then at the windows. They were all wide open, and the workroom was freezing. She had the completely irrational urge to cover her eyes, and compromised by turning her back and heading to the windows. "We're going to pretend that it's not hot in here," she said carefully. What on earth was wrong with him?

In the time it took for her to shut one window and place her hand on the latch, Sans had appeared inches away. One enormous phalange wobbled its way up to push her hand aside. "No, 's hot," he explained.

The priestess was equal parts annoyed and concerned now, especially when he teetered against the wall. "Sans, if I did not know better, I would say you were drunk. Have you been mixing things without telling me?" She eased away from him, just in case.

The skeleton seemed to take umbrage: his eyes lit up. "Ya don' know better. I am absolutely drunk!" Just as quickly, his sockets were blank. He peered at the tiny-looking book in his hand and turned it to her, tapping a random word. "How d'ya say this? It's human. How do you human. Please."

Frisk eased back a little more, trying not to look at his pelvis, which was far too close to her eye level. "That's the word 'the,' Sans. If that's not the one you mean, I will have to ask you to be more specific." Should she make a break for the bedroom, or just put up a barrier while she had the chance?

Sans laughed. "Damn, yer cute! Lessee." He dropped the book and continued trying to flip pages in midair. A moment later, he realized his mistake, scowled, and lifted the book on a wisp of red. "Hold on. 's tryin' ta get away." Even the magic had trouble staying steady, she noted uneasily.

Someone knocked on the double doors, and Frisk heaved a sigh of relief. "You can find the word while I answer that, all right?" She lifted a foot to step around him.

Unbelievably quick, Sans sat down, extended a hand, and caught her around the middle in a loose, ironclad grip. Across the workroom, the bar on the doors glowed red and lifted; the doors swung open. "There," said the boss monster, tugging her closer and frowning at the book. "Who's what y'want?"

It was Dr. Serif, who stopped on the threshold, raised an eyebrow as high as it would go, and closed the doors behind him. "Good morning?" he inquired.

"Hands," the skeleton replied, still searching the pages for that errant word.

The priestess was still trying to comprehend what was happening. Was this some kind of bizarre prank, or a distraction from talking about last night? The longer he held on, the less likely either possibility seemed—he was too calm and too comfortable, as if this was something he was doing simply because he wanted to do it.

Here they were, then. With Sans seated and her standing, the giant skeleton could fold his arm and hold Frisk against him like a child cuddling a teddy bear, fingers spread across her upper legs and torso, her shoulders resting on his clavicle. This wasn't quite as scary as the last time he'd grabbed her, but...

Frisk tested his grip and was unsurprised to find that, though his phalanges were angled not to dig into her, they were about as movable as solid rock. "We're having a very interesting morning," she said to Dr. Serif, and mouthed Help!

"I can see that," said the doctor, who gestured for her not to move, then came forward a few steps. Sans' head swiveled, eyes fully lit, and the royal sorcerer turned his next step into a half bow. "I am glad to hear that you had a good time at the festival last night, my lady. Rumors are brewing about a woman with a highly interesting fortune who was called 'Your Eminence,' but no one is willing to swear that it was you."

That sounded like one problem too many. "Good" was all she could think to say.

"I can't find it," complained Sans. He tossed the book out the window. "Gimme another one, pl's."

"You can have it later," Frisk said acidly. That was her old science textbook from the convent, with her notes and doodles in the margins!

"Sans," said the doctor, "where are your clothes?"

The skeleton blinked at him, sockets still wide orange. "Off," he said, as though the sorcerer was being stupid.

"Of course. How silly of me." Dr. Serif bowed vigorously, letting the motion carry him forward. "Tell me, what did you have to drink at the festival?"

"This asshole was comin' onta her." The skeleton's now-free hand patted Frisk very lightly on the head. Despite her irritation, the priestess couldn't help smiling. "I hit 'im with cider," said Sans. "Damn good cider. 'sat why those people were goin' at it, Frisk?" he asked curiously.

The priestess was no longer smiling. "Sans intervened on my behalf when a man wouldn't leave me alone," she explained to the straight-faced doctor. "We tried some apple cider—why can I still smell it on you, Sans? And yes, we saw a couple who couldn't wait until they found somewhere private. I have no idea what they'd been drinking, but it wasn't what we were having."

"Hmmm." Dr. Serif watched Sans, who was examining the back of Frisk's head, then produced a scroll from his robe pocket. "The monster Snowdrake has been confiscated from his owners, effective immediately. I've brought the paperwork for you to take official custody, my lady. He will be here once the captain of the guards has finished questioning him."

Sans started. Frisk tugged at the skeleton's enormous metacarpals. "Let me go, Sans, please."

Very reluctantly, his hand uncurled to let her wriggle free. Trust the doctor to be a step ahead of everyone, she thought as she accepted the scroll, unaware that Sans was staring fixedly at him. The priestess smoothed out the papers on the worktable and began skimming through it.

Sans turned around so that he stretch out on the floor lengthwise. The doctor wrinkled his nose at the colossal skeleton, then peered over Frisk's shoulder as she came to several blank lines for an address. "Where is that, my lady?" he asked as she began writing.

"It's a house I own on the edge of the city. I've been renting it out, but the current tenants have already moved for the winter, so I'm putting it down as Snowdrake's official residence."

"Well done." Dr. Serif glanced at Sans, then suddenly flicked his fingers across Frisk's back. "Forgive me, Your Eminence," he said as she jumped, "there was a spider. We'll have to have your rooms cleaned soon."

The High Priestess scratched her back, gave him a terse nod, and went back to the scroll, moving away from him.

Sans was on his feet. He said to Frisk, "'Scuse us, kitten," then grabbed the doctor and vanished.

She wondered why he was so upset, and why he'd teleported Dr. Serif just a few feet away into the office. Well, at least he'd let go of her without a fight. Should she check on him to be sure he wouldn't hurt the doctor?

After a moment, she shook her head. She'd have to let them hash it out. What was the worst that could happen?

The moment they reached the office, Gaster dropped his disguise, summoned six extra hands, and gripped the boss monster's arms before Sans could dismember him. "Easy, now," the older skeleton cautioned him. "Don't disrupt Her Eminence any more than you already have."

"Oh yeah? 'll disrupt yer fuckin'—"

Smack. "Hold still," the doctor rasped, and Sans jerked convulsively as a hand gripped the back of his skull. A moment later, the hand disappeared and left Sans with his eyes shut tight. "Can you think now, insofar as you are capable of it?" snapped Gaster.

Sans blinked at the hands grasping his arms. They disappeared, too, and Sans looked down at himself. "What." He twisted around to look at his backside. "The hell are my clothes? What'd ya do?"

"I sped up the metabolism of the ethanol molecules that were causing you to lose track of your clothing and treat the High Priestess like a toddler with his favorite toy. In short, you were drunk, and you no longer are. Would you care to tell me how much alcohol it took to inebriate someone your size so many hours after the fact, and how you did so without the lady knowing?"

Sans had gone red. "All I had last night was turkey an' cider!" he protested. "She wouldn't let me try anythin' else! She had the exact same stuff, 'n she didn't get plastered!"

The older skeleton regarded him with narrowed eyes, which was extremely creepy. It made Sans think of Frisk's first question, the one about the child from her nightmares—had Frisk been talking about him? If so, then how did he not belong here? Did the kid's unfinished business with him involve murder? Why?

Why should they beware the man who spoke in hands?

Gaster started to speak, and Sans cut him off: "Were you tryin' ta piss me off back there? Are ya after Frisk, or d'you just wanna screw with me? Whaddya want?"

"To help," the doctor said calmly.

Sans sat down with a mighty thmp. "Ta help. Of course. Why didn't I realize that already?" He tapped his phalanges on the carpet. "Who are you helpin', besides yerself?"

"That is a very large question." Gaster also sat down, on the edge of the desk. "My most immediate goal since Frisk became High Priestess has been to aid her in restoring peace between monsters and humans. The longer I have worked with her, the more I find that, frankly, I like her, and I would like her to be happy if possible." No sooner had the words left him than a hand sprang up in front of Sans, who was already fully aglow. The hand held up a finger long enough for Gaster to add, "Which is to say, I admire her caring heart, her singing voice, her magical prowess...her determination. Would you agree?"

Sans' eyes felt ready to burn clean through his skull. Frisk would get even more upset with him if her office was destroyed, so he tried to say something civil, or at least something okay, or something that wouldn't get him smacked again. But he couldn't.

The hand waggled again, then vanished. "Everything I say and do is for one ultimate purpose, my boy: to gather data. I can help no one if I have insufficient information. Take you, for example." The older skeleton folded an extra set of hands in the air over his lap, like a lecturer settling in at the start of class. "Since the High Priestess made you her apprentice, I have considered your intractability to be an impediment to her plan. I ensured that she had a means of preventing your escape, and I have been monitoring your relationship to see if you were developing any kind of rapport. Now that you have, though, you have become a very different sort of problem."

The boss monster was still at a loss. Gaster was quiet, but it didn't feel as if he was trying to antagonize him again; this seemed more careful, almost sad, thought Sans. "In that respect, I have all the data I need," the doctor said. "I assure you that I have no personal designs on Her Eminence, and I will not imply anything further to that effect." He was looking through Sans now, almost talking to himself. "The more I resolve to be of use, the more difficult it becomes to discern where usefulness ends and interference begins. I am more inclined to let matters go where they will from here on, especially after the advice Her Eminence received last night. But..." The slashes on Gaster's face deepened. "It cannot hurt to exchange information. For example, did you notice that the 'ferryman' is a monster?"

"I..." Sans got his thoughts back in order, contemplated the fortune-teller and his cat-shaped table, and found himself nodding slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I kinda did. He didn't seem very human."

Gaster chuckled. "It's strange how these things work. Where I come from, he is the ferryman in the Underground."

"Where you come from?" A chill crept down Sans' spine. He tried to force a laugh. "We just have a coupla Royal Guards runnin' our ferry. Wha, is there more'n one Underground 'round here?"

"No. There is not." The smile faded. "Now, my turn. None of the people who heard Frisk's fortunes told were listening closely to her first question, or the answer. What exactly were they?"

Sans still had that prickly feeling, like someone had held a door open too long and he'd glimpsed something he couldn't unsee. He probably shouldn't tell the man who speaks in hands that they were supposed to beware of him, should he? "Yeah, she asked about something from her nightmares that wanted her to hurt somebody. He said it's a child who wants Frisk to kill someone who doesn't belong here, something about it having 'unfinished business,' and that Frisk was its connection."

The doctor waited patiently as Sans hesitated. "I'm pretty much positive she meant me," the boss monster continued. "I saw the kid once, and I could tell it hates my guts." The boss monster took a moment to indicate that he didn't have guts, ha ha, but Gaster was unamused. "So that means I don't belong here, and some freaky little ghost wants Frisk t'finish me off? I guess? Any chance ya know what any of that means?" He scratched his patella, wondering if it was his imagination or if his body was feeling a little more touch-sensitive than usual, like his human self.

Come to think of it, he could sort of smell the air in here, though it wasn't as strong as any of the ones he'd encountered at the festival. And now he could vaguely remember Frisk being right up against him a minute ago, and that her hair had smelled like...a smell. All he knew was that he had liked it, and letting her go had sucked.

...Crap. What were they talking about again?

"I see," murmured Gaster. He looked down at his extra hands. "Forgive me if this sounds dramatic, or if it's very personal, but have you ever felt especially out of place, or dreamed vividly of things that you are sure never happened to you?"

It was more than a chill this time. "Yeah, but I figured everybody feels like that sometimes. I've had the same nightmares my whole damn life, over and over. They stopped when I came here and started sleepin' inside her barrier. So..." He scowled, trying to cover his fear. "Somethin' is makin' us both see things? Is that it?" He suddenly sprang to his feet. "Is that why I used ta dream about ya? Are you behind all this shit?!"

Two skeletal hands flew at him and stopped just short of his eye sockets. Sans froze, feeling sick and cold inside as he stared through the holes in the palms. Those hands, coming at him—

Gaster gave a long, tired, defeated sigh. "Data. I am sorry, Sans. This will be very unpleasant, but I need to know if it is familiar to you. Hold still, please."

Before the boss monster could react, a third hand dropped onto the top of his skull and—

It was cold. Dark, darker, yet darker.

Papyrus wasn't moving. Sans struggled out of the restraints, threw himself onto the tiles and screamed at his brother, trying to shake the little skeleton awake, but pieces were already flaking off. Helpless tears streamed from Sans' sockets, soaking the dust into pink mud.

"Messy."

Sans whirled around, choking with grief and rage. He'd always promised himself he would kill the bastard before he let him hurt Pap! Why hadn't he—

Hands smashed into his spine, his ribs, and one square over his face, the palm large enough for both his sockets to see out through the hole. "I never could fix that design flaw," their creator said in distaste, poking at the red streaking Sans' cheekbones. "Strange...I always thought you'd break first. Ah, well." A philosophical sigh. "Now, the question of whether to finish with you and create a better set, or try a fresh copy of that one first. What do you think, Sans?"

There was a deep sound from behind Dr. Gaster, almost a snarl. It was Gaster's turn to whip around, his face contorted in surprise and every one of his hands flung up to defend himself. A flash of light, searing pain—

Footsteps. A dark figure bent over him. Sans whimpered as Gaster loomed back into his field of view. He should have known better than to hope he was dead!

But...Gaster seemed different, almost another person—paler, the cracks in his face more shallow and less splintered than the ones Sans had stared down his whole life. The hand that rested on Sans' forehead was...gentle? "I am so sorry, child," the scientist said quietly. "Forgive me."

