#gen or pre-slash

[lovelastart]

(I wanna) make you see just what I was

Link on AO3

Summary: The current 26-year-old Ranpo traveled back to meet the past Fukuzawa. It’s just, this Fukuzawa had not met his past self.

------------"I...maybe, there are people who loathe his past, which forms his present self," the stranger continued. Fukuzawa snapped his head to look at this stranger. Because, again, this stranger hit a bullseye, "but, I want to say, that even though you hate yourself, there is someone out there who loves you. Adores you. Needs you. For whatever you are. For your past, and your present."

Fukuzawa's eyes widened. He questioned the stranger's statements in his mind. The people whom he loved, his parents, had passed away many years ago. His best friend had chosen the exact opposite path and never looked back. He never saw him since. He already abandoned his past job, one that he thought could be his way to save the world. But he was wrong. He didn't have any friends, anyone. He was alone in this cruel world.

So, certainly, there was no one who needed him.

"If one day," the stranger continued, but part of his body started to look transparent, "if you find that someone in the future..."

The stranger's body kept disappearing right in front of Fukuzawa's eyes. But he was too dumbfounded to ask him about what was happening. The stranger faced him, but still, the hood covered his eyes.

"I hope you are still kind enough to let me into your life!!"

And he disappeared.---------------------

[sylvanfreckles]

@whumptober-archive

Day Thirteen: Cold Compress

Summary: After Miri's Christmas party, Rei wakes up to find that he isn't recovering from his wounds as easily as he thought. Thankfully, his friend and their daughter are here to look after him. As a family should.

"Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.” -William Shakespeare

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Pas de deux

Sam didn’t consider herself to be a liar. After all, you didn’t need to lie if nobody asked you about stuff. At least that was how she had justified keeping her family’s wealth from Danny and Tucker, and also why she hadn’t told them upfront about her playing Doom.

It was also why she���d never told them she did ballet. 

To be clear, she wasn’t embarrassed about it. Ballet was fucking hardcore, and anyone that had anything to say about it could try pointe shoes. She just didn’t think they’d be interested. So, really, there was no point in bringing it up.

Ballet had been the only respectable hobby her parents had tried to interest her in that had stuck. However, Sam had agreed to do ballet only if she didn’t have to be in a class. Hence a private instructor. Camille was a former professional ballerina and was a very good teacher who seemed to enjoy having only one student. She liked Sam’s dedication and determination to get things right. The one thing Sam knew Camille disliked about the arrangement was that Sam having no partners to practice with meant she couldn’t do pas de deux or lifts.

And as any self-respecting former ballerina, Camille had trouble accepting such a badly-rounded set of skills. And she was a very dedicated woman when it was about her students success. It was a trait that had helped many of her students get into prestigious ballet schools and that now left Sam a few states over at a ballet convention about to dance for the first time around other people since she was six.

Sam was feeling so calm about it too.

The man in front clapped twice to get their attention "Hello to all, my name is Juraj." He said before gesturing to the room. "Everyone find a spot, we’ll be starting with a barre work.’

As Sam walked up to one of the barre in the back of the room, she started feeling more and more out of place. What if she sucked compared to these people? She’d never really had the chance to compare her skills so she had no idea if she was actually any good. And that was without mentioning that she didn’t know how to do any lifts, which was embarrassing for someone who’d been doing this for over a decade. 

This was definitively a mistake, and she should never ever let Camille convince her to do anything ever.

Just as she was considering making a run for it, a girl walked by her and broke her out of her thoughts. 

The girl was a bit taller than Sam, and very muscular. She had short black hair and seemed to walk with a unique grace, even amongst ballerinas. They made eye contact and Sam froze a bit under the intense stare. However, she quickly shook herself and looked around, but it seemed like the two of them were the only ones by themselves, as people had already separated into groups. Sam looked back to the girl and felt a sense of kinship, if only because she also clearly knew no one here. 

So, Sam offered the girl a small smile. After a second, when the girl only blinked in response, she started feeling foolish.

But then, the girl’s lips stretched up and mirrored Sam’s expression perfectly. Sam looked at her curiously, tilting her head, and the girl’s face shifted to match hers, her head matching Sam’s tilt. 

Unbidden, a giggle escaped Sam at the sight. The girl halted her copying to study the sound. 

Sam raised a hand to stifle the laughter before she spoke up.

"I’m Sam," she said. "It’s nice to meet you."

The girl’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

"Nice," she finally repeated.

Sam smiled again. 

Maybe this would be more fun than she’d thought.

[treasureguardingdragon]

my art for @aroaceteagirl ‘s incredible fic!! this is my second @bbcmerlin-reversebang entry, and was so much fun to do!!

Summary:

When Arthur gets sent away by Uther to secure a treaty between Camelot and Tir-Mor, what should have been a normal diplomatic trip turns into more than Arthur could have expected.

