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volfoss · 4 years ago

Note

ships to rate: bruabba and gyjo? maybe even yasugap if you're up for it

ok ur about to see such a long post its nto even gonna be funny, tldr i love them all

also gonna put a fic i really like for them if ive read one/ a fic idea i wanna write plus maybe ranting, this is not coherent but my spelling isnt too bad

post under cut bc its very long

Bruabba:

my loves my lifes

they r so soft for each other

the fucking rain scene when bruno extends his umbrella

and how bruno is like trying to hold back his emotions post abba dying

in case its not super obvious by the sheer volume of bruabba content i reblog this is one of my otps

ALSO the fucking boat scene where abba pretty much is like yeah ur home bruno

ajdskjghdsgjk

hc that they r meeting up in the afterlife w nara and having a good time (also read a phenomenal fic about it that ill link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33118039 it is emotionally fucking me up days later <3)

dads dads dads but bruno is the caring dad that just gets you and takes care of you in the most gentle way and will sacrifice himself over and over again to see u happy and abba is the sitting in the armchair and u sneak in like 2 minutes past ur curfew ur busted but i was also worried about you

these two men own my whole heart (also my ao3 history i exclusively am reading bruabba and dadbacchio)

i have so so many thoughts toward them like yeah i just love them so much

i will never ever not write them as in love

t4t and bi4bi

every single canon thing about them makes me so soft but i think what makes me softest is just how its so clear that they rely on each other in situations

fanon interpretation rant rq:

but how some ppl really interpret them so ooc that its just like bruno mommy and abba cares about literally none of their kids (explanation on the mommy thing is bc most of things that do that are weird bc they really r treating bruno like a single parent who is raising the gang on his own and thats all when abba is literally there and caring about ppl (ie the purple haze incident w giorno, like he wasnt the most nice in his wording but why else would he be like hi move away from the danger if he didnt care??)

ppl also just tend to not really do the separation between how abba acts around others and how he acts towards bruno and has him being kinda aggressive towards him for literally no reason when they r literally so soft w each other

and also they r both so fucking pretty and i am in love with them both

if i think about them too long i will combust and i am blaming u solely for that one

ship dynamic of savior x savior bc they both really did save each other and i love them sm

fic ideas for them r they both live and leave passione and take their kids w them <3 (gang would crumble but thats not my problem)

ok also another hc that i have for them is that bruno will buy larger sweaters and wear them and give them to abba if hes having a rough time, they have a shared closet imo

10/10 ship

Gyjo:

OK OK OK

FEELINGS ON MAX

these guys r also my beloved but in a depressed x very happy but hiding depression way

the the fuckingn way that gyro ltierally risks everything in the ringo roadagain fight to save jognny

and the way that johnny is literally fucking broken post gyro persiheing and adopts his speech pattern a bit and ugh

I am obsessed w gyjo but i think the funniest crack ship is poly but w diego and they all fucking suffer (fic that sold me on that: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887796/chapters/54705517)

i cannot find the one fic that i really loved for them but needless to say i am soft w them living and just being together

update i found it: its a modern au and really really sweet! https://archiveofourown.org/works/31821940/chapters/78780595

one day ill actually write the fic idea i had for them which was basically they live and they dont sell the land they got from the sugar mountain arc and johnny wanted to start somewhere fresh anyways and gyro adopts marco and they make a lil log cabin and have a nice rest of their lives

i am a massive sucker for their ship

ALSO how johnny is always laughing at gyros jokes

smth i wish we got more of in canon were those moments where they just chilled and talked and had those kinda interactions

fandom complaining time!! the fucking way that some ppl just really take the gyro funny and johnny submissive trope is like my biggest pet peeve. did they not read sbr?? did they not see the multiple times that johnny has murdery eyes? i think personally its ppl infantilizing him a lot and it makes me really frustrated

ok also a fic that really really fills me desire for a they all live and everyone is happy is this one: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22812394

i love them sm but unfortunately cannot have coherent thoughts about them :(

10/10 ship

Yasugap:

gonna start this out w saying i did mildly speedread through jojolion so i dont have as many big screamy thoughts

BUT!!! them!!!!!

their canon interactions r the cutest thing and even if they werent, id ship it solely to spite joshu

josuke is a million trillion times better for yasuho (not just bc of how joshu is a fucking freak and is absolutely the worst i would run him over with a dump truck)

i really like how they both r so happy around each other but i think my favorite scene w them is when yasuho has to explain to josuke that hes crying and hes just like :') yeah

but they have so so many cute moments and the ending makes them the only couple to make it out of this list

i love how yasuho is just like willing to drop anything to help him and how they help each other out a lot during the whole time (if im remembering right?)

their dynamic is just 2 sweethearts

also love the moment that hes like look away yasuho :) then proceeds to beat a man up

they r canon (as is everyone else sorry <3)

i dont read a lot of part 8 fic since i need to reread it to properly understand the plot post like chapter 65? so i dont have any recs or complaints

BUT i do have a few hcs!!

i think yasuho would get josuke matching phone straps or phone cases

and when they move in together, i think they would raise sugar gliders (or potentially kidnap squirrels from the local park)

i love all of yasuho and josukes interactions but oh man every time that josukes past gets brought up i do start bawling

they both mean the world to me and how their romance is just built on such a clear foundation of trust and care it makes me so soft

they both give off such dog ppl energy tho and i love that for them

ALSO ok the way that yasuho helps josuke w his memory and is always there for him

i will never ever ever get over them

but i think one of my favorite scenes is the one right at the beginning where she gives josuke his name and how that plays into the rest of the story with him discovering his identity but still clinging to the one that she gave him since it was him, he wasnt just kira or josefumi he was josuke

10/10

if i think about them anymore i will start sobbing, the last chapter wrapped every last thing up so well and im so so glad that it did

#vento aureo spoilers #sbr spoilers #jjl spoilers #asks #wholesome mutuals

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bnhayyy · 4 years ago

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The Call (10)

Chapter Title: Friendship

Wordcount: 2.9k

Fic Tag: Click

Ao3 Link: Click

Chapter Summary: The death of Marco Bodt.

Notes: I stopped uploading chapters to tumblr for a while, but I've decided to get caught up! And getting caught up meant starting with. This. Enjoy? Also! if you want to see what happens next, please know that the next eight chapters are all already posted on Ao3.

"Kirstein. It's Ymir; I'm sure the slayers have told you all about me. Probably not good stuff either, so right now, I need you to ignore all of that and listen to me. Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover are vampires, Reiner has a gem that lets him walk in the sunlight, and Annie is in league with them. I have too many damn calls to make to go into detail, but Reiner's the killer you've been looking for. Bastard almost took Krista out last night. They're after Ackerman, and if you want to stay alive, you'll stay the fuck away from them. I mean it. They are not the people you think they are."

***

"Hey Jean, I just got a really weird voicemail from someone called Ymir. She was talking about vampires and magic rings and... something about Reiner being a murderer? It's probably nothing, but... she sounded really worked up and angry for a prank. I'm going to go over to Reiner's place and talk to him. I don't know what's going on, but I'm sure we can talk it out. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know in case you get a call as well. I've got it under control."

***

Jean felt all the blood drain from his face as he stared down at his phone. He stood there for a moment, unsure of what to think or feel.

Then he called Marco.

No answer.

He called again.

No answer.

After the third missed call, he pulled on his shoes and raced out of the apartment.

The first message had left him breathless - how the fuck had the vampire that Mikasa and Annie were hunting gotten his phone number?

That much he figured out almost immediately. It wasn't a nice thought, but it was the obvious answer. Ymir and Krista had been seen together at the club, and from the sound of it, they had been very friendly. Maybe the slayers were right and Krista was being manipulated. Maybe they weren't. Either way, he imagined that someone as charismatic and involved in the college as Krista wouldn't have much difficulty getting her hands on some phone numbers. It was an upsetting thought, but it wasn't his priority right now.

He didn't believe Ymir for even a second. But if she was involved, he did believe that Marco was walking into danger.

And he was walking into it blindly.

Jean cursed himself for listening to Erwin as he raced down the steps and to the rack that his bike was attached to. With fumbling fingers, he put in the code and yanked it free. He tore it from the rack and jumped on without bothering with a helmet.

As he peddled, his heart raced. Something cold slithered down his throat and into his stomach as he considered what might be waiting for him. Was this some elaborate trap set by Ymir? Would he get there to find everyone dead and the vampire waiting to set upon any of the slayer's friends who were foolish enough to show up? Did Bertolt and Reiner know about the story she was spinning? God, was she planning on turning them? Was she planning on turning Annie ? He didn't know what a slayer being turned into a vampire would mean in the grand scheme of things, but he couldn't imagine that it was anything good.

Was Marco going to die because Jean hadn't told him the truth?

The cold feeling spread throughout his body as worse and worse scenarios flashed through his mind. He could almost taste the fear threatening to paralyze him - or maybe that was bile. He definitely wouldn't be surprised if he ended up vomiting at some point in the night. The only thing that kept him going was the knowledge that if he didn't do anything, it could cost Marco his life. He had to - he had to -

He didn't know what he would do. What he could do. But he had to do something. Every bit of logic and reason within him told him to go back home and call Mikasa, and he wanted nothing more than to listen to it. The only problem was the obnoxious little thing he called a conscience, reminding him that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try to do something.

Damnit. He was probably going to get both of them killed.

He'd almost made it to Reiner's house when he rode past an alleyway. Jean caught sight of three figures standing by its mouth out of the corner of his eye. It was only a glimpse, but with his heart pounding in his chest and adrenaline rushing through his veins, it was enough to make him slam his feet against the pavement to stop his bike. He jumped off and abandoned it right on the side of the street as he rushed over to the alleyway.

His first instincts had been correct. No more than a few feet into the alleyway, Marco stood facing a stern-faced Reiner and Bertolt, talking rapid-fire and peppering his words with expressive gestures.

"Marco!" Jean called.

Marco, Reiner, and Bertolt all turned to face him. "Jean?" Marco asked, blinking. "What are you doing here?"

Jean cursed under his breath as he raced over to his friend. "Stopping you from doing something stupid," he said. "What about that call made you think this was a good idea? Ymir-"

"Did she call you as well?" Reiner asked. His expression was a combination of stony, frustrated, disappointed, and angry. It was a little odd, but far from the highest priority at the moment.

"Yeah," Jean said as he stepped over to Marco's side. He and everyone else looked uninjured - good. Ymir must not have been able to try anything yet. "She tried to feed me some nonsense about you two being vampires."

Bertolt groaned and shook his head. "Reiner, if she told Jean and Marco..."

"She probably told everyone," Reiner finished.

"So?" Jean asked, scowling. "It's not like any of us would believe her. The important thing is making sure that she isn't able to do anything serious."

"Yeah!" Marco added. "I mean - I'm still kinda... struggling to wrap my head around this, and that all this is real, but... just because you guys are vampires-"

Jean snapped his head around to stare at Marco. "Wait, what?"

Reiner sighed heavily.

There was only one short moment between that sigh and Reiner starting to speak. However, that moment was enough for Jean's innards to freeze up with a whole new sort of cold.

Maybe he should have given Ymir some credit after all.

"You see, Jean," Reiner began, a whisper of regret staining his voice, "Ymir wasn't lying."

"Maybe not completely," Marco said, oblivious to how Jean's heart was sinking in his chest. Oh, he was definitely nervous - the sweat beginning to form on his face and anxious strain to his smile said that much. But he also sounded like he sincerely believed what he was saying.

Because he didn't know what being a vampire meant. But then again, neither did Jean, now that he thought about it. He knew that they were blood-sucking monsters, but... maybe that wasn't everything. The Reiner and Bertolt that he knew were good people. Marco was a naive goody-two-shoes, but maybe there was some merit to what he was trying to say.

In the time that it took for Jean to go through that train of thought, Marco continued speaking. "But just because you're vampires doesn't mean you have to be killers!"

A shadowed look fell over Bertolt's face, while Reiner just frowned. Jean felt his stomach twist, and Marco's smile twitched fractionally.

Yet he didn't give up.

"A-and even if you are," Marco stammered, "this could be an opportunity to turn over a new leaf! I mean, is there any rule saying that you can't be good? What's stopping you?"

Bertolt bit his lower lip. "It doesn't..." Reiner gave him a heavy look as he trailed off, and he took in a deep breath before finishing, "it doesn't work that way."

"Why not!?" Jean demanded. The words felt like they were shards of glass forcing their way out of his throat and his heart was all but ready to burst out of his chest. He knew that he should turn and run. If Bertolt and Reiner really were vampires, he had to turn around and run if he wanted to get out alive.

But his friends needed him. Marco for sure, and maybe, if he wasn't being a complete moron, Bertolt and Reiner as well.

Jean should have turned around and run away. Instead, he stepped in front of Marco and held his arms out. "Why can't you be good? Vampires might not be the same as humans mentally and emotionally or whatever, but you have free will, don't you? And we're friends, aren't we? So why does this have to mean anything? Even if..." Jean swallowed and tried not to think too heavily on the horrible implications of what he was saying, of what Ymir had said, even as he forced himself to acknowledge their existence. "Even if you've done horrible things, I'm sure the others would be willing to give you another chance if you're willing to atone and try to do good now."

"He's right!" Marco chimed in, stepping forward and around Jean. "I-it might not mean much, but I would vouch for you."

Bertolt faltered. Beside him, Reiner closed his eyes, just for a moment.

When he opened them, all of their usual warmth had been replaced with ice. "Enough of this."

"Reiner-"

"No, Bertolt. They know now. Ackerman knows. We need to show them that we mean business."

Jean was moving before he even finished speaking. He grabbed Marco's arm and tried to drag him toward the mouth of the alley. However, his friend fought back and remained rooted to the spot. Both of them spoke at once.

"H-hey, let not do anything hasty-"

"-Marco, we need to go now-"

Meanwhile, Reiner jerked his head toward Jean and said, "hold him back."

Then Reiner twitched, his gaze jerking off to the side for a moment.

Bertolt didn't seem to notice. He didn't hesitate in closing the distance between himself and Jean and, with far more strength than any human should - could - have, tugged him away from Marco, and pinned his arms behind his back. Jean flailed and yelled wordlessly, but was unable to break out of his grasp.

"I'm sorry," Bertolt whispered. "We were only after Mikasa, you weren't supposed to be - this wasn't part of the plan."

"If you're sorry, then why don't you do something!? " Jean shouted.

Meanwhile, Reiner was approaching Marco. He looked steady, unstoppable - aside from how he kept looking over to the side every few seconds. At the same time, Marco took one, two, three steps away, until his back was pinned to the wall.

Reiner's sudden twitchiness did nothing to soothe him. "Don't do this," he pleaded. "Reiner, please, we're friends, don't-"

"What's going on?"

All four of them froze. Despite his need to keep his eyes on Marco, Jean's eyes momentarily darted toward the opening of the alleyway. There stood Annie Leonhardt. She was beaten and bloody. At just a quick glance, he noticed that her shoulder was positioned oddly and there was a gruesome cut on her leg. Even so, for one bright, shining moment, he felt something that almost felt like hope. For a moment, he wanted to call out to her for help.

Then he remembered Ymir's call.

"Annie!" Marco called out, still hopeful where Jean could feel despair lapping at his heels. "Th-there's been some sort of misunderstanding. Maybe you could-"

"Ymir knows about us," Reiner interrupted, making Jean's eyes snap back to him. Where Jean, Marco, and Bertolt had all paused to look at Annie, he had gotten ahold of himself and re-focused his attention on Marco. A predator fixated on its prey. "She told everyone."

"Mikasa knows too," Annie said, voice empty. "She got away."

Reiner's expression darkened. "She got away, or you let her go?"

No sooner had he spoken than a twitch ran through his jaw. But of course, with all that was going on, Annie didn't notice it. It looked like she was going to say something, but she never got the chance.

"She should let Mikasa go!" Jean exclaimed. "Annie, you're a slayer! You can't do this. You're supposed to be a hero. "

Meanwhile, Reiner grabbed Marco by the shoulder and pulled them both around to face Annie. "I think you've gotten too attached," he said. As soon as he spoke, he visibly tightened his grip on Marco's shoulder as he spoke, jaw clenching a little tighter yet.

Annie scowled. "No! I just-"

"None of you are too attached!" Marco pleaded. "We're friends! Annie, Reiner, please- "

"Reiner," Jean hissed. "Annie. Bertolt." The vampire holding him swallowed audibly, but made no move to cut Jean off, nor did he try to join the current cacophony of voices. "Listen to me. If you do this, I swear to god, you will- "

"Shut up, Eren!" Reiner snapped.

Silence fell over the group. Or rather, everyone aside from Reiner, who went on to murmur, a hint of intermingled exhaustion and agitation creeping into his voice, "I'm not going to regret anything."

Jean stared. Marco didn't dare move, but he could make out the confusion on his face. Annie's expression morphed into a frown.

"Reiner," Bertolt whispered, "who's Eren?"

Reiner raised the hand that wasn't clutching onto Marco to scrub at the side of his face. "No one," he said. "Let's just get this over with."

He lowered his hand and pushed Marco into Annie's arms. "Kill him."

Annie grabbed onto Marco, whose expression had settled firmly into one of horror.

"Annie, please," he begged, "we can still talk this out, we can-"

"Annie!" Jean howled. "If you do this, you'll-"

"Annie has a soul," Bertolt called out, voice pitched loud enough to cut through the din.

Reiner raised an eyebrow at Bertolt. "So?"

" Look at her," Bertolt pressed.

So Jean looked. He saw that Annie's eyes were wide and her face was pale. She looked pained, but that could very well be because of her injuries.

Perhaps it was because he wasn't as kind of Marco, but to him, she just looked like a murderer in the making. Nonetheless, Bertolt pressed on.

"There are other ways for her to prove her loyalty, but you need to remember that she isn't like us, Reiner. You're asking her to kill a friend. That sort of thing-"

"Right," Reiner said, letting out a mirthless laugh. "We have to look out for the slayer's precious soul."

Reiner wrenched Marco out of Annie's grasp and snapped his neck.

Nobody had time to do anything. Nobody even had time to react. One second Marco was standing there, terrified but alive, and the next his lifeless body was falling to the ground. It was the sort of thing that was impossible to witness without receiving a permanent scar on your soul.

But vampires didn't have souls to scar, and as he stared down at Marco's body, Reiner's expression was utterly impassive.

"Annie," he said, voice empty save for a faint hint of irritation. "Someone will need to dispose of the body. Do you think you can handle that, at least?"

"Once I get the arrow out of my shoulder," she said. Her voice was choked up. If Jean didn't know better, he might suspect that he would see tears in her eyes if he looked at her. But he didn't. He wasn't able to look at anything but Marco's body.

"I'll help," Bertolt offered.

"Not yet," Reiner said. "We aren't done here."

With that, he approached Jean, eyes dark and heavy. Jean met his gaze with his own, eyes promising vengeance, for all that he knew that his death was probably upon him.

Yet when Reiner opened his mouth, it was to say, "now that you know we're serious... Jean. Because we're friends, I'm going to let you live. And if you, Sasha, and Connie stay out of the way, none of you will be hurt."

Faintly, Jean heard Annie murmur, "hypocrite." He couldn't tell if Reiner caught it, as his eyes remained fixed on Jean, waiting for his answer.

A smart person would have agreed. A selfish person would have agreed. If you asked Jean prior to that moment, he would have expected himself to agree.

Instead, he looked Reiner in the eyes and said, "we won't. Reiner, if you let me live, I promise that you will regret it."

Reiner gave a thin smile. "Good thing I'm willing to take that bet."

He stepped away and collected Marco's body in his arms. For a moment, it looked like he would pass it - him - to Annie, but he hesitated upon getting a closer look at her arm. With a sigh, he called, "Bertolt?"

"I really am sorry," Bertolt murmured before letting go of Jean and stepping away.

Jean wanted to charge at Marco's murderers. To fight for his body so that he would at least get a proper burial. To avenge his death. Instead, without Bertolt to support him, his legs gave out and he fell to his knees.

"Think about my offer," Reiner called.

With that, the trio left the alleyway, taking Marco's corpse with them.

And Jean was alone.

#attack on titan #snk #The Call #Jean Kirstein #Marco Bodt #Marco Bott #Reiner Braun #Bertolt Hoover #Annie Leonhart #Annie Leonhardt #Mikannie #as in. there is no mikannie this chapter #but this is a mikannie fic as a whole #my fic #my writing

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asterekmess · 5 years ago

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(I was gonna save this for tomorrow, but FUCK IT) Eyyy, still being salty over here. Pls block the tag ‘rant’ if you don’t wanna see anymore of these. Or maybe ‘anti-scott mccall’ though, tbh, I’m not sure how much fun it would be to follow me if you aren’t anti-scott mccall. I’m pretty vocal abt disliking him.

ANYWAY.

I wanna talk about the concept of Derek being a ‘creeper’ because of all his wandering around the lacrosse field, at lydia’s party, etc. And by talk about, I mean ramble about incoherently. By which I mean, please know that I’m not trying to insult or fight anybody who makes this joke or uses this concept in fic or whatever. I’m just ranting bc I love this boy and his trauma makes me sad.

ANYWAY. (This is insanely long, so I’m adding a “Read More”)

I just have a lot of feelings about people seeing Derek as a stalker/creeper because he keeps showing up at lacrosse practice and in Scott & Stiles’ rooms, etc. It gets mentioned in loads of fics (I see a lot of “Creeperwolf” which I think is supposed to be an endearment?) (And there’s lots of fics that talk about how ‘you used to be/are really creepy, following us around’ Again, not judging) (Dude it’s even a whole tag on AO3 ‘Creeper Derek Hale’) and it’s joked about a lot in fandom (the vine with the ‘every step you take’ song and the swans on the building comes to mind). I see it a lot, and dude, it hurts me.