Sans couldn't answer. He felt as if his bones were getting softer, his body lighter. When Gaster sighed, Sans watched tiny bits of himself blow away in the puff of breath. It was almost a relief to feel his SOUL flicker out like a candle and finally die.

Sans clawed his way back to consciousness, sitting up so hard that he nearly banged his head on the desk. He looked around, but there was no laboratory equipment, no tile floors or piles of murky dust, just the desk in her office.

Frisk's office. He was here. He wasn't dead, Pap wasn't dead, Gaster wasn't—

"Please do not move."

The boss monster froze in place. "Now, tell me," the doctor said, shutting the door. "Have you had that nightmare before?"

Sans nodded imperceptibly. "Yeah. Long...a long time ago." He couldn't stop shaking.

He flinched as Gaster patted his shoulder blade. "Please don't be frightened, Sans. It was only a dream. I have never hurt you or your brother, and I have no intention of ever doing so." A black coat drifted past Sans' peripheral vision as the royal sorcerer went behind the desk. "To answer your last question, no, I have not sent any of your nightmares, or hers. As I said, I am here to acquire information. I try to avoid collateral damage in the pursuit thereof, but it is not always possible. For that, I sincerely apologize. I've asked Frisk for her help in calming you down."

Sure enough, a sound was coming through the door behind him. It was faint, but as Sans listened, he recognized her humming a slow, sweet little song. Out of her entire repertoire, that one was probably his favorite; he hadn't heard it in so long that he'd been on the verge of swallowing his pride and asking her to do it again. Had Gaster requested that one specifically, or did she know?

Gaster watched the tension fade from the boss monster's massive frame, and the smallest movements of his skull as he bobbed his head along. The doctor examined the center of Sans' chest, his eyes going very wide. Sans was too mellow to ask what he was looking at...probably his SOUL. Eh, whatever.

Presently, the royal sorcerer said, "Snowdrake should be en route now. Her Eminence is still checking that the papers are in order, as well as the deposit she will have to put down until the Church finds another buyer for him." A dry chuckle. "If I know Frisk, Snowdrake will not be sold again. In the unlikely event that someone discovers she's lost track of him, she will be rebuked and lose her deposit, and that will be all."

Sans moved his shoulder back. "She's not gonna get fired or locked up?"

"They wouldn't dare. Not for her first offense, and not for neglecting a single low-ranked monster. Our High Priestess is protected by very powerful connections."

That word took Sans right back to the child from her nightmares. "Why'd you show me that horrible thing with me 'n Pap, and how? I didn't see the ghost kid anywhere. Is the little psycho mad about that dream 'cause it wanted ta kill me first? What the hell is it, anyway?"

"One thing at a time, please. Overall, you may be on the right track, but that's a matter I would rather discuss with Frisk. I—"

"Quit callin' 'er by name. I thought you weren't gonna pull that crap anymore."

Gaster merely smiled. "If you'll bear with me for a moment, the best answer I can give you is that the mind is a terrifyingly powerful thing." Sans bit back his impatience as the doctor settled himself again. "When someone has suffered greatly, especially early in life, it is natural to try to move past those experiences as quickly as possible. But if the mind is active, intelligent, and magically gifted, failure to properly acknowledge these experiences can backfire very badly. Inner demons may become reality, or outside forces with malevolent intent take notice, or both."

"Geez." Sans rubbed the corners of his eyes, wondering where the hanky was. "Yeah, that'd explain why I never got any sleep before I shacked up with someone who could block 'em for me."

A beat of cold silence. "I am not talking about you."

The giant skeleton paused mid-rub. "Ya mean—"

"Most people in a great deal of pain will express it as destructive behavior toward themselves or others. It takes remarkable determination to turn that negativity into the drive to protect other people, rather than lashing out." The doctor shook his head. "I am impressed that she has not seen anything worse than the specter of an evil child. The fact that it can be stopped with a barrier suggests it is primarily external in nature, and her recognizing its intent without acting upon it is also a good sign."

Sans winced. "So, is she seeing it 'cause she's mad at me? Am I in any actual danger?"

Gaster laced his fingers together. "Its power and its ability to work through her will depend both on her intrinsic strength and the energy she has left after dealing with other problems—say, a protege who interrupts an expensive fortune-teller with crude questions in front of dozens of people, and then says 'See you next year' as she tries to get him away."

At this point, Sans would have been surprised if word of that incident hadn't gotten around. "Ya think she's still mad at me?" he asked sheepishly.

"I am not her, so I cannot say for certain, but I can ask you whether you've apologized yet."

"I didn't get a chance! She reamed me out 'n made me go straight t'bed!"

"After which you were drunk this morning, which I still do not understand, and during which you took sizable liberties." A hand popped up to rap Sans on the skull. "At the risk of interfering further, I strongly advise you to ask yourself whether you want to be a friend or a problem."

Sans digested this in silence. The royal sorcerer glanced at the door. "We have a few more minutes. I'd like to ask you a few more questions—nothing terrible, just some odds and ends I've wanted to discuss for some time now. You may do the same."

The boss monster thought it over for a moment. "What's everyone sayin' about her second fortune, the one with the box?"

"Your turn is already over." Two more hands appeared over Gaster's head, one holding a pen and the other a small notepad. "Now, you were a normal skeleton for most of your life, correct? And Papyrus remains as he was?" The hand with the pen swooped down and tapped on Sans' upper leftmost fang, then the top of his skull. "Hm. Intact. How interesting."

Sans swatted at the hand, which evaded him as nimbly as a bug and swooped back up to scratch something on the notepad. "Yeah, Pap's still Pap, and I wasn't born a big ol' freak. Don't ask how that happened, 'cause I don't wanna talk about it."

"Fair enough. Tell me, Sans, do you or have you ever smoked?"

"Smoked? From where?"

The doctor laughed. "I'll take that as a no." Scritch, scritch went the pen. "Do you have a predilection for violence? If so, is it against other monsters, humans, or both?"

"Uh...yes? Humans?"

"I see." Scriscritch. "What is your favorite food? Do you prefer any condiments in particular?"

"My favorite food's whatever I can eat! Haven't you heard what's happenin' in the Underground? Where the hell are you from, exactly?"

Gaster tsked. "In that vein, have any monsters besides yourself become more violent than usual?"

"Not...really. Undyne's more psycho than ever, but I think that's just her."

"Is the situation such that anyone has contemplated resorting to cannibalism?"

"Hell no! Don't even joke about that!"

"I am not joking, Sans. Has the Underground seen a marked increase in sexual activity?"

Great, now he was baffled and embarrassed. "Weren't you listening? There's no damn food! Why would anybody want to have kids right now?"

"A valid point, but to your knowledge, have any of the monsters been engaging in indiscriminate, non-procreative sexual activities?"

"Wha—why the fuck would I know that?!"

That earned him another smack on the head, though not very hard. "Language." Scriscritch. "Now, please be honest. Have you ever contemplated keeping a human as a pet? If so, do you believe you would treat her well, or would you—"

"That does it!" Sans lurched to his feet, eyes and face blazing. "I dunno what kinda sick fantasies ya got goin', buddy, but I'm not gonna play along!"

The royal sorcerer held up his hands, and the extras holding the pen and notepad vanished. "Let's move on, then. Tell me whether this is correct: the second fortune explained the consequences of Her Eminence either opening or disposing of a box. One result is a very dull and safe future, while the other would be shorter and more painful, but ultimately much more fulfilling. Yes?"

Sans sat back down, poking at a scuff mark on the carpet. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

"Unsurprisingly, many people are fixated on the latter possibility, because it would result in the High Priestess – if it is her, of course, which no one will say for certain, though they're certainly saying it – having a child by this time next year." One side of Gaster's mouth lifted. "It is a very popular misconception that human gestation lasts nine months, but in reality, medical experts consider a full-term pregnancy to be roughly forty weeks, or ten months. I will not contribute any sordid conjectures to the narrative, but if this aspect of her fortune is accurate, the necessary timing of certain events is self-evident."

"If?" Sans sat forward eagerly. "Ya mean it might not happen? No boring husband sometime soonish, no havin' a kid right away?"

Gaster stared at him for a little too long. "Where do you see yourself in this, Sans? Where would you like to be?"

Sans blinked. "Wha?"

"You escorted her to the festival, and mutual convenience led you to present yourselves as a couple, but you are not her husband. You are her apprentice and personal guard for the next twenty or so days, after which she will return to the usual course of her duties, and you will return to the Underground to report to King Asgore that the humans are interested in reopening diplomatic relations."

"Actually," Sans said, trying not to sound smug, "once my time's up, she's probably gonna come back Underground with me. She's got this big plan ta have monsters work with humans instead of bein' slaves, and it's too much fer me t'decide on, so—"

"So you would risk her life by bringing her directly to Asgore?" The doctor stood slowly, and the room seemed to grow darker as he glared down at Sans. "You idiot! Do you have any idea what will happen if the High Priestess is delivered to your King as he is now?"

"You mean, if he doesn't like her idea? Then I'll...uh..."

"You'll what?" Gaster's voice dripped with such scorn that Sans couldn't muster a response. "King Asgore is not interested in making peace! He would only meet with her in order to take her SOUL!"

The boss monster's mouth opened and closed. "But...if I didn't—"

"Asgore's sole aim is to become powerful enough to take vengeance on humanity. The King knows very well that only women with strong inborn magic may become High Priestess, and the moment he saw Frisk's SOUL for himself, he would be willing to fight her, you, and perhaps even Toriel to acquire it. Do you understand?"

Sans had never felt so small and stupid. Why hadn't it occurred to him that Asgore would notice how powerful Frisk was without being told? All he had thought of was the excuse to take her with him, not even bothering to remember how he had immediately noticed her SOUL and tried to kill her for it. He was smarter than this!

There was no time to beat himself up. He had to think. Her first fortune had said her efforts wouldn't bear fruit, and Gaster had mentioned Asgore "as he is now"; for the second future to come to pass, with Frisk changing the world and achieving her goal, the King would have to be more like his old, sweet-natured self, who would never have killed someone without at least hearing her out. "Whaddya think is in the box?" Sans asked abruptly.

Gaster frowned. "That's an excellent question. I couldn't even venture a guess without seeing the box myself, but I doubt Her Eminence would be willing to show me. After what you said last night, I don't think she would be receptive to you asking, either."

Sans let himself fall onto his back, staring at the wallpapered ceiling. Who the hell put wallpaper on the ceiling? "Nope. She'd kick my ass from here to the Underground and back."

"Crude, but accurate." Gaster sighed, twiddling his thumbs in elaborate swirls. "How very frustrating. We have so much information, but the most crucial component may be forever beyond our gr—"

The door banged open. "Excuse me," Frisk said to Sans, who got up and watched her shove the couch aside.

Gaster quickly resumed his disguise; luckily, the priestess was so fixated on the couch that she hadn't noticed. "May we help you, my lady?" asked Dr. Serif.

"No." The young woman yanked at a floorboard, and both monsters watched in astonishment as she pulled it up to reveal a makeshift safe. She removed the barrier and rummaged through the safe, extracting a thickly folded paper. "Here we are." Frisk scowled as she tried to remove the packet: the safe was so small that the paper was stuck lengthwise against something. The priestess dug downward and shoved the offending object up and onto the floor. "Here is the deed to my house in Riverview, and here's the key. You and Snowdrake will be able to stop there on your way, and no one will...Sans? Hello?"

The men weren't listening to her. They were looking at what had tumbled out of the safe: a rosewood box.

Frisk slapped at it, sending it tumbling back into the safe, which she resealed and covered with the floorboard and couch in rapid succession. "Don't even think about it," she said to them, dangerously calm, and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

The royal sorcerer scratched his cheek. "Memories."

"Hm?" Sans glanced at him. "What about 'em?"

"That type of wood is useful for preserving magical objects, but that shape and size are not common. Given the context of her second fortune and the emotional pain therein, it must contain at least one memory." Dr. Serif drummed his fingers on the desk. "How curious. Memory excision has historically been so abused that it was outlawed by King Stephin's great-grandfather. Nowadays, the procedure can only be authorized on a case-by-case basis by a Church official higher than an archdeacon, or the very highest ranks of the nobility or royalty."

Sans suddenly remembered a night not long after he'd arrived where Frisk had mentioned her father, and how loyal her mother had been to the duke she worked for. Just for grins, he'd looked up the hierarchy of nobility in one of Frisk's books, and a duke was the next best thing to being a royal. It all fit, except for the fact that what the hell was in the box? How did you keep memories sitting around like that? Why would you need to carve something like that out of someone's head, and how would getting it back make the difference between a future of "stupid perfect husband she didn't even like" and "monsters going free" plus "having sex sometime soon"?

One more thing came to mind, and before he could stop himself, Sans said, "Hey, Gaster. Doctor. Whatever you are right now. You say you're from another Underground or something?"

The doctor narrowed his eyes at him again. Even with a human face, it gave Sans the creeps. "Why do you ask?"

Sans almost said "Never mind," but the air still faintly smelled of Frisk – he'd have to ask her what it was, exactly – and he wouldn't get a chance to ask anyone else who might know, so, fuck it. "D'ya know if it's possible for a monster and a human to have a kid together? Biologically?"

The royal scientist raised his eyebrows. "Well," he said after a painfully long moment. "It is quite rare, but I am aware of several instances where a human woman married and had at least one child with a monster." He coughed. "With a skeleton."

But before Sans could even start feeling things about that, much less sort through them, the doctor half-smiled. "None of them, however, involved a boss monster." He stood, and walked to the door. "I'm sorry." He slipped out, leaving Sans to stare up at the wallpaper ceiling.

