#i come back after a long unannounced hiatus and the first thing that happens is i get slammed with an onslaught of love | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

master-sass-blast · 3 years ago

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This Life is Infinite: Chapter One.

OH YEAH. IT'S TIME, BITCHES!!!

Summary: The Infinity War Fic aka I do whatever the fuck I want with the Russo's canon.

Get ready for the most ambitious crossover in CHC history.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, Alexandra Rasputin x Nikolai Rasputin, and Kitty Pryde x Illyana Rasputin.

Rating: M for canon typical violence and death threats.

Word Count: 10k... oops.

Set after "Children of the Gods: Part Three."

Author's Note: Tentatively, I’m back from my hiatus. Things are nowhere near settled with my mental health, but I’m feeling well enough to post again.

I think it mostly goes without saying that updates for this series might be a little irregular going forward; not only do I need to take care of myself, but I also need to find a better balance with posting fanfiction and the rest of my life. As always, I will do my best to be clear with you all about what to expect in terms of updates and wait times.

Thank you again for your compassion and understanding.

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @leo-writer, @emma-frxst, @sadstone-s

It’s not every day that mysterious, leather-clad men appear –quite literally, considering they teleported in—in your kitchen unannounced.

(Okay, perhaps they don’t qualify as “mysterious” when one of them is your dad, one of them is your brother, and the third is your uncle, but there’s a fourth man with them that you don’t recognize, so you like to think that the principle of the expression remains intact.)

You glance between Nate, Wade, your uncle, and the aforementioned unrecognized fourth man, then lift the box of cereal you’d been pouring into a bowl by way of greeting. “Breakfast?”

***

(The fourth man, as it turns out, goes by the code name “Kronos” –which, in terms of super cool code names, ranks at about an eight.)

“There’s a war coming,” Nate explains while the four of you stand around your kitchen counter. “Apocalypse is stirring. He’ll be sending his allies to Earth to initiate the first stage of the war, so that he’ll encounter less resistance when he comes to rule.”

“‘s called ‘The Decimation,’” Wade interjects as he shovels spoonfuls of Lucky Charms into his mouth. He points at his bowl, then jerks his head at the fridge. “D’ y’all have chocolate syrup?”

“Yeah, second shelf on the door.” You take another bite of your cereal, swallow, then ask Nathan, “What… what happens with ‘The Decimation?’”

“One of Apocalypse’s allies, Thanos, will arrive with his armies and generals. He’ll use his own forces to annihilate the heroes of Earth, then he’ll finish assembling the Infinity Stones and gauntlet and use them to wipe out half of all life across the cosmos.”

You purse your lips together and eye your dad warily. “If… if this was anyone other than you saying this, I’d say this all sounds like a hackneyed comic book and-or movie plot.”

“His information checks out,” Kronos says, voice low and gravelly. “Our cross-temporal intel confirms communications between Apocalypse and Thanos. We might have a few weeks to prepare for Thanos’s arrival –and that’s if we’re lucky.”

Wade snorts and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “handwavey bullshit” under his breath.

You look to your uncle. “And you’re here because…”

“Need to talk to Xavier,” your uncle answers, “and then alert the Avengers and anyone else that can help us face Thanos.”

“Right,” you say slowly. “And you stopped here first because…”

“I was hungry,” Wade blurts as he drizzles more chocolate syrup on top of his cereal.

“You have credibility,” Nathan says while shooting Wade an equally annoyed and endeared look. “Xavier and Piotr listen to you, and the rest of the X-Men listen to them. We can’t afford to deal with a bunch of hesitating and infighting right now. We need to get our shit together and defeat Thanos, or the world as we know it is fucked.”

“Question.” Wade lifts his spoon. “Does Donald Trump die in this decimation bullshit?”

“We’ll deal with him later,” your uncle stage-whispers to Wade.

“If you’re all sure…” You wait for all four of them to nod, then sigh and shrug. “Alright. I think most of the X-Men are training right now. Let’s go talk to them.”

***

“This all sounds fucking insane.”

Wade gasps. The eyes on his mask widen as he lifts a gloved hand to where his mouth is under his mask. “James Doohan used a no-no word! My goodness gracious golly!”

Scott Summers scowls, but otherwise ignores Wade. He turns to the Professor, expression incredulous. “Do you believe… any of this?”

Xavier grimaces. “Our sources through Kronos” –he gestures to your uncle’s colleague—“have been confirming the intentions of Apocalypse for several years now. The difficulty was always in determining when Apocalypse would act, and in which timeline –though, now that we have Cable’s intel, we’ve been able to figure those two details out.”

“If Thanos is as powerful as you’re saying,” Ororo pipes up, looking at Nathan, “then how are we supposed to defeat him?”

“Any way we can,” Nathan fires back, expression grim.

“Our intel says that Thanos only has three of the six Infinity Stones, along with the gauntlet,” Kronos adds. “If we can keep the last three stones out of his hands and defeat his armies here on Earth, we’ll have better odds of facing Apocalypse down the road.”

“Right,” Jean says. “And where are the last three stones?”

“The Mind Stone is in the possession of Vision, an android created by Ultron, who now works with the Avengers,” Kronos explains. “The Time Stone is in the possession of Doctor Stephen Strange, who leads an order of sorcerers and magic users in New York. The Soul Stone… has yet to be located.”

“And we’re sure that Thanos is coming here?” Ororo asks, brows raised in skepticism.

“One of the unifying features across the pertinent timelines is a battle that takes place on Earth, specifically in the country of Wakanda,” Kronos answers. “Regardless of the other features in the timeline, there is always a major confrontation between Thanos and the forces of earth there.”

“Great,” Rogue deadpans, expression flat. “Now we just have to convince them to let us in. ‘Excuse me, your Majesty T’Challa, but there’s an evil spaceman that is collecting all powerful rhinestones and he’s going to come here to try and wipe out half of all life on Earth, so we need you to let us into your country with strict visitation policies to we can help you fight him.’ Yeah, that’ll go over real well.”

“We don’t have time to waste on sarcastic bullshit,” Nathan grits out, cybernetic eye flaring as he glares at Rogue. “We’ll handle getting the Avengers and Wakanda on board,” he says, turning to the Professor. “I take it we can trust you to get your team and Magneto collected?”

“I’ll contact Erik,” Xavier promises before looking over at your husband. “Piotr, would you mind calling your family? I believe, given the severity of the coming conflict, having as many hands as possible would be in our best interests.”

Piotr nods. “Konechno –of course.” He looks up at you from where he’s sitting, confusion clear in his sky blue eyes—

“You good to come with us?” Nathan asks, tapping your shoulder lightly to get your attention. “We’ll need help talking to Stark.”

“Huh? Uh –yeah. Sure.” You look back at Piotr; the request to ask for five minutes, just five minutes, to talk to your husband is on the tip of your tongue—

Nate tugs you –gently—a couple inches closer, then says, “Bodyslide by five.”

The room blurs, then disappears from view.

***

You’ve only bodyslid with Nathan a handful of times –and each time you do, you’re always caught off guard by how fucking weird it feels.

Your stomach lurches like you’ve just gone down the steepest drop on a rollercoaster, even though the ground remains steady beneath your feet. In a flash, there’s a brand new room in front of you –sleek, monochromatic cabinets, white marble countertops, stainless steel appliances and fixtures, the works. The space oozes sophistication, function, style –and money. So much money.

Given everything you’ve heard about Tony Stark, it makes sense.

“Deep breaths,” Nathan says. He places a steadying hand on your shoulder while you blink rapidly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

You do your best to comply –though it’s a bit difficult, given that your brain is shrieking ‘sensory overload’ while trying to adjust to the new lighting, the new sounds, the sensation of having moved without really having moved at all, at least in the sense of walking or riding in a car—

And then alarms start blaring. Red lights flash, klaxons go off, the works.

Wade swears and claps his hands over his ears. “Christ! For a guy who has literal robots that can wipe his ass with dollar bills, you think he’d invest in something a little easier on the ears!”

“Wilson!” The klaxons and red lights cut out, replaced by various whirring noises and the sound of hurried, angry footsteps. “I swear to God, if you’ve hijacked one of my jets again, I’m gonna –who the fuck are all of you?”

Tony Stark looks… nothing like what you see in the papers. Granted, his face and hair look largely the same, but he’s not wearing the crisp, stylish suits that all the magazines, articles, papers, and interviews feature him wearing. He’s got on a worn, holey Metallica shirt, ripped, grease stained jeans, and a pair of scuffed sneakers that look like they might’ve been purchased ten years ago, for all that they’re barely holding together.

The army of security bots hovering and whirring around him, however, do fit his press image.

“Jon Snow!” Wade chirps, waggling his fingers at the harried “genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist.” “Long time, no talk. How’s Daenerys doing?”

“Summers, would you do me a favor and put your psychopath on a leash?” Tony asks, tone less than polite or pleasant as he focuses on Nate. “Preferably a nice short one that’s far away from me?”

“We’re here to talk,” Nathan says –though he does stop Wade from trying to play with the knives in the block on the kitchen counter. “It’s a matter of life and death. The well-being of the entire universe is at stake.”

“Yeah, been there, done that,” Tony says, looking none too impressed.

“One of your colleagues may have mentioned his name,” Kronos interjects, taking a step forward. “Does the word ‘Thanos’ ring any bells?”

Tony’s expression sobers for an instant, but he hides it quickly enough. “This is private property, and you’re all—”

A red being with a green suit and a yellow gem in the center of his forehead emerges from the floor. He places himself between Tony and the rest of you. “Would you like me to escort them out, Mr. Stark?”

“Ah, Casper the Friendly Android with No Concept of Personal Boundaries Despite the Infinite Knowledge!” Wade fires back, waving cheerfully. “How you doing, twenty-twenty?”

Vision sighs, longsuffering. “You have been expressly forbidden from these premises, Mr. Wilson.”

“Unless he’s here under my direct supervision,” Nathan fires back. “Stark, we need to talk about this—”

“Tony?” A tall, elegant woman with red hair wearing a tailored, navy blue dress walks up behind the man in question. She flashes you all a polite smile, but there’s no missing the way her gaze cautiously assesses each one of you. “I’m guessing these aren’t –oh. Wade’s here.”

Wade waves in response. “Hi, Miss Potts! How’s being a CEO?”

“It’s going very well, thank you,” Pepper replies politely –though, this time, she’s scanning the room for missing objects and-or visible damage. When nothing turns up, she looks back at Tony. “Are we escorting them out?”

“They claim to have information about the end of the world,” Tony says, tone flippant –though the grave expression on his face belies his snark. “About Thanos.”

Recognition flashes over Pepper’s face, though her polite mask never fully slips. She nods, then says, “Are we going to listen to them?”

“Probably should,” Tony replies in the same lackadaisical tone. “I’m not turning off the security drones while Wilson’s here, though.”

“Just for that, I’m pissing in your Ficus before I leave,” Wade huffs.

“That seems like it’s for the best,” Pepper tells Tony, smiling going tight at the edges while she stares at Wade. She takes a breath, steeling herself, then steps past Tony and nods at the rest of you in greeting. “Sorry for the confusion. Would you mind coming with us, so we can talk somewhere more comfortable?”

***

“I started connecting the dots after Thor left,” Tony explains, twirling a pencil between his fingers as he paces back and forth. “He mentioned Thanos briefly –but with the destruction and repurposing of Loki’s staff, the straggling records of Dormammu’s attack and the use of the Time Stone by Strange, the roles that the Tesseract and Loki’s staff played in the attack on New York by the Chitauri…” He sighs, pausing to stare out at the window at some unseen object before grimacing and shrugging. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

You’re all gathered in a conference room –which, as with the kitchen, carries the same modern, sleek style. Floor to ceiling windows show off the training grounds and the forest that conceals the base from the rest of the world. A massive plasma TV takes up one of the far walls, while the other walls are taken up by various dormant, holographic and electronic displays (made by Stark himself, no doubt). A black, oblong table sits in the center of the room, with leather, silver studded swivel chairs positioned around it.

“How many are there?” Tony asks, looking first at Kronos, then at Nathan. “How much time do we have?”

“There are six Infinity Stones in total,” Kronos says. “Thanos already has three –the Space stone, which was contained by the Tesseract, the Reality stone and the Power stone. Your colleague, Vision—” he gestures to the android “—is in possession of the Mind Stone already, and Stephen Strange has the Time Stone. Our agents have been unable to confirm the whereabouts of the Soul Stone, but we’re certain that Thanos doesn’t have it.”

“Yet,” Tony adds, tone pessimistic.

“As far as time goes, we have a few days at most,” Nathan says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Maybe a week, if we’re lucky.”

Tony grimaces. “That doesn’t bode well for rebuilding international relations on a dime. Or team morale for that matter.”

“Sort it out,” Nathan gravels out. “We’ve got bigger issues.”

“We won’t have time for issues if we can’t even pull a team together,” Tony snaps.

“If it helps…” Kronos withdraws a flash drive from his jacket pocket and holds it out to Tony. “The evidence of Thanos’s collection of the stones and his plans to come here.”

Tony accepts the flash drive. He turns it over in his fingers a couple times –no doubt mentally comparing the drive to the technology he’s created—then pockets it. “And Xavier’s on board with all this?”

You blink when you realize everyone’s staring at you. “Uh –yes. He’s contacting Erik Lensherr for some additional support, and the rest of the X-Men are ready to take on Thanos as well.”

“Great.” Tony stares down at the table for a moment, expression slightly melancholy but otherwise inscrutable, but then he snaps back to his usual self. “Good meeting. I’ll text you with the details.”

“Ooh, does that mean we’re trading numbers?” Wade gasps, pressing his hands on either side of his face. “I’ll put you on my favorites list.”

“I’ll contact Xavier,” Tony amends, shooting Wade a slightly harried look.

“We’ll be ready,” you assure him, at a loss for what else to say as you hook your arm around Wade’s to keep him from messing with the holographic display system.

“Vision will escort you out,” Pepper says with a polite smile and nod.

“I’ll make you a friendship bracelet, Tony the Tiger!” Wade calls as you and Nathan gently usher him towards the door. “Wait –stop shoving me! I need to get his wrist size!”