Let’s look at Derek’s current mental state and what he’s been dealing with, going all the way back to Paige. (Or, tbh, his birth) Derek is a werewolf. He was born a werewolf, to a family of werewolves. He grew up within the supernatural world, in a whole different culture to humans (honestly, my fury at the lack of werewolf culture/history/worldbuilding is worthy of its own post. Let me know if by some ungodly chance, you actually wanna hear my thoughts on it.) and presumably the number one rule in all of werewolfdom is “Keep the Secret.” Now, Derek’s fuckin’ 14/15 (I put his birthday on Christmas, like most of fandom, and if his house burned down when he was 16, in the spring, and he was dating Kate for a while before, he would’ve dated her when he was 15, and we don’t know how long there was between paige and kate, but let’s give him a summer of mourning. So. 14ish with paige) and he starts dating this human. He’s kinda shit at keeping the secret, implying that either he’s only dated werewolves before, or she’s his first girlfriend ever (also implying that maybe some of the people on his basketball team are werewolves, bc they don’t seem to notice his weird way of talking [pack members maybe? fuck, my heart]) and he’s maybe not as careful as he should be. (More implications arise, and we begin to build our own history. If Derek was never taught not to say dumb shit like ‘i caught a scent’ then was he even in public school before freshman year? Were the Hales all homeschooled before high school to help keep the secret? How soon do wolfy abilites arise? Do they hit with puberty? Fuck, I digress.) He says some dumb shit, and Paige gets suspicious. Of course, he doesn’t know that, and he has some kind of meltdown about her eventually finding out his secret. We hear from Peter (who’s villainized, so we’re not supposed to necessarily believe what he says, but what we see in the flashback doesn’t make a huge amount of sense either so *shrug*) that he enlists Ennis to bite Paige, believing that if she is bitten she won’t spill the secret and she’ll be more inclined to accept that Derek is a werewolf. Now, she fucking dies. Paige dies in Derek’s arms because of this, and he finds out at the last second that she already knew the secret. He feels guilty enough abt getting her killed but now he’s got a whole new batch of guilt from finding out that apparently he’s so bad at keeping the secret of his ENTIRE SPECIES that she found out he was a werewolf. She could’ve exposed them all at any time. He had to be terrified. Next, he’s 15/16 and he meets a gorgeous older woman who presumably showers him in affection, and all the horrors that go with that whole situation (I don’t wanna go into detail, because obviously). But again, whether Derek tells her himself or she just knew or she finds out, whatever it is, Kate knows Derek and his family are werewolves. AND SHE KILLS THEM ALL. Derek has no clue what the fuck is going on. All he knows is he is the only link between Kate and his family, which must mean that it’s his fault she knows about them. Once again, he’s revealed the Big Secret and people Died. He and Laura bolt to NY for six years, where presumably they live in hiding thinking the Argents are coming after them to finish off the Hales. Then Laura gets sent a funky letter and goes back to Beacon Hills. Now, we have a lil more confusion (i’ve got a whole buttload of issues with the timeline, but let’s not get into that now) because he says he came looking for Laura, but later he mentions that he knew she was in Beacon Hills and was searching for...whoever burnt down their house...that whole plotline confuses the shit out of me (derek knew kate did it. he blamed All the argents, but he knew kate was involved. So why was Laura looking for the pendant. and if he didn’t tell her then why was he looking for the pendant?? And what did the pendant have to do with the deer and the spiral?? Halp.) but whatever. He shows up and finds his sister dead, the hunters arrive in town the next day, and suddenly there’s an angry alpha Attacking Humans.

We’re finally in the present. Derek has lost what little family he had left, except for a catatonic uncle. He already has two instances in his past where the worry of keeping werewolves a secret has caused deaths. And now there’s this teenager. No, actually, two teenagers. One who was bitten, and one who shouts out “You’re a werewolf!” in the middle of the preserve, instantly figuring out a centuries-old supernatural secret. Derek is fucking terrified, and things are only getting worse. This kid who got bitten? Derek follows him to see if he’s really a wolf, to find out if he knows what’s happening to him, if he believes the other teen. He finds the kid JUMPING OVER PEOPLE’S HEADS in broad daylight in front of everyone. Derek might’ve had a couple verbal giveaways but this is just ridiculous. Then, even better, the kid goes on a date on the FULL MOON with THE YOUNGEST ARGENT. There’s about a billion reasons to follow Scott to the party. It’s a FULL MOON, for one. HE’S WITH AN ARGENT for another. And of course he can’t just walk into the party. He’s fucking 22 for fuck’s sake. This is a high school party. He’d get arrested. And of course he doesn’t introduce himself to Scott beforehand. He has no way of knowing if this kid is on the Alpha’s side. He’s the Alpha’s Beta, it would make perfect sense for him to be obeying the Alpha. OR since he’s with the Argent, maybe he’s working with them. Maybe he’s a plant of some kind. a hunter pet. Laura was used as bait to catch Derek, why not Scott too? But he sees quickly that Allison has no clue what’s going on, at least with Scott, and he takes her home and steals her jacket to lure Scott into the Preserve where he can’t hurt anyone. Then, when he sees Scott get chased by the hunters, with no Alpha coming running to protect him, he decides “Alright, guess this kid’s my ally. Gotta protect him.” Yeah. He says some weird shit. But the evidence points to Derek not knowing much about bitten wolves. He tells Scott that he doesn’t know how to train a bitten wolf, but he does know how to help Scott recover memories (the memory loss appears to only happen in the early days of shifting, which lends more credibility to the possibility that born wolves don’t start shifting properly until later in life [puberty being the most likely milestone] and he therefore has experience with that, but not with the kind of control Scott needs, that he’s known his whole life). Born a werewolf, he’s never considered the bite anything other than a gift. He also just lost his entire family, so sue him for trying to find some kind of connection between them. (It honestly makes total sense for him to use the term ‘brothers’ bc he KNOWs Scott won’t understand the concept of ‘pack’ yet) So, now that’s decided to help Scott, to protect him, he goes back to the school. SURELY now that Scott knows what he is and how dangerous he is when stressed, he’ll reign himself in during lacrosse, or even just back out of it altogether. There are lives at stake here, be them human, or if Scott exposes the secret, werewolves. SURELY this kid wouldn’t put everyone in danger over a fucking game. But no. Not only does he keep flaunting his abilities, but he SHIFTS ON THE FIELD. If Stiles hadn’t Dragged Scott out of there, the entire supernatural world would be EXPOSED by this ONE KID. Derek passed Terrified about a hundred miles back. He’s gotta be fucking out of his mind with fear. I don’t blame him even a little for threatening Scott. If Scott’s not gonna do the right thing on his own, then threatening him is worth it if people don’t DIE. Then, bc Scott’s a pissy baby and goes to shout at him and be a fuckwad, and Stiles is nosey and neither of them have boundaries (I love Stiles, but fucking seriously, digging up a grave?) Derek gets ARRESTED. He pleads with this lanky teen who is brave enough to climb into the cruiser with a WEREWOLF. Who’s FRiends with a Werewolf. Who figured it out so quickly. He pleads with him to understand how dangerous this is, to stop his friend. And Stiles looks like he’s gonna, but Scott bolts bc of the wolfsbane (Which...listen if I’m being really salty, a deep bitter part of me genuinely wonders if he was that freaked out, or if he overheard Derek beg Stiles not to let Scott play, and Scott ran away from Stiles so he wouldn’t get told no, bc he wanted to play.) and by the time Stiles finds him he’s already dressed for the game. And DEREK WAS RIGHT. Scott DID lose control. He DID shift on the field. At LEAST one human saw him shift, and the coach for the other team knew something was up too. He DID expose them, and he did it further bc Jackson is suspicious now. Now, I’ve reblogged a gifset of it before, the moment when Derek shows up at the lacrosse field and finds Jackson standing in it after Scott’s run off, staring at a glove with a claw hole in it. He is watching his worst nightmare come true. Scott has exposed them and Jackson is going to figure out werewolves, just like Stiles did. He knows right that instant that people are going to die. I’ll reiterate what I said in the tags on that gifset. It’s extremely likely that Derek bit Jackson out of self-preservation. Jackson had been threatening to tell the hunters and the entire world if he didn’t get what he wanted. The safest thing to do was give Jackson the bite so that at least he would be putting himself in danger too if he exposed werewolves. He forced Jackson to have to keep the secret for himself because he knew Jackson wouldn’t do it for anyone else. (And he knew Jackson had some self-preservation, compared to Scott, and wouldn’t want to expose himself.)

Listen, I just. I just get so sad watching Derek sneaking into people’s rooms and standing on the edge of the field and showing up in the locker rooms. He’s trying to help. He’s trying to protect. He wants to be there in case Scott does something stupid (which he does, again and Again) to protect him, even after Scott REFUSED to help him stop a SERIAL KILLER because there wasn’t anything in it for him. Even after Scott fucking blackmails him by leaving him hanging on a grate with wires plugged into his side and his abuser on their way back to hurt him, he still helps him protect Allison (who watched him be tortured and did nothing. [He still has the capacity to acknowledge that it’s not her fault. That she couldn’t save him. He doesn’t blame her for it and he certainly doesn’t want her to die.]) He wants to keep his Betas safe. He stands in the parking lot waiting for them to test Lydia because he doesn’t want them to have to go through with killing her alone (and he only tries to kill her because she DOESN’T pass the test [although I admit it’s a dumb test] and because the kanima is KILLING people. More people have died and I don’t know how the fuck Derek manages to keep standing, let alone having such capacity for empathy and optimism and sarcasm after everything he’s dealt with. He’s constantly being hunted by hunters or humans, or fuck even Scott himself, since every time Scott gets upset he blames Derek for everything (I’m still fucking disgusted that he turned up at Derek’s place and accused him of murdering his own sister.) And STILL he shows up. No matter how many times he’s shoved away and ignored and yelled at. He shows up and he stands on the fringes and he waits for the chance to help.

And what’s creepy about that?

#personal #rant #Fuck i love Derek and I'm so fucking sad #i have a lot of feelings okay?#like I said #i'm not judging people who use the concept in fics or who make the jokes or whatever #i'm just talking about my own feelings #anti-scott mccall #Meta Ramblings

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borkthemork · 5 years ago

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Comfort - Kaiju AU Fanfic

Summary: Connie wanted a moment to study at the Temple, and found a friend to pass the time.

Fanfic based off @reverse-monster-buddies!

Word Count: 2,696.

Reblogs are appreciated!

Ao3 Link

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Connie Maheswaran had work to do, a lot of it. It was the reason why she had counted her fingers on the bus, watched the horizon awaken through the windows, fog covering the corners of the panes. The morning was early, the skies painted in auburn amidst the blotched white clouds, and the silhouette of the town was prominent, the hallmark of it — the lighthouse on the massive green cliff — was a clear indicator that she was in the right place. The vehicle rumbled, shifting the backpack seated beside her a little. She had planned to stay in Beach City for a few hours. It felt weird to stay at home when the Maheswaran residence didn’t have anyone to occupy it except for her. Knowing her parents, they wouldn’t mind her being out and about on such a gorgeous day, welcomed by warm rays, beach sand between her toes, the secrets of this specific town hers and hers alone.

The rolled landscape from the glass started to slow down, and with it, Connie grabbed her backpack. The engine rumbled to a stutter as the town grew closer until, finally, they halted at the familiar stop.

The bus driver looked at her from his seat. He had a groomed mustache, hair grayed at the scalp, potbelly noticeable even with how far she was from the front. “Typical stop right, little lady?”

“Yep, right here.”

He nodded. Hisss went the door as it flung itself open. She stood up, grabbing her backpack before she forgot about it.

“Stay safe. Don’t want your parents to worry about ya’.”

“I’ll be careful, thank you, Mister Moriarty!”

He gave her a warm smile. “No problem Connie, have a great day.”

When Connie touched the ground she watched the bus drive off, seeing it recede into the size of a pinprick with the growing distance, and then into nothing when the first hillock swallowed its shape. Her eyes started to follow the horizon. She kneeled down to rummage through her belongings. Her laptop was nestled alongside the tied cables, a few thin textbooks bunched in with an Unfamiliar Familiar book. Everything looked to be in order, not a single item out of place. Connie zipped it back up. It was going to be a long day.

Connie made her way to Beach City. She held tightly to her backpack straps, not wanting to let go of the study materials inside. The buildings were covered in waking shadows, the streetlights beginning to flicker off with the rise of the sun. Connie didn’t have many friends in this town. She had always remained reclusive during her study sessions, where she read her books on the shores away from the bustling boardwalk or the shops nearby, hoping to be invisible from many who would possibly judge her or ask her questions. Lately, she had found herself leaning towards more secretive locations, away from the prying eyes of teenagers and adults, and she strode her way to the cliffside, following the crags that lined the beach.

There was the chain-link fence that lined from the ocean to the growing cliff face. On it were two signs, the typical ‘Keep Off Beach’ one would find authorized by police and the peculiar wooden plank with ‘Please’ written in thick black paint. She lugged her backpack over the fence and started to climb. Hidden below the lighthouse, away from the prying eyes of the Beach City residences, there was an opening into the cliffside. The entrance was bordered by delicate stone hands of a statued goddess, eyes void as it surveyed the ocean nearby. Crystals jutted from the rocks, a crystalline warp pad at the center of all this, the door encrusted with a bold yellow star — each gem on the tips of it signifying higher deities that humanity was probably not ready to behold. And somehow these beings, with more technological and physical advancement than the human race, allowed her into their ranks, to relax in their residence as if she was a hearty neighbor.

Connie spotted a few figures at one of the warp steps. A green gem with tufts of white hair was playing around with a twig in her hand. She noted the bundle of purple that wriggled and spun around the Crystal Gem with a yip. Spikes flowed down its back and head, eyes purple in a sea of inky black as it played around, following the direction of the gem’s hand.

“You want it, girl?” The gem cooed and watched the pup bark in glee, wagging its tail furiously. “You want to beat this poor stick up?”

An enthusiastic bark.

“Then here you go!”

She threw the stick out towards the beach, making eye-contact with Connie for a second while the beast sped past her. “Connie, hey!”

Connie walked over to them. “Hey, didn’t know I’d see you guys today.”

She noticed the purple creature come barreling back, its head whipping up at the sight of her. It dropped its stick and gave a joyous bark, bounding over to her without a moment's notice, licking her pant leg with the broad of its tongue.

Connie smiled and pet the corrupted gem’s head, feeling the critter’s scales at her fingertips. She knew who this was, no doubt about it. “Hey Kai, nice to see you!”

Kai nuzzled into her palm. She didn’t change one bit the last time Connie saw her — still happy and hyper as always.

“Connie, I didn’t expect you, at all,” Nephrite said. “Isn’t it six a.m. for you humans?”

“Were you expecting something more punctual?”

“A lil’.” Nephrite stood up from the steps and brushed the dirt off her jacket. For all Connie knew, Nephrite’s attire must’ve had a journey on its own from the scratches and loose ends from it; it wasn’t even hers, but something she found on her previous adventures. “But you’re Connie, you’re always going to surprise us somehow.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Like the time you found me reading behind the fence?”

“Yeah. You had a ‘follow the law’ aura goin’ on with you when I first found you. Didn’t expect to see you breaking one.”

“I wanted peace and quiet, so all I followed was my logic. The fence wasn’t even a certified one, so no law-breaking here.”

Nephrite snorted and ruffled her hair. “Attagirl.”

In their laughter, Connie peered at the cheeseburger backpack on Nephrite’s shoulders, noting how clunky and bulked it was. She raised an eyebrow. “Another mission?”

“A personal one,” she reassured. “Just need to check out something in The Great North.”

Connie went starry-eyed. “Oh! Like corrupted gem business?”

“Ehhh.” The gem shrugged. “Kinda. It’s dangerous though, Kai doesn’t like it when I go on this stuff without her.”

Kai whimpered in kind.

“See? Worries about me a lot. Been trying to get her to sleep or stay but she won’t budge.”

Connie smiled a little. With the current assignments she had, the idea of staying at the beach sounded better than being alone. Kai was like a puppy with the way she leaped at people and took comfort in the silence with them. Connie didn’t mind the idea of being next to her for a couple of hours. “I wouldn’t mind looking after her while you're gone.”

Nephrite’s fists tightened around her pack straps. “You’re serious?”

“Serious.”

She rubbed her chin for a second. “Alright then, I trust you. Kai’s food is in the fridge — just don’t feed her too many donuts or a stomach ache.”

“Wait, I thought you guys didn’t like to eat?”

“Some do. Amethyst does.” Nephrite shrugged. “Kai too apparently.”

After a few goodbyes, Connie and Kai watched the form of Nephrite dissipate in a pillar of light before it all died down back to sunrise yellow. Kai whined at the base of the warp pad, clawing at the facets in wait. Connie sat down near the steps and propped the laptop onto her lap. She clicked her tongue as the computer started up, smiling over at the small gem, who had her head cocked towards her in curiosity.

“Come here, girl. You like head scratches, right?”

The whine transformed into a happy yip.

Connie giggled. “Then come here!”

The hour went by without a hitch. Connie found herself relaxed into a studious rhythm, fingers occupied to the scales of her companion, who crooned next to her as Kai faded in and out from her naps. Connie would’ve found it relaxing if it weren’t for the algebra that plagued her screen, and how no matter how much she used the calculator extension — which promised accurate results, which was a big fucking lie! — the input stopped her with a huge ‘INVALID ANSWER’ box with each impatient mouse click. At this point she might as well throw the tech at a wall; she would have had a higher probability of it surviving than the garbage algorithm doing its work correctly.

Connie halted at the pressure at her leg.

She looked over to find Kai awake, pawing at her pants with wide, gleaming eyes. “Hey girl, you okay?”

Kai gave her a small bark.

“Are you antsy? Anxious? What’s on your mind right now?”

The gem kept her eyes on her and continued to bark at her for a few seconds before settling her head at the dip of the girl’s lap. Connie smiled to herself. Must be excited, but she didn’t know for sure.

“I guess you’re hyper. Don’t worry, I won’t be leaving for a while. I’ve been…”

Connie grimaced at her laptop screen. Even with the online assignments, a great deal of them had been hard to peruse and handle. She wasn’t the type to ditch or procrastinate, but the current circumstances of home left her to toil with the current workload, internet help limited to only her, a few website tutorials, and the math textbook.

“...Dealing with a lot of things, so you’ll have me three hours tops.”

Kai whined.

“Aw, I’m sorry girl, but three hours should be enough.”

Kai whined more.

“Hmm.” Connie frowned. “Are you sad about me leaving or is it something else?”

A bark.

“Oh jeez uh. One bark for leaving and two barks for something else.”

Two barks.

Wow. That actually worked. Connie placed the laptop aside and gazed at the puppy in front of her, who cocked her head again. “You’re smart, so I’m going to find a way to talk to you. I want to know why you’re upset.”

Kai kept going though. She started to bark more at her and nestled her head into Connie’s lap with a whimper. Connie had no clue why she was upset. Or even why Kai continued to act like this. Was this even a sign of being upset or is there something else entirely that she was missing?

Connie straightened her back. Kai still rested her head, now wagging her tail at her, Connie hearing it thump against the ground with dull thuds.

“Bark three times if you understand what I’m saying.”

Three barks.

“Bark twice if you’re upset and bark once if you aren't."

A single bark.

“One bark if it concerns the gems and two barks if it concerns me.”

Two.

Connie bit her lip. “So you’re worried about me.” She said it more to herself than anything, but the pup still responded in kind with an elated yip.

“You think I’m upset?”

Kai gazed at her, and yet it was enough for Connie to realize what was happening. The gem can feel how tense she was even with the relaxing crash of the waves, how her mind was scrambled with thoughts and too occupied to even focus on one thing. Kai whined and pressed her snout to her leg.

Connie rubbed her arm. “Okay, so you do.” She smiled softly at Kai, rubbing the gem’s head a bit. “It’s just me being frustrated over homework. You’d think first semester would be a breeze but I had the honor to get the work-extensive teachers, like, come on.”

She groaned, tensing up at how Kai whimpered next to her, swishing her tail more.

“What’s it like to be a corrupted gem, girl?”

A yip.

“I know you’re hyper all the time but it must be lonely from what Neph told me…”

Nephrite told Connie numerous times of corruption, of the bubbles detained and held in the core part of the Temple. She was never given a tour to the structure’s underbelly but Connie had heard of how frantic and scatter-minded prior gems became because of the war. Sensible warriors have worn down into flight-or-fight, and not one of them were able to be fixed and returned back to normal stasis. The idea of it made Connie’s skin crawl. If it was the same for the contained gems, then it must’ve been the same with Kai, who had proven to be smart like any other attentive being, but still brought to primal tendencies like a scared animal.

“It must be lonely to be in a world of strangers. It must be hard to even make friends.”

A confused yip.

The first time Nephrite told her of Kai, one detail stood out to her when it came to the way; the pup waddled around and growled at everything with incisors leaking of pink fluid, like the world was about to get her in any way she took. Nephrite spent hours trying to befriend and reassure the little creature that she was safe, and Connie couldn’t help but ponder how lonely Kai would’ve been if it weren’t for Nephrite’s compassion. If the gem didn't defend Kai against the remainder of the Crystal Gems then there was a huge chance they would've packed her back into a bubble, in a chamber that is full of her kind but yet so hollow and empty.

“You have freedom but you’re still trapped.”

Kai gazed at her, beady eyes taking in her face, at how she must’ve known how there was heat in corner of her eyes. Connie didn’t know why it was happening, all she knew was that she was thinking too much.

“And you’re limited no matter how much you try to make it better.”

She rubbed her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, this is getting to me. I’m supposed to be doing homework and here I am, crying about nothing.”

She hated crying. The feeling of it brought shame and left her disheveled in the aftermath every time, and it was hard to breathe when it happened. It struck hard even when she held her tongue and carried on, when she had a place to let go when her parents weren’t there to see her.

But the wet snout pressed to the base of her lap made her come back. Through the blur of her vision, Kai’s eyes were still fixed on her, big and round, a little yip building in her throat. Connie wiped the tears away. She was going to worry Kai too, and she didn’t want that.

“Sorry, I’m—”

What surprised her was the pressure that pounced on her and left her being tackled by the tiny gem, who was now licking at the excess salt, made her giggle at the onslaught against her face.

“Wait, haha stop!”

Another excited yip.

Kai lapped at her face, laughter filling the air as she endured the slobber on her nose. She felt lighter, a weight off her when the creature took great care at her tears. She’s going to have to get cleaned up later, but that’s okay. She needed a moment to breathe, to get away from the stress of daily life and the loneliness that accompanied it. Kai knew this, sensed it on her person, and took care to make her smile as a result.

When they settled down, Connie gave the creature a small boop on the muzzle. "I love you, Kai."

Kai responded like kind, pressing their snout to hers.

Connie embraced her in a tight hug and placed a kiss onto the gem's tiny forehead, the other licking her affectionately. Maybe...maybe it’s okay to not work on homework for a while. She needed a break.