#songfell sick of not answering questions yet very soon i swear

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calumcest · 5 years ago

Text

you and i were fireworks that went off too soon - chapter two

[ao3]

yes i finished my essay and was like writing another 6k of fic vs doing all the other work thats due within the next 10 days...Hmm...so here we are

A week passes, and Luke almost succeeds in putting Ashton to the back of his mind.

He’s preoccupied with other things - the fact that he’s suddenly got three times as much work to do, because Chris has taken a week off to reunite with his soulmate; the fact that his boiler’s broken, and nobody’s around to come and fix it because everyone’s taking a break to try and find their soulmate; the fact that he’s having to stay at Calum’s, because his apartment is doing a great impression of a fridge right now, and that means listening to Michael and Calum’s hushed conversations about him when they think he’s asleep. They’re clearly worried about him, which is kind of sweet, but also makes Luke feel a little pathetic, throwing him back to the days after Ashton left where Michael and Calum would tiptoe around him, frowning at him but saying nothing, as though any words would be the wrong ones.

Luke goes home from time to time to pick up post and new clothes, and on Sunday, he notices a note has been stuck through his letterbox. It’s stuck to the soggy newspaper that’s been forced through, so the ink’s run and Luke can’t read it anymore. He shrugs and chucks it out with the newspaper, thinking that if it were someone he knew they would have texted him, so it was probably some kind of advertising.

The only topic of conversation in society now is the soulmate tattoos. More and more research is being done, families are being torn apart, brought together, and churches are booked for weddings for the next eighteen months straight. Luke had finally brought himself to ask his parents what their situation was, and they’d smiled, and that was all he’d needed to know.

Luke had thought it would take him a while to wrap his head around the idea of soulmates, but somehow, it hadn’t. Somehow, seeing the people he knows interact - seeing Michael and Calum interact - it seems like it’s the only logical answer, like there was never anything else they could have been. It sits uncomfortably in Luke’s stomach, because he knows it’s not like that for him and Ashton. Something went wrong with Luke’s tattoo - it wasn’t supposed to be Ashton, he’s sure of that. Or if it was, then maybe it was a sign from the universe that Luke should take a vow of celibacy.

Luke shrugs when he’s asked at work if he knows who his soulmate is. It’s not like he’s lying - he knows who his soulmate was, two years ago, but Ashton’s a stranger to him now. The thought makes Luke feel a little better, if only because it means Luke’s a stranger to Ashton too. Ashton no longer knows him, no longer has power over him, no longer has a grip on Luke’s lungs and heart and mind.

It’s not until Wednesday evening that Ashton forces himself back to the forefront of Luke’s mind yet again.

He’s sat on Calum’s sofa, destroying him at MarioKart, when his phone starts buzzing. At first, he ignores it, because getting this win is definitely more important than whatever bullshit Michael’s texting him (last time he paused a game to read a text from Michael it had just been a picture of an orange captioned ‘juicy’), but the buzzing continues, distracting him and making him slip on a banana Calum had thrown in front of him.

“Fuck’s sake!” Luke yells, when Calum whoops joyfully as he makes it over the finish line a microsecond before Luke. “Fuck you. That wasn’t my fault.”

“Oh, yeah?” Calum says, turning to him with a smug grin. “What, someone take control of your hands? You got that rat from Ratatouille up in those curls?”

“Remy,” Luke says, without thinking.

“Huh?”

“The rat,” Luke says.

“I can’t believe you know that,” Calum says, sounding very much like he can believe Luke knows that.

“Fuck you,” Luke says again, scowling. “I bet you fucking told Michael to text me just so you could finally win a game.”

“Michael’s napping, dude,” Calum says, looking somewhat amused. Luke frowns. Nobody texts him except Calum and Michael, and Calum’s right here. So if Michael’s asleep-

His stomach drops.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket and watching the screen light up with the one name he doesn’t want to see.

Ashton Irwin I’m outside

Ashton Irwin There’s no way you can’t hear this doorbell

Ashton Irwin Have you moved?

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke says, and shoves his phone at Calum. Calum’s eyes widen as he reads, and he huffs out a laugh of disbelief.

“What the fuck?” he says, sounding as incredulous as Luke feels. “He’s just fucking turned up at your apartment?” Luke nods, suddenly incredibly glad that his boiler’s broken. Ashton just fucking turning up at his place makes his skin crawl, makes him feel incredibly unsafe.

“How many different ways do I need to tell him to fuck off before he gets the message?” Luke says, and there’s an edge of desperation to his tone that even he can hear. Calum’s expression softens slightly.

“You can just block him,” he suggests.

“Well, he’ll just turn up at my fucking apartment again, then, won’t he?” Luke says.

“You can stay here until it blows over,” Calum offers. Luke loves him.

“Thanks, Cal,” he says, and he means it with every fibre of his being. “I just- I just want him to go away.” He hopes Calum understands what he means - not just go away from his apartment, but leave Luke’s life again, because it had taken so much of Luke to get over him and rewrite himself after Ashton had broken almost all of him, and every interaction with him is a sickening reminder of how things used to be, who he used to be. He can’t fucking stand it.

“Want me to talk to him?” Calum says. Luke hesitates, then shakes his head.

“I don’t want him to think I can’t handle it,” he says. I don’t want him to think he broke me remains unspoken, but hangs between them uncomfortably.

“Okay,” Calum says, because he understands. He always understands. “Want me to help you draft a reply, then?” Luke nods.

“Can you call Mikey, too?” he says, and it comes out a little unsure, a little small. Calum’s face softens into a smile.

“‘Course,” he says, reaching for his phone and unplugging it from where it’s been charging to call Michael.

Michael picks up after two rings, because it’s Calum, and Luke can see the outline of him in the dark, lying in bed.

“Hey, love,” Calum says softly, and Luke is suddenly jerked into discomfort, like he’s intruding on a private moment. Calum and Michael haven’t said anything to Luke about their newfound soulmate status, and Luke hasn’t asked, all of them dancing around the topic like talking about it is going to irrevocably change their group dynamic somehow. Luke’s never heard Calum call anyone love, and the names he’s got for Michael are usually more along the lines of dickhead, arsehole, fucker, and it makes Luke realise just how left out he is now, all because of two fucking tattoos. He has to swallow back the jealousy rising in his throat, press down the spike of anger flaring in his stomach.

“This better be fucking good,” Michael mumbles, muffled by his duvet.

“Ashton’s outside Luke’s house,” Calum says, and there’s a sudden sound of rustling, and then the light is turned on, Michael squinting and looking somewhere between furious and concerned.

“That bastard,” he says, which seems to be a bit of a mantra where Ashton’s concerned. “What the fuck? Has Luke called the police?”

“No,” Luke puts in, although now that Michael mentions it, he thinks he probably should. “He might be gone by now, anyway.”

“Oh, I forgot you were at Calum’s,” Michael says, even though he’s been complaining about it for, like, four days straight.

“We’re going to draft a response,” Calum tells Michael, who nods.

“I’ve got one,” he says. “‘Fuck off, you fucking bastard, and also, I’m calling the police on you. Arsehole. Fuck you.’” Calum rolls his eyes, and Luke laughs, letting the warmth of it flood his veins. It helps to know he’s not alone, both in his anger at Ashton and in dealing with the situation.

“I already told him not to contact me anymore,” he says.

“And he somehow thinks that turning up at your house doesn’t count as contact?” Michael says, in disbelief.

“Well, either way, he texted you,” Calum points out.

“So he just doesn’t give a shit,” Michael says. “Right. Got it.”

“What should I say?” Luke says, with an only-slightly-melodramatic sigh.

“Tell him to fuck off,” Michael says.

“Politely,” Calum adds.

“How do I do that?” Luke says, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Kindly fuck off? Please fuck off?”

“Keep it business,” Calum suggests. “Keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional. Talk to him like you’d talk to a client that’s pissing you off.”

“As per my last communication,” Michael says sarcastically, and Calum and Luke both laugh.

“I think you’re right,” Luke says. “Keep emotion out of it.”

“Yeah,” Michael agrees. “Don’t let him think you still care.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, but you know what Ashton’s like,” Michael says. “You could come at him with an axe and he’d interpret it as ‘Luke cares about my existence’.” Luke snorts, feeling a little spiteful and not regretting it at all.

“How about ‘I don’t feel comfortable with you turning up at my house unannounced’?” Calum says.

“And ‘I’ve already told you I’m not interested in speaking to you, please stop contacting me’?” Michael adds. Luke nods, typing it out.

Me I don’t feel comfortable with you turning up at my house unannounced. I’ve already told you I’m not interested in speaking to you, please stop contacting me.

He reads it out again, and both Michael and Calum nod.

“Add a ‘you bastard’ at the end,” Michael suggests, and Luke rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, a wave of love and appreciation for Michael and Calum suddenly washing over him.

He would never have made it through Ashton without them, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle Ashton 2.0 without them either. They’re always there, never questioning, never judging, fiercely supportive, and Luke doesn’t know what he did to deserve two such unwaveringly loyal best friends.

“Thanks, guys,” Luke says, as he presses send, immediately locking his phone and trying to push down the anxiety that bubbles in his stomach as soon as he sees the words turn blue. “For everything.”

“Of course,” Michael says gently.

“Always, Luke,” Calum says sincerely.

Luke thinks that just maybe, with Michael and Calum at his side, he can get through this.

-------

It turns out Ashton and Luke have wildly differing definitions of please stop contacting me. Luke thinks it means ‘don’t speak to me anymore’, and Ashton thinks it means ‘wait a day before trying again’.

Luke’s on his lunch break when his phone buzzes. Knowing better than to just assume it’s Michael or Calum now, he fishes it out of his pocket with trepidation. It’s Ashton, his name white against the black of the screen with the green swipe to answer button staring back at Luke.

If he doesn’t answer, Ashton will just try again. If he answers and shouts at Ashton to fuck off, Ashton will know that Luke’s not capable of being cordial with him, that Ashton had hurt him so much that it still stings two years later. So, sighing, Luke swipes on the answer button, and lifts the phone to his ear with a resigned, and slightly pissed off, “What?”

“Hi,” Ashton says, and it still makes Luke feel a little sick. There’s something jarring about hearing the same voice that used to call him baby, sweetheart, gorgeous, now miles away on the other end of a staticky phone line, strange and unknown.

“I told you not to contact me anymore,” Luke says, and it comes out a little weary.

“I know,” Ashton says, and he has the grace to sound guilty.

“Right. So you’re just choosing to ignore that?”

“No, I-” Ashton cuts himself off, and there’s a moment of silence before he takes a deep breath. “I really think we should talk.”

“I’ve told you,” Luke says, for what must be the thirtieth time, “I don’t want to talk. I have nothing to say to you.”

“I do, though,” Ashton says.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Then why did you pick up?”

“Because you’d just fucking turn up at my house again, or something,” Luke says. “Which, by the way, is really fucking creepy. Like, it made me feel really unsafe. Michael wanted me to call the police.”

“I know,” Ashton says, and he actually sounds sincere. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Luke does a double take. Ashton, apologising?

“Right,” Luke says, a little nonplussed, because he was expecting a justification, an excuse, not an apology. That’s not really Ashton’s style. “Well. Don’t do it again. I won’t hesitate to get a restraining order.”

“Okay,” Ashton says, and then, without missing a beat: “Can I take you out for dinner?” Luke’s mouth falls open.

“Are you fucking insane?” Luke says, too incredulous to be angry. “How many different ways do I have to say ‘I want nothing to do with you’ until you get the message?”

“We really should talk about what this means,” Ashton presses. “Like. We’re soulmates, now.” The words twist deep in Luke’s gut, and he swallows back the queasy feeling rising in his throat.

“What if we always were?” he bites out, and he can’t help the bitterness that drips out with the words. They’re met with an uncomfortable silence, and Luke feels a stab of spiteful glee.

“I want to talk about it,” Ashton says finally, which doesn’t answer Luke’s question. “Please. Just one dinner. And then I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

Luke tips his head back against the wall, letting his eyes flutter shut.

On the one hand, he wants Ashton to fuck off and leave him alone, indefinitely. He wants to go back to forgetting Ashton, to living a life without him and to uncomfortable first dates and fumbling hookups. He wants to pretend his tattoo doesn’t exist, to be able to choose who he loves rather than be assigned someone to love, someone he already tried to love and worked hard to stop loving.

On the other hand, he knows that Ashton won’t leave him alone until he gives him what he wants. Sure, he might relent for a few months, but Luke will always have that knot of anxiety in his stomach every time he gets a text, every time the doorbell rings, and one dinner might be worth giving himself peace of mind.

“I’ll think about it,” Luke says eventually. “But just for the record, the fact I have to do what you want before you respect my wishes is doing you absolutely no favours.”

“I know,” Ashton says heavily, like he’s fucking sad about it, or something. Luke doesn’t think Ashton has it in him to consider Luke’s feelings. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“I know,” Ashton says again. Luke grits his teeth and bites back the fuck you that’s on the tip of his tongue, chanting Calum’s words to himself: keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional. I’ll think about it isn’t a yes, whatever Ashton wants to tell himself.

“Fine,” Luke says, after he’s taken a moment to collect himself, cool, calm, professional. “I’ll get back to you when I’ve had time to think. Don’t contact me in the meantime.”

“Okay,” Ashton says.

“Good,” Luke says, and hangs up before Ashton has a chance to respond.

Jesus fucking Christ, he thinks, exhaling heavily and staring at the grey clouds gathering above him and throwing a silent curse out at the universe, just in case it can suddenly read thoughts, for saddling him with this fucking situation. Ashton Irwin might very well be the death of him, for a second time.

-------

Luke completely forgets that he’d told Ashton he’d consider going to dinner with him until Calum tentatively brings him up the following Tuesday.