Along the way, he learns valuable lessons about trust, friendship and the weight of duty.

LINK

here is some propaganda from me to make you read it:THE STORY THAT WAS CREATED HAS IT ALL- friendship, evil plots by evil people, the power of gossiping, friendship x2, arthur trying to be the best prince he can despite the entire world seemingly being against him, arthurs internal monologue consisting of endless compliments for merlin, friendship so magical that you’re absolutely certain they’re in a qpr and can knock down cities with the power of it, magic reveals, scheming (both evil and good. it’s possible), FRIENDSHIPPPP, the perspective of a merchant having their wares mocked by two idiots

CHECK OUT THEIR STORY HERE I PROMISE ITS AMAZING

[riverjester]

In the aftermath of battle, of the village’s uprising against Gato, of Haku’s sacrifice and Zabuza’s mad last stand, of the first snowfall he had ever seen, Naruto’s mind was buzzing incessantly.

They spent another week in the Land of the Waves. While the bridge was built. While Kakashi and Sasuke recovered from their injuries enough to be able to travel. Sasuke had remained completely bedridden for two days following the battle. During the next six his ability to talk and walk increased in steady increments, but the rural doctor that had patched him up ordered him not to move too much, or else risk straining himself and setting back his healing. Naruto knew this mostly because Sakura told him.

Despite his efforts to bury them, they kept resurfacing: the sensation of Sasuke’s breath petering out on his lap, the sight of him standing up to wave at them and show that he was still alive, only to crumble like a badly constructed toothpick tower right afterward. He avoided searing into his retinas the image of this Sasuke too — weak, nearly voiceless, careful with his movements so as not to set his puncture wounds bleeding through the bandages — by barely seeing him. He spent all day running around, his small army of clones doubling the village’s workforce: carrying materials, running errands, doing small menial tasks. He left Tazuna’s house in the morning before Sasuke got up and returned after he had gone to sleep for the night, slipping in and out of his futon, next to Sasuke’s, with as little of a fuss as he was able, ignoring how he noticed that Sasuke wasn’t actually asleep every time. The construction of the bridge carried on far more swiftly than it could ever have before.

Sakura would come out at noon to whack him upside-down on the head and remind him to eat his lunch before he wore himself out. It would be a hassle if they ended up having to drag his sorry chakra-exhausted body back to Konoha, she said. She would stay for a few hours to help out if it was needed, or to seat by Naruto’s side as he took a break, breathing in the salty ocean air that was so different from Konoha’s. Afterwards, she would return to Sasuke’s bedside, an anxiousness to her eye, like she had to make sure that nobody had died while she wasn’t looking.

Naruto had wondered, after their first fight with Zabuza, when Kakashi needed crutches to get by day after day, but it didn’t fully sink how long it took — normal — people to heal until he felt Sasuke’s striking absence while Naruto saw this cursed C-rank to its conclusion. The thought flitted back and forth like an annoying fly: his unmarred skin, the heat that he had started feeling eating him from the inside at times, the itch of a wound closing itself up in minutes. He felt nauseous if his mind lingered too long on the reason behind it. Like he had been carved out of the embrace of normalcy and was being dangled helplessly in the air while he kept trying to walk among, alongside people.

So he strained his muscles and his chakra to the degree that Kakashi would allow instead of following that train of thought.

He didn’t think about how he had broken out of Haku’s ice-mirror prison. He didn’t think about what had happened before that. He didn’t talk to Sasuke because he didn’t know what to say, how to look at him. It worked well, it wasn’t difficult to keep the distance, since Sasuke always turned to look at the window or the wall if Naruto happened to enter any room that he was in.

Once, towards the end of the week, when Sasuke was well enough to move about, to walk without his knees trembling after a few minutes, he came out with Sakura and Kakashi for lunch. The four of them had eaten it sitting by the docks, away from the dust of the construction site. If it had been any other day, Naruto would have been talking everyone’s ears off, Sakura would either laugh or groan in annoyance and shove him whenever he said something particularly stupid, Sasuke’s eyebrow would twitch, and he would act uninterested, but he would occasionally make a comment with his dry-pan humour, or he would genuinely engage in the conversation if the topic interested him enough.

It wasn’t any other day, however. Sakura talked, a nervous undercurrent to her voice that betrayed how rattled she felt within the weird atmosphere, and Naruto answered in between shoveling rice into his mouth as fast as possible. Sasuke, surprisingly, hadn’t sat too far away from them, but he averted his gaze, uncharacteristically picking at his food. Kakashi observed them over his book.

Before Naruto could finish his bento box in record time, a clone skidded to a halt before them. “Boss, a couple of us fell and popped and we need more hands, everybody else is busy.”

“Ah, alright, hold on.”

As he put down his chopsticks and made the handsign to create two more clones, Sakura interceded, “You didn’t notice your clones disappearing?”