#steven universe #su #suf #steven universe future #connie maheswaran #reverse monster buddies au #fanfic

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littlemisswolfie · 4 years ago

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Hope That You Fall In Love (And It Hurts So Bad) Part II

<Part I

Here’s part two! There was actually a much larger gap between these updates on ao3 since I just now remembered to post part one here today, so don’t expect part three to come any time too soon. Hope y’all enjoy!

If you have sensitive triggers, follow the ao3 link and read the end notes. I wasn’t personally triggered by anything I wrote, but I have no idea what triggers my readers, and your safety is paramount, so I may have over-warned.

AO3

Langa doesn’t feel anything about moving back to Japan.

He doesn’t feel anything in general, anymore. He knows he should feel something. This is the country he was created in, where he was tortured and trained before he could speak, where he met his mom for the first time in the hospital ward of his prison. But Japan isn’t really anything to him. It’s not a nightmare, because Okinawa, with its sun and warmth, is nothing like Teiko’s stale, cold walls, but it’s not home, because home is Canada, is mountains and snow and Canada Day fireworks and his dad.

He puts the letter his dad wrote him—still unopened—in the back of his sock drawer.

Okinawa isn’t anything.

Langa isn’t anything.

“Do you want to meet them?” his mom asks, a few days after they move into their small apartment.

She doesn’t have to clarify who “them” are. “No,” he says. “I never knew them well. They probably don’t remember me.”

The Miracles are all adults. They have families, lovers, jobs and friends and lives. Langa doesn't have anything to say to people he hasn’t seen in ten years, and they wouldn’t benefit from knowing he’s alive, so he doesn’t care.

High school isn’t compulsory in Japan, but he attends anyway, because he knows it will make his mom happy. She has enough on her plate, with a new job and having to make new friends, so he has to make this transition as easy as possible for her.

She’s given up enough for him already.

Sitting at his new desk at his new school with his classmates all pretending not to stare at him, he decides to get a part time job.

He’s on edge the entire time he’s sitting across from Sakurayashiki. He knows, logically, that a lot of people in Japan have started dying their hair to support the Miracles, so this grown man who has an affinity for technology having pink hair doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Pink Two, especially since Pink Twos were predominantly designed female and his eyes are gold instead of pink, but he still hates the idea.

He’s not GI-B423 anymore. He doesn’t want to be associated with Teiko.

When Sakurayashiki rejects his job application, he’s kind of relieved.

He leaves the calligraphy studio and meets Kyan Reki.

Reki is everything Langa isn’t. He’s bright and happy and loud.

Back in Canada, people like this used to annoy Langa. Too noisy, too close, too much. But Reki is never overwhelming. He’s excited, like a puppy, and he’s genuine. Langa can’t help but be drawn into his orbit, like he’s a planet and Reki is the sun.

Ah, he thinks, in that part of his mind that never really left Teiko. He’s mine.

He lets Reki chatter in his ear about skateboarding and watches him work in his workshop and is—not happy, but content, for the first time since his dad got sick.

Skateboarding at S isn’t exactly what awakens that thrill Langa has always craved. It’s similar enough to snowboarding that Langa can let his body take over for a majority of the beef, so that certainly helps, but it’s not the thing.

The thing is the unpredictability.

He should probably feel concerned about that, about how the danger makes his heart race, how Shadow’s aggressiveness thrills him to his bones. It’s a Teiko thing, so he shouldn’t enjoy it, but he does.

“How did you do that?” Reki asks him later as he helps Langa peel the duct tape from his feet. “That was crazy, man!” His eyes are shining, and Langa thinks, I did that.

“I used to snowboard,” he says, instead of I was genetically engineered and trained for the first five years of my life to be an assassin but I never developed my powers.

Reki grins. “This is gonna be so awesome.”

Langa learns how to skateboard fast.

When Reki comments on how quick he’s learning, he gives his teaching all the credit, even though he knows it’s not exactly true. His mom doesn’t tell him much about how Teiko designed him, but he can read between the lines. He’s never had to work as hard to learn new things as the kids around him, particularly if they had a physical element. He’s more observant than usual, and it’s harder to scare him than it should be.

He could easily make up some other excuse, like his past in snowboarding, but the way Reki’s face lights up when Langa compliments him is too good to pass up.

His mother has never been good at hiding her emotions, which Langa finds more than a little ironic, considering she came to be his mom by working in a secret lab.

After the absolute roller coaster of emotions he sees on her face when she brings up the scrapes he’s been getting from skating, he takes pity on her and tells her what he’s been getting up to. The smile she gives him in response is one he hasn’t seen on her in a long time.

“Oh, baby,” she says, actual tears in the corners of her eyes, “I’m glad you found such a good friend.”

Reki’s friendship isn’t limited to skating.

Langa, privately, would have been content even if it were. It would only mean he spent more time skating than he usually would. But Reki seems to genuinely enjoy spending time with him. He gets Langa to do his English homework for him in return for writing out Langa’s notes and homework in his neater handwriting, they spend their lunches together on the rooftop, Reki gets him a job at Dope Sketch, and, well…

They’re just always together.

Even better, Reki is a very touchy person. It’s unconscious, most of the time, like he can’t help it. A brush against his arm here, a nudge at his side there, an arm thrown around his shoulders while they walk together.

The contact makes him feel alive.

He beats Miya, but only just barely. Miya has years more experience than him, and it’s only due to his unconventional skating that he gets the upper hand. The idea of losing… it’s just—unacceptable. Because losing means scrapping. Losing means death.

The way Miya reacts to the loss reminds him of Teiko, so he says, “I had fun. Let’s skate again,” to make that terrified expression disappear. And then Reki starts messing with him, teasing him like an affectionate older brother, and, for a moment, it seems like the night will end there, without any additional fuss.

But then Adam shows up.

Adam, even with his blue hair and eyes hidden behind a mask, reminds Langa of a Red Zero. He’s obviously a man used to getting his own way, and that silky smooth tone in his voice when he make innocuous little statements belies the ugly nature underneath. He’s a sociopath. The only reason he knows he’s not a Red Zero with dyed hair is that he feels no compulsion to do what he says. In fact, he feels nothing—

Until he insults Reki and Miya.

“Hey,” Reki says, sounding angry, which Langa has never heard before, “take what you said back.”

Adam, who was about to touch Langa’s leg, straightens, a dangerous smile on his lips. “And what if I said I wouldn’t?”

If Langa were better with his words, he would warn Reki. No, he would say, he’s too dangerous, it’s too risky for you, but he can’t find his voice to say it, so Reki kicks up his board and challenges Adam to a beef.

“Sorry about that,” Reki says, later, as they skate home from Crazy Rock. “Betting you, I mean.”

“It’s fine,” says Langa, because he can’t say that means I’m yours to bet without making this whole situation even more strange than it already is.

They run into Joe at a ramen shop the next day. His green hair sets Langa off a little again, but Joe is nothing like a Green Seven, so he forces himself to relax a little and listen to the older man’s advice.

“When did you start dyeing your hair?” Langa asks when Joe stands up to leave.

Reki and Joe both startle a little at the question, like they hadn’t expected him to say anything about it. “Well, me and Cherry were in high school when that Special Diet happened, so we dyed our hair out of support, and I guess the colors just kinda stuck.”

“Man,” Reki says, leaning forward onto the counter after Joe leaves. “It’s so weird to think about the Miracles as adults, y’know? They’re not in the news very much anymore.”

“The Yellow is,” Langa says.

“‘Yellow?’” Reki looks confused.

“Oh, sorry, ‘yellow.’ I used the English word on accident.”

“Oh, cool. Sometimes I think about your shitty handwriting and forget you’re bilingual.” Reki gives him a friendly poke in the side. “But, yeah, that yellow one’s a model, right? Of course he’d be in the news every once in a while. Oh, plus the red one’s adopted father has been petitioning for same-sex marriage to be legalized in Japan for a while now, so I guess you hear about him sometimes, huh? When did you start dyeing your hair?”

“I’ve never dyed it,” Langa says, looking down at the empty bowl in front of him. “My hair has always been this color.”

“Huh. Weird.” Reki shrugs and reaches into his pocket to pull his wallet out. “Joe was trying to be nice, but we still gotta pay.”

Langa’s grateful for the end of the conversation. He knows he’ll have to tell Reki someday, if they remain friends, but the longer he can put it off, the better.

Miya drags them and Shadow out to Crazy Rock for some practical training. It hurts to see Reki so frustrated with his own abilities when Langa knows how good he is. Reki shouldn’t be measuring himself up against people like him, who have superhuman gifts, or Miya, who trains as much as he’s in school to make the national team, or Shadow and Joe and Cherry, who are all adults and have been skating for so much longer than he has.

Someday, Reki, Langa thinks, someday you’ll realize how special you are.

Langa skates down a little further to grab Reki’s board when it gets away from him to let Reki rest a little, and tries to do the Love Hug Miya mentioned. Reki is quick to reassure him that there’s no way to actually go uphill, but Langa still feels uneasy.

He knows there’s a way. There has to be. He just hasn’t figured it out yet.

At least he gets to go to A&W afterwards. He’s been missing poutine.

Langa wishes there was something he could say that would help Reki when he picks him up for the beef.

Your worth isn’t determined by skateboarding.

Don’t be discouraged if you lose.

Please be careful.

But none of those things would be helpful. Not really. Even if he could say them in Japanese the way he wants to in English, they would still sound condescending, like Langa didn’t believe in him.

So he says nothing.

Adam does the Love Hug.

Reki goes flying.

Langa sees red.

“I can finally skate with you,” Adam says, sounding enthralled, almost orgasmic, and the only thing Langa can think about is how easy it would be to kill him for what he did to Reki. It wouldn’t take much. Just enough pressure on the throat. A fall off Crazy Rock. A sharp stone to the jugular or the temple. Langa could make it look like an accident, he’s sure. He got more than enough training to do that much on a small scale like this. And even if he did get caught, hey, at least he would have had revenge for injuring Reki.

But Reki is still alive. Reki needs a hospital more than he needs Langa to kill Adam.

He’ll get his revenge in a beef.

“Please,” Reki says, over and over again. “Don’t race against Adam.”

“I’m going to do it, Reki,” Langa says, just this side of a snap. “Stop trying to convince me otherwise.”

“Look, I appreciate it if you’re pissed about my injury—” And oh, he is, he hates seeing Reki’s arm in that cast, he hates that he had to wait in a hospital again when he last time he had to do that his dad was dying— “but Adam’s really on a whole ‘nother level. You’re crazy good, dude, but he’s just crazy.”

“I’m doing it.” He takes a large bite out of his sandwich, and it must be aggressive enough, because Reki backs off, at least for now.

“Mom?” Langa says over dinner that night, one of her few nights off from the hospital.

She’s at attention immediately, which Langa feels a little guilty about. He knows he really shut her out after his dad died, and now every time he speaks, she acts like she’s never heard his voice before. “Yes, honey? What is it?”

“What—” He takes a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. “What all did Teiko give me?”

Her eyes harden in a way they so rarely do that it catches Langa off guard. “Nothing,” she says, vicious. “They didn’t give you anything, baby. They gave you nightmares and trauma, and that’s it.”

“There were files!” Langa says, voice raising. He didn’t mean to do that, but it’s happening now, so he has to let it go. “There must have been! And you were a nurse, so you had to have seen them!”

His mom slams her hands down on the table. “That is enough,” she says. “I’ve had a long day, and I’m not talking about this right now.” She stands up, clears her plate, and stomps into her room, closing the door behind her.

Langa groans, pushes his hair out of his face, and grabs his skateboard.

He, Reki, Shadow, Miya, and Cherry take over Joe’s Italian restaurant later that night, and as Langa watches Cherry demonstrate how the Love Hug works, something clicks in his brain.

I can do this, he thinks. I can beat the Love Hug.

“I’m beggin’ ya,” Reki says, one final time, “don’t skate against Adam.”

“Even if I get injured, I won’t quit skateboarding,” Langa says, but what he wants to say is, I won’t leave your side.

He feels Reki’s fist against his chest the whole ride home.

Skating against Adam is—

Langa hates to admit it, but it’s that adrenaline rush he’s been craving. Adam defies logic in every way possible when he skates, and it keeps Langa on his toes. Skating with Reki brings that easy warmth he got on the bunny slopes with his parents as a child, but Adam is electric, dangerous, and everything that Teiko side relishes in.

“It seems that you’re the same type of person as myself,” Adam says, wonder in his voice, and Langa hates himself for not being able to deny it.

And then he jumps over the Love Hug, and his heart soars, and he thinks Reki, did you see that?

“What happened to the promise that you wouldn’t be reckless?” Reki asks after they evade the cops, out by the water. He sounds… he’s not angry, or scared, or worried. His tone of voice is resigned, like he never should have expected Langa to be careful.

“Sorry,” Langa says, but he’s not, and he knows Reki can hear it.

He knows he can’t ask his mom for permission to go on this trip without making up with her first, so a few nights after his beef with Adam, he knocks on her bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

He hears the sheets rustle, hears her sigh, and then she says, “Come in.”

He sits on the side of her bed, his back brushing against her legs. “I’m sorry I upset you the other night,” he says, his words halting. Even in English, he can never express himself the way he wants to. “It’s just—things have been getting intense, where Reki and I skate, and I was wondering how much of that was because of Teiko.”

She sighs again, and puts her hand on his shoulder. “No, I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you,” she says. “You have every right to wonder. I just hate talking about that place. You’re not what they made you to be, baby.”

“‘Cause I never developed my powers.” He’s sour about that, and he shouldn’t be. It’s easier, pretending to be human when you don’t have superpowers, but he heard all about the Miracle Black Four during the Special Diet, about how he used his powers for years to orchestrate their escape, and he’s jealous. He was engineered to do exactly what Kuroko Tetsuya did, and his stupid body never figured it out.

“Black Fours were doomed from the start.” His mom is trying to be reassuring, he knows, but that’s not really helpful. “GM-B452 was an outlier. In the eight generations between him and you, the scientists were no closer to getting true invisibility to manifest. Infinity was the last generation they were going to produce Black Fours, anyway.”

He’d never heard that before. “Really?”

His mom nods. “Really. They were just going to add the power to the Silvers, instead.”

“What else did my files say?” he asks.

She looks uncomfortable. “Langa, a lot of this stuff—it’s not good, honey. Reading your files when I started made me sick. They knew exactly how tall you were going to be, your projected adult weight, they—” She breaks off, wiping welling wetness from her eyes. “If you weren’t a Failure, and you survived to adulthood, they were going to breed you, baby, with the Pink Two, and the White Ten, if she survived. They predicted which Projects you would find sexual gratification with.”

Langa feels sick, just like his mom said he would. He was—he was a baby, barely a toddler when he and his mom left Japan. These scientists were thinking about his sex life before he knew what sex was. “Why?” he croaks.

“They didn’t see you as human, baby. None of you. You were lab rats with rocket launchers, for all they cared. Only as useful as they money they could make off of you.” Her eyes sharpen. “You said things were getting ‘intense’ with skating. How?”

“Reki was injured during a race,” Langa says, because he figures that all her honesty deserves some honesty out of him. “And I—the guy he was racing against, I wanted to hurt him. I thought of all the ways I could make it look like an accident. But then, a few nights ago, I raced him, and I felt…” He trails off. How can he describe that feeling to his mom without making it seem sexual? “It was like I was flying,” he settles on. “Like, nothing could touch me. I was doing exactly what I was meant to be doing. Even though I knew he could hurt me, really, really badly, even though we were going sixty kilometers per hour down his track with no fences to keep us from toppling over the edge, even though he kept touching me…” Thinking back on it now, he feels a little sick to his stomach again, especially when he sees the look on his mom’s face.

“This guy,” his mom says, voice serious, “is he a teenager? Or is he an adult?”

“An adult.”

“Langa, baby, I know I can’t stop you from sneaking out at night and doing these races,” she says, hands clasping his, “because I know you can always find another way of getting out if I try to stop you, but if this man ever touches you again without your consent, or if he touches any of the other kids you hang out with without their consent, I want you to tell me, okay? It’s not right.”

“Okay,” Langa says, and he knows this is a promise he’ll have to keep. “But—the adrenaline thing, is that—”

“Teiko designed that, yes,” his mom nods. “They didn’t want any of you cracking under pressure, so they modified your brain to send out more adrenaline.” She smiles, a tad sad. “You were always the biggest adrenaline junkie, though. You tried to do everything dangerous you saw the other Projects do during training, even though you weren’t made for full-on combat. It got you in a lot of trouble.”

Langa rubs at his wrists as the phantom pains flare up again. “That I remember.” Then, remembering the whole reason he came in here in the first place, he says, “A friend of mine and Reki’s says hot springs are a good, natural healing thing, so he got us tickets to Miyakojima this weekend. Is it okay with you if I go?”

“As long as you have an adult with you,” she says, and Langa perks up, because he knows just the adult.

Reki wants to drag him out shopping, because “I can’t believe you don’t have a swimsuit, man, we’re going to the beach, you need a swimsuit.”

“Reki,” he says, panicking a little, because if his trunks ride up everyone will see, see the brand on his thigh, they’ll know he’s GI-B423— “Reki, I can’t swim.”

Reki gives him an incredulous look. “You’re seventeen and you don’t know how to swim?”

“I lived near the mountains my whole life,” Langa retorts, and, yes, this is good, he can needle back and forth with Reki all day long.

Reki groans. “Fine, then,” he huffs, though Langa knows he doesn’t mean it. “But it’ll be hot, so make sure you dress for the weather, okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” Langa teases, just to see Reki’s face heat up.

There’s a girl, on the ferry.

She’s pretty, in a distant kind of way. She’s not movie-star beautiful, but her hair is long and silky, and her dress compliments her figure. There is, all in all, nothing off about her.

But.

Reki is staring at her.

Langa feels something ugly twisting in his gut. It reminds him of how he felt when Adam hurt Reki, this overwhelming urge to eliminate, to take Reki away from this threat—

Wait, threat? This girl is normal. Nothing about her conveys any sort of physical advantage or ulterior motive. She’s just a girl, on vacation.

But Reki is staring at her. He’s blushing.

This girl could take Reki away from him.

It’s a relief when she brushes right by them. If she did try to take Reki, Langa couldn’t guarantee her safety.

Reki would forgive him.

Probably.

The beach is beautiful, Langa decides, laying under the umbrella while the others play in the sea. He wishes he could be out there with them, but he knows better; his secret is more important than a little bit of fun.

Someday, he promises himself, letting his hands linger a little too long on Reki’s shoulders while they’re teasing Shadow. Someday I’ll tell them.

Just not today.

Sitting around the fancy inn Cherry’s staying at, and thinking about his conversation with his mom, Langa sneaks out of the large room where they ate dinner while the adults bicker. He finds a small courtyard with patrons milling around, settles himself on the deck, and tries to picture himself becoming invisible.

It’s risky, he knows; Teiko Projects glow when they use their powers, so if he is successful, someone could notice. But he’s not actually expecting to be successful, at least not in the psychic capacity. He never was before.

Langa knows he stands out in a crowd. He’s tall for Japan, and his hair and eyes always make people assume he’s a Miracle. It doesn’t take long for people to start glancing at him out of the corner of their eyes, and Langa picks one, an old man wearing a green patterned yukata, leaning heavily against a wooden cane and not even trying to pretend he’s not staring at him, and focuses on not being visible.

How the fuck do I not be visible?

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. What was it the Black Miracle said during the Special Diet? I can only make someone temporarily forget my own presence. Is that the key? It’s less invisibility and more induced amnesia? God, the other Projects in his Generation used to make it look so easy. One second they’d be standing still, and the next they were glowing all sorts of bright colors and doing what they were made to do.

He doesn’t think about the other members of his Generation often, so the thought comes as a surprise to him. For just a moment, he lets himself imagine what they would be like, if they’d also been freed like Langa was.

The moment is brief. Dwelling on those things only made Langa’s heart ache.

He crosses his arms across his knees, digging his blunt nails into the skin by his elbows, and thinks of the man he picked earlier. Don’t look at me, he thinks, screwing his eyes shut. You don’t see me. I’m not here.

Then, after a moment, he lifts his eyes, and he bites back a gasp, because the forearm in front of his face is surrounded by a faint black outline. It’s not a brilliant glow, like a Yellow or and Orange, but it’s there. His eyes dart back up to the old man with the cane, and he looks dazed, almost confused, like he’s wondering what he was looking at.

He’s doing it. He’s doing it!

In his excitement, he loses focus, and the faint outline fades, but it was there. He isn’t useless like he always thought.

He’s a success. A little bit, at least.

He has to try again. He picks another person, a mother cradling her baby, and tries to recall that feeling, the one right before he noticed the outline. It was almost like… desperation. He was desperate to manifest the powers he was designed with. Desperate to prove himself worthy of…

Of what? The approval of Teiko, a company that doesn’t exist anymore? The approval of the scientists, who didn’t see him as human and thought about his future sex life when he was a baby? The respect of his fellow Projects, most of whom are dead?

The approval of himself?

The desire to try it out again fades. God, what is he doing? He’s never felt inclined to use his powers before, so why now? He should be glad he never developed them. Living in human society is hard enough with his hair and eyes; living in Japan is hard enough with his height and his terrible handwriting and his Canadian habits that contradict Japanese ones. Not having powers, not standing out even more than he already does, should be a blessing.

He thinks about the letter his dad wrote him, still unsealed, in his bedside drawer.

He stands up, brushes his pants off, and wanders back to the group. They’re probably wondering where he is, by now, and he doubts he can use the bathroom excuse again.

Langa knows pretty much right away that the things chasing him and Reki are just normal people covered in mud. Even the overpowering stench of the muck can’t hide that from his senses. But he doesn’t really have any concrete way of expressing this to Reki without hinting at what he is, so he goes along with it, and runs with Reki.

It’s the same kind of rush, skating away from an opponent on a rough course like this, only now, he has Reki with him. Reki’s right next to him, keeping up to him even when Langa’s being serious about the whole ordeal, and keeping a level head when Langa turns around to admire their pursuer’s skateboarding skills.

Then the thing starts poking Reki’s leg with his stick, and Langa sees red. How dare this worthless human touch Reki like that? How dare they try to knock him off his skateboard, when he last time he bailed, he ended up in the emergency room? He’d like to knock them right off Shadow’s skateboard, but this time, he’s close enough to catch Reki when he falls, so he does.

The weight of Reki in his arms feels right. It feels inevitable, like he was built to hold him. He can feel Reki’s quick breathing, can practically hear his heart beating in his chest, and it makes him think about other activities that could cause that—

But this is no time for that. Not when they’re being chased, not when Langa doesn’t even know if Reki likes boys the way he likes girls.