“Did Ashton ever say anything to your message?” he asks, scratching behind Duke’s ears, and Luke blinks at him.

“Did I not tell you?” he says, surprised. He’s not sure how the entire conversation with Ashton slipped his mind for almost an entire week, but he supposes that’s what happens when he doesn’t care about someone.

“No?” Calum says, equally surprised, as though he hadn’t expected Luke to have heard anything. Luke fucking wishes.

“He rang me the next day,” Luke says, and Calum frowns, hand stilling on Duke’s back. Duke turns and gives Calum a reproachful look, and Calum starts petting him again absent-mindedly. “Asked me to meet him for dinner.” Calum gapes at him.

“Are you serious?” he says, in disbelief.

“I know,” Luke agrees.

“Jesus,” Calum says, sounding almost in awe of Ashton’s shamelessness. “Was he this delusional when you were together?” Luke laughs, and shrugs. “What’d he say when you said no?” Luke hesitates, biting his lip.

“I told him I’d think about it,” Luke says after a moment, and Calum’s eyes widen.

“Luke,” he says, and it’s careful, worried, and Luke hates it.

“Look, I know,” he says, before Calum can say something like Ashton nearly killed you last time, are you sure this is a good idea? “I know, Cal, okay? I just- I need him to leave me alone.” Calum frowns again.

“What, and he’s trying to force your hand by making him leaving you alone conditional on you going out to dinner with him?” he says. Luke nods. “What a cunt.”

“I know,” Luke says. “I think he’d leave me alone if I said no, but I think I’d be jumping every time I got a text. I’d rather just have one dinner with him and know that’s it.” Calum’s frown doesn’t leave his face, but he nods slowly.

“Okay,” he says. “If it’s for your own peace of mind.”

“It is,” Luke says, exhaling heavily and slumping back on Calum’s sofa.

“So you’re going?”

“I don’t know,” Luke says. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“You don’t have to,” Calum says, and it’s gentle, supportive. “We can go to the police, say he’s harassing you. We can get a restraining order.”

“I don’t want to go through that,” Luke says, carding a hand through his hair, a little stressed at the idea. It sounds a little extreme, and a lot expensive.

“Okay,” Calum says easily. “Whatever you want to do, Luke. You know I’ll support whatever decision you make.” Luke smiles, small and genuine.

“Thanks, Cal,” he says.

“I can’t promise Michael will, though,” Calum adds, and Luke snorts.

“No, probably not,” he says.

-------

“You said what?” Michael sounds absolutely outraged at the very idea.

“I said I’d think about it,” Luke repeats. Michael folds his arms.

“And you’ve thought about it, and you’re going to say no, right?” Luke hesitates, and that’s enough for Michael to make a noise of exasperation and roll his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Luke. You’re not going for dinner with fucking Ashton.”

“Who are you, my fucking mum?” Luke says, a little irritably. Michael’s expression softens a little at the barbs hidden in Luke’s words.

“I just don’t want-” he starts, but Luke cuts him off with a shake of his head.

“I know, Mike,” he says, because he does, he knows, and he doesn’t need to hear it. “I’m twenty-fucking-six, mate. I can make my own decisions.” Michael looks torn, like he half-wants to yell at Luke (which, frankly, he probably does), but then he sighs.

“Fine,” he says, sounding very much like it’s not fine. “Are you going to go?” Luke shrugs.

“I haven’t thought about it yet,” he says. Michael gives him a hard look, and looks like he wants to say something else, but then Calum comes back from the kitchen, Duke in his wake, and sets himself down between the two of them.

“Play nice, you two,” he says warningly, but he’s only looking at Michael. Luke feels a touch smug about that.

“Fuck you,” Michael says, reaching for one of the bags of popcorn Calum’s brought through from the kitchen. Duke gets on his hind legs and paws at the sofa, gazing at Michael beseechingly, and Michael almost absent-mindedly reaches down to pick him up and put him in his lap. Duke settles down comfortably, resting his head on Michael’s thigh and blinking at Calum and Luke calmly. Something about the familiarity of the interaction makes Luke’s heart ache a little bit.

“Whose turn is it to pick a movie tonight?” Calum asks, reaching for the other two bags of popcorn and tossing one at Luke.

“Mine,” Michael says.

“No it’s not,” Luke says. “It’s mine.”

“Yeah, but your taste in movies is so shit that I’m vetoing your turn,” Michael says. Luke squawks indignantly.

“What?” he says, incensed. “My taste is fucking fine, thank you very much.”

“He kind of has a point,” Calum says, nodding solemnly at Luke. Luke scowls.

“Fuck you,” he says, ripping open his popcorn. “Just because you’re fucking soulmates now doesn’t mean you get to gang up on me.” As soon as he’s said it, the atmosphere changes; Calum and Michael exchange a glance, before looking back at Luke.

“We should probably talk about that,” Michael says carefully, and Luke groans, pinching the bridge of his nose with salty, buttery fingers. Gross.

“Can we not?” he says, wiping his nose with his sleeve to avoid looking at either of them. “Please, just for one fucking night, let me forget the whole soulmate thing exists.” Calum and Michael both hesitate, and then Calum shoots Michael another quick look and nods at Luke.

“Okay,” he says. “But your taste in movies is still shitty.”

Luke throws a cushion at him.

-------

On Sunday night, at two in the morning, Luke types out a single word.

Me Ok.

He presses send, turns airplane mode on, and goes to sleep.

-------

Luke completely forgets that he’d turned airplane mode on on Monday morning until he gets on the train and tries to load Twitter. When he turns it off, messages start popping in, so fast that he can’t read them before the next one arrives. Most of them are from the group chat with Michael and Calum, some argument about whether twenty-four hour time is better or worse than twelve-hour, and he’s got one from his dad asking how he’s doing, and - the reason he’d turned airplane mode on in the first place - one from Ashton.

Ashton Irwin Thank you. 8pm tonight, Zahli?

Luke bites his lip, staring out of the window as he thinks for a moment.

Me Ok.

-------

He doesn’t tell Calum until after lunch.

“I said yes,” he says, as casually as possible, staring at his nails like they’re the most interesting thing in the world. They’re kind of disgusting, actually. “Hey, do you have a nail file at home?”

“When are you seeing him?” Calum asks. “And yeah, in the cupboard under the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Have you tried calling about the boiler again?” Luke nods, picking at his thumbnail with his index finger.

“Yeah, they said they wouldn’t be back for another week,” he says. Calum pulls a face.

“You’re paying my water bill this month,” he says. “You take as long in one shower as I do in ten.”

“Why should I pay for your lack of hygiene?” Luke says.

“Fuck you, I’m hygienic,” Calum says. “And at least I know how to pick up towels.”

“Hey, I’m getting better,” Luke says. “I hang them up now.” Calum rolls his eyes.

“Stuffing them into the towel warmer is not hanging them up,” he says.

“It’s better than leaving them on the floor, though,” Luke points out, ripping a bit of his thumbnail off.

“Oh, what, so I should praise you for doing less than the bare minimum because it could be worse?”

“I mean, a little thanks wouldn’t go amiss,” Luke says, grinning at Calum. Calum scoffs, and rolls his eyes again.

“You’re the worst housemate I’ve ever had,” he tells Luke.

“You’ve never had a housemate.”

“I have now,” Calum says, pointing at him, “and you’re the worst one.”

“Well, then by definition I’m also the best,” Luke says, biting at the edge of his thumbanil. Calum scowls, and flips him off.

“When are you seeing Ashton?” Calum asks, which Luke’s kind of torn on, because on the one hand, Calum changing the subject means Luke’s won, but on the other hand, the subject he’s gone for is Ashton.

“Tonight,” Luke mumbles, around a mouthful of thumb.

“Tonight?” Calum repeats, and Luke nods. “Okay. Where?”

“Zahli.” Calum raises his eyebrows.

“He’ll try to pay,” he says. “Don’t let him.” Luke rolls his eyes.

“Obviously not,” he says, because he’s not an idiot.

“What are you going to wear?” Luke stops. He hadn’t even thought about that.

“I don’t know,” he says, with a shrug. “Probably just my work clothes.” Calum looks him up and down, nodding thoughtfully.

“Good choice,” he says. “You look good, so you’ll be showing him you’re alright without him, but not so good that he’ll think you’ve put in effort to impress him.”

“True,” Luke says, because he’s well beyond pretending that he’s not analysing the situation this deeply himself.

“I wonder what he wants to talk about,” Calum muses, tapping a pen against his chin.

“Probably, like, how successful his band is, how many guys he’s fucked since me, how happy he’s been,” Luke says, a little spiteful and a little bitter.

“You’ve been successful,” Calum points out. “You’ve fucked guys since him. You’ve been happy.”

“I know,” Luke says, but there’s a little twisting in his stomach, because he’s always felt so fucking inferior to Ashton. It feels like he has something to prove since the breakup, like he has to show both Ashton and himself that he’s better now than the iteration of Luke Ashton knew had been.

“You don’t have to do it,” Calum says, clearly seeing the uncertainty written all over Luke’s face. “You can still back out.” Luke shakes his head.

“Not now that I’ve said yes,” he says. “He’ll read into it.”

“So let him,” Calum says, with a shrug. He doesn’t get it - he never cares what other people think, especially not people he doesn’t care about. Luke can’t stop caring what people think about him, especially people he used to care about.

“I can’t,” Luke says. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be, like, an hour, tops. And then I never have to speak to or see him again.” A weight of relief settles in his stomach at the mere thought, that in six hours everything will be over and his life can return to how it was six months ago.

“Thank fuck for that,” Calum says, and Luke can’t help but heartily agree.

-------

Luke’s at Zahli at eight on the dot, and, because they hadn’t talked about whether they’d wait outside or go in, decides to head inside on his own. His stomach is a bundle of nerves, tension and anxiety settled into every cell of his body, because this will be the first time he’s seen Ashton in two years. The last time he’d seen Ashton, Ashton had been his, and Luke had been a wreck. It’s embarrassing to think back to, that someone he barely even knows now has seen him like that, at his most vulnerable, so Luke orders a glass of red wine to try and take his mind off it.

He’s forcing himself to be engrossed in the food menu when Ashton sits down.

“Hi,” Ashton says, voice clear and low, and Luke looks over his food menu at him.

It feels like déjà-vu, if déjà-vu involved feeling suddenly sick and defenceless and pathetic. Ashton looks almost the same as the last time Luke had seen him, minus the stressed expression on his face, and maybe with a few more crow’s feet. His golden curls have been dyed black, tucked behind his ear besides the one strand he never could control, and Luke hates that he remembers that.

“Hi,” Luke says, proud of how steady and cool it comes out.

“You look good,” Ashton comments, after an awkward moment.

“This isn’t a date,” Luke says.

“I know.”

“Good.” Luke turns back to his menu, palms sweating, heart racing, and tries to focus on the words on the page.

“Have you ordered?”

“Obviously not,” Luke says, because he’s got the fucking menu in his hand.

“Oh, right.” Luke rolls his eyes privately, but says nothing, and then the waiter’s coming over and Luke’s just pointing to the first thing he sees on the page and smiling politely. The waiter, however, then takes the menus away from both of them, and Luke’s left with nothing to hide behind, and has to look at Ashton.

He’s dressed nicely, in a long-sleeved black lace shirt, and he’s got a few more rings on his fingers than the last time Luke had seen him. He’s still just as muscular - maybe even a little more - and his hazel eyes look a little older, blinking at Luke from behind dark lashes. Luke feels so queasy at the sight of him, almost exactly the same but somehow so fucking different, feels the echoes of the worthlessness and emptiness he’d felt in Ashton’s wake squeezing at his lungs, and wills himself not to throw up.

“So,” Ashton says, after a long, uncomfortable silence. Luke’s not sure whether he wants to yell at Ashton, cry, leave, or die. Dying currently sounds like the most enticing option of the lot.

“Talk,” Luke says curtly. Ashton blinks.

“Can you at least be cordial with me?” he says. Luke stares at him. What the fuck makes Ashton think he’s deserved that?

“Talk,” he repeats, because he doesn’t trust himself not to fly off the handle if he says anything non-monosyllabic. Ashton sighs, and looks down at his hands.

“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I want to apologise.”

“Right.”

“Can I- can I just say this without you interrupting?”

Luke hesitates, then nods. Biting remarks aren’t part of the ‘keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional’ routine, anyway. It won’t hurt to let Ashton say his piece.

“Thank you.” Ashton takes another deep breath. “I want to apologise. I know how I left-” he winces “-was pretty cold, pretty brutal. I’m sorry for that. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the last two years, and I regret it. Like. A lot. I missed you. A lot. I wanted to get back in contact with you, but I knew- I knew you wouldn’t want to hear from me. And then the tattoo came, and I- I didn’t look at it, for a few days, because when I looked at what everyone was saying online, I knew it would be you.” He pauses, eyes flicking back to Luke, like he’s gauging his reaction. Luke, though, is sitting still, emotionless, face blank. He’s not giving Ashton any satisfaction. “And then I looked, and it was. And I knew I had to be yours, but you didn’t say anything.” The pause is longer this time, an invitation for Luke to speak.

“Okay,” Luke says, because he doesn’t really have anything else to say.

“I- it’s not just the tattoo, Luke,” Ashton says, and Luke never wants to hear his name coming from Ashton’s lips again. “It’s you. I regretted it the minute I left, but I couldn’t go back to you, not knowing what I did. How I did it. I- When I heard about the tattoos, I knew it was going to be you. It’s always been you.”