The three clones ran off. Naruto scratched his cheek. “There’s, like, twenty of them, I don’t really keep track.”

“Twenty?” Sakura squawked, like she hadn’t seen them running around every day. Maybe she hadn’t counted them, it wasn’t like anyone but Naruto could tell them apart. “All morning?”

He would have answered with a confident fox-grin that twenty clones were nothing, he could do a much more awesome number, but suddenly, Naruto noticed that Sasuke was staring at him for the first time in six days — frowning, baffled. Their eyes met for a second, and then they looked elsewhere.

“Yeah, just about,” he answered Sakura, weirdly subdued for himself — he knew, he noticed himself out of balance.

Snapping his book closed, Kakashi was suddenly by his side. “Are you pacing yourself?”

“I’m fine, I don’t feel tired at all.”

Kakashi hummed. “Even so. Cut it back to ten.”

Naruto groaned a protest. “Sensei. But this way it goes so much faster and we can go back to Konoha sooner! Doesn’t this count as training, also?”

“Don’t overexert yourself, idiot,” came Sasuke’s raspy voice from across their group.

He startled and his eyes fixed upon Sasuke’s face, who had gone back to eating his food, although his shoulders were tense, his movements mechanical. It was the first time Naruto had heard him talk since he had passed out from Haku’s senbon. His throat was mostly healed, but his voice still had a croaky, breathy quality to it very unlike his smooth baritone. Naruto disliked it. He disliked even more not knowing how to respond, when interacting with Sasuke usually wasn’t a thing he ever gave a second thought to before doing. His eyes skittered away and he rubbed the back of his neck, to assuage the need to do something with his hands.

The discomfort was palpable. Kakashi tried to cut through it, “Sasuke’s right, Naruto. If you want to practice while doing this, concentrate on a more precise use of chakra with your clones, not on creating more.”

Naruto finished his food, and with a hurried, “Alright, sensei,” he was off towards the bridge.

Sakura was weirded-out by their walking on eggshells around each other like this, Kakashi’s eye crinkled with something that Naruto could only describe as faraway constipation. Naruto simply couldn’t help the awkwardness. Sasuke would have preferred breaking his knee than be the one to break the tension.

So Naruto kept busy for the entire week, until the bridge was finished and everyone was healthy enough to walk all the way to Konoha. He spent his entire time running, and the night before they were to set out on the trek back home, perhaps because the end to the hecticness lulled him into his first deep sleep in eight days, the events of the battle against Haku and Zabuza finally caught up to him in his dreams.

When he woke up, he didn’t remember much of it. A maelstrom of movement, blood, ice, flesh, needles. A pain so sudden yet so profound that it could only burst forth as undiluted rage, chakra that felt like acid dissolving him from the inside out, a cocoon of unfathomable power spurring him to kill kill kill. He clawed his way through the violence, after-images of Haku’s angelic face after ripping his throat out with his teeth blurring into an undefined landscape of flames, debris, and corpses strewn about — vague memories that weren’t his own. And in the middle of it, a fallen teammate that would never rise again despite the monster that lived in Naruto’s veins going on a rampage for him.

He sprung up from his futon with a scream trapped in his throat and his eyes wet. He looked down at his hands, uncomprehending when he didn’t see his nails elongated into bloodied claws. And then his heart lurched with urgency and he turned to look at Sasuke, to check that his chest still rose and fell and the bandages around his neck remained white.

He found Sasuke already looking at him, propped up on his elbow, a hand reaching out, and his eye-brows furrowed. Naruto blinked his tears away and Sasuke’s hand went back to his futon, his expression neutral again, like a mirage dissipating.

They stared at each other in the darkness, and as Naruto’s heart calmed down and his brain processed that Sasuke was alive in the waking world, embarrassment overcame him. He was not completely certain of what his face was doing, but he guessed that he must have looked really stupid: cheeks wet, panting slack-jawed while he looked at Sasuke like he was drinking in the face of god.

He turned away and rubbed his tear-tracks away with his sleeves, muttering, “Sorry.” Saliva lingered in his throat as he struggled to swallow. “I, uhm…” he trailed off.

The quiet between them that he had previously been thankful for felt suffocating then. He considered murmuring a good-night and laying down again, but it didn’t feel right.

Finally, Sasuke spoke, whisper-soft like neither of them ever were, “Nightmare, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”

Naruto threw a look at the other two futons on the other side of the room. Sakura seemed to be soundly asleep. Kakashi might not have been, the bastard, but he hadn’t risen either. “Did I wake you?”

“You were gasping and moving,” Sasuke answered. His voice was mostly back to normal, although it was hard to tell when he whispered. “But you do that every night. Would it kill you to be quiet for once?”

Naruto acknowledged the jab for what it was — a lame, clumsy attempt at returning to normalcy — but he was feeling too raw to fall into their old routines. He just cringed.