“How did you two manage to not get covered in mud yesterday?” Shadow asks them the next morning on the ferry back to Okinawa. He, Cherry, and Joe are all still complaining about the smell they couldn’t wash off last night.

Joe sniffs at his hand and winces. “Did that ghost thing not chase you?”

Reki goes as stiff as a board next to Langa. “That wasn’t a ghost!”

“Well, what was it, then?” Shadow asks.

Langa eyes a poster about a festival about covering people in mud to protect them from evil spirits out of the corner of his eye and says, “Who knows?” If none of the adults can figure it out, that’s on them. He’ll tell Reki about it later.

“Mom?” Langa asks when he gets home after dropping Reki off at his house.

His mom looks up from the movie she’s watching on the couch. “Oh! Welcome home, baby. Did you have a fun trip?”

But he’s not in the mood for pleasantries. “Did Teiko make me gay?” The word falls from his lips and it burns, like he’s said something shameful. Being gay isn’t a big deal in Canada, at least not anymore, and Langa has always absently supported LGTBQ rights in a distant way that made him think he was probably straight after all and just hadn’t found a girl he liked, but this trip…

“Oh, sweetie.” His mom opens her arms and he falls into them like a child. “Before I answer, what brought this on?”

“I just—you said they had a breeding plan, so I know I’m not sterile, but I’ve never been interested in girls.”

“Is that all?”

Langa presses his face further into her shoulder and says nothing.

“Langa, do you remember what I told you when I took you from Teiko?”

“You—you said you were my mom, and that meant you would love me and take care of me for the rest of your life.”

She hums affirmatively, stroking his hair with her gentle fingers. “That love is unconditional. No matter what you do, I’ll love you just the same. That’s how moms work, honey. So, if there’s anything else you want to tell me, you don’t have to be scared.”

Langa opens his mouth. Closes it. Licks his lips and tries again. “I love him, Mom,” he says, the words soft, like a whisper, like a secret. “I love Reki.”

Her smile is in her voice when she says, “Thank you for trusting me with that, honey. I can tell he makes you really happy.”

“We’re not—together,” Langa interjects. “He—he likes girls, and I don’t know if he likes boys, too. He doesn’t know how I feel.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t take that risk.”

“But it’s a big risk. If he doesn’t like me, I might lose him forever.” The mere thought of not having Reki in his life anymore makes tears gather in his eyes. “I couldn’t do it.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and asks again. “Did Teiko make me gay?”

“Yes,” his mom says, simply. “They knew you would eventually interact with humans, and they didn’t want undesirable offspring. But, Langa,” she continues, cupping his chin and raising his head so their eyes would meet. “They didn’t design you to fall in love with Reki. They didn’t think you could love. You loving Reki is all you, baby. Never doubt that.”

“Do you think— Would Dad—?”

“Your father would have adored Reki,” she says, and the weight that falls from his chest makes him gasp. “Reki sounds so much like him, in the best possible ways. They’re cut from the same cloth. And he would have loved you just the same way as always.”

Langa falls asleep like that, in the same clothes he traveled in, curled up in his mother’s lap like a child. His last thought before he drifts off is that letter he still hasn’t opened.

One day, he says. I don’t want to say goodbye yet.

#designation:miracle #sk8: the infinity #langa hasegawa #nanako hasegawa #reki kyan #kojiro nanjo #kaoru sakurayashiki #sk8 hiromi #miya chinen #renga #ao3fic #my writing #my post #mine

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thrillingdetectivetales · 4 years ago

Text

2020 Creator Wrap

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

Okay, okay, I know I’m late with this but the incredibly sweet @irolltwenties and the utterly delightful @anthrobrat were both kind enough to me in this bad boy and it seems really fun, so here we are!

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

According to my AO3 statistics page, I wrote just over 100K of fiction this year, across 17 different fandoms, a few of which won’t actually go live until after the New Year because they’re part of a gifting collection that hasn’t been revealed yet... Anyway, I picked my faves for a variety of reasons, listed briefly after each link. If you have any questions about works I’ve shared (or just in general) feel free to ask!

1. Front Row at the Gongshow

The Pacific, 16K, Rated G Andrew ‘Ack Ack’ Haldane/Edward ‘Hillbilly’ Jones

Aside from being the longest completed work I produced this year, this is also the first fic I’ve ever written using the “found document” format. While there are parts of it I feel really conflicted about, I’m still incredibly proud of it and think it’s one of the better fic I’ve written...possibly ever. Which is doubly funny because I don’t usually do modern AUs of period fiction, but the hockey angle was enough to tempt and lo, here we are, lol.

[Excerpt from Deadspin]

"You all remember Eddie Jones, right? The corn-fed captain of the New Orleans Rougarou so wholesome he belongs on a box of Malt-O-Meal? The gentleman bruiser who spends his free time playing country tunes for kids with cancer?

Our favorite dapper D-man led his team to 97 points last night in a shut-out victory against the Los Angeles Kings, clinching a playoff spot for the first time in franchise history. Oh! And he also got caught on camera at the after-party, sucking face. WITH A DUDE."

2. Entremets

Hannibal, 8K, Rated E Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter

I have...so many Hannibal fic that I’ve started writing and haven’t finished because all my ideas lead to long plotty epics and also big name fandoms scare me. I did this one up for Eat, Drink, & Make Merry, and I’m really, really pleased with the way it turned out, considering it was my first foray into establishing new character voices and also a successful exercise in writing explicit content, which can be a bit of an Ordeal for me, so overall I’m incredibly happy with it. Plus! My deep and abiding love of writing characters cooking/eating/otherwise dealing with food finally paid off!

“The pâté was supposed to be more of a gesture,” Will explains, spreading a golden sliver of honeycomb out across a slice of sopressata with the blade of his pocket knife. “You don’t actually have to eat it. I’m not even sure if it’s any good.” He smears a healthy dollop of chȇvre across his meat-and-honey concoction and pops the whole thing into his mouth without ceremony.

“What better method exists by which to convey one’s appreciation of a gesture than to indulge it?”

3. An Ode to Matty Big-Time

The Good Place, 2K, Rated T Jason Mendoza/Original Male Characters, Pillboi

This one was actually a request made by my very dear @thesummoningdark, who wanted to see some bisexual Jason per that one fantastic Tumblr post about how everyone in TGP should be bi, and I’m really, really proud of the way it turned out. I love writing comedy and I very rarely get to lean into it as hard as I’d like, so delving into the whole wild craziness of Jacksonville, as explained in the show was really fun. I also love writing original characters, and this was a great excuse to indulge.

“We probably shouldn’t do any butt stuff,” Jason warns, with as much gravitas as he can muster. “I had two of Stupid Nick’s Disaster Buckets when I got here.”

“Yeah, your face is still kinda orange,” Mateo agrees fondly, bringing his other hand up to brush his thumb over Jason’s lower lip. It stirs a little frisson of heat in his belly that Jason is 68% sure isn’t just indigestion. “No chemical burns, though, so I think you came out on top.”

4. This and Who I Used to Be

The Tick (2017), 3K, Rated G Arthur Everest/Superian

Another new fandom I haven’t written in before, this was a fill for the Rare Male Slash Exchange that turned me on to a pairing I’d never even thought of before I wrote it and am now low-key obsessed with. It is also, to date, the ONLY Arthur/Superian fic on AO3 at all, which is a cool weird honor and fairly indicative of my life’s goal to eventually write my way into smaller and smaller fandoms until I come out the other side with original works. It was really fun to explore these characters, and to figure out some world-building for Superian’s backstory that fit within the tone and established canon of the extant Amazon!Tick universe. Also featuring an original character that nobody asked for but I’ve come to love unconditionally.

Arthur glances down to where Superian has one cheek pressed against his shoulder, humming something off-key and unintelligible with his eyes closed. Arthur sighs. “Let’s get you inside.”

He hauls Superian in until he can prop him against the wall while he shuts and locks the door behind him. When he looks back over, Superian is smiling at him, soft and lazy. He swings a finger in Arthur’s direction, a broad, sloppy motion, and announces, “I knew you’d say yes.”

“Technically I said fine,” Arthur rebuts. He gestures down the hallway toward the kitchen—which leads on to the bedroom, as Superian well knows—and sighs, “Come on. I don’t know what those handcuffs did to you, but you should probably lie down and have a glass of water or something.”

5. Rain in Its Season

Band of Brothers, 12K, Rated G Edward ‘Babe’ Heffron/John Julian

Oh boy. What to say about this one. It’s maybe not as polished as I might have preferred, but I feel that way about mostly everything I write and at the end of the day I do really love what I managed to do with this piece. Written for the Heavy Artillery Rare Pair Exchange, I managed to lean heavily into both my love for needlessly granular period research and original characters, which are abundant herein. Frankly, based on the very little we see of him in the show, Julian himself is practically an OC, but I digress. This was another of the longer pieces I’ve ever finished and I’m proud of it even if I’d’ve liked to write another 15K or so, time constraints notwithstanding.

“Tell me. Please. Why’re you here?”

Babe flinched, gaze dropping to the floor. His heart was a raw, swollen welt in his chest. He swallowed and licked his lips, slow and pained.

“Come on, Julian,” he rasped, low and quiet. “You know why.” He laughed, soft and hoarse, and shook his head, once. When he looked back up, Julian had taken a careful step into the center of the room. His eyes were very dark, his mouth very red, hope and fear warring in his every feature. Babe fisted his fingers in the cotton sheet underneath him, halfway to pleading as he insisted, “You gotta know.”

Julian sighed and came over to hover at the edge of the bed. Babe spread his legs to accommodate the intrusion.

“That was - ” Julian started. His voice failed midway through the protest, and he swallowed, took a breath, and regrouped at a lower volume. “You said that was just buddies, what we did over there. That it didn’t count. That you didn’t want it to.”

The TL;DR of this all being that while I didn’t write as much I wanted to this year in terms of volume, I feel like my quality has been improving consistently and hope it continues to do so into 2021 while I try to finish out some of my years-long WIPs and get into longer completed pieces.

I’m not sure who all to tag, so I’ll say @thesummoningdark, @blahblahblahclintnickiscanon, @thisbadge, @incognito-insomniac, and anyone else who’d like to join in and hasn’t been tagged yet! (If you’re the latter, feel free to @ me so I can see what you’ve written!)

Happy New Year everyone May the fanworks you create this year be prolific and soul-affirming!

#creator wrap #2020 creator wrap

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petork · 4 years ago

Note

-105 please

NB i am told this was meant to say 1-50

thanks queen <3 here we go

1. Who is your favourite ghost?

lately? it's been kitty. and i'm contractually obligated to love the captain

2. If you could see the ghosts like Alison, which one do you think would come the closest to making you want to leave the house?

the obvious answer is julian but probably actually robin, i HATE being spooked (as the asker can attest xx)

3. How would you feel if you couldn’t see the ghosts, but knew they were there, like Mike?

i'd feel mad jealous even though i'd actually have it pretty good. the other person would be trying so hard to tell me how much it sucks and i'd just be like 'but... goast.....'

4. Would you want to see ghosts like Alison, or would you rather be ignorant to their goings and doings?

again my immediate answer is I WANNA SEE THEM but i also know that might suck in many ways. at least for a while. i am not a patient person so i don't know if i could learn to live with them like alison could. but on the other hand... the chance to actually talk to people from the fucking actual past... thinking emoji!

5. If you were a ghost living in the house, would you rather be upstairs with the main nine ghosts, or downstairs with the plague ghosts?

upstairs for sure, sorry to the plague ghosts but i do not want to hang out in a basement for eternity

6. If you were someone who died in the house would you rather be “sucked off” immediately, or would you like to hang around a bit and get to know some of the other ghosts before getting “sucked off”?

i would probably just end up staying forever because i'm scared of the void of death.... <3

7. Which ghost would you miss the most if they were “sucked off” in the next series?

UNBELIEVABLE question? i'd miss ALL OF THEM. but see question 1 also

8. Which ghost do you think you’d get along with the best?

it's hard to say. i think they would all get on my nerves because as said i am not very patient. but the one who would irritate me LEAST... maybe pat?

9. Which ghost would you say you’re most like?

captain. not to be a cliche but i'm gay and repressed. and also irritable and grumpy

10. Which ghost would you say you’re least like?

JULIAN

11. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you love?

(pasted from prev answer) i don’t actually like ship it because he’s definitely older than her, but a couple of people have said kitty sometimes acts like she has a crush on thomas. which is cute to me even if she does need to get better taste (love u kitty xxx)

12. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you don’t quite agree with?

(pasted from prev answer) not so much a specific theory but i disagree with the general idea that anything of consequence went on with the captain and havers. i think it was meant to come across as just a snippet of the captain’s poor sad gay life and, as several brain geniuses have pointed out, due to the timing of germany invading france + the captain’s medals the flashback must have been from a good few years BEFORE he died. and i think the flashback was the last time they ever saw each other, so i don’t think that a) havers has any link to the captain’s eventual death or 2) anything romantic ever happened between them

13. Favourite ship and why?

captain x my cute oc boyfriend because i've tailored it to my exact needs. why ship retail when you can ship bespoke?

14. Least favourite ship and why? (Please be nice though!)

patcap as we all know. like YES i'm a contrary bitch so i don't like things that are popular and i do think i'm better than everyone else... but really idk why exactly i just don't gel with it at all. and when i've tried to read fic in the past it feels to me like their characters are kind of flattened. and i think the captain is too much of a bitch. and i think pat is serving us normie heterosexual. it's the 'cinnamon roll' ship of this fandom and i can't STAND (metaphorical) cinnamon rolls. AND ALSO pat is not the simple soft dad cinnamon roll fandom often makes him out to be! like he is a very nice person but he's also fucked up and insane like all of them. anyway my brain charges extremely low rents

15. If you could go back in time and live in the house/on the property at the same time as one of the ghosts when they were alive, who would you pick?

captain. need to know wtf's going on with him

16. Would you rather inherit the house (and its ghostly inhabitants), or just visit?

realistically... visit. i think i would lose my mind eventually if i lived there

17. Do you think we’ll ever know how every ghost died? Do you think there will be anyone whose death we’ll never learn about?

i hope we do, but i also appreciate that isn't the sole point of the series, otherwise it would be kinda boring and discovering how they died wouldn't be as impactful. if there's anyone's death we don't find out about, i think it would probably be robin? lol what if it was so long ago he just forgot

18. What is your favourite Ghosts fanfiction?

so i'm stupid and i never use bookmarks on ao3..... i've read a LOT of different fics i like but do you think i can revisit them? no! because i'm stupid! so i cannot fairly pick an absolute fave sorry

19. What is your favourite Ghosts fan art?

THIS <3

all the babies and children on here talk about horrible histories the show being 'their childhood'........ put some respect on terry deary's name. and this artist did!

20. Tag 5 favourite Ghosts fandom content creators!

honestly i'm not good with like. knowing people. but here are 5 fanfics i've enjoyed (based on the author's replies in my inbox because, again, i am too stupid to use bookmarks)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287567

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868645

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653192

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067277/chapters/68761830

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957662/chapters/65795407

21. Are there any historical periods you wish we’d have gotten to see a ghost/ghosts from but didn’t?

(pasted from other post) not to be predictable but i would have liked to see a 1960s ghost. like a mod who crashed his scooter or something. we have enough 20th century ghosts though but i believe the us remake has some kind of hippie ghost…

22. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series?

flashback to the captain getting some. like implied or whatever. i can't cope with him dying a virgin. he needs this

23. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series, but know we probably WON’T get to see?

(pasted from other post) alison meets someone else who can see ghosts, and we get to see the ghosts at THEIR house…. i always love it when we see extra ghosts but i know they probably won’t make any recurring because it would come off as running out of ideas. but i still think they should add a 90s teenager named roy

24. Which lesser-seen characters would you like to see more of in future series?

tbh there's none i can think of that i think we should SEE more of, they get a pretty good balance. there are some i definitely want to learn more about though

25. Are there any characters you wish we’d see less?

don't make me pick a least favourite child </3 but also i think thomas could probably tone it down a bit.

26. Favourite one-liner?

I'LL WAIT FOR YOU, MY COMELY NUG - me whenever i order chicken nuggets on just eat

27. Favourite episode?

DON'T EVEN... i like 2x06 and 3x05 a lot

28. Top 5 headcanons for [insert character name here]?

i'm going to do the captain because obviously i am

- he may or may not have been lavender married

- he may or may not have had a drinking problem

- public schoolboy with domineering father, clearly

- IF he had a lavender wife then she spent all her time in the company of her 'odd' female friend who wore men's clothes, smoked cigars and drove a motorbike. the captain was obviously clueless

that's 4 so a cheeky one for fanny:

- she did a lot of medicinal coke

29. Whose costume is your favourite?

kitty. gotta love an ott ballgown

30. Whose costume is your least favourite?

that's an offtopic question. you have been stopped.

31. If you could do a complete redesign of one of the ghosts’ costumes, whose would you change and how?

i would give thomas his double denim

32. If you could play any of the existing ghosts, which one would you want to play and why?

i think i'd be good at playing mary. meek weird girl who says things that don't make any sense? omg she is LITERALLY me

33. Which ghost would you least like to play and why?

julian, i'm not getting my pussy out

34. What one thing would you miss most if you became a ghost and had to live by the same rules as the Button House ghosts?

FOOD. food. eating and food.

35. How do you think one or more of the ghosts whose deaths we haven’t seen died? Or, if we know the cause of death but not the reason for the death (like Mary being burned as a witch or Humphrey being beheaded), why do you think they were killed?

i think mary's execution might have had something to do with her husband's death and her being unfairly accused or something. also like, she just acts kinda weird, and we know how that often played out for women back then...

and i think the captain died in some really boring mundane natural causes way (congenital heart attack or something) but he's stuck around because a) he's never come to terms with the whole h*mo thing and 2) he was just really mad that he died so boringly

36. Favourite [insert character name here] moment?

CAPTAIN GETTING KITTY TO SMILE

37. What do you think [insert character name here] was like when they were alive? Do you think they were exactly the same as they are now, or do you think there were any major or minor differences?

ok i'll do fanny for this one. i think she was less domineering when she was alive, in death she clearly thinks of herself as above the other ghosts and bosses them around, and when she talks shit about george it's not like he can get back at her in any way. but it would be interesting to see how they interacted when both were alive

38. It’s your turn to pick a movie for film club! What are you watching?

(from prev post) i haven’t seen any movies errr….. maybe austin powers because it’s so sad that julian died just a few years before it came out because he would love it and get really annoying about quoting it all the time and it would be really funny for the captain (who thought the movie was unironic) to have to deal with that. and fanny would NOT COPE.

39. Would you rather share a room with Thomas (constantly sighing and reciting bad poetry) or Fanny (falls out of the window screaming every night)?

fanny. men be quiet challenge

40. If you could do some kind of historical swap (i.e. place a ghost in a different period from their own), who would you choose and what period are they from now?

i would like to give kitty the chance to be a 20th or 21st century girl. maybe an era like the 60s or 80s that was known for daring fashions, i think she would luv it

41. Let’s settle this once and for all. Who’s the real leader, the Captain or Pat?

fanny

42. If the ghosts could eat, what is one food you would like to share with them that they might not have tried before?

doritos tangy cheese, mountain dew baja blast, 4loko. i would make thomas try a jalapeno. i would also make them try my cooking experiments because i do that to anyone i live with

43. You’ve heard rumours of a tenth upstairs ghost who doesn’t often venture out of their room to visit with the other residents of the house. Who are they? (i.e. make up a ghost OC. I know i’m putting you on the spot. I just want to see what you come up with.)

it's george button and his bitch ass is too scared of his wife to come down. his downfall comes when he finds out there's another gay ghost and simply has to clap them cheeks (he fails)

44. Tell me a song you think [insert character name here] would like, or a song that reminds you of them!

i think alison's probably already introduced him to them but thomas + anything by the smiths. i would also make the captain sit quietly and listen to a tracy chapman cd (for my lover...)

45. What song(s) do you think would annoy certain ghosts the most?

the smiths would annoy everyone except thomas. literally they'd all be trying to re-kill him

46. Who is one actor you’d love to see guest star? What kind of character would you like to see them play?

steve coogan as like. anyone. preferably a ghost. a roman centurion ghost if you wanna get cultural. but seriously i just want alan

47. If you could have one Horrible Histories song in Ghosts (either sung by a ghost/ghosts, or playing on the TV or computer for them to watch), which one would you want it to be and why?

that song about how no 'british' stuff is actually british. like tea. i want julian to melt down

48. What do you think the ghosts’ jobs would be in a modern living-human AU where they’re all just chaotic housemates?

captain & kitty: have their own wedding planning company

julian: still a politician but instead of an mp he's like a parish councillor. handforth antics

fanny: headteacher

robin: cool off the shits teacher at same school who undermines fanny wherever possible. deals weed to students

mary: runs a shop selling like healing crystals and incense and dreamcatchers

humphrey: customer service supervisor who actually likes his job because he takes no shit and just fucks with every single customer

thomas: unemployed podcaster

pat: dogwalker

49. What is one modern invention you think [insert character name here] would be surprised or confused by?

fanny would be so baffled by any Feminine Products. when she discovers tampons it's all she can talk about for a week. the mooncup made her go into a coma

50. Name an AU you haven’t seen someone create content for, but which you’d love to read a fic or see some art for.

not to be the way i am but i'd love if anyone ever drew art or something about my au which is a modern-day au where fanny and captain are alison and kitty's divorced parents, julian and robin are captain's brothers and alison's wack uncles, mary is their childhood nanny, thomas is a student lodger at button house, humphrey is a cat and pat is just some guy. but yeah in the past i've had a couple of anons on here mention it and i did melt into a puddle... i think if someone did art i'd explode and die. in a good way like

1 note · View note

booklover223 · 5 years ago

Text

CAFFEINE

Pairing/s: Pre-romantic/Romantic Intrulogical, background romantic Prinxiety, background pre-romantic Moceit (just mentions though)

Word Count: 5,166

Warning/s: misunderstandings, some cussing. (Let me know if you want me to edit this I’ve never written for tumblr before!) kinda ooc! Remus but he’s emotional and it’s mostly a Logan centric fic.