Luke kind of wants to laugh. Two years ago, these are the exact words he wanted to hear from Ashton. It was a mistake, I’m sorry, I love you, it’s only you - those words bounced around his head in different fantasies for months on end. Now, though, he feels nothing, and that’s the biggest success Luke thinks he’s ever had in his life. He’s sitting across from the person that took him the closest to the edge, and he feels nothing. It makes him feel powerful, feel in control, and he relaxes a little. Ashton’s apologising to him, opening up to him. Luke’s not giving anything away.

“You fell out of love with me,” Luke says, and it’s not accusing, it’s not emotional. It’s calm, rational, matter-of-fact.

“I thought I did,” Ashton says, and he opens his mouth to speak but then the waiter comes, handing them their dishes with a smile. Luke throws a smile at him, but Ashton barely glances at him. There’s an awkward silence as the waiter asks if they want any pepper, and Luke says yes please, and they have to wait for the waiter to bring it over and then for Luke to say stop. Luke lets it go on a little longer than maybe strictly necessary, childishly enjoying the way Ashton’s squirming in his seat, and then thanks the waiter with a brilliant smile, just to drive home the point of how friendly he can be with people that aren’t Ashton.

“I thought I did,” Ashton repeats, when the waiter’s finally gone and Luke’s tucking into his potatoes. “That’s why I left. I thought I didn’t love you anymore, and then I actually had to live without you, and I realised it was just because we were settling into a familiar love. I just couldn’t handle the commitment, and it made me block you out.” Luke raises an eyebrow, but keeps eating, and Ashton sighs.

“Look,” he says. “I- I know I fucked up. Badly. But I didn’t need a tattoo to tell me that. I already knew what the tattoo confirmed. I’d-” he swallows. “I’d really like the opportunity to have a second chance.” Luke sets his fork down at that, and sits back in his chair.

“Do you know what you did to me?” he says, calm and even. Ashton just stares at him, which Luke takes as a no, so he goes on. “You left me feeling like I was worthless. I spent months in therapy, and even longer crying on Calum and Michael’s shoulders every night. I couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe because everything was you.” He pauses, weighing up his next words. “You left, and I was left behind. I had to work hard to fall out of love with you. That was your choice, not mine. I would probably never have stopped loving you if you’d let me. But you moved on, and so I had to as well. And the consequence of your choice, your actions, is that I don’t love you anymore. I don’t feel anything for you anymore. I’m only here to get you to leave me alone.” Ashton looks a little sick when Luke finishes.

“And the fact we’re soulmates doesn’t mean anything to you?” he says, his voice cracking slightly on the word ‘soulmates’. Luke shrugs.

“No,” he says. “I don’t want to be with you. I don’t care who else you fuck. I don’t care who else you love. I don’t care about you anymore, Ashton.” Ashton swallows, and nods.

“I guess I deserve that,” he says, and Luke can’t help but huff out a laugh.

“You kind of do,” he says, but it’s not unkind. Ashton sighs, and rakes a hand through his hair.

“I thought you’d be more open to the idea,” he admits, taking Luke aback a little with his honesty.

“You don’t know me anymore,” Luke says. “Don’t kid yourself that you do. I’m not the same person you left behind.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, though? That we’re supposed to be together?”

“I guess sometimes the universe gets it wrong,” Luke says, with a shrug. “We tried, and it didn’t work.”

“It might work now that I know how to love you properly,” Ashton says.

“I’m not going to give you a second chance based on a ‘maybe’,” Luke says. Ashton stares at him for a moment, and then nods, tight-lipped and unhappy. For the first time, Luke feels a little sorry for him. He’s not even touched his food.

“Can I see it?” Ashton asks, after a moment.

“It’s on my back,” Luke says. “It’s your bird tattoo, carrying a drumstick in its mouth with one of your moons in the background.” Ashton nods again, but it’s absent-minded, almost numb.

“That sounds beautiful,” he says.

“It is,” Luke says.

“Mine’s a daisy chain wrapped around a microphone,” Ashton says.

“That’s my favourite flower,” Luke says, without thinking, and Ashton nods. Of course, Ashton already knew that. Luke remembers the conversation; Ashton laughing at him (“Daisies can’t be your favourite flower, Luke, that’s fucking stupid.”), his defensiveness (“Fuck you, they’re cute.”), chucking a cushion at a giggling Ashton’s head.

“It’s on my tricep,” Ashton says, even though Luke hadn’t asked.

“Mine’s on my shoulderblade.” Ashton nods, and they lapse into silence. Luke’s finished his food, and Ashton’s not even glanced at his, which is stopping the waiter from coming back to clear their plates away.

“We should probably pay,” Luke says, when the silence stretches on for so long that he thinks it might be Tuesday already.

“Okay,” Ashton says, and he sounds kind of sad. Luke flags down the waiter, who asks Ashton if there was a problem with the food, and an awkward conversation ensues in which Ashton smiles at the waiter and tells him no, he just doesn’t feel well, but his friend had really enjoyed the food, and Luke watches as the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. The waiter asks if they want to split the bill or pay as one, and Luke jumps in and says they want to split it before Ashton can make one final grand romantic gesture, or whatever. The waiter nods, coming back (much to Luke’s relief) in record time with the card machine and two bills. Luke and Ashton pay, thank the waiter, and then fumble with their coats as they get up and head out into the temperate November night.

“So,” Ashton says, when they get out of the restaurant. “I guess this is it.” Luke nods.

“This is it,” he says.

“I had a nice evening,” Ashton says, and Luke can’t help but laugh.

“No, you didn’t,” he says. Ashton half-smiles.

“Okay, no I didn’t,” he admits. “But I did enjoy seeing you again.” Luke nods, not really sure how to take that.

“Good luck with everything,” he says.

“You too,” Ashton says. Luke smiles at him, and it’s a real smile, partially fuelled by relief, and partially by something he can’t quite put his finger on.

“Get home safe,” Luke says, because he can’t say ‘see you’, since he’s sincerely hoping not to.

“You too,” Ashton says again. Luke nods, offers him one last smile, and then turns on his heel and walks away.

His shoulderblade tingles as he goes, and there’s an odd edge of sadness to his relief, but he doesn’t stop or look back.

taglist: @glitterlukey @hey-its-grey

chapter three

#lashton #malum #5sos fic #5sos slash #5sos fanfiction #i promise im not ignoring everyones messages i just need to get ready for bed #and do my duolingo #i have 28 minutes left

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magisterlys · 5 years ago

Text

Without Words

Written Cross the Stars: Chapter 11

Summary: Barely surviving a trip through a Stone Summit tomb, the Commander and Braham have that "talk".

Notes: Well, here it is. 10 chapters and an ever-growing list of one shots later, we’ve reached The Moment. What was originally intended to be desperate smut turned into fighty sweet fluff but after four rewrites this is the only thing that felt right for these two. I apologize that it’s so short, but I hope you all enjoy!

“Don’t do this to me, Commander.”

She drifted on the edge of lucidity, awake enough to know that she’d been set down somewhere, that rough hands were pulling her boots off. Lucid enough to berate herself for not realizing how much blood she’d lost before it knocked her unconscious. She’s a healer, for gods sake.

“Lys, open your eyes.”

Pain and that voice brought her sharply back to consciousness. Her eyes opened slowly, blinking as she looked up at Braham hovering over her. He was himself again, just a norn. Her norn.

“Hey.” She answered weakly, biting back a hiss of pain as she forced a smile. Where were they? She was staring at a stone ceiling, a room small enough to see all four walls, illuminated by the same flickering magical flame that had carried them across the darkness.

“You’re …” Braham cursed under his breath and she felt his hands on her thigh, pushing the leather of her skirt up around her hips. She tried to focus on him if only to keep from looking at the ragged gashes across her leg. Her head was swimming and all she wanted was to lay back down and close her eyes.

“I’m … what?” She asked through gritted teeth, watching Braham as he began to heal her. His magics were a comfort, but there was a storm in his expression, his hands were shaking.

“Trying to kill me!.” He growled, his fingers digging into her thigh as he concentrated on mending the nearly bone-deep claw marks, “Books. Wandering into a death trap, nearly get yourself killed for some stupid books!”

“Stupid books?” She gawked and pushed herself off the floor, half sitting up. The pain had lessened, a dull ache now. “We’ve had a whole team working on this for months. I've barely slept the last two weeks, buried in research. They’re not just stupid - ow!”

He flinched at her exclamation of pain but continued to argue. “Yeah, and I’m sure it needed to be you to try this. You always have to do everything yourself!”

“I’m the expert here. Well, I’m the expert without Taimi around.” The glow surrounding Braham’s hands ebbed away as she sat up, “We need to understand the cycle, to deal with the dragons before we mess it up any further. This is important.”

“Important? You know what’s important, Commander?” He grabbed her shoulders suddenly, forcing her to look at him. “You are!”

“Braham …”

“Don’t give me that look, don’t … say my name like that.” He shook his head, his voice catching in his throat. “Nothing is more important than you, Lys!”

She blinked as she looked up at him. “This .. isn’t about today, is it?”

“No.” He barked in frustration, “Yes, it’s about today. It's about the last month I spent thinking of you every damned moment. It’s about that night and every night I’m not with you. It’s about how close you are and how far away. I can’t stop thinking about how …how close I came to losing you. It’s about you nearly dying in my arms. And... ”

She felt his grip on her shoulder tighten as he pulled her closer, as his voice trembled. The way he was looking at her, the intensity in his eyes made it impossible to look away, even if she wanted to, “ … and how desperately I want to kiss you right now even though you’re the Commander and I’m just -”

He didn’t get to finish. Lys swooped up, rising on her knees and claimed Braham’s mouth with hers. The gasp he made was a mix of surprise and relief, rolling into a rumbling growl as he slides his hands up her back, gripping her shoulders as he leaned eagerly into her kiss.

She cupped his face in her hands, stopped kissing him long enough to speak, “I’m sorry.” She catches his bottom lip with hers, nibbling between broken whispers, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how much you mean to me. It was you, Braham. You’re why I’m here. You’re why I didn’t let go. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Spirits, Lys …” She felt his fingers dig into her sides, his arms wrapping all the way around her waist possessively. He kissed her with such force that she has to shift her balance to keep from falling over. His mouth melds to hers, lips parting lips as his tongue meets hers, hesitantly at first and then eager at her reaction. There’s a hunger to their kiss, relief of a thirst finally quenched.

They both came up for air, breath panting against moistened lips and she slides her hands down his neck, fingers slipping under the collar of his coat, caressing his bare skin. He made a soft sound and let his forehead rest against hers as he whispered, plaintively, “Don’t send me away again, please.”

The idea is unthinkable, that she would ever let him go again, now that she’s given in. She can’t even remember why she was so afraid at the moment, drunk on his taste as she is. “I won’t.” She spoke again, this time her lips brushing against his. She could feel Braham tremble, feel how his grip on her waist tightened as she speaks, “Stay.”

He answered her with another kiss, slow and languid. Followed it with a dozen more until she feels light-headed for a different reason, giddy. She laughed softly between kisses, affectionately nudged her nose with his.

“You’re smiling …” He purred with amusement and reached up to brush a strand of hair back behind her ear.

“So are you.” Lys couldn’t help but smile even more as he grinned back at her. When was the last time she left this light? This joyful? She can’t even remember. Braham pulled her close and she wrapped her arms around him, hands tangling in his braid as he nuzzled his face against her neck.

“Braham?” She whispered.

His voice was muffled, hidden in the curve of her shoulder, “Yeah?”

Free to look around now she blinked, taking in the two sets of intricately carved, massive doors on either side of the small room, the brazier of flame burning nearby. “ … where in the world are we?”

Braham laughed softly, breathing out a deeply contented sigh as he hugged the commander close, “Who cares.”

#braham/commander #gw2 fanfiction #chapter fic #fic update #tyriaslibrary #braham eirrson #oc: lys fiora #fighty fluff is my new tagline

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elysiumwaits · 5 years ago

Note

If you are still taking the fake dating requests: sterek 8? Love your writing

So this actually sprouted two ideas, one of which wound up being 1500 words and the other being a long multi-chaptered one that I started as well but didn’t want to work on today.

The prompt was: “someone assumed we’re dating but I didn’t realize that’s what they meant until it was too late and I had committed us to a couples’ retreat weekend.”

This is the 1500 words one, which is full of ‘didn’t know they were dating’ and ‘Scott McCall is a sneaky bastard who knows what he’s doing and how to play Stiles like a fiddle’.

Someone Should Have Told Us

Rated: Teen

(AO3 Link)

Stiles has one major weakness these days. It’s gotten him into a lot of sticky situations, and will probably be the cause of his inevitably gruesome supernatural death one of these days. Right now, this weakness is holding a printed itinerary and talking excitedly about bonding and Allison, and just generally looking very, very happy.

A weekend at the beach doesn’t sound bad at all, to be honest, even if it means he has to watch Scott and Allison make eyes at each other at this weird mindfulness-alternative-health kind of resort. And, hell, maybe four days of yoga and peaceful breathing will be good for Stiles’ stress levels. Besides, the whole thing is paid for, they’re just looking to fill the ticket, after all, and Stiles has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So, like a fool, Stiles says, “Sure,” and then follows it up with, “Sounds like fun,” and “Can’t wait, looking forward to it already.”

Which is when Scott throws the whole conversation from this dimension into what clearly must be a conversation from an alternate universe by saying, “Great! So you and Derek will have a suite in the same villa as me and Allison, but the only thing communal will be the kitchen. There’s this really cool thing about working out past issues with an intuitive and-”

Wait, hold on, back up. Stiles blinks as his brain catches up. “Derek? What… Derek?”