At the lack of a whiny rebuttal from him, he sensed a growing air of discomfort from Sasuke, even without looking at him. There was a quiet rustle as Sasuke lied on his back fully again.

In the manga that he had read and the movies that he had watched, this would be the part where he was asked if he wanted to talk about his bad dream. He couldn’t picture Sasuke doing it, and Sasuke didn’t do it, so he guessed that his impression of his character was fairly accurate.

Well.

Except for the part when Sasuke almost died for Naruto the previous week. That was not something that he would have ever seen coming. Teammates were supposed to watch each other’s backs, but Naruto struggled to understand that Sasuke would go to such an extreme for him. He had asked then, why me? why someone like me? someone who hadn’t been worth anything to anyone before a month ago?, and Sasuke had answered then too, but it hadn’t been a very good answer.

The blankets were rough in his tight fists. Naruto shrunk into his shoulders as he asked, “Why did you do it?”

Sasuke replied after a beat, “I told you already.” He didn’t pretend not to know what Naruto was talking about. He probably suspected what the nightmare had been about, too. “I…” he began. Paused. Naruto looked at him; Sasuke was frowning up at the ceiling. “I just saw the senbon coming for you, and I… had to move.”

He spoke slowly, even haltingly. An echo of Sasuke’s last words before he lost consciousness came to him. That he had sworn not to die before he killed his brother — and yet he had forsaken that oath with a last plea for Naruto not to die too. Even if he had done it on impulse, it had to mean something. Maybe Sasuke was realizing that too.

Naruto thought of Iruka taking a giant shuriken to the back to protect him. He wondered if that was what having people truly meant. A choice that one makes before one realises its truth burrowing deep into one's reflexes. Blood and pain and sacrifice for those that he would call his own. Haku had said something like that.

Perhaps it was the night, the undefined lines of Sasuke’s figure in the blue-dark of this borrowed room kilometres away from Konoha, their third teammate and their sensei oblivious to them, that made it feel like he could voice the next question.

“Would you take it back?”

His fists trembled slightly in his lap, but his gaze didn’t stray from Sasuke’s face. He hadn’t realized how much he anticipated the answer until he had sought it. Sasuke looked at him, his eyes so black when they had been so red while he laid his head on Naruto’s hands and knees, and then he turned his face away.

Perhaps it was the night for him too, the unreality of this dream of a moment away from the daylight, that allowed him to say, “No.”

Something heavy grew in Naruto’s chest. He didn’t know how to name that emotion. He only knew that — if there was a world in which Sasuke died from an attack that he could have taken in his stead, that wasn’t a world where Naruto would want to keep living. Even if that was the only world where he became Hokage.

He moved to kneel facing Sasuke.

“Then,” he started, a forceful whisper that was too loud for the hour, but Naruto was too loud always, “I won’t die if you don’t.”

Sasuke turned his head back towards him with a jerk, eyes widened ever so slightly. “You…”

“And you won’t die if I don’t,” Naruto finished.

Sasuke blinked at him, at his posture in an uncommonly good seiza, shoulders straight, hands on his knees. Gazed into his eyes, that Naruto made sure didn’t waver.

“And if one of us does die?”

“We won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“We won’t, I won’t allow it.”

Sasuke huffed and looked away. One corner of his mouth twitched up nevertheless. “Usuratonkachi. That’s not the way of the shinobi.”

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto,” he announced, and Sasuke rolled his eyes and shushed him. “And I’ll forge my own way.”

The way Sasuke looked at him then was annoyed, but he was also smiling slightly. Almost — and Naruto couldn’t believe that the thought crossed his mind — fond. “You’re such a moron,” he muttered, even though Naruto was being completely serious.

For the first time in a week, Naruto began to feel the hot prickle of frustration that Sasuke always arose in him. But before he could complain, his teammate continued, “There may be forces that neither of us can beat, though.”

No traces of humour left. Sasuke’s eyes somehow gleamed in the dark. His mouth was a soft blurry line, set firmly. Naruto suddenly felt very unequal looking down at him. Sasuke must have felt the same, because he sat up, the blankets pooling on his lap, the white of the bandages on his arms stark with the moonlight coming in from the window.

“You really can’t control who lives or dies,” he said, somber, a knowing weight. “But,” he added, “if I die, you live.”

Part of Naruto wanted to argue back that he would beat any impossible odds. A larger, wiser part knew that it wasn’t an argument that he wanted to start with a Sasuke who looked at him like he did then.

“Then if I die, you live,” he promised as well.