A/N: So this is the first time I’m posting on tumblr, if you want to read it on AO3 here is the link ——> https://archiveofourown.org/works/26729227 but be warned! The story is formatted for a computer moreso than a phone so there are very long paragraphs I’m sorry!! I’m fixing the formatting for the post though (ITS SUPER LONG IM SORRY 🥺🥺🥺👉🏼👈🏼) this is a songfic btw! Song is called Caffeine by Fly By Midnight and I love it it reminded me of intrulogical immediately for some reason and I was forced to write this basically.

Logan was at his desk, laptop open but he wasn’t focused on it. He had come to a startling and scary realization the day before when he had been sitting in the kitchen watching as Roman and Remus bickered over ideas for Thomas to use. He had watched as Remus poured unholy amounts of what looked like raspberry flavored syrup (at least he thinks it was syrup it had the consistency of syrup and the color of raspberries..) onto his bacon and eggs. He had happened to glance over at Remus and Remus had looked at him, smiled a quick flash before pulling him into the debate of ideas. When he had finished Remus’s smile was blinding and he had felt something stir in his chest.

He had ignored it at the time but later that night it had happened again, again caused by Remus. His heart fluttered when Remus smiled at him a quick bright thing like the flash of a camera before turning back to whomever he was talking to. He quickly excused himself and all but ran to his room. Logan prided himself on not having feelings, at least that’s what he told everyone else. Logan did have feelings, he just didn’t like them. But he had never had these feelings before. He had felt them of course, whenever Thomas had a crush or was in a relationship so he knew what they were but he personally had never had them before. Before Janus and Remus were accepted he hadn’t thought that he ever would have these feelings. Virgil and Roman had gotten together fairly quickly and Patton was more of a brother to him, and he had never seen him in a romantic sense. He just thought he didn’t have enough emotion to have romantic feelings, but what he felt just now had ruined all of that and now he had a problem.

Logan didn’t want romantic feelings. Hell, he didn’t want feelings at all, and he tried his best to repress them. But these unwanted things that affected Logan more than he liked to admit were persistent. He didn’t know how to deal with them. He thought back, trying to pinpoint the exact moment these feelings started and could only think of the amount of time hes been spending with the embodiment of intrusive thoughts. He had never had a problem with Remus, and sometimes sought him out for conversations, but once he was accepted he had started talking to him more, spending more and more time with him and his feelings had apparently grown from there. Maybe if he didn’t spend as much time with Remus as he did the feelings would go away? It was a stretch but it was all he could think of. So with a plan in mind he shut down his computer and went to bed.

Off in the imagination, Remus smiled to himself as he created stars and galaxies. He knew he had a crush on the resident nerd and he was really hoping that Logan liked him back, but he would wait for now and just enjoy his company as friends. He had always liked the nerd, when he had been a “Dark” side Logan was the only “Light” side who had tolerated him. Roman had come around, wanting to mend their broken bond but even he could get fed up with Remus’s constant chatter and rapid thought process. Logan never did, he always kept pace with Remus, always had. And he never shied away when topics took a darker turn. He rolled with the waves and explained, expanded upon, or dismembered the thoughts Remus couldn’t control and couldn’t filter and was never disgusted by them.

He listened to Remus in a way none of the others ever had. Even Janus had to stop him sometimes, the thoughts Remus spewed disturbing the deceitful side. But now that he was accepted, he had been spending more and more time with Logan and he was loving every minute of it! He pulled him into debates or just talked to him for hours and never got bored listening to him ramble about whatever was on his mind. He was cute the way he lit up whenever Remus asked him to explain or elaborate on whatever topic he was talking about. Remus flung the last of the stars into the sky and sunk into his room ready for a good rest. He had a million things he wanted to ask Logan about space, one of his special interests he found out last week and he also wanted to show him what he made tonight. Sleep took him quickly, a smile on his face.

The next morning Remus eagerly waited for Logan to come to breakfast, he wanted to show him a new recipe he had found and wanted to get Logan’s input on the best way to get Thomathy to make it for the Halloween party he was planning. But as the hour dragged by and Logan still hadn’t come down for breakfast, which was weird and slightly alarming as he almost never changed his schedule, Remus got worried. He decided to check on Logan and see if he was sick or something and quickly made his way upstairs to Logan’s room. He knocked on the door, if a bit too fast and waited as patiently as he could until he heard Logan call a quiet “Come in.”

He swung the door open, unintentionally slamming it against the wall and cringing slightly before bounding into the room. He looked around, he had been in Logan’s room before, he had been in everyone’s room before when he wasn’t accepted. He was always trying to spook everyone and catch them off guard, but Logan usually ignored him. With his acceptance his intrusive thoughts had calmed some, and he wasn’t as well, intrusive, as he used to be. He was still loud, he was still as hyperactive as ever and he still lacked a filter most days. But he was getting better, and he was trying to be better for Thomas. He stood in the middle of Logan’s room, closing the door with a snap of his fingers as he watched his crush type away on his laptop. He frowned when Logan didn’t turn to greet him but he shrugged and walked over to the Logical side’s desk.

“Watcha workin’ on Logie Bear?” He asked leaning over Logan and plopping his head onto his shoulder. He felt Logan freeze up, though he didn’t stop typing, which was weird. He hadn’t done that since they were teens, so he immediately pulled his head away and took a step back. Maybe he’s just stressed? He waiting as he watched Logan turn around and fix his glasses, a tick he had noticed he did whenever he was thinking. “Hello Remus.” He said it with none of the warmth that Remus had become accustomed to in the recent months and he was taken aback by it, but before he could even begin processing that he was interrupted.

“To answer your question, I am working on fixing Thomas’s schedule for next week. Since yourself and Roman have been pulling him into the Imagination more often he has been neglecting his real-world duties like laundry, washing the dishes, and a multitude of other things. Hopefully, you can convince Roman to keep a clear schedule next week. I am asking you to as well, though I know it will be hard “When Creativity strikes” as the saying goes but please try and withhold in for at least this next week. I have the weekend open for him if you and your brother do have any urges.” Remus stood there, his mouth slightly agape as Logan finally looked him in the eyes.

Remus blinked a few times before nodding voice subdued as he responded “Sure Lo, I’ll- I’ll try. And I’ll tell Roman too give him a heads up!” He smiled though it felt forced and quickly left the room. When Logan had looked at him, it was as if they hadn’t been spending these last few months together, He was closed up again, the strict no-nonsense mask he wore around everyone but him was... back up. What had happened?

Remus felt a tightness in his chest, but he took a few deep breaths and decided that Logan was just having a bad day. He and Roman have been hogging a majority of Thomas’s time this past week. Because they were allowed to work together again, they had been on fire giving Thomas amazing ideas and flying through the imagination fighting Gloria (the Dragonwitch) and her hordes of armies and other adventures. He shrugged off his bad thoughts and quickly went to find RoRo to tell him about Logan’s plan for the next week.

Logan sighed as Remus left the room. He rubbed his eyes and slumped in his seat as he tried to ignore the warmth of where Remus’s head had laid on his shoulder.

How had he not noticed that he liked Remus in a romantic way? How had he let himself get so comfortable that he had let his feelings creep in and take hold of his heart? He sighed and turned back to his desk glancing at the picture he had there. It was about a week after Janus and Remus had been accepted that Thomas insisted they took this photo, all of the sides plus Thomas in the middle. Virgil was sitting on Roman’s lap; Patton was leaning into two pairs of Janus’s arms and Remus had his arm thrown around Logan’s shoulders head thrown back as the others looked at him with varying degrees of disgust and embarrassment. Logan chuckled as he remembered the filthy joke Remus had told to get that reaction, and then he sighed as his eyes lingered on Remus’s form. He felt the ghost warmth of that arm thrown over his shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut.

This was for the best. He was Logic, he didn’t have feelings, or at least he shouldn’t. And besides even if he admitted to liking him, Remus would never reciprocate his feelings. So he rubbed his eyes, fixed his tied and went back to work. He had noticed that Remus had seemed off this morning, but he brushed it off and tried to focus on his work.

It had been three weeks, and everyone knew something was up with Logan and Remus. Logan had been acting a little too normal almost cold in his dealings with the others and Remus had been holed up in his room most of the time, and when he wasn’t in his room he kept to the imagination and only talked to Roman. Every time he was within viewing distance of Logan, he shot him wounded looks before leaving the room. The four sides decided to get to the bottom of this and set a meeting time aside for later that night after subtly observing the other two.

After dinner that night Janus, Patton, Roman, and Virgil met up in Janus’s room to discuss their observations of the day. Roman sighed before starting. “Remus has been acting odd these last few weeks as everyone knows. I tried to talk to him about why he seemed so down but all he did was yell ‘Fuck off bro’ before hitting me over the head with his morning star and running off into the woods.” He rubbed his head, presumably where Remus had hit him but there was no longer any wounds or lesions on his head that showed the damage. Virgil pulled him into a sideways hug and kissed his cheek. Janus glanced at Patton. Patton sighed and started fiddling with his hoodie sleeves.

“Logan looked was pretty out of it. He had about 10 empty coffee cups on his desk and he was all disheveled and when I asked how he was doing he said ‘fine.’ But I don’t think he's doing fine guys.” He said as he looked around the room. Janus nodded as Patton’s gaze landed on him. “I heard his lie about being fine, but I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly he wasn’t fine.” Virgil sighed as he leaned into Roman’s side. “I could feel both Logan and Remus’s anxiety spike when you asked them but it was more of a general anxiety nothing I could pinpoint.” They all looked at each other helplessly until Roman stood up. “I’m going to see my brother and figure this out I don’t care if I have to tie him to a chair!” He stormed off before the others could even think to stop him and they all hoped he could get through to Remus.

Remus was laying sprawled out like a starfish on his bed, humming a song he had heard as Thomas was scrolling through Instagram. His intrusive thoughts had been getting bad again without Logan there to counteract and break them down for him and he was starting to lose his head again. He could feel himself losing his already loose grip on reality every day that passed and he didn’t want anybody to think he was going back to how he was before he was accepted so he tried to stay in his room as much as possible and smash out the intrusive thoughts he had in the Imagination whenever he could. His head was swirling right now as Roman had interrupted him before he had a chance to create and then promptly destroy the thoughts so he was now laying in his room everything smashed to bits and chest hurting as he thought of why Logan would’ve cut him off. He was trying to be good!

He was trying his damn hardest but Logan had been helping him so much so the sudden cut had him dizzy for more than one reason. The only thing he could think that happened was that Logan had found out about his crush and decided to stop interacting with him. The painful thought as well as the others clouding his mind brought him to tears and he didn’t even notice Roman barge into the room until he was being hugged by him. He let himself cry as he was pulled into a warm embrace and his thoughts finally started to calm down. “Oh Rem, tell me what’s wrong?” He heard his brother whisper and he struggled his way through stuttering sobs as he told Roman that he had had a crush on Logan and he must have found out about it because Logan had started pushing him away three weeks ago and his thoughts were getting worse without him because his logic dismantled them and and-

Remus was cut off as Roman squeezed him again and told him he would handle it. Remus nodded and laid back down on his bed as his room playing the damn song he had stuck in his head and only making him cry harder.

“Vacant head in this empty bed yeah I think I’m losing it, I’m pretty sure I’m losing it. It’s messed up nice that you’re my vice and I keep on using it, it’s probably why I’m losing it. Thinking in circles when we’re not together and fighting it won’t make it better…”

Remus cried into his pillow as the song continued and eventually played on a loop, and Roman got ready for a fight.

Roman barged into Logan’s room slamming the door open and sword pointed at the Logical side who was more than shocked to say the least. Not that he showed it. “Roman, what can I help you with?” he asked as he turned to face the creative side. He had been holed up in his room for the better part of the last three weeks only going out for necessity but those time he had seen Remus had his heart racing with unwanted and useless feelings. “Remus is distraught and is declining in health mentally because of whatever you did Microsoft Turd, so I suggest you apologize and at least have the courtesy to keep a professional relationship with him!” He said vehemently and Logan was, well more than confused. “Roman, please elaborate I have no idea what you are talking about and I haven’t even seen Remus for more than a few seconds these past few weeks so I couldn’t have done anything to him.”

Roman paused and seemed to think about something before abruptly sheathing his sword and pulling Patton into the room. Logan looked on as Roman whispered something into Patton’s ear, who then looked over at Logan for a brief second eyes wide before he closed them and seemed to concentrate. His eyes flew open and he nodded to roman who sighed and rubbed his face roughly. “Thank you Padre, I’ll handle it from here.” Was all Logan heard before he was once again alone with the Creative side. Roman took a deep breath before looking at Logan, disheveled and downright messy, eyes bloodshot and hair a mess. He walked closer to Logan who warily accepted this quiet scrutiny. “You’re in love with Remus.”

It was a statement not a question, but Logan tried to deny it anyway. “While I love Remus in a platonic sense, I am not in fact in love with him as you say. I cannot fall in love, I am Logic.” The words burned his throat as he stared down Roman who plopped onto his bed similarly to the way Remus used to do. “Specs, if you forgot, which I am sure you did with the amount of caffeine running through your body at the moment, I am not just creativity. I could sense something was off between you and Rem, but I couldn’t place it until I asked Patton a question. A simple question. Do you know what that question is?”

Roman studied Logan as he thought through what he could have possibly asked Patton, nothing he could think of and yet he had started to panic slightly. He shook his head and looked to Roman who sighed. “You really are out of it aren’t you Lo? I asked Patton if he could sense love coming from you, and when he confirmed that he could it clicked. You’re in love with Remus. You have romantic feelings for him.” Logan stared at Roman with panic in his eyes. He was found out. “Please do not tell Remus.” He finally whispered hands running through his already messy hair. He couldn’t look Roman in the eyes.

“Logan look at me please.” He heard a soft voice request and he looked up at Roman who had moved closer. He put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and squeezed it slightly. “Why are you trying to deny your feelings? Just because you’re logic doesn’t mean you cant have feelings or fall in love with anyone. You aren’t just Logic, you’re also Logan. The nerd who geeks out over space and loves crofters and so many other things. You can have these feelings.”

Logan was trying his best not to tear up but there were unshed tears in his eyes as he listened to what Roman was saying. “But how can I be logic if I have feelings? Feelings are illogical and messy and- and-“ Roman squeezed his shoulder again and Logan looked up into his eyes. “Feelings are a part of being Human teach. You may embody logic, but you are a part of a human and that means that you also can have these feelings. If you didn’t have these feelings that would make you a robot and you are not a robot, no matter how hard you try to be one.”

Logan closed his eyes fighting the tears that wanted to escape. “Even if I do have feelings for Remus, he doesn’t return them. How am I supposed to face him?” he asked, his voice cracking. Roman sighed. “Logan, I know for a fact that Remus likes you back. I didn’t need Patton to tell me, he told me himself. It’s why I came here in the first place. I was gonna fight you for hurting my brother but by the way you looked I had a feeling you were hurting as much as he was. You need to go talk to him Lo. He’s been doing so good with you but when you cut him off everything started spiraling for him. He thinks you hate him for having feelings for you.”

Logan looked at Roman in disbelief, that couldn’t be right but then, thinking back on the few seconds he had seen Remus these past weeks he had seemed to be sad. Oh no. “I messed up didn’t I?” Roman chuckled and stepped away from his friend, “You should go talk to him Lo. I think it’ll work out in the end.” Logan nodded and wiped the tears from his eyes before straightening his tie. “Thank you Roman.” He said before sinking out. Roman chuckled and left the room to go tell the others that everything was gonna be fine.

Logan rose outside of Remus’s door, about to knock when he heard crying. He quickly sunk into the Creative side’s room only to be met by a song being played loudly, permeating the room and intruding his thoughts.

“Bloodshot eyes, no I can’t focus since I let you in. Ever since I let you in. Every high, like a crashing ocean its been sinking in, ever since I let you in” The lyrics pulled at a chord in his chest as he listened to more of the words. “Thinking in circles when we’re not together, If I let you go I’ll be better. I don’t know what I’m chasing, I’m smoking, I’m pacing hours go by like forever, now I’m like-“ He walked further into the room looking for Remus and finally spotted him on top of a broken bed face in the blankets and shoulders shaking. The song continued. “I want you, it’s way too late, I’m restless, I’m wide awake. Every time I lay down I can’t sleep, you’re keeping me up like caffeine.”

Logan walked closer to Remus and gently touched his shoulder. Remus startled and sat up makeup smudged and eyes red and puffy as he looked into Logan’s eyes. “Remus, please stop the music. We need to talk.” Remus scrunched up his face but the music only got louder. “Ah,” Logan muttered before waving his hand and stopping the music. “I’m sorry the song was s-stuck in my head and I c-couldn’t get it out a-and the harder I tried the louder it got.” He said, stuttering through hiccups his voice raw. Logan tentatively sat down next to Remus on the bed and watched as Remus scoot over but didn’t look at him.

“Anyways, what did you need Logie Bear?” he asked trying to sound like his normal self but Logan could hear the pain under his weak façade. Logan reached out for Remus’s hand, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted to, Logan was happy he didn’t. “I wanted to apologize for how I’ve been acting these past few weeks. I… well I had come to some startling conclusions and decided to try and ignore them but all I did was end up hurting the both of us.” Remus finally looked towards Logan and the hope and pain in his eyes made Logan ache he hadn’t meant to cause Remus any pain, hadn’t known he had the power to but this look flayed him and he knew that he had.

He took a deep breath before continuing. “I had come to the conclusion that I had romantic feelings toward you, but in my hasty decision that I shouldn’t have these feelings I hadn’t taken into consideration the thought that you might feel them as well. I was trying to avoid you so I could stop my feelings from growing, not because I knew you had feelings I did not reciprocate. And I am so sorry for hurting you Remus.”

Remus had fresh tears streaming down his face and he launched himself at Logan. “I thought all those thoughts were about how you couldn’t like me not that you thought you couldn’t like anyone in general!” he exclaimed as he hung onto Logan’s neck head pressed into his neck. Logan was confused for a moment before he remembered that Remus embodied intrusive thoughts as well as creativity. He knew everyone’s intrusive thoughts and fears, and he was able to take them away from the others so the thoughts didn’t affect them, but that meant he was stuck with them looping in his mind until either Logan helped him dismantle them or he killed them enough times. Glancing around the room he realized he hadn’t been able to kill the thoughts yet.

Logan hugged Remus a little tighter rubbing soothing circles on his back as he let Remus cry, whispering soothing words into his ear. Eventually Remus calmed down and sat back to look at Logan. He sniffed before asking, “So, you have feelings for me Lolo?” He smiled a watery smile but the question was genuine. “Yes.” Logan replied nodding his head in affirmation. Remus squealed and did a whole body wiggle “I like you too Logan.” He said excitement growing with every word. They would have to talk more but both were exhausted so Logan took Remus’s hand and brought him to his room, changing their clothes with a snap and ushered Remus into bed with him. Remus sighed contently as he cuddled with the logical side. “Thank you.” He whispered and Logan smiled and pulled Remus closer.

“You have nothing to be thankful for Remus. Thank you, for putting up with me being irrational.” Remus chuckled softly and tilted his head far enough back to softly kiss Logan’s chin. “Not very logical of you Lo,” he giggled quietly and Logan couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped him as well. “No, it wasn’t. Now sleep cephy, we can talk more in the morning.” He felt Remus freeze for a second before he wiggled happily “I like that name, Cephy. It fits.” Remus manifested his tentacles and took off Logan’s glasses placing them on the bedside table and turning off the lamp before retracting them. Logan was shocked, but exhaustion was taking over. “Remind me to ask you about those when we wake up.” He whispered and felt a nod as he drifted off.

Six months later

Logan sat at his desk his laptop open in front of him, but he was just staring at its black screen. He was tired but he had to finish this schedule for Thomas or else he wouldn’t be prepared for the next week of editing and filming. Logan rubbed his bloodshot eyes glasses discarded on the desktop next to the sleeping computer. He startled when he felt arms hug him from behind before he remembered that Remus was in his room with him. “Come to bed Lolo you can do this in the morning.” He whispered, the start of a whine in his voice. Logan leaned his head against Remus’s arm for a few moments before sitting up and sighing.

“Remus, I can’t I have to finish this tonight or else Thomas is going to be set back for days when he needs to be editing and re-filming. I’ll come to bed as soon as I am finished, I promise.” He looked to his boyfriend who had sat on the edge of the bed waiting for whatever it was Logan was going to say, He ran his fingers through his hair and nodded flopping backwards like a starfish. Logan looked at him for a few seconds, a small smile on his face before he yawned. He needed coffee. He stood up and after giving Remus’s leg a squeeze he left his room and went downstairs.

Dating Remus was like nothing he had ever imagined, and yet it was everything he wanted, He smiled again as he thought of his boyfriend. He was a handful sometimes, but he loved him with everything he was. Sometimes, before he and Remus got together he had felt like he was in a vast ocean, untouchable and unfeeling but then he let Remus into his life and suddenly he felt as though he had surfaced the ocean, gasping for breath he hadn’t known he needed. He hadn’t always liked the feeling.

When he had first realized he had feelings for the Duke he had thrown himself into his work ignoring his feelings and avoiding the attractive creative side which was hard considering he had finally been accepted and now resided alongside the rest of them the “dark commons” merged with the light and now they lived with nice shades of grey instead of blinding white or encompassing black. He spent way too long and many, many caffeine fueled nights working on anything and everything that had crossed his desk. But no matter what he did or didn’t do he couldn’t get Remus out of his head. Thoughts circled back to their scant interactions and his heart rate increased every time he seen the creative side but he refused to act on his feelings. He was Logic and logic didn’t have things like feelings (except when he did).

It all came to a head when Roman had barged into his room one day demanding he apologize for whatever he had done to his brother. Logan hadn’t realized that Remus had returned his hidden feelings, or that it was affecting his creativity as well as Thomas. It had taken a while for Roman to convince Logan that Remus cared about him too, Logan had been repressing his feelings for a while not to mention his feelings for Remus, but eventually he was able to confront Remus and admit his feelings. He had never been so scared or so happy than the day they got together. He walked into his room, mug of coffee held tightly and glanced lovingly at his boyfriend. He looked at the time 3:35, before looking back at the bed.

Remus looked so prone and exposed when he slept. He sighed and set his coffee onto the desk next to his laptop before shutting it down. He snapped his fingers and was in his pajamas which consisted of a worn Nasa shirt and some dark grey sweats. He took off his glasses and lay next to Remus who immediately turned around and snugged up to him, head under his chin and hands gripping his shirt. He chuckled softly. “You win my little octopus. I hope you’re happy.” Remus sighed into his chest and smiled before leaning up to kiss Logan's chin. “I am.” He responded softly snuggling closer. Logan kissed the top of his head and squeezed Remus. “I’m glad I let you in.” he whispered softly as he finally drifted off to sleep.