Scott gives him a strange look, like Stiles is just not getting with the program here. “Uh, of course, dude, it’s a couples retreat,” he says, like that’s supposed to mean something to Stiles, like somehow he’s supposed to connect the dots between ‘couples retreat’ and ‘sharing a suite with Derek Hale.’ When Stiles is quiet for just a split second too long, Scott keeps going. “I know you guys haven’t gone public with your relationship yet, which was totally understandable when you were still in high school, but you’re twenty now, Stiles. You don’t have to hide it from us anymore, we already know.”

Scott is patting Stiles’ shoulder and giving him that understanding, sympathetic face. Stiles has no fucking clue what’s happening here, but his brain is desperately trying to make sense of how this has apparently gone horribly awry.

“I’m not…” he manages to get out, but doesn’t actually finish because he can’t even wrap his head around the words ‘in a relationship with Derek Hale,’ let alone his mouth.

“Stiles.” Scott sounds almost disappointed. “We know. The whole pack knows, and we approve. You guys are just better together and always have been. It’s okay.” His phone chimes in his pocket, and Stiles attempts to get a handle on his fucking life while Scott reads a text. “Oh, I gotta head to the clinic. But, listen, we leave tomorrow afternoon to check in around six, so make sure you and Derek are packed and ready by then. It’s gonna be great!”

“We’ll… we’ll drive separately,” Stiles says faintly, and automatically takes the itinerary that Scott hands him.

“Good idea, you guys can talk about what you want out of the weekend privately then.” Scott pats Stiles’ shoulder one more time before he leaves Stiles to slump back against the door of his Jeep and look around the residential street in the hopes that someone will appear out of thin air and injure him so he doesn’t have to do… well, any of this.

Scott McCall is definitely going to be the cause of his inevitably gruesome supernatural death. Stiles’ days are officially numbered, because Derek is going to murder him.

Derek doesn’t kill him, but instead descends into the same spiral of confusion that Stiles had. Stiles has the express pleasure of watching as Derek’s brain shuts down for an entire ten seconds and then tries to reboot again, like an overheated computer on its last legs. Stiles can relate.

“They think we’re dating,” is what Derek finally says. “The whole pack thinks we’re dating?”

“I honestly think they’ve got the idea that it’s significantly more serious and committed than just dating.” Stiles waves the itinerary around. “I mean… there’s workshops like ‘Sanity in Relationships’ and ‘Releasing the Past through Rewriting Your Love Story.’ This is, like, intense and geared toward couples with long-term plans.”

“We don’t have long-term plans.” Derek sits down on the couch and rubs his forehead in that way he does when he’s starting to get stressed out. “Because we’re not in a relationship.” He looks up then, sharply and alarmed. “Are we?”

“We’re not,” Stiles says quickly. “We just spend a lot of time together.”

“Because we get along.” Derek nods, slow. “We go out to eat a lot.”

“That’s because your kitchen is understocked, and I can’t eat like that with my dad. You always pay.” There’s a dawning horror happening in Stiles’ head. “You never let me pay. They don’t even ask if we want to split the check at the diner anymore.”

“Because I have money and you don’t! It just makes sense.” Derek doesn’t look any less alarmed, though. “You cuddle me on movie nights.”

“You’re warm! I have shitty circulation! You let me!”

“You smell sad when I don’t.”

There’s a beat. Derek is staring at Stiles like he’s just seeing him for the first time, and Stiles completely understands that feeling.

“You keep junk food in your cabinets for me.”

“Your window’s always unlocked, still. I never have to wonder if it will be unlocked, because I just know.”

Stiles sits down on the coffee table in front of Derek, staring at the werewolf. “You listen to my music even though you hate it.”

“I like the way it makes you happy.” Derek sounds distant, unfocused, even though he’s looking at Stiles. “You were here on the anniversary of the fire. You stayed the whole night.”

Stiles nods, slowly. “You fixed my Jeep last time. I didn’t even ask you to, I just told you it needed work and you… did it.”

“You invited me to weekly dinners with your dad.”

“You actually show up for weekly dinners with my dad.” The itinerary in Stiles’ hand crinkles a little in his grip. “The pack thinks we’re in a relationship. I… I think my dad thinks we’re in a relationship. Derek, are we... are we in a relationship?”

Derek is quiet for a long moment, but he doesn’t look away from Stiles. “I don’t trust anyone else in this world the way I trust you,” he finally says, and Stiles’ breath catches a little. “I know, without a doubt, that you are the one person in existence who always has my back.” He looks a little lost, to be honest, like he’s just realizing all of this. “You never judge me, you never ask me for something I can’t give you.”

Something clicks into place in Stiles’ mind. “You’re the first person I think to call when shit hits the fan. Not because you’re badass and scary and you have the whole teeth and muscles thing going on, but because I know that if I call, you’ll come.” They’re close - Stiles on the coffee table and Derek on the couch, their knees practically touching. Stiles swallows, and finally breaks the intense eye contact. “Sometimes,” he says with all of his courage in his throat, “you do something badass or heroic or smash through a wall or punch someone who wants to kill us, and I get this really intense urge to kiss you.”

“It’s really hot when you show how smart you actually are.” When Stiles looks up, Derek still hasn’t looked away. “Like, everyone knows you’re smart, but when you do that thing where you fit all the pieces together and figure everything out… I don’t know, it just makes me want to throw you against the wall and-” Derek cuts himself off, going bright red.

Stiles crumples the couples retreat itinerary in his hand. “I mean, at this point, it probably wouldn’t change much,” he says, and a little bit of hope unfurls in his chest. “Like, we’re not in a relationship or dating or whatever but…”

Derek finishes for him. “Maybe we should be.”

There’s another couple seconds of silence before Stiles shifts just enough to remember the itinerary still in his hand, the couples retreat that started this whole thing. “We, uh. I told Scott we’d drive separately but it’s still, like, four days so we’ll need to pack if we’re actually going to do this ridiculous thing.”

“Do you think if we just stayed in the suite the whole time they’d kick us out?” Derek asks, and takes the itinerary to examine it. “Because ‘Becoming One with the Vortex of Your Partner’s Soul’ doesn’t sound nearly as good as four days of making out with you on a beach does.”

And really, at that point, Stiles can’t be blamed for anything he does. Long story short, they aren’t packed in time, they show up to the retreat two hours late, and they never go to a single workshop. Scott isn’t disappointed in the slightest, apparently, instead looking strangely smug, like maybe he knows something Stiles doesn’t or like one of his plans actually worked.

In any case, Stiles is entirely too distracted to care.

#sterek #fanfiction #prompt fiction #send me prompts i love them #fake dating au

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rhysnrivers · 5 years ago

Text

Odyssey to becoming a Published Author

(Note: with Odyssey being in the title, this is quite a long post. The link to the facebook page that leads to where my novel can be bought from can be found at the bottom of the post, as can some of the initial artwork done)

So, despite never been a ‘blogger’ per se before, I’ve decided to write this article about my journey from having dreamed about writing and having my own works published, through to actually writing my ideas up and publishing them myself, as I’m sure that there are many an indie author and authoress out there who can relate and have been through the very same journey I have.

First thing’s first. Rhys N Rivers is not my real name. It’s a pen name. There’s something in being anonymous when it comes to writing, almost like a sense of freedom. This day and age of social media means that almost everything we do is recorded somewhere on the internet, and an opinion or action from ten years ago can be drudged back up to be ridiculed by the Facebook jury and/or the Karens of the internet, in line with the fashionable opinions of the day. A pen name grants anonymity and to some degree, security. The only people who know my identity are my immediate family and a few close, trusted friends.

When people embark on a new venture; be it a new hobby, learning a new language, travelling the world, changing jobs etc, the journey actually begins long before said venture starts. Quite often, the journey always begins in the classroom, at home, in bed, in daydreams. It begins as a state of ambition. A plan that one day, will be put into action.

My authoring journey was no different. Mine actually began around the age of eleven. I was of the Harry Potter generation where I was the same age as the main characters in the early years when a new film came out each year. J.K. Rowling got me into reading beyond in school, and I - being one of the cool kids, clearly - read a lot throughout my early and mid teenage years. It was admittedly predominantly fantasy based, (Tolkien, Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Garth Nix) or Bernard Cornwall’s historical works before I branched out into people like Wilbur Smith and others. When I was around 14 or 15, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code took the world by storm and I also ended up reading all of his works. School provided a sophisticated reading list, which included Dickens and Golding, and so growing I had read through a rich and broad variety of fiction.

Where actually writing was concerned, I think it was about the age of eleven or twelve that I realised that I wanted to write properly. I think it was actually after reading William Nicholson’s Wind Singer when I decided, and I set to task in writing coming up with a fantasy novel. I didn’t start writing the plot straight away; I actually started coming up with characters and places, even drawing out a world map. That was really fun to do. It had a sense of total control to it. What I decided was what things were. Where a kid may not feel in control of things in other parts of life (insecurities of school, friends, growing up, relationships etc), this was something totally different. The ability to create your own fictional world, in whatever genre you go for, is a form of escape and release in which you can develop your talents and ideas.

There were lots of elements to what I was planning out - which included ideas from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Legend of Zelda, The Wind on Fire among others. To be honest, I’m actually glad that ‘project’ didn’t get very far. Poor Christopher Paolini, the author of the Inheritance Cycle quadrilogy of books, was slated by certain groups and reviewers for his alleged lack of originality and using of ideas from other stories. In Paolini’s defence, he was only fifteen when his first book was published, which is something that most fifteen year olds don’t achieve! But I think that had I completed mine, it might have faced the same criticisms - not necessarily from reviewers or publishers, but perhaps friends and family reading through it first.

School, in particular, provided me with a lot of enthusiasm and inspiration to write (clearly, I was one of the cool kids). My GCSE English teacher was a great bloke (probably still is) and gave great, honest and constructive feedback to the entire class’ work. Our first piece of English Literature coursework was a piece on creative writing and I elected to do a piece on the topic of an opening chapter/opening chapters to a novel. Having just read Dan Brown I did my piece in his sort of style: bloke copping it at the start, trying to prevent some conspiracy from going ahead, then the reluctant hero of the story gets dragged in to solving it. My piece didn’t revolve around religious groups or secret societies, but around a historical artefact.

Out of 54 marks, this scored 52. I was more than happy with that. I had no idea where the story was going to go but I was determined that I would one day finish the story. To this day, I still have no idea where the story is going, but I am certain that it will be the last novel of a set of three, dragging the main character, a desperately-can’t-wait-to-retire detective, through painstaking research, learning about history that he wouldn’t usually be arsed about and running away from people, of whom he’s becoming more and more of an embuggerance (word-invention credited to Terry Pratchett) to.

For some reason, I really can’t remember why, but about a year later the option was given to my English class to rewrite that piece of coursework (we were about four out of five coursework pieces done by that time). I was of course happy with my score but I saw this as an opportunity to try something new and see what ideas could again come spewing from my mind.

This time, again sticking with the opening chapter(s) option, I wrote about a start of a medieval conspiracy, beginning around the Battle of Crécy and going…err…I still have no idea where! But this piece resonated better than the previous piece, earning full marks from my English teacher, along with the comments “…should come with an 18 rated certificate.” Again, I vowed that I would complete this story one day and see it published. This one I think I will try to make into a three-book story.

The summer after completing my GCSE exams I did the normal stuff: went on holiday with family, chilled out with friends, even attended the World Scout Jamboree that year. But I also by then had a set of ideas in my head that I wanted to turn into novels, and wrote that list onto a computer, and saved it to my USB memory stick. I have no idea where I last saw that USB stick…

After I left school I joined the British Armed Forces. I’m not going to write too much about what I did, where I went etc (not because I was part of some uber-top-secret unit, but more-so that it just doesn’t contribute to this post) but my priorities changed. I read a lot less and writing properly in the near term future just was not a possibility, or something that I wanted to concentrate on at that time.

In early 2017 I was considering a career change, and during that time I joined fanstory.com, under my real name. The purpose of doing this was to put myself into an environment with other amateur writers, gain inspiration from other budding authors (and hopefully give some inspiration back), and be in a place where my works could be read among ‘peers’, giving me a good steer on things.

It was on this website where my first novel, Payment, was conceived. There was a competition going for short stories up to 7000 words long in the horror genre (“Put your readers on edge or terrorize them”) and so I thought this was a good place to test out to see what people think and to develop my writing style.

It took me a couple of weeks to put Payment together and submit it. I had never considered writing horror before but this, again, was an ample opportunity to try something new and see what I could come up with. I decided to go with a 19th Century narrative; much like Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. I prefer to think or the horror genre as the old neo-gothic styles of writing - the old ghost stories. Horror, in recent years, both in writing and film-making, has taken more of a gore and shock factor turn. Personally, I think that will turn horror more into the thriller genre. To me, horror should be about ghosts, vampires, witches - the occult and the supernatural. And that’s that I have tried to achieve with Payment.

What surprised me the most during the writing of this were my decisions to use the first-person narrative - something I used to despise growing up, and the use of a one-word title. For some reason it used to bug me no end that it was becoming more and more common that artistic projects, be they novels, films, dance, visual art etc, would use one-worded titles. I used to think that was a cop-out. But here I am with Payment - a novel told in first-person narrative…

I have always thought that my writing style was/is closest to Terry Pratchett’s. I’ve never tried to emulate him but his style of using irony, dry humour and satire, whilst also plummeting to some very deep philosophical ideas. But I couldn’t do that whilst writing Payment. The thing is with writing horror, is that you have to be able to maintain that macabre atmosphere all the through. That actually isn’t easy. I found there always has to be a sense of the character’s isolation, a sense of doom and gloom, and a sense of something about to happen.

I didn’t win the completion that I entered. I don’t think it even made the top three. The votes are cast by the other entries’ writers and maybe a few other people. I can’t remember if you could vote for your own project but I think you could. The entries placed above mine, although I thought their storylines familiar with ideas already done, were admittedly much easier to read than my entry. A 19th century style of writing will always lose to simplicity when people have a number of works to read.