“Later, gorgeous,” Nate says with a barely suppressed smile.

Under any other circumstances, you’d laugh, but the stony foreboding weighing down your gut makes it too hard to even muster up a chuckle –especially when you catch Tony slumping down into one of the conference room chairs with a despairing expression on his face. You force yourself to focus on getting Wade out of the Avenger’s headquarters without stealing anything –though that does little to calm your swirling thoughts. How in the hell are we gonna pull this off?

***

“Are you okay?”

You sigh, instinctively wriggling back against Piotr’s chest as he lays down behind you. “Define ‘okay.’”

It’s nearly midnight now. Between contacting other allies for help –Nathan had you all bodysliding around New York for the better part of the day to reach out to the Hell’s Kitchen figures—and learning up about Thanos’s army and what could be expected in a confrontation against him, you didn’t get home until well after dinner.

You’re in bed now, too tired for anything else. You stare out the windows that overlook the balcony, purposefully trying to keep your mind blank so you don’t grow overwhelmed by the chaos buzzing in your brain.

Because this is insane. This is beyond mutant trafficking or petty grievances between groups of mutant rivals or even being gunned down by the mafia. This is beyond abusive parents, groups of hateful bigots, or anti-mutant legislators.

It’s –quite literally—the fate of the entire world. The entire galaxy. Based on Nathan’s reports of the future, half of all life is wiped out. People, animals, plants –all gone, dissolved into piles of ash… and for what? So some egomaniac can have his moment of glory?

Your stomach curdles when you even try to contemplate a life without Piotr.

“Hey.” Piotr draws you in close when you start crying. “Tische, myshka. Everything is okay.”

“But it’s not.” You sniff, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. “Nothing about this is fucking okay, Piotr. Someone’s gonna wipe out half of the damn universe because he wants to jerk off to it later.”

“He has to go through us, first,” Piotr reminds you as he presses soft, sweet kisses against your cheek.

“We don’t have the numbers,” you point out bleakly. “We don’t have the ammunition. We don’t have the time to make a solid plan, or to prepare any extra defenses, or—”

Piotr hugs you tight. He kisses the top of your head. His hand strokes up and down your arm in an attempt to soothe you.

You grip his other hand, holding him close to you. You focus on how warm and solid he is. How wonderful he is and how lovely your life is with him. “I love you, Piotr.”

“And I love you, Y/N.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and cry some more.

***

The call comes in at five thirty in the morning.

“Stark’s brought around the other Avengers and Wakanda,” Nathan says, sounding far more alert than you ever will at this godforsaken hour. “We’re lifting off at seven.”

“Roger that,” you manage while Piotr turns on the bedside lamp and blinks the sleep out of his eyes. “We’ll be ready.” You set down your phone when the call ends, then groan and drop your head into your pillow. Why can’t the end of the world ever happen in the afternoon?

***

The Blackbird jets are loaded to maximum capacity. Aside from carrying the X-Men and the X-Force exclusive members, you’re also ferrying the Hell’s Kitchen vigilantes, Piotr’s family and Allison, your uncle and his team, and the younger children and their parents to Wakanda for safe-keeping (your uncle’s reasoning was that an enemy of the institute might notice the sudden lack of protection and decide to attack the younger, more vulnerable students and their families for vengeance, so it was better to be safe than sorry).

You keep close to Piotr or to the cockpit, but there’s still no avoiding the tense, cramped feeling.

You’re not the only “birds” in the sky, either. It’s practically a whole convoy, flying out to Wakanda in what might’ve been a formation if Wade didn’t occasionally grab the control and try to do a “barrel roll.” Magneto and his forces are flying in their own airship, while the Avengers are leading their pack in Tony’s custom, “cutting edge of technology” jets.

You watch the small fleet of jets that belong to the Avengers, lips pursed into a tight line. Your gaze darts over to the navigation board every few seconds, tracking your miniscule progress across the Atlantic Ocean towards Wakanda.

There’s a heavy sigh behind you, and then an even heavier pair of arms settle around your shoulders. “Myshka. You should rest.”

You “hmm” softly to let Piotr know you heard him, but you don’t step away from the cockpit door.

He kisses the top of head and starts gently rubbing your neck with his thumbs. “Will be several hours before arrival, dorogoy. There is nothing you can do until then.”

“It feels like wasting time,” you murmur back –because, naturally, Piotr’s seen to the heart of the issue already. “We’ve got so much to do.”

“And we can do nothing until we arrive in Wakanda.” Piotr kisses your temple, then gently nudges you away from the cockpit. “Come sit with me, lyublyu. You will need full energy when we land.”

And that, above all else, is the only reason you let Piotr usher you over to the nearest seat.

You crawl into his lap once he sits, curling up in his arms. You lay your head on his shoulder and let his warmth combined with the gentle thrum of the jet’s sonic engines lull you to sleep.

***

Wakanda is simultaneously everything and nothing like what you expected.

There’s a force shield that surrounds the inner part of the country that gives way as the convoy of ships pass through it. It almost seems to shimmer out of view before revealing an elegant, shining palace and curved, glimmering towers that comprise the larger part of the city. Lush jungle and towering, ice-capped mountains border the city, split by a winding river and rushing waterfalls.

It almost looks too beautiful to be real.

The awe-inducing visuals and technology don’t stop as the convoy flies out to a glittering, black glass structure that, on the navigation board, is labeled as the lab of Princess Shuri. The convoy swoops around to a massive hangar at the base of the building, landing just inside on the polished stone and metal floor.

Waiting for all of you in the hangar is King T’Challa Udaku; he’s wearing a black robe embroidered with silver thread and a vibrant kente scarf, and generally looks every bit as poised and unflappable as he did in the UN interviews. He’s flanked by his Dora Milaje soldiers –who are undeniably badass with their armor and spears, and you catch Ellie, Yukio, and Kitty all staring at the women in awe—and his partner, Nakia, and his sister, Princess Shuri.

Tony and Professor Xavier handle the introductions with the King, which lets you stretch and take in the hangar and throngs of superheroes. You recognize a few of them –Captain America aka Steve Rogers, Ant-Man aka Scott Lang and his entourage --including a man with dark hair styled like Elvis that you recall seeing in some sort of news interview a while back and a young woman with curly brown hair and warm eyes that’s holding his hand-- and War Hero ,aka James Rhodes, aka Tony’s best friend and “work wife”—but some of the entourage members are new to you.

You take a moment to stretch out your back –sleeping in Piotr’s lap isn’t the worst quality rest you’ve ever had, but given the configurations of the jet seats it was a little cramped—and admire the glimmering, inlaid lights on the hangar ceiling. Swanky.

“We have space prepared for the upcoming preparations and hosting all of you,” T’Challa says, voice cutting through the din of the crowd with ease. “If you would all follow Princess Shuri, please.”

Shuri smiles, then motions for everyone to follow her out of the hangar.

Half of the Dora Milaje break away from the formation, keeping a protective line between the princess and everyone else.

You fall into stride alongside your husband, well-practiced by now at matching your steps to his long stride.

***

The “prepared space” winds up being three massive rooms, each with smaller rooms sectioned around the main spaces, a kitchen-slash-rec area that joins the three massive rooms in the center, and three large, communal style bathrooms with multiple stalls for toilets and showers. The main rooms have several long, workstation style tables at them, with some beds stationed at the fringes, and the smaller rooms function only as bedrooms, mostly for the families with kids and the handful of couples present.

“This interface,” Princess Shuri says as she taps on a small disk embedded into the wall, “will let you contact security and staff if you have questions or need to speak with someone. There’s one in each room, for easy access. It will begin glowing and beeping if someone’s trying to send a call to you; you answer by pressing the base,” she explains, demonstrating on the disk.

“We’re expecting another group of people,” Tony pipes up. “Strange is collecting some of our allies from the South Eastern Quadrant. They should be here in the next sixteen hours, give or take.”

Shuri nods. “We’ll contact you when they arrive.” She offers the group a magnanimous nod and smile, then strides out the hall you all entered through, flanked by the Dora Milaje soldiers.

For a moment, no one moves. You all stand around, hesitating as you all try to take in the new scenery and space.

Alex moves first. She sighs, then grabs her duffel and strides towards the nearest workroom. “No point in waiting.”

Her initiative seems to jolt everyone else out of their daze. Everyone sections off, largely sticking with the groups of their original affiliation.

You amble alongside Piotr, peering around the workroom as you try to decide where to set your pack. Here goes nothing.

***

We’re staring down the apocalypse, you muse as you watch everyone set up shop, and it’s all coming down to sewing machines.

It’d come as a shock when Alexandra had lugged the sleek, white machine out of its carrying case. She’d set it on one of the tables, then lifted bolts of thick, rugged Kevlar out of one of her duffels next. Thread, scissors, measuring tape, and gridded cutting boards follow the Kevlar—

And then the sewing machine jammed as soon as Alex turned it on.

“Ty meshok der'ma,” Alex mutters under her breath as she fiddles with the internal mechanisms of the sewing machine. She glares at the gears, grumbling and swearing while she prods at them with a pair of tweezers. “Kakogo khrena tvoya problema?”

The situation seems mundane in its inanity.

The end of the damn world, and we’re being thwarted by twenty pounds of plastic and metal.

“Day mne poprobovat'.” Nikolai crouches down next to his wife. He adjusts the reading glasses perched on his nose, then aims a small flashlight at the interior of the machine. He murmurs and tuts in Russian while prodding at the machine –and then he makes a soft noise of exclamation. “Broken needle. Pryamo tam.”

“Sukin syn.” Alex uses her telekinesis to draw out the metal shard, then lets out an exasperated sigh and spreads her arms when the machine finally makes the proper start up noises. “Thank you.”

“Be nice,” Nikolai chides her with a teasing grin. “Is uncomfortable, having metal stuck in organs. You would not want to work either.”

“I’ve had metal in my organs,” Alex grumbles as she gets her sewing machine configured. “I still managed.” She smirks when Nikolai laughs, then kisses her husband’s cheek before motioning for you to approach. “Come here, ptitsa. I want to reinforce your suit; I need your measurements.”

You round the table, shucking off your sweatshirt so Alex can measure your torso. “Is there anything I need to do?”

“Just hold still, malenkiy,” Alex murmurs as she runs her tape measure around your waist.

“I make no promises,” you joke.

Alex snorts, then moves her measuring tape up to your ribcage.

***

The waiting is, somehow, worse now.

At least on the plan there was a promise of a destination. A sense of the temporary, that you’d be up and moving and doing again within a few hours.

Unfortunately, reality is so often different from how you envision it, just as it is now. Because the reality of the situation is that there are only a limited number of people capable of helping. Nate and Tony are working with the Princess to configure weapons to fight Thanos’s forces, Hank and the healers are preparing a makeshift medical bay, Frank, Wade, Mikhail, and Neena are cleaning and checking guns, Alex, Piotr and Nikolai are taking turns working on fabricating armor for those who need it—

Leaving you with nothing to do. Aside from keeping those who are working well fed and hydrated and managing the kids, all you can do is sit and watch while everyone else prepares.

It’s agony. Your chest aches from stress, and your stomach’s churning so much you can barely choke food down at mealtimes. I need to help more. I need to do something, dammit.

It’s like being in line for random execution and having no idea whether you’re going to be shot or not.

You stay close to Piotr. You run food and snacks and drinks for anyone who needs it. You help manage the kids when the need arises –but since most of their parents are here, the incidents are far and few between.

You sit. And you wait.

It’s all you can do.

***

“Absolutely not.”

“You need to be reasonable.”

“I am. It’s perfectly reasonable to keep a fourteen-year-old off a fucking battlefield!”

Alex sighs. She leans back in her seat and raises an eyebrow at her eldest daughter. “Normally I would agree, but I don’t think you’ll have much say in the matter. Your ability to control her is notably lacking.”

Artemis huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. “You try reining in a teenager who’s realized there’s no consequences to her actions.”

“I’m not judging, merely observing,” Alex assures her daughter. “But, at any rate, it’s not unreasonable to predict that she’ll join the fray at some point. Body armor is a necessity.”

“It’s an invitation! She’ll take it as permission!”

“Artemis?” Allison sticks her head into the room, then strides over to her mentor-slash-surrogate mother. “Is everything okay? Who’s getting permission to do what?”

“No one is,” Artemis grumbles, even as she holds her arm out so the teen can lean against her side. “Especially not you.”

Allison lets out a disgusted sigh and rolls her eyes. “I already told you—”

“You’re not fighting.”

“I can handle myself!” Allison snaps. She jerks away from Tatianna, scowling. “You’re treating me like a baby!”

“Compared to me, you are a baby,” the older woman points out drily.

“It’s not your burden to bear,” Alex interjects, fixing the testy teen with an even –though not harsh—stare. “Teenagers shouldn’t have to fight for the future of the world. That’s for adults to handle.”

“No one gets to decide,” Allison grits out, “what my burdens are. And this isn’t about ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t.’”

The corner of Alex’s mouth twitches. She looks up at Artemis, brows raised.

Artemis sighs. She tips her head back, staring up at the ceiling, then looks down at Allison. “You need body armor to keep you safe. That does not mean, however, that you’ll be joining us in the fight against Thanos.”

Allison sweeps her tongue along the inside of her cheek. She crosses her arms and cocks her head to the side. “Pretty sure you don’t get to decide that.”

“Pretty sure you should listen to me,” Artemis fires back, “since I have more experience and am telling you that it’s too much for you to handle.” She lets out an exasperated breath when Allison rolls her eyes, then waves her hand dismissively as if to say ‘I tried.’ “Get her set up.”

Alex nods, then waves Allison over. “Alright, malenkiy. Let’s get you sorted.”

***

“Are you asleep?”

“Nyet.” Piotr rolls over, drapes an arm over you, and kisses your forehead. “I would ask you the same, but…”

You manage a small chuckle. “Pretty obvious answer, yeah.”

The two of you are in one of the private rooms –if only because (aside from your status as married) it has a bed big enough to accommodate Piotr. There’s a small window that overlooks a cavern beneath the lab. Dim, blue light seeps through the glass pane, but it’s not enough to properly illuminate the room.