#sanders sides #my work #my writing #allie writes #song fic #intrulogical #sanders sides fanfic #romantic prinxiety #moceit #ts remus sanders #ts remus #ts logan sanders #ts logan #ts fanfic

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winryofresembool · 5 years ago

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Fic: Nightmares and Morse Code

Fandom: Heroes of Olympus (I imagine this happening some time post TBoO. Also, I have not read Trials of Apollo and I don’t know if I ever will so if this fic has some canon divergence, that’s why)

Characters/ships: Leo Valdez/Calypso

Summary: Calypso notices a certain habit of Leo's when she's trying to comfort him after a nightmare.

AO3 link

A/N: I decided to post this fic here too, so if you saw a link earlier, yes it’s the same fic. Anyway, I guess I am now officially writing non FMA content. Heroes of Olympus has pretty much consumed my life for the past few weeks (or even months by now) and while I adore Leo and also Caleo as a ship, I've noticed the fandom doesn't agree with me especially on the latter and there's very little Caleo content anywhere. So, I decided to change that! The idea of Leo saying I love you for the first time through Morse Code had me soft and I just had to write a fic around that. So, without a further ado, please enjoy and don't forget to review especially if you'd like to see me write more HoO content in the future! (And FMA fans, don't worry, I surely haven't abandoned Edwin or my fankids!!)

Genre: fluff, hurt/comfort

Warnings: none?

...

That night was particularly bad. Leo thought that in exchange for the happy moments he spent with Calypso, some evil force had decided to make his dreams double as bad.

Some of them were old, familiar ones. The fire that had killed his mother. Abusive foster families and bullies at schools he had escaped from. The voice telling him that he’d forever be the seventh wheel, his friends smiling and laughing together while he was stuck alone in his bunker. The Argo II group, all except him, getting killed by the giants, because of him.

But there were a couple of new ones too. In the first one he was back in the underworld, feeling that same pain he had back then he had died, positive he was on his way to Tartarus. But he found the second dream worse: Gaea was torturing Calypso, telling Leo that he had to pick from two options: either Calypso would have to die or she’d wake up again and destroy all the life on earth. If Leo had had to pick between himself and the rest of the world, he wouldn’t have had to think long. But… Calypso was just barely starting to learn what living in the real world meant after her 3000 years lasting imprisonment, she was so excited and happy to see new things, and genuinely wanted to be with Leo (despite the constant bickering) for reasons he didn’t quite understand, and… he could not bear the thought of living without her. Finally, he woke up to his own screams as he watched Gaea’s ‘minions’ cut her with a sharp knife yet again.

“Leo?”

It was too dark in his room to see, but he heard fast footsteps approaching him and soon the door was opened and someone switched the light on. He had to squint and protect his eyes from the light before he finally saw the slender figure next to him. Relief flooded into him as he realized that it had all been just a nightmare and Calypso was just fine, although with a very worried expression on her face.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Leo said with a slightly hoarse voice, attempting a lopsided smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “What’s up?”

“I… heard you screaming.” Calypso replied, suddenly embarrassed about rushing into his bedroom like that.

“Me? Screaming?” Leo sat up and waved his hand, trying to brush it off. “I think your ears are not quite yet used to the mortal world, mi sol.”

“Leo Valdez. I’m serious. I know what I heard.” Calypso glared at him, her beautiful features getting surprisingly scary when she wanted to. However, Leo didn’t budge.

“Sirius? Like Sirius Black from Harry Potter? I thought your name is Calypso,” he attempted, fully aware of how poor his joke was.

“What’s Harry Potter?” Calypso asked with confusion, not yet familiar with the modern popular culture.

“Only the most popular black-haired fantasy hero of our time… After me, of course.” Leo winked, but Calypso wasn’t happy with his answer.

“You’re only trying to make me forget the original topic. Why were you screaming?”

His face fell and he was twitching his hands nervously on his lap.

“Fine. It was a nightmare. But nothing I can’t handle.”

Calypso looked at him sadly, wanting to reach him but not sure if she should. Instead, she said softly: “I know you’re trying to act brave for me, but you don’t have to. I can see that something is hurting you and I want to help you. Like you’ve helped me. Maybe opening up would help you feel better.”

At this point Calypso noticed that Leo seemed to be tapping a certain pattern on the wooden edge of the bed with his fingers. She wanted to ask about it, but decided against it. Instead, she sat down next to him and slowly inched her hand towards his arm, encouraging him to talk.

Leo shook his head to clear his mind. “I… well, in these nightmares, I was reliving some of my worst memories… My mother and stuff… But there was a new dream too.”

“Please. Tell me about it.”

Leo tried to resist but something about Calypso’s calm tone and expression worked like Piper’s charmspeaking and he started babbling so fast Calypso couldn’t keep up with him. “Calm down a bit, Hot Head,” she stopped him. “I only got the part that I was in the dream.”

Leo took a deep breath, trying to focus on his hands that were still tapping against the wood nervously. Then he started in a slower pace: “Yeah… Dirt Face… I mean Gaea…” he added when Calypso raised her eyebrow questioningly, “in this dream, she was trying to wake up again… And she tried to make me choose between you… and the rest of the world… I mean, either you die or them… and I couldn’t.”

Calypso let that information sink in. Trying to hide her emotions, she crossed her arms over her chest and asked: “Are you saying that you would even consider letting me stay alive if you could save the rest of the world?”

Leo probably hadn’t expected that reaction. He failed to recognize that a part of the reason Calypso asked that was to conceal the fact that she was moved, going defensive: “But Cal, remember how she tried to make you kill me in Ogygia. And she could have offered you something much better than I could. But you refused to kill me. You even helped me get off that island even though… you know.” In his mind he added ‘even though it hurt you’. “Do you really think that after all that I could just…”

“Hey, it’s OK. I… think I understand your feeling. But thankfully you don’t have to choose because I’m right here, I’m OK, and she’s gone.” Calypso squeezed Leo’s free hand briefly. After a moment of silence, deciding to change the subject: “That… thing you do with your fingers… Is that a Morse code? Or have you been listening to too much of that rap music you talk about?”

Suddenly Leo’s face went all red. Calypso probably would be weirded out by his habit if she knew the meaning. “You… don’t happen to know Morse code, do you?”

“Not really…” she had to admit.

“That’s… that’s fine. The thing I was doing was just something my mother taught me when I was a kid.” Leo shrugged, trying to look casual.

“Oh… I thought it might mean something.”

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. If you want to know, you’ll have to figure it out on your own.” Leo smirked, even though he couldn’t hide his blushing.

“Leo Valdez, so full of mysteries.” Calypso rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“That’s why the ladies love me! Even you fell for my mysterious charm.”

“Uhhuh.” Calypso pushed him back to his bed, sticking her tongue out. Then she spoke with a softer tone. “So, are you feeling better now?”

“I think I am. Thanks. Talking with you made me feel better.” He still looked like something was bothering him, though. In reality, some, annoying part of him tried to tell him to reveal the code.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Calypso replied, reaching to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Um, maybe I should go back to bed. We have some work to do tomorrow.”

“Sure… Well, good night,” Leo answered, looking a bit… disappointed? Before Calypso was out of the room, though, he said with a new determination:

“Hey, Sunshine. I’ll give you a hint. It’s ‘te quiero’ in Spanish.

“What is?”

“The code. And… I mean it. With you.”

“Oh. Okay.” Calypso answered, even more confused than before as she exited the room. She only knew a couple of Spanish swear words (thanks to Leo) so she had no idea what ‘kiero’ or whatever that word was meant. But she decided to find out.

…

A week later, Calypso heard Leo scream again. But this time, instead of waking him up and inquiring him about his dreams, she decided to sit down on a chair next to the bed and hold his hand, hoping it would reach him. She had spent a long time researching on both Spanish language and Morse codes and had finally cracked Leo’s code. Some part of her had already known its meaning but seeing it for real had made her strangely overwhelmed. As she saw him there, whimpering quietly, scrunching his forehead and looking so vulnerable , that exact same emotion he had been expressing struck her with force. This brave, determined, smart (and, she had to admit to herself, sometimes kinda funny) boy had been through so much. Ever since his mother had died, his life had been nothing but a struggle, and even now that they were (relatively) safe, the ghosts of the things he had experienced were still haunting him. She wanted to show him there were still things worth living, worth loving, in this world.

So she started softly tapping on his hand.

.. .-.. --- ...- . -.-- --- ..-

I. Love. You.

It seemed his form relaxed as she reached the end of the code. She waited a bit longer to see if the nightmare had faded away, but when she finally stood up about to leave, his fingers suddenly wrapped up around hers.

“So you figured it out,” a sleepy voice said against his pillow.

“I did,” Calypso admitted.

“Cal.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go.”

Calypso wasn’t sure if she had heard right. “Huh?”

“I… I’d like you to stay.” Leo said, sounding unusually vulnerable.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Sunshine.”

“OK. I’ll stay then.”

Leo backed up in his bed to make her space, and she settled down next to him. She didn’t protest when an arm wrapped around his waist after he had put the comforter over them, instead nuzzling closer to him and taking in the warmth that was radiating from him. And gods, he really was warm. The two didn’t say much after that, but Leo’s fingers started automatically tapping an answer to her message against her stomach. Soon enough, both of them started drifting into sleep, this time a much more peaceful one.

#leo valdez #calypso #caleo #pjo #heroes of olympus #hoo #my fics

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clansayeed · 5 years ago

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Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 10: The Elite

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽

While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Nadya finds a kindred soul in Taylor Hunter, who was also living a perfectly normal life before being shoved into the chaos of the supernatural. Later, the good news is the Amulet is still in the city. The bad news is they'll have to bid for it... and bidding wars here can be deadly.

[READ IT ON AO3]

“I don’t know guys,” she lingers just on the edge of the morning sunlight; already warm at her back, “I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable leaving you with the people who literally just tried to kill us.”

Unfortunately though they’re a little short in the way of other options. New Orleans is only gonna get hotter and sunnier and while ideal for a mysterious club, Flechette standing on its own and away from the rest of the crammed-together French Quarter buildings doesn’t lend to a safe return to the Graveyard Shift.

Still — Nadya has concerns and she’s gonna voice them.

“I think we’ll be fine.” Though Adrian could try a little bit harder to reassure her. But he’s been distracted ever since the de la Rosa vampires lowered their proverbial weapons. Given how he acted — how cold and cruel he was in the face of enemies — Nadya can’t say she wouldn’t be a little distracted in his shoes. “Whether we’re in her good graces or not, Gaius still poses a threat to all of us regardless. And Isadora seems quite keen on keeping her way of life intact.”

Lily’s boots catch and drag on the concrete under the soles. “Can’t say I’ll be getting much sleep, but she’s kinda our only choice in the way of, ahem, late-morning snacks.”

Nadya understands and offers her a consoling smile. Lily tries to return it, but when she feels the catch of her fangs on her lower lip she practically zips them up and throws away the key.

She’s seen Lily do some strange things with the blood bags back at the apartment. But Nadya has yet to actually see her… you know, and on someone’s neck. Nor is she keen to add it to the list of things she’s seen and been mentally scarred by.

Well if they’re okay with it she really doesn’t have a reason to keep doubting, then, does she?

Nadya peers over Lily’s shoulder to the main floor of the club. With the lights on the place is far less goth-chic but she doesn’t have to squint to see anything anymore, so that’s a plus.

“Keep an eye on him, will you? Just in case…” Nadya asks of them, prompting both vampires to turn and follow her gaze to where Cadence sits. He’s still hunched over one of the dark glossy tables, scribbling away at a piece of paper. Just like he’s been doing ever since Isadora managed to bring him back to consciousness.

After Cadence had separated Isadora’s psychic link he was out. Like… out out. Like actually worried the woman to the point where she was ready to close the club and run him to some local voodoo man out. And everyone was relieved when he finally came to of his own volition but there was no denying he had come back… strange.

Or maybe strange is just the feeling Nadya gets when she looks at him now. Maybe no one else feels it. Maybe she’s just lost a few more marbles.

Of course Adrian and Lily agree. Nadya gives each of them a hug farewell but right before she takes her leave the familiar sound of Isadora’s heels comes up all too quickly.

The woman stays well out of the way of the daylight, just like Adrian and Lily. She looks wearier now than when they first met. Objectively Nadya knows vampires don’t age. But Isadora looks like she’s trying to challenge that theory.

“I’ve called on someone to take you back to the Quarter safely,” says Isadora brusquely, “it may no longer be night but there are numerous factions within our borders that can act at any time.”

“Seems… inhospitable.” Adrian comments. He doesn’t miss the sharp look thrown his way.

“Perhaps. But at least we declare ourselves to our enemies.”

“And you’re implying…?”

“That I trust my allies with certainty. From what I’ve come to understand about your Council, that is not something you are familiar with.”

How has it been five whole freaking seconds and already every anxiety Nadya has about leaving is back with a vengeance?

But Lily sees this and waves her off. “Go while you still can. I’ve got this. You should hear some of the dirt Mari and Jax pull out during a fight.”

If she doesn’t leave now she never will, so Nadya mouths a final “good luck” and pushes through the doors out into the thick morning air.

Immediately she tries to fan herself with her hand, and all that does is push hot air at her.

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to.”

Nadya can’t help it — she almost jumps out of her skin in fright. “Don’tdothat!”

She rounds on the young man, who can’t be older than she is by a year or more, and who apparently finds it funny to give a poor girl a heart attack. If she had her purse she’d swing it at him. The stakes would at least leave a bruise.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Though I’m gonna need some explaining on how someone that jumpy can hang out in Flechette all night. Doesn’t quite add up, you know?”

He has a point which is rude enough. Worse that he has an incredibly disarming smile directed right at her. Nadya busies herself with tying her hair up to cool off her neck. “After a while you learn to expect what moves vampires are gonna pull. People, though? They’re still too unpredictable.”

“You know,” he laughs, “that’s fair and valid. And pretty true, actually…”

He’s not passing her. And Nadya has the distinct impression if she starts trying to make her way back up the street he’d be right there at her side; tagging along.

“You’re the person Isadora called, then?”

“Taylor Hunter,” he finally introduces; they shake hands light and brief, “but if you didn’t know my name… how’d you know I was who you were lookin’ for, Miss Nadya?”

Nadya pushes up her glasses with a shrug. “Just Nadya, and… Your eyes. They don’t look human.” They’re too bright, especially taking into account he’s got the sun at his back, and shine far too many colors. Though if Nadya’s being honest she probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t met Garrus and Ivy beforehand.

Quickly Taylor ducks his head and Nadya wonders if she’s hit a nerve or something. He certainly looks red in the face. “Shit — really? My bad… They should go back to normal in an hour or so.”

Because she totally knows what that means? “Uh… okay?”

He jerks his chin back towards the heart of the city. “C’mon, we’re meeting a friend of mine to grab everyone coffee. It’ll be a fun story to pass the time.”

Talkative, isn’t he. And there’s a traitorous part of Nadya that knocks on her head one too many times with a hello, who the heck are you to judge missy but what Taylor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

It’s admittedly very strange to be telling the story she’s telling with new faces taking in her every word.

“That went about as well as I thought it would,” Katherine announces while reaching over and plucking a bottle from around the other side of the bar, “seems like you were lucky, though, and caught Izzy in a good mood.”

“That’s her good mood?” Nadya can’t help but look skeptical. But judging by the looks she’s met with, Katherine isn’t exaggerating.

“Yeah yeah, de la Rosa’s got a chip on her shoulder, what else is new. What about this Amulet you were talkin’ about; does she have it?”

Taylor scrunches up his face and gives a backhanded smack to the solid chest beside him. It had taken Nadya a second to remember the other Nighthunter but once he greeted her by way of ‘muggle’ it was easy. Apparently Ryder hadn’t been putting on airs when he had shown up to Raines Corp. all devil-may-care and bad-boy. That was just who he was.

Not that she doesn’t recognize the somewhat melted look in his eyes when he pretends to be wounded — she’s seen it well enough when Maricruz thinks Lily isn’t looking. “Rook’, you gotta stop beatin’ on me in front of company.”

The man beside Nadya blows a mousy brown curl from his eyes with a laugh. “Feel free to ask one of us to do it.”

“No one asked you, Cujo.”

Katherine rolls her eyes. “Tell me I don’t have to apologize for them?”

Nadya just laughs and shakes her head. It’s been easier than she expected to feel comfortable around Taylor and his friends. They’re just weird enough to be funny. And, admittedly, she’s kinda enjoying not being the odd one out for once.

Too bad Nadya’s natural sense of worry doesn’t allow her to enjoy peace for long. “No — Isadora doesn’t have the Amulet anymore. She had to give it up to pay off some of her father’s debts, I guess?”

Ryder grunts. “Yeah, to th’Smoke.”

“And ‘the Smoke’ is a person?”

“Well… yes and no.”

All eyes turn to Vera, the friend of Taylor’s they had met up with on their coffee run. It’s still a bit weird for Nadya to constantly be pulling her shirt away from the back of her neck from sweat and see someone in full-length silk gloves — but since no one else is going to comment on it Nadya has a feeling doing so would be rude.

Vera is already hard at work pouring over ledgers of some kind; Nadya recognizes those kinds of spreadsheets from work. She carefully balances one black binder each on her knees. “I brought everything dated from last March. There’s just a lot to get through. But if you’re sure Isadora’s telling the truth I should be able to find it pretty easily.”

She looks up and offers Nadya a warm smile. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get it and have you an’ your friends back up to New York in no time.”

“Thank you,” and she looks around as she says it, “all of you, really. I don’t think I can say it enough.”

Though if the looks she gets are any indication… she might have already.

Unfortunately ‘pretty easily’ turns into one hour, then two, then Taylor is shaking Nadya’s shoulder gently out of a doze with a bemused little smile.

“Maybe you should get some rest? The research part isn’t the most interesting.”

“No, no I’m okay.”

“Then take another coffee run with me. I have to swing by work anyway… stretching your legs might help.”

His borderline-overly friendly attitude makes a bit of sense when one takes into account the weirdness of their mutual situations. On their way back from Flechette, Nadya had been hesitant to open up and dig into the nitty-gritty of it no matter how interested Taylor had appeared. But now, with a bit more time on their hands and more than the cliff-notes shared between them, she can’t help but feel relieved that she’s not the only one who feels like they tripped down the proverbial rabbit hole.

“Okay okay, tell me if you get this though,” Nadya pauses to swallow a bite of her pastry, “when there’s, like, a whole pile of crazy going on and everyone is all freaking out and yelling at each other and you just —”

“You just end up standing there because nobody bothered to give you any context?!”

“Yes! It’s so annoying!”

“Not to mention potentially fatal.”

“Oh don’t even get me started on fatal. I’ve never so much as jaywalked before and now I’ve come face to face with…” it takes her a second to both balance her coffee and count on her fingers but she manages, “four vampires, all of them over two thousand years old. All of which who’ve threatened me at some point or another.”

Taylor hisses through his teeth. “Big yikes.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Though she regrets bringing it up not a moment later. Not just because she keeps pushing that inevitable existential crisis down until their work here is done. But also because one of the four is Kamilah, and if she thinks about Kamilah she thinks about how much she misses Kamilah, and if she thinks about how much she misses Kamilah she might actually collapse into tears.

“You really care about her, don’t you?”

The needle scratches on Nadya’s thought-record. When she looks up Taylor has a furrow in his brow and a painfully sympathetic look directed at all of her being. Unsettling doesn’t even cover it.

She’s getting tired of people poking around in her head without her permission.

Though before she can get so much as a word in, Taylor seems to come back to himself. Where he was, Nadya can’t say, but she knows the signs when someone can’t entirely stop themselves from doing something. “Sorry,” he clears his throat awkwardly and won’t look her in the eye, “that was super outta line.”

“Yeah, a bit.” But what’s the use in denying it? “You’re not wrong though.”

“What’s her name?”

“Didn’t read my mind that far?”

Taylor shakes his head. “It’s not really mind-reading so much as… emotion-reading? Or like real-deal empathy, I guess. My father says it’s some unique halfling thing. Fae can share a lot more with each other than humans can, but because I’m not full on Legolas, I only get a part of the package.”

Nadya knows that look. She’s seen it in the mirror enough times.

“One of those bonuses you didn’t ask for.”

“Exactly. Not that it hasn’t come in handy,” he quickly backtracks, “I think it saved our lives back last year. But an instruction manual would’ve been nice — all I’m sayin’.”

Preaching to the choir. “Her name is Kamilah. She’s…” He can tell, though. Does she have to say it aloud?

When Taylor smiles at her it’s a sad thing. No, she doesn’t.

Although when might she have another chance to talk to someone who understands? Because she tried that with Kamilah — and they both know how that went. Not Adrian, or Lily, or even Jax could have even the slightest bit of empathy for what Nadya is going through against her will. And here’s Taylor thrown into her lap with a little bow on top; not only someone who gets what it’s like to be on the outs of all this supernatural crap but also a literal empath.

How can the universe begrudge her for taking advantage of that?

She inhales deep and shaky. “I—we—she and I kinda had a fight right before we left New York. I think it was our first one…”

Nadya remembers reading somewhere that therapy works because telling a stranger your problems is a lot easier than telling your friends; they don’t have any stake in your future, or have sides they need to choose. Well try telling a therapist about the secret group of vampires who run Manhattan, she had thought skeptically. Now, she takes that cynicism back.

While she recounts the events of her fight with Kamilah, Taylor just listens. He nods, and ‘hmms,’ and asks for clarification here and there but it’s more than just proving he’s listening. Nadya tries not to notice but the way his expressions change with her tone and words… he’s feeling everything she is. And boy, does she feel bad for him for it.

They end up walking around in nonsensical circles until finding their way to the only familiar place Nadya knows; Jackson Square. Taylor casually gets them to one of the old wooden benches outside the church. A small four-man jazz band plays off in the shade to a growing semicircle of tourists.

She sips the last dregs of her coffee cold and too-sweet. “I get what she meant and where she was coming from, I do. But I also can’t help but get this feeling like all that I saw in my visions were things she wouldn’t have told me no matter how much I asked… And I know why, obviously, but…”

But there are too many places in her whole explanation that Nadya’s said ‘but’ and even she’s starting to get irritated by it.