That night, they made a pledge to each other. The next morning, Sasuke ditched the dressings on his wounds, no longer necessary. He and Sakura made fun of the name that Tazuna had given the bridge, much to Naruto’s chagrin, who had barely even been able to gloat about it. Team 7 made offerings to Haku and Zabuza’s nameless burial and then started the journey back to Konoha. Naruto and Sakura bickering, Sasuke ignoring them, Kakashi reading his cheap erotica. The sun shined. Naruto looked at Sasuke, and sometimes Sasuke would look at him back. They didn’t talk about it ever again, but the memory of that night stayed.

[swanmaids]

And when again thirty years had passed, Turgon son of Fingolfin left Nevrast where he dwelt and sought out Finrod his friend upon the isle of Tol Sirion, and they journeyed southward along the river, being weary for a while of the northern mountains... Of the Return of the Noldor, The Silmarillion. for @thelordofgifs. ao3 link

They had been walking for twelve days when they came upon the mere.

The river Sirion was alive everywhere, but here in this maze of lakes and fens most of all. Shining fish danced through its clear waters, and its banks were thick with a blanket of reeds and grasses. The air around it was heavy with the thrumming of dragonflies. It sung too with the voices of so many water-spirits, those Maiar who did not walk in the world that they lived in but were one with it. Finrod who had come of age in the land of the gods was not unfamiliar with such places, but he had not yet come across a place so clearly suffused with life in all its forms in this Middle Earth. It was not so long ago that he had traversed the lifeless Ice, and the memory of its cold cruelty was fresh in his mind.

Speaking of alive...

Finrod watched Turgon wash up by the banks as he stoked the fire and cleared away the remains of their meal- two great silver fish from the river stuffed with wild onion and garlic, and some of the hard bread and cheese that Finrod kept in his pack - and considered his oldest friend.

Turgon looked, if not quite himself, then better than Finrod could remember him having looked for a long time. Though Finrod had missed him at the Feast of Reuniting, the withdrawal to Nevrast had evidently been good for him; and perhaps he could credit himself that their little journey along the river had helped his friend too. His body, starved for so long, had at last begun to fill out; and he smiled more, if usually briefly. He smiled the most when he spoke of his daughter.

The young princess too was beginning to blossom amid the white stone of Vinyamar, enough that she had taken on her father's duties in his absence. Finrod thought that he would like to see her again- she had still been a girl when he saw her last, despite her far-sight and however old she appeared in spirit. He had not intended for so much time to pass without a visit - but somehow decades had slipped by without his notice.

By the time Finrod had tidied away, Turgon was almost finished bathing. He clambered onto the grass, water running in rivulets down his arms, reached for his pack and began to towel himself off. As Finrod began undressing to bathe himself, Turgon was busy oiling his double-stranded twists. He still refused to grow them past chin length - a mark of mourning, he said. His hands moved deftly through his braids, even with two fingers lost to frostbite.

"Are you going to stop dreaming and get into the water anytime soon?" Turgon grinned, breaking Finrod from his thoughts. Finrod nodded in response and shucked off his tunic and trousers.

Standing in the mere, which shone strangely pink as the setting sun relected in the ripples, Finrod could feel the spirits of the River Sirion even closer. As he splashed his face and rubbed soapwort behind his ears, he had the feeling that he was being watched by an unseen presence - but it hardly seemed frightening. Rather, it felt as though whatever was sharing this small part of the world with the two of them was simply gently curious about these new visitors.

"It's strange, isn't it," Turgon said, giving voice to Finrod's thoughts, "we're definitely not alone here."

"I don't think anything here means us any harm, though," Finrod replied.

In fact, Finrod felt more at peace in this moment than he had since the Trees died. To be in a place where the land and the water itself echoed with the music of the Ainur, well-fed and soon to be rested, reunited with his dearest friend - it was as though he could finally breathe again after so long spent suffocating.

"No, me neither. But I wonder what it is about this place that makes it so full of life? We've been following the river for some time now, but this is the first time that I've felt so...surrounded."

"You might be right. But I'm just glad that whatever it is that dwells here is letting us bathe!"

Turgon laughed at that. "Absolutely."

On the Grinding Ice, they had never felt clean. Sweat and grime had built up between the many layers of fur and hide that they had clothed themselves with, and they had all been foul and bedraggled by the time they had descended upon the Lammoth. Now that they were journeying along the river, neither Finrod nor Turgon had gone a day without bathing. At least Turgon was able to laugh about it.

By the time Finrod climbed out of the mere, Turgon had laid out their bedrolls and banked the fire; and was sat on his bedroll in a tunic and with his hair wrapped. Although they had not actually discussed whether they would make camp where they were or move on, Finrod could not disagree with the choice - he was certain that they would find no danger here. He dried off quickly and went to lie down beside his cousin - the buzzing of the dragonflies and the gentle lapping of the waters were having a strangely soporific effect.

"Thank you for coming here with me," Turgon said, all of a sudden. "I had not quite realised how much I missed the open lands and the green smell of the forests."

"You did not miss your favourite cousin, then?" Finrod teased.