Piotr’s fingers skim over your upper arm. “Why are you not sleeping, myshka?”

“Can’t,” you admit, voice wavering. You take a deep breath through your nose and try to calm yourself. “I just… I can’t handle not doing anything. It gives me too much time to think about what might happen.”

Piotr croons gently, drawing you in closer so he can tuck you against his chest. He cradles your head with one massive head. “Dorogoy. You know such things are not good for you.”

“Yeah, I know,” you grumble, eyes stinging with unshed tears. “Doesn’t mean that knowledge stops my brain any.”

“Ya znayu,” Piotr murmurs as he kisses your temple. “But everything is going to be alright, myshka.”

“Except it really might not be,” you argue, voice shaking. You grip the material of his shirt, as though he might be wrenched away from you at any moment and whisked away into the wind. “It really might not, Piotr.”

Your husband doesn’t say anything in response to that. He merely holds you closer still and strokes his fingers through your hair.

You press your forehead against his chest and start weeping quietly.

***

The second day is much like the first –a slow, agonizing crawl punctuated by overwhelming anxiety and exhaustion.

You linger at the table where Nate, Tony, and Ellie are modifying guns, handing the three various tools and materials when they ask for it. You watch their progress numbly, brain devoid of anything other than wordless worry.

At least, you watch until Nate texts Piotr to come get you.

“Davay, myshka,” your husband coaxes as he lifts you off your stool. He grunts slightly as he shifts you into a bridal-style hold, then carries you away from the table and out of the room. “Let’s have lunch.”

“But—”

“Is important to stay fed and hydrated.”

“—I was helping.” You peer past Piotr’s arm –then sigh when Nathan gives you a sympathetic, concerned smile and waves you along. “Baby—”

“Just for little bit.” Piotr sets you down when you ask, but he keeps a hand on your shoulder, just in case. “Is not good to sit and stew in anxiety.”

You drop your gaze to the floor. “You can’t prove anything.”

Piotr lifts his hand from your shoulder and cradles your cheek. He strokes his thumb against your skin, waiting until you look up at him before speaking again. “Come have lunch with me, moya lyubov’,” he says with an adoring smile (which you’re certain is a deliberate, tactical move on his part to make sure you don’t try and argue, and dammit if it isn’t working). “I would enjoy your company.”

You scuff the toe of your sneaker against the floor, but ultimately acquiesce. “Alright. I guess I should take a break.”

***

The snooping starts after lunch, while Alex is chewing Frank out for spray-painting his bullet proof vest.

“What, are you looking to ruin perfectly good Kevlar?” Alex gripes as she tosses Frank’s “Punisher” vest aside. “You want to break down the material? Get shot out like some schmuck because you decided to be an artist?”

“It’s strategic,” Frank argues with a good-natured, crooked grin. “Keeps my enemies’ line of sight trained on where I have the most protection.”

Alex nods and makes a sarcastic noise of assent. “‘Strategic.’ Is that what it is? Ya ne mogu v eto poverit'. V moye vremya my nazyvali strategiyu pobedoy, a ne stavili svoyu grebanuyu vizitnuyu kartochku na kazhdoye sovershennoye nami proklyatoye ubiystvo. Get your ass over here, drama boy.” She scoffs and starts measuring Frank’s chest and shoulders. “‘Strategiya,’” she scoffs. “What a load of horse shit.”

“Akh akh,” Nikolai tuts as he walks into the room with a plate of food and glass of water. “What is happening here?”

“I’m pretty sure I upset the apple cart, sir,” Frank says, unabashed.

Nikolai chuckles while Alexandra brings up to speed, ranting in irritated Russian. He sets the plate and glass on the table next to his wife, kisses her head, then ambles back out to the kitchen—

And that’s when you notice it. Or, rather, her.

Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow. Renowned spy, assassin, weapons and espionage expert, and former member of the Avengers if the debacle surrounding the Sokovia Accords is to be believed.

She’s sitting at the kitchen counter on barstool, tapping away at her phone –which isn’t inherently suspicious, but her line of sight lets her look directly into the room you’re all situated in and—

She’s watching Alex.

At first you think she might be watching Frank (which, fair enough, having a mass murderer, somewhat unstable vigilante around is a reasonable cause for caution). But when Frank gets up and walks out (probably to go find Karen), Natasha doesn’t even move. Her gaze –when she’s not looking at her phone—stays fixed on Alexandra while she works at her sewing machine.

For once, you’re grateful Piotr is as large as he is; he makes a great hiding spot to do countersurveillance from.

Natasha approaches slowly, but deliberately. She talks to someone on her phone –whether she’s faking or not doesn’t matter to you, because she still uses it to get off the barstool and amble around while she’s talking. Then, she has a conversation with Captain Rogers, which she uses to get a few feet closer to the doorway.

At some point, you’re not certain if she realizes you’re watching her, only because she gives up the pretense of trying to hide her snooping entirely. She leans against the doorframe, watching Alex intently while she marks, pins, and cuts out fabric.

It’s Illyana who has enough of the whole thing first. Three minutes into Natasha standing in the door way, the blonde sighs, sets her phone down on the work table, and glares up at the red head. “Kakogo khrena ty khochesh?”

Natasha purses her lips slightly. She acknowledges Illyana with a brief glance, then turns her focus back to Alex. “Alexandra.”

“Natalia,” Alex says by way of greeting, not even bothering to look up from her work. “Are you here to help, or are you here to waste my time?”

She grimaces, but recovers and smiles politely. “It’s been a long time.”

“So, you’re here to waste my time,” Alex surmises as she pins a pattern to a piece of heavy black Kevlar.

Natasha swallows reflexively, then turns on her heel and walks away.

***

Half an hour later, it’s Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes’s turn.

The two supersoldiers are far less covert than Agent Romanoff. They stand in the middle of the rec room, a few feet away from the door, and don’t make any attempt to hide their conversation or the fact that they’re watching Alex (and, to some extent, her children and Nikolai as well).

Illyana says something to her mother a few times, but Alex waves her off –and, in general, seems unbothered. “U nas yest' rabota, snezhinka. U nas yest' rabota.”

“Did you know him?” you ask, later, when the Rasputin kids are out of the room. “The Winter Soldier?”

You’ve heard enough through the grapevine to know about the basics of the man’s story –captured by Hydra, experimentation, brainwashing, being coerced into murdering.

(It all sounds chillingly familiar.)

“We crossed paths,” Alex admits with a shrug. She slides a piece of ceramic armor plating inside a Kevlar pouch, then starts sewing the pouch shut. “Overlap was common back in the day.”

“Do you think he remembers you?” you murmur, glancing out at the kitchen (fortunately, Rogers and Barnes are gone for now).

Alex pauses. She purses her lips, then shrugs and resumes working. “I don’t know. He went through a lot with the forced mind wipes. There’s really no way of knowing.”

“Are you going to be in trouble if he does remember you?”

Alex huffs and favors you with a gentle smile. “I’ve gotten out of worse, ptitsa. Don’t worry so much.”

You say that like it’s easy, you think while the knot in your stomach coils tighter.

***

There’s a brief reprieve around dinner. You even manage to relax a little, smiling and chuckling as Piotr and Mikhail bicker and generally irritate each other as much as humanly possible.

Work starts up once more as soon as everyone’s done eating. You nestle yourself against Piotr’s side, relaxed via the virtue of being too tired to be stressed—

And then Tony Stark walks in.

Or perhaps “walk” isn’t the right term. He moves with an air of grandeur and utter self-assurance –which, even with your limited exposure to Tony Stark, you can tell is a “brand standard” for him. He tosses an apple up and down in one hand as he breezes along, expression blasé to the point of looking disinterested as he strides up to the table where Alexandra works.

If it weren’t for Natasha, Captain Rogers, and Sergeant Barnes scoping out the Rasputin matriarch earlier, you would’ve pegged Stark’s visit as entirely coincidental.

“What’s your deal?” Tony asks, leaning against the table next to where Alex is stationed at her sewing machine.

No pretense. No niceties. No attempt at subtlety.

Alex’s lips quirk into an annoyed grimace. She looks up and over the top of her machine for a moment, staring at Nikolai (likely trying to find any scrap of his infinite patience for herself), then lowers her gaze once more and says, “Usually, it’s not answering vague, pointless questions asked by nosey individuals.”

“You’ve got half my team twisted up just by being here,” Tony continues, unruffled. “I’ve seen Romanoff stare down the Hulk on a rampage without flinching. What about you is so special that you make her nervous?”

“Interesting,” Alex comments, almost to herself. “And here I thought, after the Berlin incident, your ‘team’ was largely disbanded. Something about ‘not agreeing with your leadership.’”

Tony’s face twitches, mouth briefly stretching into a pained grimace before he smooths it back out. “You don’t exist.”

“Everyone’s concept of self is different,” Alex mutters as she rips out a crooked seam on an armor pouch.

“There’s no record of your birth. Or your parents, for that matter. Your marriage license has no given maiden name. No history of education, doctor’s visits, driver’s license –nothing until you turned twenty-four.” He takes a bite of his apple, swallows, then says, “People don’t just ‘poof’ into existence as full grown adults. It doesn’t happen.”

“Perhaps,” Alex retorts as she resews the faulty seam, “you are just not very good at finding things.”

“I can find anything.”

“Except, it would seem, a way to keep from trying my patience.”

Tony watches her for a moment longer –then, when she doesn’t say anything, he turns and starts striding out of the room. “I’m going to figure out what’s up with you. There aren’t any secrets that can hide from my A.I.”

Alex doesn’t dignify his departure with a response –but her eyelid twitches as she continues her sewing.

You look up at Piotr, only to find he’s watching Nikolai. You look over at the Rasputin patriarch, and your heart sinks when you see the worried expression on his face.

Nick sighs, then stands and rounds the table. He ambles up behind his wife, drapes his arms around her shoulders, and kisses the top of her head before he starts murmuring to her in quiet, loving Russian.

You lean against Piotr’s side, giving him a reassuring squeeze even though the only thing you feel is disquieted. You force yourself to take a deep breath and relax your jaw as fear starts crawling up your spine once more. One thing at a time. One thing at a time, that’s all you can do.

Except, it seems, when everything decides to happen at once.

***

Meeting the Norse god of thunder is… intense.

Though, that may have to do with the entourage of people he brings with him.

Around three in the morning, Dr. Strange shows up with the remaining allies –Thor, god of thunder, and his brother Loki, god of magic, Bruce Banner aka the Hulk, a woman by the name of Carol, and a group that calls themselves the “Guardians of the Galaxy” (which happens to include a talking raccoon and a sentient tree).

“Just when you thought, like, it couldn’t get weirder,” Kitty mutters to you as she stares at the newest arrivals.

You nod. Granted, your usual metric for all things weird is Wade, who has basically explored every avenue of zany, bizarre, and disturbing—

But yeah, this is pretty fucking weird.

“Where do we stand in preparations for the arrival of Thanos?” Thor asks Tony.

“We’ve got most of the busywork done,” Tony says, outlining the weapons upgrades and the armor work that’s been done. “We waited for major planning until we had everyone here and better intel.”

Thor nods, then gestures to two women standing with the “Guardians of the Galaxy,” one with green skin and dark hair and the other with blue skin and cybernetic enhancements. “This is Gamora and Nebula, daughters of Thanos. They’ll be able to provide information on the strength and size of his forces.”

“Good,” Steve pipes up from where he’s standing with Sam Wilson and Sergeant Barnes. “The sooner we have a plan, the better.”

“It can wait until we’ve slept,” Alex decides, voice crisp. “We won’t come up with anything good while we’re fried.”

Tony blinks, then scowls. “Thanos could be here as soon as this coming morning.”

“Then we’ll be doubly fucked if we’ve stayed up all night trying to scrape together a plan,” Alex replies, unmoved. She crosses her arms when Tony glares at her. “The younger and less experienced of us need rest if this is going to work.”

“I’m with the lady,” Quill pipes up, brushing past Tony. He gives Stark a smile that, if you had to wager, is supposed to be charming but just comes off as arrogant. “I think you’ll find that we… don’t really roll with plans. It’s not our style.”

Alex stares at Quill for a moment, expression vastly unimpressed. She sighs, blinks slowly, shakes her head, then turns on her heel and strides back to the room she’s been sharing with Nick. “Absolutely not. I’m going back to bed.”

As if waiting for a cue, everyone else disperses, muttering about being tired and “needing an IV drip of espresso.”

You shuffle off with Piotr, hand in hand, shivering slightly from nerves. Please just let this go well.

***

“Both the Chitauri and the Klyntaar forces number into the tens of thousands. The Chitauri have sentient airships capable of carrying infantry forces while wreaking their own havoc, in addition to chariots that can carry up to five marksmen at a time. He also has tanks the size of this building that can demolish anything in their path.”

Everyone is gathered in one of the main work rooms. A majority of the people present hang back at the fringes, content to watch while Tony, Captain Rogers, King T’Challa, Alexandra, your uncle, Thor, Quill, and Natasha hash out a strategy.

“He’s trying to overwhelm us with sheer numbers,” Steve says in response to Gamora’s information.

“It might work,” Natasha murmurs, gaze focused on the worktable in front of her. “We don’t have near enough firepower to chip away at that many grunts.”

“Not if we play our cards right,” Alex says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“There’s also our siblings,” Gamora adds with a pained grimace.

Off to the side, Nebula scoffs. “They’re hardly family.”

“Thanos collected beings throughout the galaxy to serve him,” Gamora explains. “To act as his eyes and ears and eliminate his foes. Aside from Nebula and I, he has four other ‘children.’ They’ll be acting as his generals and commanders in the fight –and helping him track down and capture the final infinity stones.”

Tension ripples through the room.

“What do we know about these Infinity Stones?” Alex asks after a moment of fraught silence.

“The stones were originally created by the Celestials,” Loki pipes up from where he’s leaning against a wall. “Their magical properties are tied to aspects of the universe –time, space, reality, and so on. Only beings of immense power can wield them without severe consequences.”