“You know,” Taylor swings an arm around the back of the bench, “just because you understand her side of things doesn’t mean your side isn’t just as important. You can fight with someone you care about and have both of you be right and wrong.”

“Then how do we ever stop fighting?”

He laughs dryly. “Oh, fuck if I know. Nik and I get into it constantly about his jobs. He’s always trying to keep me from helping him out but he’s probably more at risk when I’m not around. At least I have magic — even if I suck at using it right now. He’s smart, and strong, and really good at what he does… I just can’t help but worry one day that won’t be enough.

“I think there are a lot of things in Kamilah’s life she regrets; things she thinks will change your opinion of her — that’ll make you hate her or something. And a lot of relationships are like that. There’s just more baggage to sort through with you two.”

Wow, thanks genius. “I won’t hate her though. That’s what I can’t seem to explain right.”

“The best thing you can do is what you’re already doing. Keep explaining it, keep being there, and she’ll realize in her own time what that means.”

Nadya watches him carefully. “Is that what you and Ryder did?”

“Sorta — but we’re working on it.”

It was supposed to be a simple errand run but Nadya can’t shake the feeling there isn’t exactly a search party out for them. She’s not complaining! If the universe is listening she is not complaining. It just makes the return to their very dark, gruesome, and potentially apocalyptic reality all the more difficult. Luckily she’s getting used to dealing with difficult things by now.

When they finally return to the bar business is booming; thank god Taylor gives her a nudge to pick her jaw up off the floor or else she’d probably have offended half of the patrons. Can she really be blamed though? It looks like freakin’ Comic Con in here.

There’s a shrill whistle near the bar at the back and they both catch sight of Cal waving them over. “Everyone’s upstairs!” he has to practically shout over a gaggle of taloned women adorned in feathers, two of them seemingly in heated competition for his attention. “I’d head up but —”

“Oh no you don’t!” Garrus appears over his broad shoulders as if from nowhere. “You’re half the selling point of these sweet swamp shots, Bayou-boy. Sorry my not-so-mortals!”

Taylor and Nadya both watch with equally pitying looks as the fae pushes Cal into the fray. “One day he’s gonna realize I didn’t do him any favors getting him this job,” Taylor mutters close to her ear, and Nadya tries to throw up a sympathetic thumbs-up before they manage to get to the metal staircase and up away from the chaos.

There are way too many people in this apartment. Taylor takes this as an opportunity to literally fall into Ryder’s lap; Ryder is just forced to take it without argument or fight. But Lily has a spot saved right in between her and Adrian which Nadya takes all too eagerly.

“Girl, look at you,” Lily pinches her cheek, “you finally got some sun! Now lemme soak some of it up.”

While one vampire clings to her arm, though, the other is quite pointedly keeping his distance. Nadya turns and gives Adrian a cautious look. He smiles, she would expect nothing less, but the strain shows in little crinkles at his eyes that definitely weren’t there before.

Wordlessly she rests her head against his arm. Adrian tenses — she doesn’t take it personally — but relaxes in the same breath. Rests his hand on her knee in a silent thanks.

Movement draws Nadya’s attention to a small kitchen island where Katherine balances herself on a stool, and where Cadence stands beside her with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Hey Cade,” she gives him a little wave, “feeling better?”

The vampire looks at her… and that’s it. There’s still a bit of frenzied confusion in his eyes. Confused, she shifts her attention to Katherine — the huntress just shakes her head.

“Oh good, y’all are back.” Vera walks in from the adjacent room and offers a weary little smile. “Good news is we found the Amulet, and its still in New Orleans.”

But what sentence ever started with good news that didn’t include…

“And the bad news?” asks Taylor; his tone a tad too defeatist for Nadya’s liking.

Ryder growls. “The bad news is I gotta put on a fuckin’ monkey suit.”

The actual bad news is that the Amulet of Nero was put up for auction by the former Lady Smoke. And apparently no amount of money will convince the auctioneers to take it off the docket. “Trust me, Kamilah and I pooled together a substantial sum,” Adrian sighs, “and they didn’t even flinch.”

Vera nods. “If anything that only encouraged them further. Goblins are awful little sneaks but whatever business they sink their claws into is their reputation; they’ll live and die by it. In trying to buy out the Amulet you’ve shown something that could have easily been written off has the potential to get them a lot of money.”

Goblins — she said goblins. Okay. That’s a thing we’re accepting now. “So we need this thing to keep the world from ending and… we have to buy it?” In what world is that fair?

“Isadora has agreed to put her Family’s wealth behind our bid,” Adrian explains, “which should be more than enough for us to ensure we aren’t outbid. And this way we don’t attract Gaius’ attention by riling up the supernatural community. The less enemies we make, the better.”

He knows the question on the tip of her tongue. Nadya knows it, Lily knows it too. But she won’t ask it because their lucky streak has so far not been entirely consistent.

What if they already have Gaius’ attention?

They’ll burn that bridge when they get to it.

BEEP.

“Hey Kamilah, it’s me… again. Sorry, I let the last three messages go too long and I’m not really sure if they still send when that happens? So… here I am.”

Nadya looks down at her bracelet and sighs. She nearly loses her balance — heels and gravel walkways don’t mix well together — but manages not to sound like a total loser on the call. “At risk of this becoming the fourth mistake, uh, I’ll be quick. Adrian said he kept you up to date with what’s going on down here, so this isn’t... About that… I just wanted to say hi, and I hope you’re doing well, and… and let you know that I miss you.

“If I had a choice I wouldn’t have left things like we did. I think we both know that. And the second I’m back in New York I want to try and work this out. For… for us, y’know? And I think you do, too.” She sniffles. “You still have your read receipts on for texts. Anyway, gotta get going. Wish me—us—luck!”

She hangs up there because even for Nadya there’s only so many times she can make herself look stupid until she makes the turn from charming and quirky to downright annoying.

Four is probably pushing it.

She wobbles her way back to the others smiling a little too wide, but thankfully no one comments on it. Vera offers her a clunky gold ring but the second Nadya slips it onto her finger it seems to fit like it was sized and all. “Magic ring?”

“Magic ring.” Lily nods, delighted to be agreeing.

“Too bad Cal couldn’t come with this time,” Taylor elbows Ryder’s side gently, “he deserves the chance to not have to sneak through the kitchens.”

Ryder, however, doesn’t seem to share the sentiment. “I feel like a damn sellout,” grumbles the hunter as he adjusts the cuffs of his borrowed suit. Adrian raises an eyebrow his way. His suit is the one being borrowed, after all. “I said what I said.”

“Yeah, nobody cares.”

Katherine tugs up the top of her dress and brushes her hair away from her shoulder. “We get in, we bid, we get the Amulet and get out. Any more time wasted and someone, somewhere is gonna recognize someone and nobody wants that.”

She rounds on Nadya and Lily both. “Don’t go anywhere on your own, don’t talk to anyone especially the people who are nice to you, and I’ll tell you right now that none of these snakes can make your wishes come true.”

They don’t know whether to take her seriously or not. Lily’s laugh is a few shades shy of offended. “I think I know how to have fun.”

“This isn’t fun, baby fangs, it’s Persephone. The last time we were here Cade —” she jerks her thumb to the vampire; who quickly snaps out of his own little world and blinks in confusion, “— ended up nearly getting gored by a Minotaur in illegal cage fighting; a fight that was supposed to be carried by Cal’s prepubescent Teen Wolf baby brother.

“Everyone through those doors has been playing the game of money and power for decades, some for centuries. They know there are worse things to lose than your life.”

Nadya pulls Lily tighter and links their arms. “Read you loud and clear.”

Unfortunately threatening-if-considerate speeches aside, the likelihood that they’re going to be the reason something goes wrong is… statistically pretty high.

At least they do the noble thing and own it.

“Everybody ready?” Vera looks around, checks for rings, and smooths down the front of her dress. “Then in we go.”

Lily snickers in her ear as they all join the line to enter Persephone. “I’m having middle school field trip flashbacks.” She whispers, and pulls back to Nadya’s equally amused grin.

To say the inside of Persephone is beautiful is definitely an understatement; but it’ll have to do while Nadya tries to catch her jaw as it hits the floor and starts running. She thought Marcel’s castle was beautiful? It still is — but it was so obviously an antique; a relic from a bygone era. This is different. This is a kind of beauty not taken from one place or thing. It’s everyone; all the infinite colors and shapes and species of people that mill around her.

It’s kind of a shame that she’s come to associate beautiful things with how close to being threatened or killed she’ll soon be. It kind of dulls the spark of the place.

Nadya and Lily both crane their heads up, up, four floors up to the swooping ceilings above and their glittering chandeliers — which Nadya has an inkling aren’t made of glass at all but real magical energy in bright playful lights. All around the edges of the landings people gather, leaning and chatting and drinking in that uppity way people with money do. Like even all of this splendor bores them; everything meaning nothing.

A hand falls on her shoulder and Nadya has to stifle her yelp — unlike the first time Taylor startled her she now feels comfortable with reaching out and smacking his arm. “Stop giving me heart attacks!”

Judging by the bright and definitely inhuman glint in his eyes he definitely did it on purpose.

“It’s all kinda epic, huh?”

“Kind of?” Lily scoffs dramatically. “This is the single most epic place in the entire universe!”

Ryder passes them all and rolls his eyes. “You should see Toronto.”

But this time, all overzealous Lilyisms aside, Nadya has to admit she agrees. “It’s… a lot. More than I ever thought I’d see…” And she’s been seeing quite a lot these days.

“Come around next year for Mardi Gras, ‘cause this is nothing.”

At first Nadya doesn’t recognize the woman without the sheer veil over her features, but when Lily and Adrian don’t ask why a stranger is leading them up one of the swooping twin staircases she realizes Isadora’s sent one of her daughters to collect them.

Tony and an unfamiliar vampire stand guard on either side of a circular booth and table that looks like it was made for the de la Rosa Matriarch alone — sleek black stone polished so pristine Nadya catches the woman’s reflection before actually looking up at her face.

Adrian steps aside and allows Nadya to slide into a seat first. Isadora seems to barely notice them. Instead her attention is focused solely on a large piece of curling parchment that — nope, that’s not a trick of the light — the ink is actually moving like an invisible quill is scratching notes right in front of her face.

“Is that the registry?” Adrian asks, and Isadora slides it to him with a furrowed brow.

“Indeed. Word must have been leaked out by a few of their underground sources. The preemptive bids on the Amulet are starting to climb.” The vampire looks to Vera as she speaks. “Whatever has the new Lady Smoke interested enough to show her face around our nefarious sort is worth quite a hefty amount.”

Taylor squeezes Vera’s shoulder — it isn’t until he tenses that Nadya realizes he’s holding the gloved woman back.

“I’m here to help my friends,” she growls out in reply.

Isadora doesn’t look amused. “Try telling that to New Orleans’ elite.”

She’s been under the impression everyone was sticking together, but it seems the fancy-pants de la Rosa booth is for vampires (and human guests) only. But Taylor and Vera leave shortly after to where she spots Ryder cradling his flask like a security blanket in a far less fancy booth on the other side of the main floor.

Silently Isadora moves the barest inch; just enough space to fit both Cadence and Katherine on her side. Instead he clears his throat and volunteers to grab the drinks, and nearly runs into a pair of waiters in his haste to not be there.

Adrian rolls up the magic scroll and puts it aside. “How long until the first lot comes out?”

“It will be showcased at the hour,” Isadora raises a limp wrist with a black card in hand, “which won’t be long from now. Are you prepared for a bidding war? I do hope you brought a second suit.”

A stunningly beautiful fae approaches with a small wooden box. They unfasten the lid and allow the vampiress to slide the card in, offer up a “thank you for your contribution,” and go off in search of the next card to accept.

But second suit? Doesn’t that get Nadya’s attention. “Why would he need a second suit,” but why is she asking Isadora when Adrian is right there, “why would you need a second suit?”

He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. “From what I’ve been told, bidding wars here… are a little messy.”

The vampiress snorts softly. “Money is valuable, but this is New Orleans. If you made it as far as the interior of Persephone you ought to have more to offer than wealth. Bidding wars can involve anything from shows of strength to tests of skill and intelligence. Two centaurs had a proper race on the lawn once.”

The more words she says the less certain Nadya feels. It leaves her tangled up inside and actually holding her stomach with a groan.

“Please tell me you’re gonna offer up your business acumen.” And she actually physically can’t look at his apologetic face so Lily goes above and beyond and pushes it away and out of sight.

“That’s why we needed as much for our initial bid as possible.” Adrian tries his best to console her. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure it won’t even come to something that drastic.”

“I thought I told you to stay the hell away from me!”

She’s a tiny human and Adrian is a hundreds-of-years-old vampire, so he probably doesn’t find her shaking both fists at him to be a scary thing. But it makes her feel better and that’s all Nadya cares about. Well, that and the look of confusion-meets-panic Katherine throws her way.

“Was that —?”

“Scooch scooch scooch please and thank you!” Nadya forces the vampires to let her out and follows the Nighthunter as she rushes to the railing to try and find Cadence in the crowd below.

“Something’s upset you, I just want to help.”

“Being stalked is pretty damn upsetting.”

Thank god the railing is there to catch her because Nadya’s breath is knocked from her lungs. Adrian and Lily are at her sides in an instant and thank god for them, too, because they look just as shocked and that means she isn’t imagining things. She isn’t imagining that voice.

Katherine comes up alongside them, her grip white-knuckled and harsh against the ornately twisted metal bar.

Down below there’s a bar in the middle of the floor on a slowly rotating dais. Some of Persephone’s patrons skirt away from the display before it turns into a fight — and it looks like that won’t take more than a wrong word or touch. But most of them are greedy for more than money, hungry for more than fine wine and foods. They want blood; that’s why they’re here.

Cadence smacks Valdas’ hand away before the man can reach for him. He looks wild like a startled animal; backed up against the bar top and looking frantically for a means of escape.

“You’ve repeatedly ignored my requests not to come to my workplace, you send me flowers I don’t want and cannot refuse, and now you — you show up here, of all places?”

Valdas watches him with an uncharacteristic distress. “Cadence, you’re upset. You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“I’m thinking clearer than I have in years.”

The vampire practically spits the words through his clenched teeth. But that doesn’t make them any less strange in nature.

Valdas steps back. “And what, pray tell, has brought that on?”

In that moment Cadence’s frantic eyes find Katherine up above; his relief is visible even from a distance. Unfortunately the Trinity vampire is so close it can’t be denied. Has him turning to find the thing that managed what he could not in calming the other man in his fear—rage—mania.

He recognizes Katherine slowly then all at once; sweeping his eyes over the onlookers until they land on Nadya.

“Adrian,” she reaches blindly back behind her; feels his hand close tight and steadfast around hers, “I really hope you brought that second suit.”

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writings-from-the-hart · 5 years ago

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Re-Introduction of Renegade

WIP Title: Renegade

Genre: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Adult themes, Ptsd, Abuse, Murder, and Blood and Gore.

Stage of writing process: Writing (everything is plotted out).

Synopsis: “Trouble usually finds me.” An assassin known as the Crimson Ghost makes their way through corrupt city-states of the World’s Republic completing jobs given to them by the Black Rose. What is a seemingly normal job though turns into something far more complicated and puts them at the center of a conspiracy when they stumble upon the fractions of an abandoned notebook from the past. A past the Republic is trying to desperately hide and bury no matter what. “I’m standing in the ashes I used to be.” In the Republic’s capital, Eshar plainly referred to as “The Prodigy” or “Machine” by those around him, Eric Coalwood has built a life upon the ruins of his family, striving to meet the high expectations set before him by his mentor. However, his life falls out of its normal day to day routine when the unexpected is asked of him; command a task force made up of the Republic’s most wanted. . . Or his life is over. Eric doesn’t need reasons for why he must do what he has to do, all he needs are orders something the Republic is happy to give. “Endure and survive.” The clock is ticking for both the Crimson Ghost and the Republic’s prodigy and with time running out they both have two options -- either get over their different beliefs concerning the Republic or allow the world to once again succumb to war but this time nobody will survive. “Legends are slippery things. For the glory that coats them hides the pain, suffering, and death that created them.”

Character information:

The House of Cards:

Commander, King of Spades Eric Coalwood. (main character)

Ace of Spades, Valentina Storm. (main character)

Six of Hearts, Xavier Lucian.

Jack of Diamonds, Dante Volkov.

Seven of Clubs, Adira Linh.

Ten of Diamonds, Eris Stark.

Ten of Hearts, Brazen Stark.

Nine of Clubs, Mallory Belmonte.

Other minor characters:

General Cassin Wolfheart

Dr. Vincent Blake

Orion Ultor

Links: Here is my AO3 works link because I’m thinking about maybe posting bits and pieces of Renegade there. Tumblr can be weird sometimes and I don’t trust it when it comes to putting my own hard work on it, so I figured why not use AO3. Beware, it’s kinda barren right now lol. *Side note* I’d love to hear your opinions on posting on AO3.

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hart_Attack22/works

Each OC in Renegade has a separate tag and link, now I won’t post every single one because of 1.) I haven’t gotten around to posting about every single OC and 2.) That’s a lot of links. So I’ll just put the two major characters and call it a day.

Eric Coalwood tag link: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/oc%3A-eric-coalwood

Valentina Storm tag link: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/oc%3A-valentina-storm

WIP tag: I always tag Renegade under WIP: Renegade, just for some reason Tumblr won’t organize everything related to it so it can be hard to find.

https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/wip%3A-renegade

Other WIP Information: Renegade has been a long work in progress -- I have recontructed the plot on three seperate occashions -- but it is my baby nonetheless. My hope and biggest dream for this wip is that 1.) I finish this monster of a story and 2.) Get it published into a novel some day. I have some high hopes for this work in progress and have been willing to stick by it no matter what.

Constructive criticism: I am open to any kind of constructive criticism! Like I stated above, I want this thing to get published some day and the only way that will happen is if I put both myself and this out there. So fire away! Ask all the questions you want and don’t be afraid to nit pick also.

I welcome all to the world of Renegade, but as the Republic would say....

#wip: renegade #wip blind date entry

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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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@princeescaluswords tagged me in a fanfic ask meme, and I’m loling at how few of the questions I can actually answer, because I swear I’ve literally forgotten more fandoms than most people will ever have. And I’ve probably written a good couple million words of fanfic all in total....

I know with just my first fandom alone, Roswell, I was in that one writing regularly for about three years and wrote and published probably a million words between the six or so ‘big fics’ I wrote......21 Down topped out at just over 200K, my Paradise Lost trilogy was probably a little longer as I think Genesis and Exodus were both around 80K and Revelations was probably closer to 100K. Riders of the Storm was around 120K.....Passage to Dawn I never actually finished because I scrapped it halfway through and started over.....and my revised version left off at around 50K I think, but the previous version before that had gotten up to 100K......and then I honestly can’t remember the names of my other two big fics at the moment, lmfao, I just know I had one more that was an amnesia trope fic and one that was....oh! Never mind, just remembered. The Long Dark Night of the Soul was one of my shorter ones, probably somewhere between 60-80K.

But yeah, that was just my first fandom alone......but fandom was a little different then, like in the sense that nobody was really writing posts about meta or episode or character analysis......Roswell fandom existed almost entirely on various messageboards and linked sites created by the community. It was years before Ao3 of course, and while ff.net was around, Roswell was one of those fandoms that just never congregated around it......people posting Roswell fics on ff.net were the outliers, the majority of fandom was centered around sites like roswellfanatics.net, crashdown.com and my personal site/board of choice to hang out and post at, polarattraction.com. I’m pretty sure all of those sites have been defunct for years, and I wish I’d done a better job of saving some of my own fics at least, lol. But point is, the fandom was geared just towards the writing and consumption of fanfic more than anything else......so if you were writing something, it was either a fic itself, or a comment on somebody else’s fic, lol.

Anyway, was just reviewing my various past fandoms, the ones I could remember, and thought of Dark Angel fandom, which I haven’t thought of in forever. Which is kinda funny to me, actually, considering my focus in DA fandom was pretty much exactly my focus in Batfandom - the found family feels.

LOL. Like, I was never one of the better known writers in DA fandom given that my focus was not really the same as most of fandom’s. DA fandom was largely split into two camps locked in eternal ship war - Logan/Max and Alec/Max. I had by this time ‘evolved’ to the point of looking at this and just snobbishly intoning “I do not care for the Straightness of this all and thus I choose to Abstain from the conflict” so there was that at least.....but yeah, thing was, personally, I was in Dark Angel fandom for the found family feels. Max’s eternal search for her siblings she’d been raised with but lost track of when they escaped from Manticore as children.....like that was the good stuff, that was what drew me in and kept me under lock and key until I’d banged out a good couple years’ worth of constant fic writing about her and her siblings before I moved on.

But while Max’s search for her siblings was the catalyst and central plot of the first season of Dark Angel, fandom pretty much only ever took off with the introduction of Alec in the second season, when it became an either/or choice between Alec and Logan. And with most of the second season moving away from Max’s search for her family to focus more on the larger big-picture plots, combined with the fact that most of Max’s siblings never actually made an appearance onscreen.....understandably, they didn’t end up occupying too much of a role in most of fandoms’ fics or interests.

Anyway, like I said, I churned out a shit ton of DA fanfic in a pretty short period of time....my single most popular fic was probably one about transgenics racing to find a cure when they realize they’d been genetically engineered to all ‘expire’ by a certain age, since their creators had no use for genetically engineered super-soldiers past the prime of their lives.

But my personal fave bits of writing, and the series I reeeeeeally regret not saving and wish I could find again, like, there was this one series of one-shots (ranging from a couple thousand words long to some that were about 20-30K long) written about each of Max’s siblings.....all fifteen of them, lol. Jondy’s was the first one I wrote, and one of the first things I wrote in that fandom, and then I just added new stories to that particular series up until Jack’s, the very last one a couple years later....which I THINK was the last thing I ever wrote/posted in that fandom.

And since we only ever met about half of these characters on the show, and most of them only for an episode each, for the most part they were blank slates and the equivalent of writing OCs......and so I’ll always have a soft spot for my time in DA fandom solely because of how many people told me my version of Max’s various siblings was like, the definitive version for them and what they based their own fics or takes on her siblings on. Swoon. Like, that’s my favorite kind of compliment, especially in fanfic writing.

So that series was my Big Thing even if it wasn’t my most popular or well-known fic, and the various stories in it were weird and whimsical and largely experimental. Because part of the point of fic writing for me instead of writing original fic is its like....fanfic is often the place where I just get weird with my writing and try new things even just stylistically. See what works and what doesn’t, etc.