But that didn’t deter me. I’d created a fictional work and was determined to show it to the world. I didn’t go ahead with the career change at that point but decided to fully review Payment, at get it out there as a completed project.

Fanstory is a good platform, it really is. I’m not sure why, but after only a couple of months and having written a few competition entries, I came to stop writing on it. My old job was getting in the way and to be honest, I was getting impatient with writing on it. I had the mentality that I wanted to be published right now sort of thing.

A couple of years later, I did go ahead in a change of direction career-wise. This provided the opportunity to fully revise Payment and make it into a ‘novelette’, more than 7000/7500 words but fewer than 17,500. I would then prepare it for editing, get the artwork sorted and then publish it online for maybe a couple of quid.

I was actually in Tanzania at the time when I thought that Payment had been expanded enough to put out as a novelette. Once I’d finished writing, I showed it to a couple of the volunteers I was working with and they both enjoyed it. Although I was pleased about that, I still wasn’t satisfied with it. I had touched on quite a few themes in the work but I don’t feel like I had explored them all as much as I could have. Although complete, it felt very much incomplete. At the same time I wanted to expand the work into a full novel and also I didn’t - mainly because of the challenge of maintaining that horror atmosphere.

I decided that, in order to put more meat onto the bones and develop this short story/novelette into a full length novel, I needed a goal to work towards; something that has an end achievement that will make me work to expand on what I had already done. And so I set about looking for horror writing groups and/or competitions on the internet.

In not much time at all I came across the Horror Writers Association (HWA). They are a group that cater for all things horror and occult in fiction. There, you can advertise your works, read or recommend other people’s works and learn about events - namely the StokerCon.

But what attracted me to them the most was their sponsorship of the Bram Stoker Awards (“for Superior Achievement”). These are awards that are given out to authors and authoresses who have had their works judged in certain categories. The one that has caught my eye is the ‘First Novel’ category. A quick reading of the rules informed me of the minimal word limit: 40,00 words. Perfect. There’s something to work towards, with a chance at winning what is described as ‘the Oscars of horror writing’. When I returned from Africa I set about the task of bolstering a 17,000-ish novelette into a 40,000 word minimum horror novel!

I have read Edgar Allan Poe in the past, and even bits of Mary Shelley. For more inspiration in keeping that spooky, Neo-Gothic atmosphere, I read some parts of Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft. Despite all of that, I initially found it difficult to write again on the same piece of work that I started almost three years previously. It was only after reading Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, where I became inspired by her power of description to turn chapters, paragraphs and sentences that belong in quick short stories to ones suitable for a long read.

In January, this year, I had finally finished. I expanded heavily on the ideas that I was before concerned that I was rushing through and before I knew it, my word count was well over the 40,000 words I wanted to achieve! I read it all again myself, edited out any spelling or grammar mistakes that I had seen, and sent it out to beta testers (readers) for opinions and editing.

Following the last edit - of which there wasn’t relatively much to do - my debut novel stands at a word count of 53,850 words! That isn’t considered very long by today’s standards. To give a point of reference, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is estimated to be around 77,000 words long (depending on who is doing the word count). But my novel is longer than The Woman in Black as well as other novels such as The Great Gatsby and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and considering it came from a short story of 7,000 words I am still happy with it.

Concurrently with writing the novel came the task of finding an artist/illustrator for the cover. That was a more difficult task than I expected.

Not only did I want to find someone who could create a suitable cover, I also wanted that someone to be able to do ‘scene art’; by which I mean a picture at the start of certain chapters. The reason for this is that I see a completed novel itself as a form of art, and scene pictures add to that completed projected. In fact, I actually wanted a sort of teamwork between the writing/art found in the Edge Chronicles books by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.

I combed Facebook for a very long time, joining all sorts of groups and pages for amateur artists to show off their works, hoping to find someone who I thought was suitable for my work. To my dismay, there was very little, I thought, that I could go off.

Around October time I put an advert on a freelancing work website, just for an idea of who else is out there and possibly able to take this up. I did receive a fair few responses but, again, there wasn’t really anyone whose work suited what I was after. A couple of them, one of them being an art company based in Central Asia, actually got quite nasty about it. They were expectant

It was when I was on a course in Spain that it was suggested to me to look on Reddit, as Reddit “literally has everything on it.” I had never actually been a proper Reddit user before; I’d clicked the odd link from Facebook but had never really interacted with it before.

The guy who suggested Reddit to me was right - Reddit has literally everything on it. There’s so much information to be found on so many topics it seemed unlikely that I wouldn’t find what I was looking for on it, and so I combed through a few sub-reddits dedicated to (freelance) artists and checked some of them out.

So I once again posted out an advert looking for artists and this time the response were much more positive, and enthusiastic! It really was quite uplifting to see and hear from so many people who were interested in taking up the project and I received so many messages. Everyone who commented on the post and/or messaged me with links to their portfolios, I checked out their work. I honestly don’t think there was a single person whose works of art that I wasn’t impressed by. There is so much that can be found at deviantart.com and artstation.com and so much talent to be viewed and be in awe at! Everyone who directly messaged me got a return thanking them.

One of the people I got talking to was a young lad from Sweden called Daniel Percy, whose artwork I also checked out. My preferences came down to him and another guy from Germany, and after speaking with Daniel he agreed to take on the work.

Daniel does a lot of freelance art work, predominately doing concept art work for electronics companies (I want to say video games but don’t take that as gospel), but he still found the time to do this properly, compiling several drafts of the cover and inside sketches. We collaborated quite often on what to change, ideas to put in etc.

The finished artwork is incredible! I’m showing some of the initial first-sketch ideas here along with the final book cover, along with a couple of since-altered scene pictures, just for an idea of his talent. You’ll have to buy the book to see all of the finished sketches ;)

And the final thing to think/worry/mull over until stupid o’ clock in the morning, was the publishing aspect. Luckily, ever since I’ve thought about writing (as an adult), it has become increasingly easier to get your works out there. The rise of the internet and social media age has made self publishing so much more accessible, and that is the route I have gone down.

At first, I wanted to go down the traditional printing route. I - again showing cool I was as a kid - always liked the idea of a fresh and printed book in my hands. But, there are two reasons why I haven’t done this:

The first one is environmental. Even before the climate change debate became a fashionable thing to signal your virtues about, I was uncomfortable about the idea of trees being cut down for my creation, unless I could be 100% certain that exact same area would be immediately replanted. It’s true, there are forested areas specifically for this kind of thing but the amount of bureaucracy involved, along with the middle-men, wouldn’t make it an immediate thing.

The second reason is that the majority of writers who send their works in get rejected by so many publishers. Yes, people refer to J.K. Rowling’s story of being rejected twelve times (and again later by one of the same publishers when she first wrote as Robert Galbraith) before Harry Potter became a hit, but as the option of the internet is there, it makes sense to negate that possible rejection. In the event that my works do get noticed and attract the attention of publishers, then great! But if they don’t, at least by online publishing, I’ve still achieved putting my novel out to the world.

Finally, today, Friday the 13th (intentionally - it is a horror novel after all ;p ) of March 2020, I officially became a published author. It is a fantastic, monumental feeling. My story, my novel, my creation, is out there for people to buy, read and hopefully, enjoy.

If there’s any advice that I can give for anyone aspiring to be an (indie) author, it is this: just write your ideas down. Sounds simple, if not downright obvious, but it really is incredible that so many people don’t achieve their dreams or aspirations simply because they don’t do them. The world of authoring and indie writing is so much more accessible now than it was even fifteen years ago, that is takes a great lot of effort not to find at least one platform to get your works out onto.

It is also incredibly easy to find every excuse in the book to not write at all. School, work, family etc, being the big ones, and they are legitimate reasons. But they are only obstacles themselves to an extent, before you yourself make them obstacles. Start small. Set yourself half an hour on an evening. No more, no less. Half an hour to start getting your ideas onto paper and then after a week, you’ve spent three and a half hours writing. You’d be surprised at how much you’ve achieved after three and a half hours of concentrated effort.

If you need motivation, there are plenty of people out there, particularly on the internet, who give great examples of motivation that apply to all disciplines. Joe Rogan, for just one example, has plenty of people on his podcasts who talk and give advice on self-betterment, and it can apply to anybody. If you want to write, you will find the time and means to do it. It doesn’t matter how long it takes; everybody finds their ways at different times.

As to my next works, what am I going to be writing next? Well, shortly after writing Payment as a short story I thought of another idea to write about, and use that particular project to actually develop my writing style. This next one, of which the first ‘act’ as such does already have a skeleton outline to it, is a light hearted yet philosophical at times medieval adventure, combining humour and seriousness together. I’m not going to divulge ay more information the storyline because, although it’s a simple idea, I believe it’s one that no-one’s done before and some smart-arse with more time on their hands than I can easily bash something together using my idea!

The school coursework pieces? They are still on my ideas list and will no doubt be developed into their own proper projects and they hopefully will also be published just as Payment is! The fantasy that I started aged eleven? Absolutely no idea. Whilst I would certainly like to do fantasy, going for originality is going to be difficult, as the standard format (young hero finds out he’s the ‘chosen one’ and goes on a long quest) has been done to death, as have a lot of fantasy ideas already. George R R Martin had the idea of using the idea of old English houses warring against other in the past, and that was used to great effect even before he threw in the ice zombies! So that one is going to be a case of properly allocating some time to sit down, think and decide how I’m going to go about, but make no mistake, I will go about it!

Thank you all for taking the time to read through this! I hope its provided at least some entertainment or light (ha!) reading, and I hope you’ll feel interested to buy my debut novel!

My Facebook page can be found at:

https://m.facebook.com/Rhys-N-Rivers-Writing-101015961412385/?ref=bookmarks

All the places where Payment can be bought from can be found there. I thought it better to post one central link than the individual ones.

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royallyprincesslilly · 6 years ago

Text

Title: Give In (Part II)

Idris Elba X Reader “Zanzee” Mini Series (6 Part Mini Series)

Warning: Wild, wild thoughts, angst

Word Count: 3.9K

Summary: For the past 5 months has worked on the set of the “Hobbs & Shaw” movie. She works close to all the main actors and is there to answer any whim they may have as the "Set Concierge". She holds herself to a high professional level and refuses to stray from the right side of that pesky, thin grey line that those in the entertainment industry easily jump over.

Note: Will go through 1 week in the life of Zanzee Grant. Y'all I’m afraid this is as close as I will EVER get to a one shot. SMH. I cannot write a one shot to save my life.

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

***Interactive Chapter***(Click the links, I am not tryna get flagged)

****Thank you guys for reading. I appreciate it as ALWAYS! If you enjoyed this please LIKE and REBLOG. ❤️ ❤️

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

Tuesday

You opened your eyes and stared at the ceiling of your bedroom. You glanced at the clock; 4 AM. You groaned while closing your eyes. You were pulled back into the memory from last night. The memory of nearly knocking yourself out with the weight of Idris’…. You were at a loss as what to call it. You did know that it was meaty, the weight of it on your forehead told you that the rumors about him being called “Big Driis” were not exaggerations at all. You sunk your teeth into your bottom lip and released a low moan. Unconsciously your hand moved from their place atop the mattress and traveled across your stomach downward to the apex of your thighs.

Before you knew it your fingers had a mind of their own and were quickly working you to a release, a release with Idris on your mind. You thought about all the times over the last five months where the two of you interacted, the little touches that probably meant nothing, the smiles—god that man’s smile was something of pure godly power. He smiled, and it was clear to see how he could get any woman he pleased. Your breath caught in your throat forcing a strangled gasp from your lips, and it was then you felt the first stirs of your release. Your fingers sped up chasing the release your body so desperately wanted. You zeroed in on a memory of Idris changing.

You’d accidentally walked into his trailer with some rewrites and the new wardrobe and was in time to see him zipping up his leather pants still without a shirt. In your embarrassment, you quickly turned your back and apologized profusely. He was cool about it, but you’d had enough time to glance over the hardened plane of his eight pack and his mouth-watering obliques that dipped in giving those two chiseled lines that drove women crazy since the beginning of time. It was there your memory lingered, and it was then your orgasm erupted through you. You screeched at the force of it surging through you and the ecstasy that followed.

“Jesus!”

Your body slowly returned to its normal temperature, and your heart rate slowed down. You swallowed painfully; it had taken everything out of you. You slowly sat up knowing you were not going to go back to sleep and knowing you were fucked. You’d be thinking about this all day. You got out of bed, stretched, walked to your music system and found your “wake up” playlist. You pressed play and began your routine. The loud music helped you push your dreams, and moments ago out your head and prepare for the long day ahead.

By the time your chauffeured car pulled up to the lot you had thirty minutes to spare. You sat there a few moments longer and stared out the window at the hustle and bustle of set life. You closed your eyes and did some meditation breathing you’d learned. You focused and centered yourself and made a mental list of things to accomplish for the day.

“My to-do list for today, and part of my to-do list for tomorrow, also a head start on the end of the week cast and crew dinner,” you recited.

You’d been tasked with it yesterday as if you didn’t already have a lot to do. You sighed out once more, rolled your shoulders back and raised your head high. You stepped out the car and walked across the lost eyes forward and focused. A few people hurried to you holding out folders and stacks of paper, you took them all and skimmed them as you walked to your trailer. When you stepped inside you dropped your bags and took off your sweater and took another few seconds to practice your breathing.

“You are a professional Z, pro-fes-inal,” you slowly enunciated.