“Thanos has the gauntlet that accompanies the stones,” Thor adds. “With it, once he assembles all six stones, he’ll be able to use them simultaneously.”

“He wants to wipe out half of all life on Earth,” Gamora says, voice wavering slightly. “That’s been his single goal ever since I’ve known him.”

“All men want to be gods,” your uncle jokes half-heartedly.

“Can the stones be broken?” Alex asks.

Loki chuckles, incredulous. “These are magical tools created by the most powerful beings ever known to the galaxy… and you want to break them?”

She shrugs. “Best not to overlook the simplest solution.”

“I’m taking that as a ‘no,’” Steve interjects. “So, if we can’t destroy them, how do we fight them?”

“The only thing powerful enough to combat the effects of the Infinity Stones are the Infinity Stones,” Loki answers.

“And we only have two,” Natasha surmises, expression drawn and grim.

“Three.”

Everyone looks up and turns when Illyana speaks.

She smirks, tilting her chin up when Natasha meets her gaze. “We have three Infinity Stones.”

“Vision has the mind stone, and Dr. Strange has the time stone,” Kronos argues, shaking his head. “The soul stone is still missing.”

Illyana’s smirk broadens. She lifts her hand, curling it as if she was holding something.

A sword materializes in her hand –and in the center of the sword, small but unmistakable, is a glowing orange gem.

Your uncle’s eyes widen. “Holy shit.”

“Three,” Illyana repeats, looking supremely confident and self-satisfied. “Unless there is elusive seventh stone?”

Loki smiles ruefully, shaking his head. “The Goddess of Limbo pulls through. Well done.”

“Okay, but Vision’s stone is in his head and Strange has his stone in a necklace around his neck,” Tony interjects, gesturing to each person in turn.

“Amulet,” Dr. Strange mutters under his breath.

“Your stone disappears if you’re not holding it,” Tony continues, pointing to the sword as Illyana dematerializes it once more. “What’s stopping Thanos from finding it and taking it?”

“I am only person who can use Soul Sword,” Illyana says, arching her eyebrows. “It is bound to me until the next in my line is ready to take my place.”

“My family has been bound to Limbo’s magicks for generations,” Nikolai clarifies when Tony starts sputtering. “Illyana is the keeper of the sword, which means only she can call upon it. Thanos would need our blood to have access to it.”

Tony grimaces. “Still risky.”

“Better than nothing,” your uncle fires back.

“We have a shot of taking down Thanos with the other three Infinity Stones in our camp,” Steve says, planting his hands against the worktable's surface. “Without them, we’re as good as sunk.”

“Well then,” Alex says, smirking. “Let’s make sure we don’t waste our opportunity.”

***

“For the love of god, stop talking.”

“I’m just saying,” Quill starts, spreading his hands in a defensive gesture.

“You’re not saying shit!” Alex snaps, lifting her head from her hands to glare at him. “You’re just wasting our time!”

Once the planning started, a large portion of the crowd dispersed to help wrap up the last of the weapons modification. The leaders from each faction stayed behind –Tony, T’Challa, Steve, Natasha, Thor, Peter Quill, Xavier, your uncle, Alexandra, and Erik—to plan, along with Gamora, Nebula, and Loki so they could offer up information on Thanos, his forces, and the Infinity Stones.

You’d also hung back, since you didn’t have the skills necessary to do the weapons modification. If all I can do is sit around like a nervous lump, may as well do it where I won’t be in the way.

“This plan just isn’t our style,” Quill argues, either immune or completely ignorant to the exasperated sighs and death glares the others are giving him. “We like to take things looser, add a little pizazz.”

“How many times did your parents drop you as a baby?” your uncle asks, staring Quill down. “No, I’m serious,” he adds when Quill glares back at him and opens his mouth to argue. “I’m genuinely at a loss for how you can be this fucking dense.”

“We’re up against overwhelming numbers and powers no one here has ever seen, let alone fought against,” Natasha adds. “We need to allocate our resources carefully if we want even a chance at victory. The three wave strategy is our best chance.”

“Okay,” Quill says, pressing his hands together. “I think we just all need to relax—”

“You’ll be pretty fucking relaxed when I gut you,” Alex grumbles as she pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Look, the way I see it, Thanos can’t take us all at once!” Quill reasons. “If we hit him with everything we have—”

“We have to survive his armies, too,” Tony adds, words clipped. “Or there won’t be any of us for Thanos to be hit by.”

“No.” Alex glares at Quill when he keeps trying to argue, startling him into silence. “Look at them.” She points at Gamora and Nebula. “These are your friends, da? Your teammates and companions, da? This is their abuser we’re facing. If we lose, what do you think happens to them? Do you think someone that wants to destroy half of all life will have mercy for them? Hm? If you care about them, you pick the plan that has the best shot of ensuring their safety. Got it?”

Quill swallows reflexively. He stares down at the holographic display of the future battlefield, jaw working. He exhales through his nose, slow and stuttered, then nods. “Alright. We… we do the three wave strategy.”

“So glad we can agree,” Alex says, turning her attention back to the battlefield schematic. “Now, we were discussing where to put our snipers…”

***

“—I need both their arms. Trust me, it’s the only way this is gonna work.”

“Look, I’m normally all for a little dismemberment, but I don’t think forming our own amputee league is gonna net us a win here.”

You shake your head as Wade banters back and forth with the talking racoon –whose name is Rocket, apparently—then look over at Nathan. “How long have they been at this?”

“Going on three hours now,” Nate replies. A soft, endeared smile flits across his face when he looks at Wade, but his expression sobers when he resumes his soldering job. “How’s the final plan looking?”

“Everyone but Quill was leaning towards a three-wave tactic.”

Nathan grunts. “Yeah, he seems like a jackass.”

“Alex threatened to gut him.”

“Hey!” Wade shouts, sounding genuinely wounded. “No disemboweling without me!”

“Quill wanted to do an ‘all for one’ attack directly on Thanos.” You sit down next to your dad, studying his face while he works. “You’ve actually fought against these people before. Do… do you think dividing our forces up will actually work?”

“The issue is the land and air forces,” Nathan says, shaking his head. He attaches a power unit to the base of a rifle, then starts welding the compartment shut. “This time doesn’t have the necessary shielding to repel the Chitauri and Klyntaar forces for that long. We’ll have to fight the grunts; holding some of our people back to make sure we have someone to take on Thanos is our best bet.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll win, though,” you point out.

He offers you a melancholy half-smile. “That’s war, kid.”

Your heart sinks further. “Do we even have a chance?”

“Statistics says we do,” Nathan says he strips a piece of wire before threading it into the gun.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Nathan sighs. He looks at you for a long moment, then says, “I think we have the best shot possible with what we have right here, right now.”

You gulp, then nod. It’s still not technically an answer to your question –let alone a positive one—but…

You’ve learned that, sometimes, it better not to dig at these sorts of questions at all.

***

“We’re dividing our forces into thirds.”

You’re all crammed into the rec room post dinner. In the center of the room, by the counter, Tony, Steve, Natasha, and Alex are addressing the crowd in turns.

“The first wave will consist of high stamina fighters and snipers,” Steve says. “There’s a shield system that extends several hundred kilometers around the lab’s perimeter. Wakandan soldiers will join the line of snipers who will pick off any of Thanos’s forces that make it through the shields.”

“We’ll also have any fighters with enhanced stamina on standby, in case there’s a larger breach,” Alex adds. “Their job will be to protect the sniper line from being overrun by the enemy forces.”

“The second wave will be air support,” Tony continues. “Myself, Rhodey, Wilson, and any flying mutants will head out when the Chitauri airships come in. Princess Shuri has a fleet of attack drones at the ready, which can be manned from headquarters in the lab. HQ will have a complete look at the battlefield; all intel will be coming from them during the fight.”

“Third wave is everyone else, save for Illyana, Dr. Strange, and Vision,” Natasha says. “We’ll join the fray when the second wave of Thanos’s forces arrive. The final three” –she nods to Illyana, Dr. Strange, and Vision in turn—“will wait in central headquarters until Thanos arrives, to prevent early capture of the remaining Infinity Stones.”

“In the meantime,” Tony says, “we’re going overtime on modifying rifles to be sonic weapons. They’re more effective against the Klyntar forces than regular firearms. All hands on deck. If you can’t solder, you can run supplies back and forth and help perform diagnostic tests at the firing range. Clear?”

Everyone nods, then breaks off to start working on constructing and testing more “awesome guns.”

You slid your fingers between Piotr’s. Your heart’s in your throat, racing a mile a minute. Your mouth feels dry.

If you were the religious type, you’d start praying. As it is, you make a plea with the universe on the off chance it decides to listen to you –for once.

Please. Please just let this work.

***

“So… about the three-wave plan—”

Tony slams down the compartment piece he’d been working on against the table. He glares at Quill, face strained with barely constrained rage and impatience. “What the fuck is your deal?”

“It’s just not sitting well with me,” Quill continues, leaning against the table. “I’m more of a ‘solo moment’ style person. More of a lone wolf.”

You gape at him. “You… you work with a team of five!”

“I just think that there needs to be a more focused confrontation with Thanos. Y’know, for someone to challenge him, man to man—”

“Some get this idiot out of my face,” Tony snaps, looking around for anyone that might be willing to assist –or, at the very least, drag Quill out of the room by his jacket collar.

“You’re not listening to me!”

“You’re wasting my time!”

“Why does every problem come back to you?” Alex stalks into the work room, eyes glowing a dull shade of copper as irritation takes hold in her. She strides over to Quill, looking like a menace in black leather and Kevlar. “How much more of a nuisance can you possibly make yourself?”

“I’m just pointing out some flaws in the strategy!” Quill argues, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m being the devil’s advocate!”

“You’re pointing out dick,” Agent Barton, alias Hawkeye, points out from the side (where he’s modifying some of his arrows to release sonic pulses).

“Look,” Quill presses on, ignoring Clint’s comment. “We need to make sure this thing is airtight—”

“We don’t have time for ‘airtight,’” Nathan growls, cybernetic eye flaring. “The goal is to survive, not to create perfection.”

“I really just think—”

Alex scowls –and then her hand snaps out and closes around Quill’s neck. She slams him against the edge of the table, sneering down at him while he coughs and claws –futilely—against her iron grip. “You’re past the point of being a nuisance. You’re a fucking liability.”

Quill wheezes, face slowly turning red.

“If I was paid every time a man like you told me how to do my job…” Her voice trails off, and she lets out a sardonic chuckle. “Let me make something clear to you, Peter Quill.” Her hand tightens around his neck, which makes some ominous creaking noises as she presses against layers of tissue, cartilage, and bone. “I am not about to have an asshole like you risk the lives of my children, the people who are putting their own lives on the line to protect the world, or the future of the damn universe. If you’re going to keep being a jackass about this…” She smirks. “I’ll kill you. I’ll do it right here, right now. I am not going to have a hazard like you on my team or on that battlefield.” She grins nastily, leaning in closer as Quill’s eyes bug out. “Best thing is, no one really knows you’re here. No tracks to cover, no family to pay off, no authorities to worry about. You’d be an unfortunate casualty in war. No one would fucking miss you.”

A chill runs down your spine. You gulp, stomach twisting as you look from Alex, to Quill, to Alex again. Is anyone going to stop her...

“I really don’t know how to make this any fucking clearer, but since you’ve proven to be thick-headed, I’ll summarize: you stray from the plan in any way, and you’re dead. Got it?”

Quill nods hastily. He gasps when Alex releases him, collapsing to the floor. He hacks and coughs, one hand rubbing at his throat while his skin slowly fades away from an angry magenta color.

“So glad we understand one another.” Alex smirks, then turns on her heel and strides out of the work room like nothing even happened.

You purse your lips, trembling while everyone goes back to work like nothing even happened. You try to focus on sorting pieces into containers for the fabricators to grab from, but with your shaking hands it’s near impossible. You duck your head, gritting your teeth together as your stomach churns angrily. I just want this all to be over.

***

The call comes in a couple hours later.

“We’ve got temporal disturbances outside the shield perimeter,” Kronos shouts while alarms blare overhead. “Thanos’s forces have arrived and are attempting to break through to our location.”

Your stomach drops as everyone starts scrambling. You grab your flight jacket and goggles, throwing them on haphazardly. You start running towards the hangar –then stop and switch directions. “Piotr!”

He pauses when he hears your voice, turning and catching you as you leap into his arms. He kisses you briefly –desperately—then pulls back and cups your face in his hands. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You give him a quick hug, then pull away and start sprinting towards the hanger where the rest of the air support is gathering. Tears sting your eyes, but you wipe them away and force down your fear and preemptive grief. Focus. You have to focus.

It’s time.

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #nathan summers x wade wilson #alexandra rasputin x nikolai rasputin #kitty pryde x illyana rasputin #aka my 'fuck you' to the russo bros #get ready for some big canon divergence #i am literally just doing whatever the fuck i want #deadpool fanfiction #x men fanfiction

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damienthepious · 3 years ago

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wow this hiatus sure is long huh

Tomorrow’s Some Kind Of Strangerland (chapter 5)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [ao3] [???]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum & The Keep, Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, The Keep, Sir Damien, Rilla, Queen Mira, Original Monster Character(s)

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ceasefire, Pre-Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, (some characters tagged will not appear until later chapters), canonical character illness, asking for help, (i still dn’t know how to tag things rip), (uhhhhh canon-typical fantasy monster-hatred? that’s gonna be a thing)

Summary: When Mira took the throne, she did what no human ruler in living memory has done - she reached out, and brokered peace with the monsters. It is a shaky, uncertain sort of peace, but she and the current monster Senate have managed to maintain it for a handful of years now with only minor incident.

Lord Arum has not interacted with the human infection in the Northern Wilds since the ceasefire, but when his Keep becomes ill past his own ability to cure, the Senate has a peculiar idea for how to help the isolated Lord while testing the goodwill of their tentative allies at the same time.

Chapter Summary: Lord Arum adjusts to his temporary chambers.

Chapter Notes: less sick this week, thankfully. things still bad! just hanging in there, trying to keep doing my own thing, as always.