"Really, you have to ask? You know I did."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't mock you. I missed you too. It's strange... to have gone thirty years without my good friend, when we lived in one another's pockets for so long on the Ice. At Tol Sirion I kept turning to talk to you, forgetting that you were not there."

Turgon was silent for several moments, and Finrod wondered if he had fallen asleep. Then, finally:

"Come and visit me in Vinyamar. See my city. See my sister and my daughter. We'd all like that."

The evening was not cold, but Finrod felt his chest warm at Turgon's words. "Alright, then. I'd like that, too."

Turgon reached out between the bedrolls and squeezed his hand.

Finrod felt himself drifting into sleep, their fingers still entangled. Around them, the water-spirits whispered through the reeds and the stars glimmered against the surfaces of the pools, creating a vision of unmarred peace and beauty. Held by the safety of the grove and the love of his friend, Finrod's mind gently drifted open, and he began to dream.

[serendipitouscontaminant]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Abbott Elementary (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gregory Eddie & Jacob Hill Characters: Jacob Hill, Gregory Eddie, Background & Cameo Characters Additional Tags: Post-Season 03e05 Breakup, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Sleep Deprivation, Friendship, Break Up Aftermath, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Gen or Pre-Slash Summary: Jacob crashes on Gregory’s couch.

Night one is emotionally fraught.

[fandork]

Stray Kids, JeongLix, 1K, Rated G

Jeongin holds a hand up to stall him. “Hyung, you can't wear that.”

Jeongin comes to collect Felix for dinner. He finds him unwashed, poorly dressed, clueless, and entirely unprepared to leave the dorm.

[christotokos]

i have so many fics in the fire, but i am gonna try to get fits updated today or tomorrow. i also wanna know: has anyone read forbidden game by lj smith at all? considering a maybe, maybe not genfic with the premise.

[hilsonrecsmd]

2 Tbsp Elephants 

by Nightdog_Barks 

gen | comp. | 1.6k ; domestic fluff + cooking + pre-slash/non-romantic

Summary: Wilson tries to make dinner. House provides diversions and obstructions.

Wilson sighed, then smiled to himself. House was home.

reccer's note: this genre of pre slash domestic fluff fics are truly my favourites. lovely banter.

[dracomort]

What are some nextgen fics you would recommend? 💖

So I haven't read that much next gen, but what I've read was top quality. This was very delayed because I was searching high and low for a fic, only to realise it was the 5th highest kudos'd Scorp/James fic 💀

Astra Inclinant by eleventy7

James Sirius Potter/Scorpius Malfoy, Harry Potter & Draco Malfoy

"The stars incline us, they do not bind us." For Harry, it's something he learned long ago on the battlefield. But for his son, James, it will be a painful lesson in the form of a friendship with a boy named Scorpius Malfoy.

Fantastic character work and both funny and a real tearjerker at times. I do consider this a literature quality fic. Perhaps not surprising since it's eleventy7. Harry and Draco's friendship here is also really compelling (I ship it, of course).

Houses (orphaned)

James Sirius Potter/Scorpius Malfoy

Scorpius Malfoy goes away to school. And James Potter's legs keep invading his personal space.

I honestly can't talk in much detail on this one as I only read it once several years ago. But I remember I loved the portrayal of all the characters—warts and all. Probably not a fic for those who like Draco depicted as a good father, but I found it realistic, albeit depressing, considering his own upbringing, personality and war trauma.

My all time fave next gen fic is 'Coda to an Epilogue' by Maya, but as I mentioned to you in DMs, I won't link it since it has been deleted. But I loove Harry's character voice, the portrayal of the kids—Scorpius in particular, it's not a common Scorp portrayal... reminds me a bit of Tom, actually—and I love Draco's OC wife. I'd like to see more non-Astoria versions of Draco's wife in fic tbh. Another thing I like about 'Houses'.

[diggerofbodies]

« He felt weirdly elated, for the whole exchange, tense as it was, felt almost like a game. As if he were dancing with an old partner, or wrestling with a childhood friend that he hadn't seen in years. »

[soliloqueeer]

The Raven Daughter | FemHarry AU

Chapter 18: All Hallow's Eve

Neville immediately recalled the morning his Gran arrived at the breakfast table announcing she had arranged for him to meet Emma Potter - that the girl, accompanied by her uncle, Mr. Lupin were going to come to the manor the following weekend for tea. Tizzy had leapt with joy at the news, raving about how honoured she’d be to serve the young witch. And Neville was, at first, quite perplexed. People spoke of Emma like they did the myths and legends in his bedtime stories. It was almost jarring to realize that she wasn’t just the baby carved from bronze - the statue Gran took him to see when he was four years old when he’d started asking questions about his own parents. The one where she was cradled in her parents' heroic arms in front of the ruins of their home with bouquets in various stages of decay scattered at their feet. He remembered staring at the baby while clasping his Gran’s hand very tightly, wondering how that little thing had saved the world. He remembered feeling sad for her, because she had lost her parents, and he sort of knew what that was like.  “Where is she now?” he had asked while standing there. “Somewhere safe,” she assured him. 