Anyway, kinda curious if there’s anyone out there who was in Dark Angel fandom at all to any degree, or if any of these sound familiar or if anyone remembers reading them.

Like, so Jondy was Max’s sister who we never met in canon but Max talked about often as being her favorite sibling, and her story in this series was called “Little Lightning Girl.” In it she was a stripper slash vigilante, who used her job to take note of predatory guys who then she preemptively scared away from her coworkers or ran totally out of town. I forget how it went exactly, but that one was written as though it was all her stream of consciousness, and she had to my mind a kind of chaotic, whimsical sort of nature, so there was something in there like:

“Call me little lightning girl, for I’ve lightning in my veins. My hair is always frizzy, my steps all flicker-shimmy-shake. But when I strike, boom, clap, I’m thunder in reverse - by the time you hear the rumble, its already too late. That was you hitting the ground. Don’t hurry getting up. I can wait.”

And then Zane’s story was called “Zen and the Art of Not Breaking Your Customer’s Fucking Face (remember, its bad for business).”

Brin’s was “I Wasn’t Born Yesterday (but yesterday, I remember being very small).”

Zack’s was “Rules For When The Sky Is Falling (and this time it isn’t your fault).”

Syl’s was “The Kind of Girl You Bring Home to Meet Your Parents (when you’ve got the kind of parents that need killing).”

Ben’s was “They keep telling me I’m crazy (I say its the world that’s gone mad).”

Tinga’s was “A Storybook Kind of Princess (with a Grimm kind of happily ever after)” and Krit’s was “The Good Die Young, So Boy, You Better Be Bad.”

Kavi’s was “I Never Learned How To Play Ball (striking out comes naturally).”

Vada’s was “Chase Me To The Desert and Watch Me Live, I Bet I’ll Thrive (you better believe I was born to survive).”

And then Seth’s was “All Her Brothers’ Keeper (you keep your secrets and I’ll keep the watch).”

And though technically not escapees with the rest of them, I am anal and a completionist, so of course I had to write ones for Eva, Jack and Jace too.

Eva’s was “Big Sisters Know Best (so when I say I’ll die for you, just say thank you and live).”

Jace’s was “Leopards Never Change Their Spots (but why worry about my 5% leopard when I’m 10% shark).

And Jack’s was “Shelter The Innocent (but don’t look at the boy without shelter and say that boy, he’s no good).”

Anyway, been randomly thinking about those today now. Well, not randomly since I can follow the train of thought that led me to thinking about them, but you know what I mean. Its just kinda funny to me that I do remember those particular stories so well when there’s entire other fandoms I can barely remember writing in at all. And DA fandom wasn’t even one I was in all that long, ever knew too many other people in, or like....idk. I definitely, definitely have written much more well read and frequently commented upon stories than that fairly random little series of almost-OCs, but for some reason it stuck around in my head a lot longer and a lot more clearly than a ton of other stuff.

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thirteen-beaxhes · 6 years ago

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Delayed - Chapter 1: All the Roads

Summary: "All felt like they knew the others were far away, living ideal lives. They kept to their windows and phones for the ride, thinking about the others. They reminisced separately but prayed for the night to go by fast, to get to the places they needed to go. But the night hadn’t even begun yet." High school ended 6 years ago, and with it, so did the friendship between Andi, Buffy, Cyrus, Jonah, TJ and Amber. But now their flight is delayed and they are stuck in a hotel together for the night. Not much can change in one night, though. Can it?

AO3 LINK IN REBLOG

~~~~~~~

“This sucks,” Buffy groaned down to phone to Marty, who laughed pleasantly in amusement.

“It’s okay Buffy, just a flight delay. It’ll let up,” he said reassuringly.

“No, the flight got cancelled! I have to stay overnight in this hotel they are gonna put up all the people in some hotel,” Buffy said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll only be able to reach by tomorrow afternoon.”

“That’s okay, Buffy. I’m sure if you call up the company, they will be willing to understand.”

“I guess. It’s just so inconvenient.”

“True. But hey, maybe you’ll get some sleep at this hotel now!” Marty said, trying to get Buffy to lighten up. She appreciated his efforts, letting a small smile form on her face.

“I love you, Marty. The bus is gonna reach in some time,” Buffy said.

“I love you too, Buffy. Get some rest, okay?” Marty said, before Buffy ended the call. She looked around her at the other passengers doomed to her fate. Nothing better than being stuck in a situation with people you don’t know, and will never see again. She sighed and opened her phone, checking her social media. Scrolling through a bit, she landed on a picture of her and Marty from back in high school.

High school. Basketball, milkshakes, the Good Hair Crew. Andi and Cyrus. God, it had been so long. High school friends drift apart, but never had they thought back then that it would happen to them. But happen it did. Buffy sighed, scrolling past the picture, pushing away the memories. Dwelling did no good. Buffy was positive that if her friends saw her today, they wouldn’t recognise the person she had become. And a part of her knew she wouldn’t recognise them either. Shutting off her phone, Buffy leaned against the seat, looking out the window as the announcement for the arrival of the bus rang through the air.

At least the night would pass by quick.

Andi huffed as she threw down her duffel bag and sank into the shitty airport seat as she waited for more information about the transport to the hotel. She hadn’t had any intention of spending her night there, but cancelled flights called for desperate measures. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, unable to use her phone because it decided it was a good time to conk off. She rummaged through the meagre collection of magazines on the stand next to the seats, and settled for a travel magazine. She opened it and began to read from a random page, wanting only to pass the time. Beads of sweat were already forming on the back of her neck. Despite the air conditioning being on full. Maybe a leather jacket was not the best choice.

Andi busied herself in reading about the ‘5 Restaurants You Have to Try in Prague’, turning the pages lazily, every movement betraying disinterest. At one point, she felt someone’s eyes on her. She turned around to see a guy around her age staring at her intently. With that look in his eyes. She knew that look. She had seen that look.

She despised that look.

“The fuck you looking at?” she asked, making a dismissing motion with her hand as she raised her eyebrows at the guy. He just smirked at her.

“Can’t a guy just look?” he said in that voice that exuded faux innocence. It sounded like nails on chalkboards to Andi’s ears.

“Well then, can’t I just connect my fist to your nose?” she asked, smiling at him, her eyes fiery. That got him to look away grumbling, not before he whispered, “Bitch,” under his breath.

Andi rolled her eyes and looked back at the magazine, not before shooting looks at all the people who were staring at her after that incident. “What are you watching? Nothing to see here,” she said, moving her hands as if she were shooing them away.

She hadn’t always been like this, so snappy and angry. She had grown up a sweet, albeit dramatic girl. She had a weird but perfect life all the way till high school, with perfect friends and perfect relationships. But life is a bitch.

So you have to be a bitch to survive.

Cyrus: sorry mom looks like itll be tomorrow when i get a flight

Mom: oh dear okay cyrus. take care of yourself

Mom: see you tomorrow :)

Cyrus sighed and put his phone in his pocket, cursing the building headache that was making its presence very much known. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to quell the pain. It was then he really regretted not carrying aspiring with him. Ignoring his headache, he looked around observing all the people sitting there waiting for the bus to the hotel. Diagonally across from him was a girl with brown hair just above shoulder length in a leather jacket, sunglasses perched on her head. She was flipping through a travel magazine rather disinterestedly. She had just told off a guy for staring at her, earning some passing comments about her being ‘rude’, but Cyrus was with the girl on this one. Though he didn’t need to voice his support, she had the situation very much under her control.

For some reason, as he caught glimpses of her, Cyrus couldn’t shake the thought that she looked incredibly familiar. He had the feeling that he knew this girl from somewhere, from a distant point in his life. But he couldn’t place her.

He shook his head slightly. It was probably just a passing similarity. He opened his phone for a distraction, noticing an Instagram notification.

cygoodman, see your post from 6 years ago today

Curious, he clicked on the notification and it took him all the way back to senior year of high school, to baby taters and milkshakes. To the Good Hair Crew.

To TJ.

The picture wasn’t spectacular, it was just a slightly shaky selfie taken by Andi, with him, Buffy, Jonah, Marty, Amber. And TJ. Cyrus’ boyfriend. Well, ‘then’ boyfriend.

The picture made Cyrus’ breath catch in his throat, a wistful smile spreading across his face. It had been over 4 years since he had spoken to anyone in that picture. 5 years since he and TJ had practically broken up. 6 years since they left high school.

6 years since they hammered the last nail into the coffin of their childhood friendship.

High school and childhood friendships don’t always last, they all knew that. It came to no one’s surprise when the messages and video calls grew less frequent, they met up less and less. And soon enough, that was it. There was no great fight, no blowout. It just faded with time. Still, Cyrus couldn’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia for his friends. And for TJ.

TJ Kippen waltzing into his life in middle school was the single most unexpected thing to have ever happened to Cyrus. He came in a cold jock, but it didn’t take Cyrus long to see through the cracks to see the soft side, the kind and caring side. With TJ, Cyrus felt like he could do anything, which was saying a lot. With TJ, nothing was impossible. TJ burned bright like the sun, and for some reason, he saw the moon in Cyrus. But of course, high school ends, and so do high school sweethearts. In the end, it wasn’t an explosion that ended them. It was radio silence. But a part of Cyrus missed him deeply. It was probably why he hadn’t been in a serious relationship since TJ, settling only for the casual and running at the first sign of more.

Where could they all be? Probably further away than he could imagine.

“Okay I kinda wish now we didn’t meet up and decide to get this flight together,” TJ groaned as he started to gather his things from around the seat.

Amber scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Please, TJ. You’re grateful I’m here with you, or else you wouldn’t know anyone.”

TJ simply looked away, knowing very well that Amber was right. They were both heading back to Shadyside to meet their parents, and TJ was both dreading and looking forward to it. On one hand, it had been 5 years since he had last been in Shadyside, so it would be good to see the place where he had grown up. But on the other hand, he was dreading his mother pestering him about his non-existent love life. He had only been in 2 real relationships, and only one of them was even worth remembering. But remembering was painful. How fitting that the place he was going back to was also the place that held the memories of that relationship at every corner.

Cyrus Goodman was, and always had been, an enigma to TJ Kippen. He had swung into his life, almost literally, with his soft encouraging smiles and reassuring words, making TJ feel like maybe, letting his guard down wouldn’t mean the monsters would get to him faster. Cyrus had shaken him to the core in the best way possible, and God alone knows how someone as incredible as him could ever have fallen for someone like TJ. Their ups and downs had only made them stronger, but eventually, some downs are just too hard to come back from. College means drifting apart, it means leaving those people behind. It was practically mutual, but it didn’t mean that the memories didn’t come with that mixture of warmth and a sting.

“Yo, TJ,” Amber said, snapping her fingers in front of TJ’s face, bringing him out of his thoughts. “We’re leaving now.”

TJ nodded, taking his bags and following Amber out of the gate to the bus.

Probably better to leave the memories back in Shadyside so he could finally truly move on.

Emily: I miss you

Emily: maybe we made a mistake

Amber didn’t need to open her phone to read the messages again. They were burned into the back of her mind. With every step she took forward, the words inched closer to her heart. It didn’t help that just above those messages were the ones where Emily was telling her, ‘I just don’t feel the same way anymore,’ and, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’.

Bullshit. It was always her.

Amber couldn’t believe that Emily even had the balls to send her a message saying she missed her. After she had brutally ripped her heart out and stepped on it with her signature Converse sneakers. That had been a month ago, and it took everything in Amber to try and piece herself back together. That was also part of the reason she was content in returning to Shadyside for a while. She needed a break, and going home seemed the best option. She needed to find herself again. As dramatic as that sounded.

TJ, who was walking next to her, purposely bumped into her, forcing her to smack him upside the head. But she was glad he was there. She didn’t know if she could handle the memories of going home alone.

As she loaded her luggage into the bus, she let her mind wander to Emily. Was it a surprise she liked her? Not at all. She was exactly her type. Brown-haired, sweet and sunshiney personality, and proficient at crafts. There had been one person before her, but that was just a crush, and left at that.

Andi Mack.

Amber smiled to herself, thinking about Andi. Her bracelets, her dressing style, her smile, her laugh. While Amber had crushed on her from afar, that didn’t erase the fact that Andi had become a really good friend of hers. She had helped her change from being the stereotypical mean girl, to being a girl who was tough but let people in. Amber wanted nothing more than to pick up her phone and talk to Andi, reminisce on the old times. But that wasn’t going to happen. They had parted ways. Life had taken them on different paths.

Paths that would never intersect.

Jonah Beck got onto the bus, carefully clutching his guitar close to him. His suitcase had been stowed away, and he stared out of the window blankly. His hands were shaking slightly, the flight cancellation putting his on the edge. His breaths were growing incredibly unsteady, and he couldn’t let it get out of control. He pulled on the sleeves of his jacket, scratching himself in the process. Ultimately, opened his wallet and pulled out a highly crumpled picture from it, and smoothed it out, the sight of it immediately calming him down.

It was a Polaroid he, Cyrus, Andi and Buffy had taken the last day of high school. Even though he no longer spoke to them, and their paths had diverged long ago, that picture was one of the only things that truly made Jonah feel at ease. He looked at it so often that the creases were growing at an alarming rate. But he didn’t care. It went with him wherever he would go.

Loosely clutching onto the picture, he looked out the window as the bus moved, thinking about their whole friend group. Andi, Buffy, Cyrus, Amber, TJ, Marty. Where were they? What were they doing? He knew they would probably be far, far away, living their perfect lives. He smiled to himself, just wishing they all also missed high school, even if it was just for a second. He leaned against the window, closing his eyes, falling into a restless sleep until the bus reached the hotel.

As the evening progressed slowly into night, Andi, Buffy, Cyrus, TJ, Amber and Jonah sat in the bus to the hotel, all starting out thinking about their broken, messed up, confused lives. And all of their trains of thoughts leading to the same station. Them in high school.

All felt like they knew the others were far away, living ideal lives. They kept to their windows and phones for the ride, thinking about the others. They reminisced separately, but prayed for the night to go by fast, to get to the places they needed to go.

But the night hadn’t even begun yet.

~~~~~~~~

So I got this idea like a while ago, and I'm finally writing it! This is another multi-chapter, so let's do this kids.

HMU if you wanna be tagged in future updates! It may take time to update, with the au and stuff.

#andi mack #fanfiction #buffy driscoll #cyrus goodman #tj kippen #jonah beck #marty from the party #amber kippen #amber #andi #muffy #tyrus #ambi #jandi #delayed fic #my fic #fanfic

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365daysofsasuhina · 6 years ago

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Eighty-Three: Mining ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

It’s fast becoming an after school tradition. As soon as he gets home from classes, Sasuke makes his way up to his room and powers up his PC, saving his homework for as late in the evening as he dares. Even his mother has noticed his change in behavior, staring with a puzzled expression up the stairs whenever he goes flying by.

A few months ago, Sasuke wouldn’t be caught dead playing a game as old and ‘childish’ as Minecraft. But the game’s resurgence in popularity means it’s no longer that niche piece of nostalgia that only some people refused to stop playing. Now, it’s once again something acceptable in social spaces. And Sasuke has joined a server put on by someone at his school.

So far, no one is aware of who he is. Well...except one person. While beginning his base back when the server first launched, he found himself approached by another player, who left a simple sign saying, “Hinata was here”. He found out the next day that Hinata was a friend of a friend of a friend, hence the name ringing a distant bell. A few questions later while logged on, and they’d both pretty much figured out who the other was.

But otherwise? Sasuke acts none the wiser regarding the game at school. Naruto is still adamant it’s a kid game. Sakura isn’t one to play games in the first place. But any time he and Hinata cross paths, there’s a brief exchanged look with a smile.

She ended up building a base not far from his own, promising to teach him - as a diehard fan who carried on during the dry spell - everything he’d missed during his years off from the game.

“What even is the point of this stuff?” he complains over Discord one evening, nose wrinkling as he has to mine through yet another vein of diorite. “It looks like bird poop.”

In their voice chat, Hinata can’t help a soft laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know. Most people don’t really like the new stones. I guess they were going for variety…? But...I think they’re all pretty ugly…”

“They’re obnoxious. Keep taking slots in my inventory! I’m trying to go mining for diamonds, not...this crap.”

“Just t-toss it in some lava next time you find some.”

Sasuke grumbles into his mic, carrying on silently for a while before asking, “...what’s the level for diamonds?”

“...eleven, I think? That’s where I go, anyway. It might be a block up or down, but that works pretty well. Going strip mining?”

“I found a pretty good cave, but...ugh, I might as well. I need some better gear!”

“At least we’re far out enough it should be untouched. I bet spawn is already completely dug up.”

“Well, I’ll report back if I find anything,” he sighs. “...what about you? Up to anything interesting?”

“I found a jungle temple!”

“Oh yeah? I...think those were a thing last time I played. Anything cool in it?”

“I’m trying to do the puzzle by hand rather than just...mining into it.”

“I’m not patient enough for that stuff.”

“Remind me to never have you play a puzzle map with me,” she laughs.

“If I want to have to think about stuff, I’d rather just do my homework.”

Hinata bursts into more giggles, and Sasuke can’t help but grin to himself.

There’s some radio silence for a time, and then Hinata gasps.

“Huh? What?”

“I found pandas!”

“Whoa, really?”

“Yeah! Aww, one’s rolling around on its back, that’s so cute!”

“Man, I wanna see!”

��I’ll try to bring one home! It’s actually not too far, I think I can get one in a boat...I’ll have to make a pen…”

“You can just...have a pet panda?”

“Well sure! I mean...you don’t tame it or anything, but you can have them around.”

“Oh...so like a cow or something.”

“Mhm.”

“Well, you get that panda, and I’ll get us some diamonds.”

“You’re gonna…? You’re gonna split your diamonds with me?”

“Well sure, why not?”

“...are we teaming up?”

“...I guess so. Is that bad?”

“No, that’s fine! I just...w-wasn’t expecting it.”

“Why not? We’re neighbors, aren’t we?”

“...I guess so.”

“What’s with the hesitation?”

“Nothing! Nevermind. I’ll go help you mine next time. For now, I’m panda wrangling.”

For a moment he considers asking her again, but...well, she’s avoiding it for a reason. Did he...do something wrong? Well, there’s no real way to know unless she fesses up, so...in the meantime, he goes back to his mining.

By the time it’s late evening, he’s actually found a few veins of the gems, coming back up triumphantly to the surface. “I got thirteen!”

“Nice! Look, I got the panda in a pen!”

Not far from his jungle treehouse is indeed a junglewood pen, complete with a little house with leaves for the roof. A panda sits upright munching on bamboo.

“...dude…”

“What?”

“...I think that’s my new favorite mob.”

“Right? They’re so cute! This is just a normal one, but they come in different personalities! I’ll try to get more to spawn tomorrow. For now I need to get my homework done…”

“Yeah, me too. Here, before you go though…” He gives her six of his diamonds. “You can make a pick and a sword!”

“Oh...thanks.”

“...do you not want them?”

“No! No, I appreciate it. I just didn’t think you’d, um...want to give them to me.”

“I mean, yeah...we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“...I dunno...are we?”

Sasuke blinks at his screen. “...we’ve been playing this after school almost every day for a week. Does that not make us friends?”

“Well...on here, sure. But…”

...but what, he has to wonder.

“...I mean...we haven’t really t-talked outside of here...have we?”

“I’m talking to you right now.”

“I mean in p-person! At school! When we’re there, it’s like we’re strangers…”

So that’s what this is about? “I...wasn’t sure if you wanted me to!”

“Well...neither did I!”

“I’d be cool with it!”

“...you would?”

“Yeah! Why not?”

“Well, because I...I’m not…”

“Not what?”

“...cool…”

After a pregnant pause, Sasuke can’t help a laugh. “And, what? You think I am? Or that I’m like, the...the cool police?”

“Well...Naruto thinks I’m...weird.”

“Yeah, well...Naruto’s an idiot.”

“...I had a really big c-crush on him when we were little, and...I think he’s still kinda...w-weirded out by me. I didn’t...w-want to make things awkward. I mean, you guys are best friends, and -”

“My friends don’t dictate who else I can be friends with. You’re not weird, Hinata. You have interests that are maybe a little atypical, but that’s not weird, that’s just...being a person. If you wanna talk at school and hang out or whatever, just...do it! Like I said, we’re friends. Doesn’t matter if we really met through a game, we still talk and communicate and, like...know each other. It doesn’t have to be different in person if you don’t want it to be. I just...since the server started as anonymous, I wasn’t sure if I should say anything.”

For a long moment, Hinata is quiet...but Sasuke waits patiently, knowing she likes to think over her words.

“...o-okay…”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, I...I’m okay. Um...I’ll...talk to you tomorrow. I need to...do my homework.”

“...all right. If you don’t come talk to me tomorrow, I’ll go find you instead.”

She manages a small laugh at that. “...okay.”

“Good. Good luck with your work.”

“Yeah, you too. Goodnight.”

“...night.” He watches Discord as she leaves the channel, and then heaves a small sigh, mic muted. He had no idea she wanted to bridge things from in the game into stuff at school...he figured most would want to keep that separate. And how could he know unless she said something?

He’s really enjoyed getting to know her over the course of the past week. She’s easy to talk to, really charming in her own way, and has proved to be really interesting. It makes him sad he never really talked to her before.

...they’re definitely friends. At least, in his eyes. Still...he can’t help but wonder about her history with Naruto. He has called her strange whenever Sasuke brings her up. Is he really so hung up over that? That was forever ago! And if anything, he’s constant pining over Sakura is just as weird, right? Like he has any room to talk.

Powering off his PC, Sasuke leans back in his chair, thoughts a bit jumbled. Well...for now, nothing left to do but finish his coursework. Tomorrow, he can hang out with Hinata.

And if Naruto says anything stupid (and, let’s face it...of course he will), then Sasuke will just tell him to piss off. Simple as that. Of course...he’s a bit more blunt than Hinata with her soft-spoken manners.

...she’d be wasted on someone like Naruto.

...where’d that thought come from?

Shoving it aside, Sasuke pulls out his calculus textbook, willing himself to think about something else for a while.

.oOo.

(This is a sequel to day 253!) More very random Minecraft stuff xD Not, uh...much more to say than that? I'm not feelin' too well, and had a v long day, I'm exhausted lol - so uh...think I'll call it there~ Thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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