Arum can feel the knight seething as he leads him through the halls towards the… accommodations his little Queen insisted upon. Arum certainly can't complain about the adjustment; anything is better than listening to the vicious little creature babbling on about propriety and duty and whatever petty problems he has with Arum's voice. At least he has enough respect for his ruler to clamp his jaw shut, for a little while.

None of the other knights or servants pay them much more mind than a polite tilt of the head. Substantially more well trained than this irritating creature, apparently.

He buries a sneer. Was Mira joking, when she referred to Sir Damien as one of her most skilled knights, or was she simply setting Arum up for failure? Certainly they won't even get through the next full day before this skittish, irritable thing cracks and tries to kill Arum in his own borrowed chambers. An incident waiting to happen, this obnoxious, impossible to ignore little fool-

Sir Damien opens the door before him, dropping his eyes as Arum sweeps past stubbornly.

The chambers are... acceptable. Arum can see a number of points of structural inefficiency, but nothing so egregious as to worry him in truth. The stone is cut clean, the plush rugs dyed bright and lovely, the walls draped with tapestries and hung trailing plants (this last point being the most comforting; there is nothing he would have seen in his own swamp growing in this room, but the flora still looks glossy and well-cared-for). The front room houses bookshelves, a low table with surrounding cushions, and a writing desk beside a wide window curtained with green that Arum would be worried about if he had any faith that a human could climb these towers. A monster could, and perhaps Arum will still place a precautionary trap on the sill, but it is a relatively low risk. Arum can see the bedchamber through an open door, a much smaller room with a much smaller window.

The bed is piled with pillows and thick cloth. Humans and their soft, thin skin. Pathetic.

"Apparently," Sir Damien says, his tone frustrated and flat, "I will be staying in the adjoining servant's chambers. There is a hidden passage here," he says, and then he moves to brush aside one of the tapestries, pressing on what Arum had taken for a loose stone and swinging a small doorway open. The room behind the hidden door is somewhat smaller, less decorated, more utilitarian.

Arum does not bother to disguise the irritation on his face with this development. The knight certainly hasn't bothered to do the same.

"Provided that you do not enter these chambers uninvited and unannounced, I do not suppose I will have any reason to protest," he mutters, and the knight frowns. "You will not be afraid to sleep with a monster so close by?"

"I am not afraid of you," Sir Damien says, tone arch as he raises his chin. "Besides, I do not believe you would get what you want out of my Queen, if you attempted to assassinate me in the dark of night, would you?"

Arum keeps his eyes fixed on Sir Damien's for a long moment, a growl tickling soft in his throat. "So. You are capable of rational thought. Good." The knight sputters, his cheeks darkening with fury, but Arum turns his face away before he can protest more thoroughly. "Now. Leave me. It was a long journey, and I would quite like to rest unassailed by buffoons for the first time since I began to approach your shoddy little city."

The knight makes another noise, choking nonverbal indignation, but he either thinks better of speaking his mind in this moment or he is simply too angry to speak at all, and after a long moment Arum hears him step through to the other chamber and pull the stone door back closed behind him with an angry thunk.

Arum sags, just slightly, when he is finally alone again. He checks the door back into the palace hallway, first, latching the lock (for what little peace of mind that gives him), and then he begins to set up a few more trustworthy precautions.

He sets a small trap on the wide window, a fragile macrachnidweb lattice laced invisibly across the open sill, which will loudly set off a packet of snapseeds hidden beneath the curtain if broken. He hides another across the smaller window in the bedroom, just in case. He hides a detector under the lip of the table as well, the pseudo-cicada primed to alert him to any magic besides his own or the Keep's.

There is no lock on the bedroom door. Rather unfortunate. Arum sighs, then simply glares hard at the closed door for a long moment before he turns to the bed. He will set up a semi-permanent portal back to the Keep in the morning, when he feels better rested, when he has enough energy to cobble together a makeshift lock of his own. He already knows exactly which tapestry he can move to hide the portal against the wall; all he needs do is arrange the swamp dirt in his bags in the proper place, and then the Keep can grow a little foothold. If it doesn't need to produce a new portal in a new place every night, the strain shouldn't be unreasonable. It will allow him to continue to work towards his own cure while Mira's physician is still distant, and perhaps tomorrow Arum may even rest in his own damned bed again.

For now, he lowers his head, and then he climbs up onto the absurdly soft pile of human fabrics and curls around his packs for safekeeping, his eyes on the unlocked door with sharp distrust for what feels like a long, long time before he manages to succumb to sleep.

Sir Damien can sleep nearly anywhere, if necessary, and still wake with the dawn, with enough time to run through his morning exercises and meditate, at least briefly, with Saint Damien.

Waking within such close proximity to where a monster sleeps, however... it is disconcerting, to say the very least. Though, he did not lie, the night before. He is not afraid of Lord Arum.

He steps out into the hallway to clear his head before he attempts another conversation with that lizard, and he intercepts one of the palace workers, coming to meet him with a tray of food for himself and the monster ambassador. Damien suppresses an irritated huff, managing to thank the worker before he retreats back into his room with the tray.

Damien sets the tray down on the table in his room with a sigh, imagining the look on Sir Absolon's face if he heard that Damien had been tasked with serving food in the private chambers provided to a monster, and then he shakes his head to clear it.

He knocks on the stone door (less hidden, on his side of the wall), and waits a long moment. He supposes that it might take some time, if the creature is still in bed, for him to answer.

More than a minute passes. Damien knocks again.

"Lord Arum?" He pauses, and then he leans to press his ear closer to the stone. He cannot hear anything, though it is impossible to tell if that is because of the stone, or because there is nothing to hear. "Lord Arum, may I- may I come in? I have-" he winces, sighs, "I have breakfast for the both of us, if... Lord Arum?"

He knocks once more, and when that still yields no answer he frowns and grumbles a curse under his breath, and then he dares to press the hidden door open a crack, peering warily through.

The room looks... nearly untouched. Perhaps the monster truly was as exhausted as he claimed, or-

The door to the bedroom is still closed. Damien cannot- should not assume, simply because the monster is not in sight, that the creature has escaped- rather, disappeared into the Citadel unaccompanied, against Damien's orders-

He takes a deep breath, and then presses the door further open.

"Lord Arum, I wouldn't like to disturb you, but-"

A noise in the bedroom, strange and distant. Like- song? Or- chiming, perhaps. Unlike the rattling, rough voice of the monster.

"Lord Arum?" he asks, more suspicion coloring his tone as he steps closer to the bedroom door. "Lord-"

The door swings open, the monster striding out quickly enough to nearly collide with Sir Damien, growling with his frill flared and his cape half-draped over only a single shoulder.

"What? What is it? What do you want?"

"I..." Damien blinks, swallows, and leans back from the way the monster looms above him. "Er- there is- food. For the both of us. You did not answer, and I-"

"Thought you should barge into the private chambers your queen allocated for me?" he snaps, violet eyes flashing, and Damien feels a pulse of irritation burn past his surprise.

"You didn't answer," Damien repeats, more snap in his voice. "Do you want me to bring you your breakfast, or do you not?"

The monster glares for a long moment, his tail lashing behind him, and then he exhales a sigh and turns, reaching a hand over his own shoulder to right his cape again. Damien attempts not to notice the way the muscles of Arum's shoulders move beneath the motion, suggesting far more strength than Damien had previously assumed.

He will... need to keep that in mind.

"Ugh. Fine," the monster grumbles, turning and stalking to the table to drape himself across the cushions with an overdramatic sigh. "Next time I will try to wake more promptly, so you do not decide to kick down my door in a panic."

Damien narrows his eyes, then flicks his gaze into the bedchamber for just a moment before he turns back to his own room to gather the meal again.

The bed looks rumpled, though the sheets themselves seem as if they have not been turned back (did the creature simply curl up on top of the blankets?), and nothing much seems disturbed-

One of the tapestries on the far wall swings lightly, gently, as if in a breeze. Only one.

Damien shakes his head.

They eat entirely in silence, the monster ignoring Damien rather thoroughly over his spiced, vegetable stuffed bread. That is perfectly fine, so far as Damien is concerned. He does his best to ignore the monster over his own meal, despite himself.

"Queen Mira has requested your presence this evening, to take supper with her and a few other nobles, dignitaries, that sort," Damien says stiffly once they've finished, gathering their plates into a neat pile for the palace staff to collect later.

The monster narrows his eyes, his lip curling. "Fine," he says, somewhere near a growl. "If she insists."

She does not insist, Damien thinks sharply, barely biting his tongue. She is the Queen, Lord Arum should be honored that she would deign to grace him with such an invitation-

"That is not until the evening, however," he manages to continue through grit teeth. "Will I be accompanying you into the city today, Lord Arum?"

"Why would I need that?" he asks irritably, and Damien clenches his teeth even harder.

"I would hardly dare to guess," he says, his tone hopefully breezy and not still stiff. "Nor would I dare to assume that you should prefer to spend your time cooped up in this room alone, simply waiting for R- for Queen Mira's physician to return to the Citadel."

The monster blinks, then glances away, his frill fluttering oddly beside his neck and his scales- Damien is almost certain, this time, that he is not imagining it. The lizard's scales shift hue, a mottled pattern up his throat and on his cheeks shifting to a subtly brighter green.

"I do not see what there is to do besides wait, little knight," he mutters. "I do not desire any entertainment you think your city might provide while my home is dying, and I do not trust yourself or the citizens below not to attempt to slay me if I make some social misstep in the pursuit of such, which, as I have seen in the short time I have spent here already, I am very likely to do. I can hardly speak without committing offense. I dare not wander, lest I condemn myself by mistake."

Damien opens his mouth, then closes it again just as quickly. The monster almost seems- beneath his seething anger and that more subtle layer of sorrow Damien would prefer not to acknowledge, he almost seems self-conscious about his noticeable lack of human social graces.

"Well..." Damien says slowly, "If you do decide you would like to see more of the Citadel, I suppose that is precisely what I am here for. You would not be unprotected, and I think... I think you overstate the bloodthirst of the citizenry. Surely you saw, today, there were a number of other monsters in the market."

"Monsters under your bitter scrutiny," he growls, still not meeting Damien's eye. "No. I do not think I should like to risk my neck, even under your noble protection, oh brave Sir Knight."

Damien flushes again at the dripping sarcasm in Arum's voice, and then he turns to glare at the monster.

"There is no need to be so dour," Damien says, halfway snapping and halfway pleading. "The Queen herself has taken up your cause, as you wanted! Your swamp will be saved, because the most brilliant mind in the entirety of the Second Citadel - I can assure you of that personally - has been summoned to lend her skill. You should be grateful for what generosity you have been given even thus far."

"You would prefer me on my knees, little knight?" Arum spits, his teeth bared, and Damien manages - barely - not to splutter. "Have I not groveled thoroughly enough for your tastes?"

"No, I-" Damien shakes his head. "That isn't what I meant, I only- I only-"

"I understand," Lord Arum says stiffly, "that it is the fault of no one that your Queen could not provide me with the assistance I require at this very moment. I understand." His eyes flash, anger pulling quick across an anxiety that Damien cannot help but notice. "That does not mean that I have to pretend to be pleased about the delay."

"Queen Mira is dutiful and wise," Damien says, almost automatically, distracted by the monster's attention upon him. "She will do what is right, and she will do so in the proper way."

"And in the meantime," Arum says, looking away again, his gaze cast out the window towards the slow ascent of the sun. "In the meantime… my home suffers."

"I-" Damien stammers, but the monster does not turn towards him again. "I… am sorry," he says stiffly, and then Lord Arum scoffs.

"It is only us, now, little knight. There is no cause to pretend that you have a speck of care to spare for the suffering of either myself or my home."

"You…" Damien feels heat in his cheeks, feels inexplicable shame in his guts, feels sorrow rolling off of the monster in front of him in slow, undeniable waves. "Do... do not presume to know how I feel, Lord Arum."

"I do not need to presume," Arum says, his lip pulling into a sneer. "You have made your feelings rather intensely obvious."

Damien-

Damien supposes that he has. He swallows thickly, and then he gathers the dishes from their meal and turns back towards the door to his own temporary chambers.

"I... suppose I should leave you be, then. I'll accompany you to supper with the Queen in the evening," he says, only realizing how odd it is to say as the words leave him. "Until then- if you change your mind-" he reaches out, and raps his own knuckles off the stone beside the hidden door. "I will be... here, I suppose. I hope you will not be too bored in the meantime, Lord Arum."

The monster fails to look towards him again, his snout facing the window and his eyes distant, and he barely seems to notice when Damien takes his leave, precisely as unmoving as a statue until Sir Damien closes the door between them again.

#elle's fanfic #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #sir damien #tomorrow's some kind of strangerland #i dont even know anymore

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3amcappuccino · 3 years ago

Photo

Friendly reminder this is an mmd model/pmx model

“Oh, I'm so happy... ♪”

Back from unannounced hiatus much- Took a VERY long break of 3d modeling~ Lots of things happened in my life that I just couldn't figure out a perfect moment to actually finish a model-

BUT I had this model for over a year and decided, you know what? I want to actually finish this. ITS TECHNICALLY STILL HALLOWEEN IN MY TIME SO pretend it still is- Anyways I had lost interest in Obey Me not only cause the game isn't that appealing to me, but I had a negative event that happened in the community which made me have a break. BUT if you want one of the models, do hit me up as my requests are open~ I'll accept it if there is a want for it since currently I find no use for them and decided that I wanted to make a model of something that interests me. Anywho, the password is Mika's favorite food, the one given on Halloween, no caps. I got into Enstars around a year ago which is why I had made the model BUT I refused to finish it before or after october so I left it until NOW which I decided hm yes perfect moment. TURNS OUT LIFE WANTS ME BUSY so I BARELY could finish the model. It has some errors but tbh it's okay maybe one day I'll touch it again! OH AND I MADE MOST OF THE PARTS! I worked extremely hard on this model can you tell.

The design is actually made by yours truly, taking into the original Mika card of course. Little change from the other models haha.