You took a sip from your latté cup and flipped through the pages you’d been given. It was all set changes, script changes, new requests, tasks to complete to ensure the shots for later in the day went off without a hitch and things of that sort. You heard a faint knock at the door and turned telling them to come in. Ethan stepped up into the trailer with a bright smile on his face.

“Hey Z.

You give him a friendly smile.

“What’s up Ethan?”

“Tonight, the rest of us were meeting up at Troy’s Pub to unwind, wanted to see if you wanted to come along.”

You leaned against one of the tables, already feeling the word “no” form on your tongue.

“Before you say no, think about it, see how the day plays out. Who knows, you might need it,” Ethan said. You nodded.

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

He nodded with a smile as he turned to leave. Before he did, he stopped and smiled back to you.

“You look good today Z.”

As quickly as he said it, he was gone. You smirked to yourself. It was the worst kept secret on set that Ethan had a crush on you, a secret you knew but ignored. If actors slept around with anyone, the same could be said about other set assistants, they all slept with each other. You turned back around and finished up.

When you walked across the lot to the morning huddle, you felt small butterflies flit in the bottom of your stomach forcing your palms to sweat. You stood to the back and listened to Peter, the assistant director as he spoke about the day’s vision and whatever other nonsense he needed to get out. He was a lot wordier than David, and you had no idea why.

After almost ten minutes he finished, and everyone began clearing out. You saw Dwayne’s back and knew Idris and Jason weren’t far from him. You slowly approached them, cautiously as if you were some timid peacock. Halfway there you snapped out of it, straightened your back and remembered you were a bad bitch, a professional bad bitch. You sped up your steps and walked over to them. Jason saw you first.

“Good morning Z,” he said with a smile, a smile you returned.

“Good morning Jason, Dwayne,” you responded noticing Idris was missing. You quickly looked around scanning the nearby vacuity for him but didn’t see him.

“He was called to do a different shoot across town. He’s filming the car chase scene,” Jason filled in. You nodded as you remembered the scene but didn’t see it on the schedule.

“Interesting, it’s not on the schedule for the day.”

“David changed his mind last minute; you know how he is, which explains Peter here instead,” Dwayne finished.

You nodded and handed them each their coffee.

“Jason, I thought we’d switch it up today, I found a nice Columbian blend that I think will put the Moroccan one as your number two,” you added. He smiled and took a sip. You waited for the verdict. He nodded his agreement.

“Eh, it’s good I won’t lie, it’s very close between the two,” Jason admitted.

“See, I told you I’m good.” He smiled and nodded.

“Is there anything you both need before I take the trip to the set across town?”

Both Dwayne and Jason shook their heads indicating they needed nothing.

“Okay, I’ve left the menus for lunch in your trailers, shoot me a text to tell me what it’s gonna be, and I’ll have it for you. Also, text me if you need anything at all,” you explained. They both nodded, Jason, waved you off before turning around to look at the set still being finished. You scoffed and shook your head.

“All right Jason, I know when I’m not wanted,” you joked.

“You’re not needed here, he needs you over there,” he slid out. Your smile slipped as you tried to grasp his meaning. As if he knew he tripped you up he smiled and turned back around.

You walked away to one of the set cars and began your projected twelve-minute drive to the second set.

Once you arrived, you looked at the chaos around. Crowds were surrounding the set, everyone trying to snap a picture of what was going on. There were groups of women holding up signs for Idris, Jason, and Dwayne. One of those signs read “I used to be a ballerina; I can do the split in four different ways, I can show you, Idris.” You couldn’t help yourself; you loudly laughed as you approached security. You showed him your badge, and he allowed you access. You walked through the swarm of crew members and made your way to the tent you knew the actors were. You juggled the items in your hands and maneuvered through the bodies littering the set. You saw Idris walk from underneath the tent out toward the row of cars. You watched the way he walked, that wide leg dip of a bow-legged man. It was attractive as hell, and it always commanded your attention. You stepped underneath the tent and smiled at the other crew members. David, the director, stood up and clapped his hands together.

“Quiet on set! Idris, you’ve got the scene?”

“Got it,” he answered. David nodded, stepped behind the lens and held his hand up signaling for all movement and sounds to cease. He counted down from five with his fingers and then pointed indicating the beginning of the scene.

In an instant, Idris leaped into action. You watched the high intensity; action scene unfold before you. There was limited dialogue just Idris showcasing why he was becoming one of the top actors to consider for an action role. He ran across the street, slide over the hood of the fancy Lamborghini, landing on his feet before he drew a gun from the holster on his thigh. He acted as if he pulled the trigger and eight loud, realistic gunshots sounded on the set. From behind him, a woman came attempting to kick him in the head. As quickly as he slid across the hood, he spun around, grabbed her leg and slammed her against the wall of the brick building thus beginning one of the fancy martial arts choreographed fight scenes. You stepped behind David and looked through the lens. It looked good, he was good.

The scene continued for another minute before David yelled “cut.” Everyone on set clapped.

“Yes, that is exactly what I wanted. Great work,” David complimented. Idris nodded as he approached the tent. A few other crew members patted him on the back and congratulated him, he accepted the praise but said nothing. The moment he saw you, you saw the blood on his eyebrow. Your smile faltered as worry rang through you. You approached him as he sat down.

“Hey Z,” Idris said.

“You’re hurt. Are you okay?” you stooped a little to get eye level with his face and examined his eyebrow.

“I’m all right, occupational hazard,” Idris joked. You ignored him and touched his temple. He sucked in a breath.

“Yeah, you’re hurt. We need a medic,” you said before you rose to turn to notify one of the set handles. Idris grabbed your hand forcing you to look at him. You looked at his hand around your wrist and then to him.

“I’m fine Z, it’s just a little cut,” he explained.

“Still, it’s their job to ensure the actors are okay. Someone should patch you up.

“It’s also your job to make sure I have everything I need. So, if I need a medic, you should patch me up,” he said his voice low. The words caught you off guard making you freeze.

Everything in you felt like that was a line. You felt like he was being flirtatious, but you couldn’t be sure. You bit your bottom lip and studied his face. He slowly let your wrist go the longer it took you to speak, and before long he broke the stare. It sure as hell wasn’t your job to clean his wounds, and it sure as hell wasn’t your job to touch him unless necessary, but everything in you wanted to. You wanted to nurse his wounds, wanted to touch him, everywhere, endlessly. Your palms tingled with how badly you felt the urge. You lifted your hand to reach for him, it brought his attention back to you but before either of you could make another move David approached. Once he saw the blood, he called medical over, and in an instant, the opportunity passed, but the air between the two of you was still charged. You turned your back to him and tried to compose yourself. You took several deep breathes and used it as a needed reprieve to get a grip on your thoughts and emotions.

Once you turned around, he was cleaned up. You cleared your throat, took up his coffee and the stack of papers and proceeded, business as usual.

“I have your coffee here, it may not be as scalding as you like, that’s my fault I’m sorry. I didn’t know your shoot was switched up today. It won’t happen again,” you explained.

“It’s fine Z, I’ll still take it,” Idris appeased as he reached out for the cup. As he took it from your hands, his fingers brushed yours, and that was all it took for the electricity to spark within you. You forced yourself to keep a straight face, careful not to give anything away. He took a long sip from the cup and moaned.

“Nothing like a British blend,” Idris sighed out. You smirked to yourself.

“Also, your schedule, I think you have a few minutes to go over it,” you said handing him a copy of the schedule. For the next few minutes, you explained the changes and every obligation he had that day. Once you were finished, he nodded.

“All right; got it.” You nodded as well.

“Okay, well that’s it for me for now. Do you want anything else from me?” he looked up at you, and his eyes dropped to your mouth and then slowly over your body before he shook his head and looked back to your face.

“Like what?”

You shrugged and smiled.

“Uh, I don’t know, anything I guess,” you said unsure how to answer his question.

“Anything. Huh, I need—” he trailed off as he stared at you. You waited for him to finish his sentence, silently hoping he would finish the sentence with the word “you.” He took a deep breath in and slowly released it, the look on his face spoke of annoyance, and something else, something close to what you imagined as disappointment.

“No Z, you’ve been great, thank you,” he said standing from his monogrammed chair. He began walking away from you toward the director and a circle of other crew members. You stood there feeling like a lost puppy, filled with disappointment.

You stayed on set for fifteen more minutes before you left to go back to Lot A to get cracking on the rest of your tasks when you left Idris was nowhere in sight.

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

“How is it possible for you to work so much?” Ethan asked, leaning against the door frame of your trailer. You looked back at him and smiled.

“Well, I have this thing called a drive to be successful,” you teased.

“Ouch, burn,” Ethan feigned faux hurt as he held his chest.

“What’s up?”

He walked further in and sat across from you.

“How are the plans coming for the end of the week?”

You sighed and rubbed your forehead.

“Well, you’re looking at them. Whose damn idea was it to have a weekly cast and crew dinner?”

“That would be Peter; he thinks it helps with team building and not keeping the actors and the crew separate. I actually like it,” Ethan explained. You nodded.

“Great. So why can’t we just recycle the same concept every week and simply reserve the same thing in advance?”

“Again Peter, he thought it would be fun to switch up themes every week,” Ethan added. You rolled your eyes.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think that you and Peter hang out off set,” you said. Ethan scoffed and shook his head.

“Do you want some help? I don’t mind.”

You looked over his face. There was a time (the first day you got on set) that you thought he was cute and thought maybe, but that changed quickly (fourth day on set) when you caught him and Tammie going at it behind one of the trailers. Since then you kept it all in perspective.

“No, I’m good. Thanks,” you answered.

“All right, was just checking in on you and dropping off this stuff for you,” Ethan said pointing behind him at a rack of clothes, and the stack of papers. You groaned and shook your head.

“Writers, they need a life, they write too damn much, nothing everything needs to be said and resaid in fifteen hundred different ways,” you ranted as you approached the stack of what you knew were rewrites. You took up the stack and rifled through them and nodded as your suspicions were confirmed.

“We all have a role to play Z; catch ya’ later.” He closed the door behind him leaving you alone with your frustrations. You knew this wasn’t work frustrations, this was lite work, you’d done some truly hard set work before, and this was in the middle. This you could handle. You knew where your frustrations were coming from and that was precisely what made you even more irritable. You rolled your head around stretching your tense muscles and counted.

You didn’t feel anywhere near calm until you’d reached eighty. You were now trecking through the lot to distribute wardrobe and rewrites to the actors’ trailers. You glanced at your phone, eight twenty. At this time, you knew Jason, Idris and Dwayne were filming another night scene across town, that thought gave you some comfort. Whenever Idris was near your body automatically went into a heightened state of suspension, it wouldn’t relax, and the longer you remained close to him the worse it became. You quickly dropped off items in Dwayne’s and Jason’s trailers making sure to take any notes they’d left for you for the next day and the week. A task that was supposed to be ten minutes tops was made longer by little micro errands you had to complete between dropping items off.

By the time you made it to Idris’ trailer, it was almost nine thirty. Without thinking you opened the door to the trailer and climbed the three steps inside. You flicked on one of the lamps and the space lit up with a soft white hue leaving darkness throughout the majority of the trailer. You placed the stack of papers on the desk you normally did, saw no notes for you and proceeded to walk toward the area you knew held a decent sized relaxation area. When you rounded the corner, you flicked on another light prepared to drape the wardrobe items across the bed.

A door opened to your right and out came Idris with water beads peppered across his chiseled chest. You stared at him without moving so much as a muscle and traveled the length of his torso. As your eyes took in his smooth skin, they spent extra time on his abs and inevitably his brain-numbing oblique indentations.

“Jesus Christ!” you panted out, the desire in your voice clear. You quickly looked up to meet his eyes that bored holes into you. A chill ran up your spine, and you arched your breasts forward. Idris’ eyes dropped to your breasts, and you saw his tongue peek out and dart across his full lips.

“Fuck!” you grunted in a pleading voice.

You had no idea what you were pleading for. It could have been for strength, mercy or for him to do just that push you against a wall and fuck you. With your run-away thoughts, you looked back down across his body, and it was then you saw he had a towel wrapped around his waist with an evident bulge asking for attention. You took a small step forward but hesitated to complete it. The look on his face went to an expression of hope. You took two steps back and recollected your senses.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” you rushed out, closing your eyes and turning your back to give him some privacy.

“I had no idea you were in here; I thought you were still filming. I came in to drop some things off. If I had known you were in here, I never would have--,” you trailed off.

You pinched your lips together embarrassment taking over. He didn’t speak; you didn’t even know if he moved. You wanted to look back but knew your strength, and that was more than you could take. If you looked back, you would cross a line. After another almost minute of silence you nodded.

“Right, I’m sorry again. Your wardrobe for tomorrow is there, rewrites and other tidbits on the table. Good night,” you rambled on as you walked toward the door and quickly out of it.

Instead of walking back to your trailer you ran with a horrified expression plastered across your face. There were still two more scenes to film for the night, but you stayed away from him for the rest of the night. You kept away from watching the filming, made sure not to be anywhere he was. Instead, you busied yourself with trying to get ahead for the next day. No matter how busy you made yourself, you still couldn’t stop thinking about him, or it. It looked heavy and felt solid. If that was true, then the rumors were very well quite possibly very true.

By the time eleven o’clock rolled around you couldn’t deal anymore and left to go home but with the amount of manic energy you had home was not an option. Instead, you called Andra and your friends and had them meet you at your go-to bar to unwind.

One drink turned to three and three turned to nine, and before you knew it, you were dancing on a table with your friends all around you cheering you on. When you got home, it was almost three in the morning. You expected to be tired and too drunk for your brain to work, but nope, like clockwork, you remained up with thoughts of Idris, his abs and his abundant blessing from the God almighty.

To Be Continued….

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