Summary:

Emma Potter - The Girl Who Lived - finds herself rescued from the Dursleys by an unexpected saviour: Severus Snape, a man tormented by his past mistakes yet resentful of what he must do to atone for them.

When forced to search for Emma’s new home, Dumbledore reaches out to Remus Lupin, presenting him with two compelling requests: to serve as his private researcher and, more importantly, to become Emma's new guardian.

Emma's life intertwines with the fates of Remus and Severus as an elusive, dark threat lurks in the shadows. Throughout the story, the two men navigate the delicate balance between protecting Emma and unravelling the depths of their haunted pasts. Meanwhile, Emma begins her own unique journey lit by the fire of her insatiable curiosity.

Read on AO3.

Cover art source.

[professor-abeloved]

"You're not allowed to die, you hear?" Devon's eyes are fierce with desperation and despair. The empty room reeks with the loss of his friends, empty chairs and empty tables all around. Even your embrace feels the loss, as if another person was meant to fill the space in between your arms, the hollows of your hearts.

But you have each other, and that's what matters.

You hug him back just as tight, knowing that it may be the last time you'll see your friend, but hoping against hope you'll get to see him again--not with a smile blanketed in sorrow, but with a a genuine grin wrapped in joy.

"I'll try my best," you say, a promise, a prayer, a plea.

(You're not losing anyone today, least of all yourself).

[treasureguardingdragon]

this is my first entry for @bbcmerlin-reversebang or any other fandom event!! it was so fun to make this and get snippits to read as i went along!!

make sure to read the fic here because why wouldn’t you?? its merlin and friendship and space?? government conspiracies and sci fi rebellions?? the futuristic merlin ending we needed??!