C R E D I T S F O R P R E V I E W

Mika by 3AM Cappuccino (still me!)~

Stage by はぎの

Candy by GABURrU

Hand poses (haha I cheated) by BrokenD-Melancholia ~

Effects by:

⇒ Ray-cast and Light-Bloom by Rui

⇒ Autoluminious originally by そぼろ redistributed (?) through here

⇒ ikBokeh by ikeno

⇒ o_Tonemap改変 [Atmosphere] by おたもん, 黒

⇒ PostMovie by ビームマンP

⇒ msPowerOverlay by ましまし

⇒ o_SurplusFilter_v0_3 by おたもん

S I M P L E E X T R A S/C H A N G E S

Replaced facial morphs

Added basic facial morphs found in TDA, YYB, and my own models because I'm too lazy to open 10 other models : )

⇒ Morph inspirations did come from TDA models so you can use the model in multiple expressive motions! ⇒ Another is that I completely remade some of the morphs to match how Mika looks in cgs or in game!

Total of 90 morphs and eventually there will be more!

Extra facial morphs (like tears, heart eyes, etc.)

C R E D I T S F O R M O D E L

Body, face and clothes by Vroid and 3AMCappuccino

Extra Expressions by MonoCereal (bless)

Spas by Arlisbloxer05, MagicalPouchOfMagic, BrokenD-Melancholia (I believe) and Vroid

R U L E S

Credit 3AMCappuccino when using

Don't claim it's yours.

Don't redistribute

Tag me when using (Optional but I'll still love to see what you did!)

P R O H I B I T E D X

Don't claim as your own

Don't sell or trade the model

Don't take the body and head swap

A C C E P T A B L E ✓

Editing is fine

⇒ (the model can clip and glitch sometimes so if you can fix it, contact me so I can update the link and I can credit you as well)

Taking parts is good but ask first

⇒ When taking parts from the other credited, take the og and not my edited version, (I can give guidance though)

⇒ Another exception would be if you take any part made by me (basically almost everything on this model!) Ask me first! (I won't bite :>c )

My physics are still not the greatest (specially on the chains) :')

V I D E O P R E V I E W D O W N L O A D

#mmd #sigh #I cannot believe that I lost my tumblr pass for the longest time #It was one of the reasons I was so reluctant to come bac </3 #mika kagehira #femstars #genderbent #3dmodel #I forgot how tumblr tags work tbh

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softspots · 4 years ago

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Update (all is well!)

hello all, and my sincerest apologies for not making this post much sooner; considering the last time I posted here I was announcing that I and my family had contracted Covid-19, doubtless the long and unexplained silence from me caused some worries. better late than never, though, so here I am to tell you all that I and my family are all okay! Covid-19 was hard on us (particularly on me and one of my parents, as we experienced the most intense and longest-lasting symptoms), but thankfully none of us required a hospital visit and we came out of it alright.

now that I've explained that, you're probably wondering why I've taken so long to come back, or even just make an update post like I'm doing now. and, well... after we all got over Covid-19, several other things happened. to list it briefly:

a conflict between me and my parents occurred (this happens with some regularity, unfortunately)

due to the above, an agreement was reached that it would be best for me to move out (don't worry, I wasn't kicked out, this was a decision I fully agreed with and participated in willingly)

over the course of a few weeks I went through the process of apartment hunting, found a spot close to my campus, and packed up and moved

I began my spring semester, taking the largest number of classes I've ever taken at one time before (which I've been having a difficult time dealing with, for various reasons)

I started seeing a chiropractor semi-regularly to hopefully help fix the neck pain I've had since high school

and most recently, I've begun looking into possibly getting a diagnosis for something I've suspected myself of having for a few years now

throughout all of this, I've also been struggling with the same things that I've struggled with for some time, which I've mentioned once or twice here before: consistently low energy levels (both mental and physical energy) and various mental health issues.

real talk for a second: I haven't been able to make myself write anything (besides what I need to write for classes) in months. and I know the main selling point of this blog, and the content most people come here for, is my writing. so since I can't get myself to write anything, and since I don't even have the energy to consistently answer asks on top of that, I've felt like there's no point in even posting anything at all. that feeling has played just as big a part in my inactivity as my busy life has, and I honestly don't know how to fix it.

I could go into further detail, but I'm a rather private person (and I've now revealed more about my personal mental health than I even planned to on this blog) so I'll leave it at that. all of this to say: I've had a lot going on recently, which is why I've taken yet another unexplained and unannounced hiatus.

my midterms have passed now, and I've been in my apartment for over two months, so with my life the most settled it's been since before the holidays last year I finally sat down and wrote out this post to let you all know that I'm okay, still alive, just busy and stressed as always. I hope you're all okay as well, and didn't miss me too terribly while I was away; and if you did, I hope you'll accept some art as an apology gift? I got a new laptop for Christmas and now I'm able to use the drawing software I first learned how to draw digitally on! autodesk sketchbook pro has served me well, but opening up paint tool sai again after all these years felt like coming home :)

(strangely, despite not having any will or motivation to write, I haven't felt the same about art; I'm not drawing every day or anything, but pulling out my tablet and sketching stuff doesn’t feel like a difficult, joyless chore the way writing has recently. if you asked me why that is, I honestly couldn't tell you)

so, yeah! I've got a little bit of art to share, which will be available for my Patreon subscribers' viewing pleasure tomorrow and which will be made public and posted here on April 3rd. I hope you all enjoy them, and I hope we can start brushing the dust of this blog and make it all shiny and new to celebrate it's birthday!

yes, you read that right: today, March 30th, this blog turns two years old! I'm sorry I wasn't able to throw a big party or anything, but I've made a rather special drawing in honor of the occasion, which will also be available on my Patreon tomorrow and posted publicly on April 3rd! it's something that made me particularly happy to make, so I'm excited to let you all see it :)

TL;DR, I've been sort of going through it but I'm back, I'm well, and I missed this blog and you guys while I was gone!

#spot talks #txt

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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What’s Happening With Marvel’s X-Men?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains spoilers for recent Marvel X-Men stories.

A long time ago, back at the beginning of the interminable, endless month of March that the pandemic has trapped us in, Marvel’s X-Men books were barrelling towards their first big post-Dawn of X crossover, X of Swords. And then the world stopped, and plans changed for the X-Men while everything was paused.

Now that we’re back, plans have changed, and books are coming fast and furious. So what’s going on with Marvel’s Merry Mutants? Which book did Storm get sick in? What book should you read for a good Laksa recipe? New Mutants, but we can answer all your other questions on what’s going on with the X-Men below.

While we won’t rehash the entire thing, House of X/Powers of X reset the entire X-Men line. Mutants can’t die anymore (or rather, if they do, they’re resurrected from clone bodies and emergency backup minds by The Five and Professor X). The X-Men, and all mutants alive, are now living on Krakoa, a living, mutant island in the Pacific that, at some point in the distant past, broke in half, sending one part of it to a dangerous, monster-infested realm with Apocalypse’s first Horsemen standing guard making sure it didn’t return.

Humans are back to hating and fearing mutants on a wide scale, but this time it’s mostly because the mutants are vehemently anti-capitalism, flooding markets with cheap, life-extending and health-improving drugs and vowing to take down the human world with economic weapons of their own making. This has the humans initiating some pretty intense Sentinel programs, particularly around the sun, where Nimrod – the adaptive Sentinel whose existence dooms mutantkind in one Powers of X future – was very nearly created.

And amidst all of that, Moira MacTaggert, the secret mutant mastermind with the power of Groundhog Lifeing (when she dies, her consciousness is immediately transported back to her prenatal self to be born again with all her old memories. She’s on life ten now, btw), is frantically trying to manipulate events so that mutants continue to exist in the long run as the next phase in human evolution, averting a future where man-machine hybrids (like Omega Sentinels and the Children of the Vault) develop while humans and mutants are busy fighting among themselves. She’s also not allowing Charles and Magneto to revive any mutants with precognitive powers, expecting them to see her plan and ruin Krakoan civilization.

X-Men

X-Men, by mastermind Jonathan Hickman with art mostly from Leinil Yu, is where big ideas are being seeded for later use.

This is where the story of Krakoa and its estranged, otherdimensional partner Arakko was further developed (following its introduction in Powers of X and setting up X of Swords, the first mutant crossover of the Dawn of X era). X-Men introduced Hordeculture (think the Golden Girls if they were also ecoterrorist botanists); reintroduced the Children of the Vault; showed how depowered mutants get in line to get their powers back; and saw Magneto and Apocalypse threaten humankind with the most terrible weapon of all: finance capitalism.

New Mutants

It also, just prior to the break, X-Men had a spiritual crossover with New Mutants, initially a split book by Hickman and Rod Reis on the space issues, and Ed Brisson, Flaviano, and Marco Failla on the Earth issues. Brisson, Flaviano and Failla’s story follows a group of Earthbound mutant kids (including Glob Herman and Boom Boom) as they track down stragglers to Krakoa, like Beak and Angel.

Hickman and Reis took the original New Mutants plus Chamber and Mondo into space to go pick up Cannonball (who was living on Chandi’lar with his wife, Smasher). On the way there, they stole a King Egg from the Starjammers and brought it back to Earth, where it turns out, we discover in X-Men, the King Egg is a bioweapon created by the Kree to control the Brood for an eventual war with the Shi’ar. Broo, the supersmart mutant Broodling from Wolverine and the X-Men, eats the egg and becomes the Brood King.

Excalibur

Excalibur is the shining star of the line so far. Tini Howard and Marcus To are growing the mythos of mutant magic with a very odd team that includes Betsy Braddock (now back in her original body and the new Captain Britain); Rogue and Gambit; Jubilee and her mysteriously dragonified son Shogo; new earth mage Rictor; and Apocalypse, who is clearly up to some stuff. Apocalypse picks a fight with Otherworld and places a newly resurrected but still batshit Jamie Braddock on the throne of the magical realm.

Excalibur was one of the first books to return from hiatus, and it came back with maybe the best single issue of the entire relaunch in issue #10. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Marauders

Marauders launched as the story about the Hellfire Trading Company, the corporate arm of Krakoa that distributes the miracle drugs around the world while also smuggling mutants in trouble home to Krakoa. But Gerry Duggan and Matteo Lolli’s book quickly turned into the mystery of Kitty Pryde – why she’s not able to use the Krakoan gates that allow instantaneous travel around the galaxy, and whether she can be resurrected by The Five. That story has just about come to a head, but it is worth noting that it still contains a great deal of Hellfire Trading Company intrigue between Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw, and a lot of drunken pirate antics. The resurrected original Pyro does get a tattoo of the Marauders skull on his face at one point. It’s fun.

X-Force

X-Force, by Ben Percy and Joshua Cassara, immediately killed Professor X. He was resurrected, of course, but it served as both a notice that everyone is fair game, and alongside Marauders, keeps some slight mystery to character death alive post-The Five’s perpetual resurrection machine. It’s also the story of the Krakoan CIA, so it sets up the global threats facing the mutant nation, and then sends Wolverine to get cut in half fighting them. Also, Forge creates a bio-mech loader suit and smashes the two halves of Logan back together at one point. If that’s something you find yourself chuckling at, this book is going to exceed expectations.

Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels focused mostly on resetting the current Psylocke’s status quo. Kwannon was brought back to life and placed in her old body shortly before the reboot (very quickly: Spiral switched Psylocke and Kwannon’s bodies, then before they could be reverted, Kwannon got the Legacy Virus and died, then when Betsy used a villain’s powers to recreate her old body and reinhabit it, Kwannon…uh…got better…). Here, she teamed with X-23 and Cable, with ops backup from Mister Sinister, to track down Apoth, a technological being selling cybernetic drugs to humans.

It’s mostly setup for Psylocke, X-23 (now Wolverine again, I think), and Sinister while adding another technological foe to the mix. It leads almost directly into Zeb Wells and Steven Segovia’s Hellions, a book about Sinister’s team of mutants who are all gleefully, unrepentantly screwed up and are currently on a mission cleaning up some old clones Sinister left lying around.

Cable, Wolverine, and More…

Cable, Wolverine and the Giant Size issues, are still mostly seeding future storylines. Cable, from Duggan and Phil Noto, has only had a couple of issues so far, but it’s brought the Galadorians (the Spaceknights minus ROM, who belongs to IDW now, I think) into mutant orbit and given Nathan a sword for the crossover.

Wolverine, by Percy, Adam Kubert and Victor Bogdanove, has Logan tracking down illicit Krakoan flower dealers, and also Omega Red works for Dracula now. And the Giant Size issues are mysteries piled on mysteries piled on incredible art. Hickman has scripted all three, and so far, Storm caught a technovirus from the Children of the Vault in the Jean Grey/Emma Frost issue (drawn by Russell Dauterman); we find out what’s up with Cypher’s techno-organic arm in the Nightcrawler issue (from Alan Davis); Magneto buys Emma an island from Namor with art from Ramon Perez; and we get actual backstory and incredible Rod Reis art in the Fantomex issue.

Empyre

The recently wrapped Empyre: X-Men’s opening scene is simultaneously one of the most important to the metanarrative of mutant struggle that’s been developing since the Professor’s “No More” scene in House of X #4 AND the best setup/punchline in any Dawn of X comic. It also starts to deliver on some of the rumored-but-never-announced X-Men ideas that were floated early after the reboot – Angel and M are two of the leads, playing out a little of the boardroom drama we hoped for after an X-Corporation book was rumored.

X-Factor

X-Factor, from Leah Williams and David Baldeon, more or less just launched. It’s about the team investigating and verifying mutant deaths, to put those lives into the queue for resurrection. This feels like the book set up to deliver on the weirdest promises of the relaunch, and the creative team are inventive, fun storytellers, so keep an eye on this. Williams has a very sharp ear for patter and knows her characters well – while it’s not an X-book, Amazing Mary Jane is a stunning accomplishment of delightful character work. Early X-Factor is more of the same, with more mutant high concept.

And all this is leading to X of Swords, the new X-writers room’s attempt to outdo X-Cutioner’s Song: a 22-part Tini Howard-led crossover where everyone swordfights over half of Krakoa. And still dangling in the ether, unannounced but long discussed, are Vita Ayala and Bernard Chang’s Children of the Atom, following a group of mutant teenagers who idolize the X-Men, and a Moira X book that’s expected to fill in some of the gaps in Moira’s many, many timelines.

The post What’s Happening With Marvel’s X-Men? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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pikapeppa · 5 years ago

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Fenris/f!Hawke and the Inquisition: Holiday

Chapter 48 of Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor) is up on AO3, after a dreaded few-week hiatus! I’m launching into the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, which I LOVE SO MUCH. For anyone who hasn’t played it, you should still be able to follow along as long as you don’t mind spoilers. I hope you enjoy!

Read on AO3 here instead; full chapter is >8500 words.

************************

A year and a half after Corypheus’s death…

Fenris shifted his feet and readied his stance. The ice was stinging the soles of his feet, but this was nothing he hadn’t suffered before; this was just another dragon, after all. Just another monstrous beast that spewed ice from its gaping maw. They had fought dragons before and always prevailed. This would be no different.

He ignored the rattling disquiet in his chest and settled his fingers more firmly on the handle of his sword. He glanced at the others. “You have your positions?” he shouted.

Cole, Dorian and Blackwall nodded. Scout Harding saluted him briskly, and Sera gave him a more playful salute. Bull shot him a bloodthirsty and oddly reassuring smile while Varric patted his crossbow.

He glanced over at Hawke; her face was set and determined. When she met his eye, she smiled and blew him a kiss, and he released a slow breath and tried to return her smile.

The dragon laughed, then let out an enormous, rib-rattling roar. It launched itself into the air and landed on the frozen lake in front of them just sixty paces away. Behind Fenris, Bull roared and charged toward the dragon.

The others followed him, splitting off to attack the dragon from every angle, and Fenris lit his lyrium marks aglow. As he watched his companions attacking the monstrous dragon and dodging its frigid breath, valiantly placing themselves in danger for the umpteenth time tonight, one thought kept hammering at his weary mind.

I can’t do this anymore.

**********************

“Varric!” Hawke squealed.

Fenris looked up to see Varric strolling through the research camp toward them. His face was lit with a smile, and Fenris couldn’t help but smile in return.

Hawke bolted toward him wrapped him in a tight hug. “I’m so glad you arrived! I’ve missed my daily dose of gorgeous dwarven chest hair.”

Varric chuckled as he returned her hug. “Have you been that bored without me? I was only gone for three months.”

“That’s two months longer than the last time you went to Kirkwall,” she retorted. “You know I can’t live for that long without your sarcasm and your cheating at cards.”

“By that, I’ll assume you mean my sharp wit and my charm,” Varric said smoothly. He shot Fenris a smirk as he drew near. “Has the broody one not been keeping you entertained enough?”

“Oh, he entertains me,” Hawke said lewdly. “But not in the same way as you.”

Fenris folded his arms. “Should I be flattered or insulted by that?”

She smiled winningly and looped her arm around his waist, and Varric patted Fenris’s elbow. “Good to see you, buddy.”

“And you as well, my friend,” Fenris said. “Rebuilding is going well? Kirkwall is still standing, I assume?”

Varric snorted. “That’s a bold assumption. Maybe I just managed to escape another disaster there.”

Hawke tutted. “Don’t be stupid. Disasters only happen in Kirkwall when I’m around.”

Fenris shot her a chiding look, but before he could reply, a smooth and jovial voice interrupted. “What was that I heard about disasters? Have you been having that much fun without me?”

They all looked up. Dorian was sashaying toward them wearing a very sharply tailored robe that practically screamed Tevinter Imperium.

“Dorian! You’re here!” Hawke cried. She flew toward him and hugged him hard. “This robe is fucking gorgeous. You look like the perfect evil magister.” She brushed his shoulders solicitously and beamed at him. “Getting into character, are you?”

“Exactly,” Dorian said with a grin. “Although I can’t deny that I’m enjoying access to proper Tevinter silk again.”

“I agree,” Bull said as he sauntered over in Dorian’s wake. He elbowed Dorian gently. “Your new silky underthings are pretty damned enjoyable.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and gave Hawke a long-suffering look. “Leave your handsome lummox of a lover for a few months and he becomes a depraved sex maniac.”

Bull grinned unrepentantly, and Hawke chuckled. Then Dorian gave Varric a mocking little bow. “Varric! Still as swarthy as ever, I see. And how could I forget our handsome and fearless leader?” He grinned at Fenris and held out a hand. “How are you, my friend?”

Fenris smirked and shook his hand. “I have no complaints. Or at least I didn’t before I saw your robe.”

Dorian laughed merrily. “Ah, I missed you too. Now come, fill me in on everything. And by that, I mean you, Hawke. I do so miss our daily gossip sessions.”

“I think you should start us off, Sparkler,” Varric said. “Last I heard, you were tied up in some kind of political intrigue in Minrathous?”

Dorian tutted. “That’s putting it mildly. Maevaris and I have been taking quite a few hits from the magisterium recently–”

“Hits?” Fenris said sharply.

Dorian waved a dismissive hand. “The usual sort of thing. Assassination attempts, an attempted poisoning here and there, even an attack by a bound spirit or two. You know how it is.”

“I do, unfortunately,” Fenris said quietly.

Dorian gave him a kindly look. “Don’t you worry. That’s why I’m here. Maevaris and I are pretending that we’re at odds at the moment, you see. The magisters will think they’ve scared us into submission, and meanwhile we’ll regroup in the shadows.” He nodded to Hawke. “It’s perfect timing that you suggested this little holiday, in fact. It suits me to be away from my dear homeland at the moment.”

Varric snorted. “‘Holiday’. That’s not exactly what I’d call a wander through the untamed wilderness.”

Hawke gave him a pleading look. “Oh come on, Varric, it’s going to be wonderful, I promise! The Frostback Basin is so gorgeous with the trees and the flowers and the toadstools and all that–”

“Hawke,” Varric interrupted.

She blinked at him. “Yes?

He gave her a pointed look. “You remember who you’re talking to, right?”

She widened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

Fenris cleared his throat. “I believe he means that the two people who came the farthest to be here are the same two who hate the outdoors the most.” He gestured at Dorian and Varric.

“He’s not wrong,” Varric drawled.

“He really isn’t,” Dorian said.

Hawke sighed dramatically and gave Fenris a chiding look. “Listen, I know they’re indoor boys, but I didn’t want to point out that they came all this way just to spend time with you and I. It would hurt Bull’s feelings, and he’s standing right there.”

Dorian and Varric chuckled, and Bull gave her a playful little push. “Thanks, little Hawke.”

Hawke snickered and hugged his arm. Then Dorian tilted his head. “You know, that raises the question. Where are the rest of our sorry little crew? I’m rather offended they aren’t here to greet–”

“Your clothes are very shiny,” Cole said.

To Fenris’s amusement, Dorian jumped. “Cole!” he exclaimed. He released a little breath, then smiled at the spirit-boy. “How I’ve missed your unannounced appearances. In fact, I brought you something.” He reached into the inner pocket of his tailored robe and handed Cole a gift.

It was a fine ebony comb decorated with an elaborate pattern of mother-of-pearl. Cole peered at it, then looked at Dorian. “What is it?”

“It’s a comb,” Dorian explained. “For your hair. So you needn’t wear that hat anymore.”

Cole blinked. “What’s wrong with my hat?”

Varric chuckled and patted Cole’s elbow. “Nice to see that nothing’s changed.”

A moment later, Blackwall and Sera joined them, and Blackwall clapped Varric on the shoulder. “Varric! Good to see you!” he said. He nodded politely to Dorian. “Dorian, you look well.”

“As do you,” Dorian said equally politely. “Did you wash your hair? It suits you.”

Blackwall snorted. Then Sera leapt on Dorian’s back. “Now you’re here, we can have some real fun!” she announced. “Beardy and I were down on the beach and there’s these little tiny crabs, see, and–”

“The answer is no,” Dorian interrupted. “Whatever it is, it’s no.”

Sera pouted, and Hawke and Blackwall laughed. They continued to banter and chat as they made their way through the research camp toward Scout Harding, and Fenris enjoyed the familiar novelty of his companions’ talk.

It had been several months since they’d gone on an expedition like this. He and Hawke had been holed up at Skyhold since just before Varric had left, and before that they’d been stationed at Caer Bronach in Crestwood for a number of weeks dealing with some lingering darkspawn and trying to help the still-recovering village while simultaneously appeasing the Fereldan nobles about the Inquisition’s ongoing presence at the caer. Before that, it was a few months at Skyhold and a few at the Griffon’s Keep, a seemingly never-ending cycle of negotiations and meetings and soothing ruffled feathers and trying to muster coin out of thin air…

Fenris ran a weary hand through his hair as he thought about the multiple problems that he had yet to address when he returned to Skyhold. During the first chaotic year after the Conclave disaster, Fenris hadn’t enjoyed the constant travel and the constant errands. But now that he’d spent an entire year mired in cross-continental politics following Corypheus’s death, he was only just realizing how good he’d had it when his primary duties were fighting and recruitment. Travelling from Ferelden to Orlais, asking people to join the Inquisition, killing demons and closing rifts: that was a simpler time, far simpler than trying to navigate the weblike intricacies of Orlesian and Fereldan and Free Marcher and Chantry politics without stepping on anyone’s toes and without overstepping his own authority – an authority that many people seemed to take for granted, and which Fenris was growing increasingly uneasy about.

This is probably a bad sign, he thought. To be feeling wistful about the days when they’d been fighting demons and Venatori and darkspawn? And to think that during those days, he’d been wistful for the two years prior when he and Hawke had been on the run from the Chantry.

He sighed. Was there ever going to be a time when he would be able to simply enjoy his life instead of wishing wistfully for a different part of it?

Hawke interrupted his melancholy thoughts. “This is nice, isn’t it?” she said.

“Hm?” he said distractedly. “Er, yes. It is.”

She studied his face for a moment, then twined her fingers with his. “It’s going to be a good holiday. I promise.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “You keep calling this a holiday as though it’s not still Inquisition business.”

“I know, but it’s low-pressure business!” she said. “Tracking down the last Inquisitor’s body and fighting some angry Avvar? It’s basically a cake walk, you’ll see.”

Fenris gave her a fond but exasperated look. “This is going to be like the times you convinced us to go camping on the Wounded Coast, isn’t it?”

“Which time?” she asked.

“Every time,” he said dryly.

She tutted and poked his arm. “Oh, don’t complain about that. You liked camping. Admit it.”

“I didn’t mind the camping,” Fenris said. “I minded the giant spiders. And the slavers. And the murderers trying to hide bodies—”

“I suppose I can’t promise no giant spiders,” Hawke said loudly. “But Harding did mention treehouses! That sounds fun, no?”

Fenris huffed. “Treehouses to escape the giant spiders, I presume?”

“Exactly,” she said cheerfully. “See, it’s going to be fun.”

Her smile was so bright and lovely, and she was so obviously determined to have a good time – or rather, to show Fenris a good time. This so-called holiday was not only her way to see Dorian and Varric again, but her attempt to drag Fenris away from the stress of Inquisition politics for at least a little while.

In the last few weeks especially, Hawke had been appearing more frequently with snacks and cups of coffee in the war room or wherever Fenris happened to be working, offering to help him by forging his signature or writing letters to tell people to bugger off. She was always cheerful when she appeared, always chatting and laughing as was her norm. But Fenris knew she was worried about how hard he was working with the advisors, as well as with Cassandra all the way in Val Royeaux.

There was nothing he could do to assuage Hawke’s worries, though. He was trapped in his role, trapped in this position of authority and guidance, and he had no choice but to keep doing what he was doing and hoping that things would eventually calm down.

Hawke squeezed his hand again. “It’ll be fun, Fenris. We’ll have a good time here, you’ll see.”

He nodded. Then Dorian’s loud voice drew their attention. “Ah, my dear Lady Lace! Just who I was hoping to see.”

Fenris looked up to see Dorian gallantly bowing to Scout Harding. He gave her a hopeful smile. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spare boots for a handsome young man, would you?”

“Sure she does,” Sera said. “Might even have a pair for you.” She cackled, and Dorian tsked at her.

Harding smiled and folded her arms. “Nice to have you back, Dorian. I assume Fenris and Hawke told you and Varric why we’re here?”

“They did,” Varric said. “The search for the mysterious Inquisitor Ameridan, who disappeared eight hundred years ago.” He gave Hawke a knowing look. “I’m ready to take notes in case I can use this for my next book.”

Hawke slung an arm around his shoulders. “I’d be extremely disappointed if you weren’t.”

Harding turned to Fenris. “Professor Kenric’s been itching to talk to you again. He should be around here somewhere–”

“Inquisitor!” The Starkhaven professor hurried over to them with an eager smile. “I’m glad you’re here, and with an entire scouting expedition at your side – that’s brilliant, you’ll have many more eyes to collect observations!” Kenric bowed hastily to their party, then turned back to Fenris. “Now, you’ll recall I told you about the buckles I found–”

“Er, buckles?” Varric said.

“They’re also shiny,” Cole said knowledgeably, and Hawke fondly patted his shoulder.

“Yes, buckles,” Kenric said excitedly. “They’re often overlooked by the average person, but in the study of ancient artifacts, they’re absolutely crucial, since other materials like cloth and leather will have rotted away – barring enchantments, of course.” He looked at Fenris with wide eyes. “I’ve found evidence that Inquisitor Ameridan was involved in a fight on the shore not far to the south.” He held out his hand. In his gloved palm was a bent metal clasp.

“This is consistent with armour links,” he said. “It’s clearly torn. That only happens from a heavy shearing blow, like large claws or an ax.” He then pulled an item from a pouch at his waist and lovingly unwrapped it from its protective silk covering.

“Then there’s this dagger,” he said. “Silverite, with a stylized dragon pommel and inscription reading ‘Kordillus’. This had to be a gift to Ameridan from Kordillus Drakon, the first Emperor of Orlais. No one would just lose such a thing.” Kenric looked around at them all. “There was some sort of battle near the shoreline,” he explained. “Ameridan and his companions were in a hurry, hence the dropped dagger. Lady – er, Scout Harding’s people reported an island near an Avvar fishing camp on the shore. The friendly Avvar, that is, not those Jaws of Hakkon barbarians.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “The locals won’t say much about the island, though. Likely a local superstition.”