here are my art contributions (alongside a cyborg aithusa sketch cause i got carried away)

~~~

the merlin fandom can always use more sci fi fics, and the wonderfully talented just_snakess had all the best ideas from the get go and was so fun to work with (i blame them for encouraging cyborg aithusa and i will never headcanon differently now)

LINK—just in case ppl missed it the first time! summary:

The year is 2372. When King Arthur finally returns, Merlin is on the other side of the solar system, and is helpless to prevent him being swept up by the government.

Thus begins a journey across the solar system, crossing paths with crimelords, rebel leaders, and very, very old friends. Will it be enough to free Arthur? Or will the Once and Future King fall victim to a mysterious plot that threatens the very border between life and death?

[darsynia]

can i get Toby Z (WW) and Bruce Banner (MCU) in a humor scene? i think those two would just have so much to bitch about surrounded by giant...egos lol

Bahahhaha thank you for participating in BLURB WEEK, I had a blast!

Summary: Toby Zeigler's been asked by one superhero to write a speech for a different superhero. Maybe it's gratitude that he's not in the White House and contractually required to make any of this make sense, but once he meets Bruce Banner, Toby appreciates his shy genius.

Length/Warnings: 1,282 | No warnings. Can be read as gen or pre-slash!

A Banner Speech

“Just… wait here, okay?”

Toby shrugs and watches as the man he’s been contracted to write a speech for leaves the room to confer with the building’s owner. Bruce Banner seems a lot more shy in person than in the two magazine profiles he’s read about the guy. It makes sense; people want to picture the Hulk’s scientist persona as more Sagan than Einstein. It’s a quirk of history that one of the latter’s most famous photographs is of a stuck-out tongue. Einstein was sincerely introverted, often struggling in social situations.

Toby can relate.

When Tony Stark contacted him for this, he had mentioned feeling touched that then-governor of NH Josiah Bartlet had issued a statement lamenting the loss of Howard and Maria Stark, back in 1991. He wasn’t working for Bartlet at the time, but this is what people do; they make connections. You worked for this guy, and he’s a decent man. That makes you a decent man.

Ironically, Toby’s fall from political grace has lifted him up practically everywhere else, which is how he finds himself in a skyscraper in New York six months after an alien attack threatened to destroy his old neighborhood.

“You just had to say out loud how glad you were not to be working at the White House this year, didn’t you!” he mutters under his breath as he stares out of one of the floor to ceiling windows. No way in hell would he have wanted to construct a speech thanking superheroes for saving New York City from aliens.

“Do you miss it?” It’s Banner, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched as though that makes the knowledge of who he can sometimes be more palatable.

“Only in my nightmares.”

This prompts a bright smile, strangely enough. “I suppose working at the White House is one of the clearest examples of ‘you can never go back home’ that there is, given how often the whole staff changes over,” Banner muses. “I had one of those, sort of. Only mine was, you know, destroying the whole lab.”

“My downfall was less structural and more personal,” Toby shrugs. He’s made peace with that, even if he hasn’t fully made peace with some of the people involved.

“Saved lives, though.”

“We would have saved them anyway. Just more quietly.”

Banner scratches the side of his face and looks sheepish. “My days of quietly saving people are behind me, I guess.”

Toby turns his head, notes that Stark is actively hovering on the other side of the glass doors which lead to their conference room. He nods over his shoulder and says, “With him around, why bother reaching for the microphone?”

“Funny you should say that,” Banner coughs. “Tony’s banned from attending this thing. Lifetime prohibition after too many cocktails and no procedure for dragging a billionaire off the stage.”

“I’d have liked to witness that.” The surprised look Banner shoots over at him is encouraging. Toby’s… not all that good with people, but he does have practice juggling big egos, and like recognizes like. “So you’re the next best thing? The Kent to Stark’s Luthor?”

Bruce Banner’s eyes bug out of his head and he turns his back on the window to give Toby a look. Then, his shocked expression turns shrewd. “You said that to see if he’s eavesdropping, didn’t you?”

Toby just smiles.

“They want a scientist superhero. I doubt much thought went into whether I have anything interesting to say.”

“Well, at least they’ll be afraid to play you off stage,” Toby says mildly. Before his implication hits too hard, he adds, “You should use that. Got anything you’ve been wanting to share with the world?”

“I--” Banner blinks at him for a little while, then nods, slowly. “Actually, yes.”

“I told you you’re a genius, right?” Banner asks, fiddling with his bow tie again.

“No…?”

“I mean, yes, for the speech, which is brilliant, even if everyone’s going to know I didn’t write it, but also for getting the Chief of Staff to show up. He’s taking the heat off.” Bruce leans his head over to look out from backstage at the gathered crowd.

Toby moves to stand behind him so he can see, too. As expected, Joshua Lyman is standing beside his table in a crowd of people. The huge grin on his face is tempered only by the way he keeps looking toward the stage like he expects something important to happen at any minute, probably involving him.

It usually does.

“It’s a good thing your guy isn’t allowed to come to this thing,” Toby says in a low, amused voice. “The attention-gravity distortion between the two of them would probably mess with the laws of physics.”

“Fun to watch, though,” Bruce observes. “Did you, uh…”

“Promise him access? No, but I did promise--”

“Toby? There you are! They told me to come back here, but--” Donna Moss breaks off as she comes over to give him a half hug.

“--her access. Bruce Banner, this is Donna Moss. She is also a Chief of Staff, to the First Lady of the United States.”

“Aww!” Donna frowns at him.

“What did I do?”

“I told Josh I was going to try to get the Hulk to say ‘FLotUS!”

“Unless that’s an arcane synonym for ‘smash,’ I don’t think you had a chance of that, I’m afraid,” Bruce says with a slight smile.

“I was mostly teasing, I promise,” Donna grins. “It’s just that Josh goes heart-eyed at superheroes. I think it’s because he sees himself as a political version of Tony Stark, but with social capital instead of money.”

“He spends it just as quickly,” Toby says, picking up Donna’s wrist to look at her watch. As intended, the action is a gentle reminder that they’re out of chatting time, but to smooth the way, he adds, “I’ll send someone to fetch you and Josh later?”

“Perfect, thanks,” Donna says, her wide smile growing wider as she leans over to catch Bruce’s anxious gaze. He’s back to warily regarding the filling room. “If you get nervous during the speech, just look at Josh. He’ll probably be so enraptured you’ll feel like JFK in Berlin.”

“Ich bin die wurst at public speaking, so I doubt it,” Bruce tells her, before she heads off with a chuckle.

“You know what you just said, right?”

“I told a beautiful woman that I’m a sausage. I feel like a sausage,” Bruce says, tugging at his neckline. “In five minutes, I’ll be roasted on a spit.”

“In five minutes, you’re going to tell the White House Chief of Staff and a room full of people with money to burn that there’s a child hunger problem just begging for their help. They’re your captive audience, and not one of them will risk your wrath to interrupt, especially not when you tell them the problem’s not just in some far-flung nation halfway across the globe,” Toby reminds him.

“It’s also here. In our own country.” Bruce clenches his jaw. “There isn’t enough science in this speech. They’re going to be angry.”

“Well, you’re the expert on that,” Toby shrugs. He’s not looking at Bruce, but he can feel the other man’s amused glare. “Look, you sounded jealous about Stark being banned. I just took the hint and wrote a speech that’s the nerd equivalent of too much tequila. If they didn’t want a hero to try to save something, they shouldn’t have invited you.”

“You’re a good man, Toby Ziegler,” Bruce says. His voice is thick, like he’s forcing the words out past a few layers of emotion.

“It takes one to know one, Bruce Banner.”