“Hmm,” Varric said. “An interrupted battle and an ominous island? We’re off to a great start.”

Fenris smirked at him. “Is that sarcasm? I can’t quite tell.”

“Neither can I,” Varric said dryly.

Hawke tutted and poked them both. “Oh come on, it is a great start! I’m intrigued! Who wants to go to this mystery island?” She raised her hand. “I know I do.”

Fenris gazed at her fondly. She was trying so hard to be upbeat, and he loved her for it.

He lazily raised a hand. “I do as well.”

Blackwall straightened. “I’d be honoured to come.”

Sera elbowed him. “Not leaving me behind, you’re not.”

“I’ll come too,” Bull said. “I hear the hunting is good along the southern shore. The creatures here are fierce.” He grinned.

Dorian patted his arm. “You are such a brute, amatus.”

Hawke clasped her hands together and beamed at them all. “Fantastic! Off we go, then!” She looped her hands through Sera and Blackwall’s elbows, and together they made their way out of the research camp and toward the southern shore.

Fenris had to admit the Frostback Basin really was quite scenic; the terrain was hilly and liberally scattered with toadstools and large exotic flowers, just as Hawke had said. The trees were enormous, some of them bigger than the ones in the Arbour Wilds, and the vegetation ranged from tall flowing grasses to full-bodied ferns to vines that hung in long green ropes from the trees. The same brilliant multicoloured birds that lived in the Arbour Wilds also lived here, and their sharp calls contrasted with the rushing flow of the river that wended its way vaguely from the north and down toward the southern shore where they were headed.

As they made their way toward the fishing camp, Varric, Cole, and Dorian fell into step next to Fenris. Dorian grimaced slightly as he stepped over a pile of feces. “So explain this Jaws of Hakkon business, then,” he said to Fenris. “Who are these fellows, and why did the professor call them barbarians?”

“There are two groups of Avvar here,” Fenris said wearily. “One group has been friendly, but the other group attacks any Inquisition soldier or scout who draws near. We spent some time yesterday fighting them. They have mages, and they’re in possession of some rather chilling magic.”

“Chilling, yes,” Cole said. “Cold, cooling, crawling across the skin.” He blinked at Fenris. “Was that a joke?”

Fenris eyed him in surprise. “I… didn’t mean it to be. But yes, I suppose it was a pun.”

“Hey,” Varric said in surprise. “The kid recognized a pun! That’s good progress, Cole, I’m proud.”

Dorian tutted impatiently. “Yes, yes, Cole is gaining a sense of humour. That’s lovely. Do we know why these magic-wielding Jaws of Hakkon are trying to kill us at every turn?”

Fenris shrugged, and Varric chuckled. “It really is like old times, then. Well, we might as well enjoy it.”

Fenris shot him a sardonic look. “You? Enjoy the wilderness?”

Varric smirked. “I know, I know. But as much as I hate this wilderness shit, I’m kind of glad to be away from Kirkwall right now. Things are getting a little heavy.”

“Everything but your coin purse, it seems,” Dorian said. “From what Bull tells me, you’ve really been emptying your pockets for the city.”

Varric shrugged and waved dismissively. “Ah, you know. It’s no big thing. I’ve gotta use the royalties from my books somehow, right? Might as well be for that.”

Fenris nodded sagely. Varric could pretend to be casual about all the restoration funding he was pouring into Kirkwall, but Fenris had spent enough time discussing the Inquisition’s finances with Josephine to know that the Kirkwall rebuilding efforts had to be extortionately expensive.

Varric’s investments weren’t really a surprise, though. Fenris knew how Varric really felt about Kirkwall. Despite the city’s many flaws and the ugly personal history they had there, Kirkwall was Varric’s home. If Varric wanted to feign casualness about his restoration efforts, however, Fenris could give him that.

He shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said. “Are you coming back to Skyhold after this so-called holiday?”

Varric hesitated, and Fenris gave him a careful look. “You’re… you’re not coming back?”

Varric tugged his beringed ear, and Fenris raised his eyebrows. “When did you decide this?”

Varric sighed. “Look, it… it wasn’t really my decision. I–”

At that moment, Hawke bounded over and slung her arms around Varric’s shoulders and Fenris’s waist. “So Varric, if you’re taking notes about this Ameridan business, you need to know all the lovely scandalous rumours that Kenric told us.”

Varric shot Dorian and Fenris a quick warning look, then smiled at Hawke. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“Well,” Hawke said, “one rumour is that–”

Fenris interrupted. “Shouldn’t you tell him the facts first?”

Hawke sighed loudly. “But that’s boring… fine, fine, you tell him the facts.”

Fenris looked at Varric. “Ameridan went missing around the time that the Nevarran Accord was signed, in 1:20 Divine or thereabouts. No one knows why he went missing. He was a close friend of Drakon the First–”

“Who sounded like an utter asshole, by the way,” Hawke interjected.

Dorian laughed. “You think the first Emperor of Orlais was an asshole? That’s a bold statement.”

Hawke shrugged carelessly. “Well, I’m no historian, but look what he did. He made a huge army and went wiping out all the little religions and spreading his Andrastianism all over the place. Sounds rather like an asshole move to me. Anyway, go on, Fenris.”

Fenris shrugged. “That’s it. Those are all the facts we know about Ameridan.”

Varric raised his eyebrows. “You’re kidding. That’s it? No further backstory?”

“See, this is where the fun stuff comes in,” Hawke said gleefully. “Some people think Ameridan was a lazy noble who just got to be the Inquisitor because he was Drakon’s friend, and he disappeared after going drinking and wenching and so on. Other people think Drakon had him killed because he opposed the Nevarran Accord–”

“–which seems unlikely,” Fenris put in, “since Ameridan was in power with Drakon’s blessing for many years before his disappearance. It’s unlikely that he disagreed with the Nevarran Accord.”

“Right,” Hawke said. “But here’s my favourite rumour. Some people think Ameridan had a secret lover who was a mage. Can you imagine?” she said with relish. “The ancient Inquisitor, famous demon and apostate hunter in the days of early Andrastianism, having a mage for a lover?”

Varric snorted in amusement. “Let me guess. You think they ran away together.”

“I certainly fucking hope so,” Hawke said. “That would be a nice happy ending, if you ask me.” She put on a playful storytelling voice. “‘Once upon a time, the Inquisitor decided that the newborn Chantry was full of shit. He took his mage lover by the hand, and they ran off into the sunset together to live a peaceful and happy life. The end.’” She patted Varric’s shoulder. “Feel free to give me a writing credit in your inside cover. I won’t mind.”

Varric and Dorian chuckled, but Fenris didn’t laugh. The Inquisitor running away with his mage lover to live a peaceful and happy life…

Cole’s voice grabbed their attention. “They need help!” he cried.

They all looked up. They weren’t far from the fishing camp, but fifty paces ahead, Bull and Blackwall and Sera were engaged in a fight with a group of Hakkonites.

“Let’s go,” Fenris said, and they bolted toward the fight. It was fairly brief; the Hakkonite warriors were outnumbered by Fenris’s party, and in a few short minutes, their foes were dead.

Dorian curiously studied the dead Hakkonite mage’s staff. “This is fascinating,” he said to Hawke. “There’s a piece of ice embedded in the head of the staff. Did you see this?”

“It’s strange, right?” Hawke said as she crouched beside him. “I saw this on another mage’s staff yesterday. Crazier yet, the ice doesn’t melt. I think it’s helping their chilling spills to be more effective. We should break down their spell later tonight so we can try and recreate it ourselves…”

Sera pulled a face. “Magey-mage magic, ugh. Any fish stew in there?” She scampered away toward the cooking fire outside the Avvar fishing camp.

Fenris, meanwhile, smiled faintly at Dorian and Hawke. He knew that Hawke had been missing her magical discussions with Dorian, especially since he’d taken on the role of her primary magical confidant after Solas’s disappearance over a year ago.

As always, Fenris shunted aside the hint of resentment and suspicion he felt at the thought of Solas. He turned to Varric. “Care to join me and chat with the locals?” he said with a nod to the Avvar. “I may need your silver tongue.”

“Aw, you really know how to flatter a guy,” Varric drawled. Together they went to speak to the Avvar fishermen.

Some twenty-odd minutes later, under direction of the fishermen, Fenris and his companions were making their way up the winding path that led to the friendly Avvar’s settlement. Just as Kenric had surmised, it seemed that the locals thought the island was occupied by spirits who were better left alone, and thus they would need the Avvar leader’s permission to travel there.

As they approached the settlement, Fenris nodded politely to each Avvar they passed. Their answering nods or murmurs of ‘lowlander’ were equally polite, but Fenris noted something strange: their eyes lingered on the glowing mark on his left hand, but not with the same fear or awe that he usually saw in people’s faces. Instead, the Avvar simply seemed curious.

Odd, he thought. Nevertheless, he loosely closed his fist as they moved further into the settlement.

The sound of cheering and shouting soon met his ears, and Hawke chuckled. “Oh my. Looks like we came just in time to see a nice display of male athletics.” She elbowed Dorian salaciously.

Sure enough, two half-clad young men were vaulting up a sheer cliff wall while a crowd yelled and clapped. On a nearby platform, a stern-faced and rangy woman who matched the fishermen’s description of their leader was standing next to a tall and muscled man, and Fenris frowned in surprise: the tall man’s body-paint matched that of the Jaws of Hakkon.

Bull grunted. “That’s strange. Didn’t expect to see a Hakkonite here.”

“It is odd,” Fenris agreed quietly. “We should find out what’s going on.”

Before they could approach the platform, the Hakkonite descended and swaggered toward them. He sneered at Fenris. “This is not my hold, lowlander,” he said. “I will not shed your blood here. You will face the full might of the Jaws of Hakkon soon enough.” Without waiting for a response, he strode away.

Hawke huffed at the Hakkonite’s departing back. “Bugger yourself, why don’t you?” she muttered. Then she smiled at Fenris. “Shall we go introduce ourselves to their leader?”

A fresh burst of cheering rose from the assembled crowd. The rangy woman was shouting now to the climbing men, who were standing at the top of the cliff. Fenris nodded to Hawke and made his way to the platform.

He eyed the rangy woman with some suspicion as they approached. She had been associating with the Hakkonite, after all. When she turned to face them, however, her expression was neutral, but her tone of voice was welcoming.

“You are the Inquisitor,” she said, with a casual glance at Fenris’s hand.

“I am,” he said cautiously. “My name is Fenris.”

She nodded. “We heard tell of your arrival. I am Svarah Sun-Hair, Thane of Stone-Bear Hold.” She stepped off of the platform and gestured for them to follow her. “Come share my fire, where we might speak.”

She led them to a warm and well-lit cave that featured a large circular firepit and a rugged throne covered in furs. She gestured politely for them to sit on the furs around the fire, then seated herself on the throne and eyed them all with the same brand of warm curiosity that seemed to be common among the Avvar. “You and your people have come far from the safety of the lowlands,” she said.

“Yes,” Fenris said. “We are searching for the previous Inquisitor, in fact. It is said that he died somewhere near here hundreds of years ago.”

Svarah nodded in approval. “Giving peace to the dead is a worthy quest. Any help we can offer is yours. Sadly, the Jaws of Hakkon will not offer so warm a welcome.” She settled back in her seat and gave Fenris a wry look. “You met their thane, Gurd Harofson. I wager you have crossed blades with his people in the wilderness. If you would search this place for your Inquisitor’s body, they will want you to pay in blood.”

“Why is that, if I may ask?” Dorian said. “It’s not unusual for people to hate us, but it’s nice sometimes to know the reason why.”

Svarah huffed – whether in amusement or disgust, Fenris couldn’t tell. “A fair question,” she said. “Our people believe that a wise man honours each god to its strength: Bjorn Reedbeard for fishing, Rilla of the Fireside for making babies. The Hakkonites care only for Hakkon Wintersbreath, god of war and winter.”

Bull chuckled. “He sounds like a nice guy.”

“There is no evil in Hakkon,” Svarah told him seriously. “There are times to fight. But the Jaws of Hakkon care for nothing else. They raid, they fight; eventually they die, and their stories are forgotten. It is the way of things.” She waved a dismissive hand. “They are not the first hold to take that name. All have been foolish.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “They’re not the first? There were others?”

Hawke shrugged at this. “I guess that makes sense. We’re not the first Inquisition, after all.”

Fenris tilted his head; she had a point. Then Svarah answered his question. “There was another group who called themselves the Jaws of Hakkon, many ages ago. They thought of nothing but slaughter-glory. They attacked the lowlanders, and your people fought back and destroyed them.” She shrugged unconcernedly. “They were fools.”

Blackwall sat forward with a small frown. “And the group led by this Gurd Harofson? Are they fools as well?”

“They are,” Svarah said. “They have forgotten the old ways. They came here a few years ago, after the Blight took their hold. There was land enough for both us and them, so we were friendly.” She sighed. “We did not see their anger. But Gurd Harofson lost too many in his hold to darkspawn. He thinks only of battle and war.” She gave them all a serious look. “To avenge a wrong is a good thing, but only a fool lights the world on fire to do it.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows at this sage statement, and they were all quiet for a moment.

Then Hawke sat up on her knees. “Svarah – can I call you Svarah?”

The thane nodded, and Hawke smiled. “Svarah, these Jaws of Hakkon… As you said, they’ve been hassling our people, and all we want to do is find our poor dead Inquisitor and bring him home. Is there any way we could persuade you to help us keep the Jaws of Hakkon off our backs?”

Svarah rubbed her chin. “Bathing my blade in the blood of the Hakkonites would be cause for a feast for most in this hold… but we have pledged peace with them. To attack with lowlanders at our side would make us oathbreakers. This is poor weather for me to ask that of my hold.”

Hawke nodded slowly. “Is there anything we can do to, er, improve the weather for you?”

For the first time, a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Svarah’s lips. “Sharp of wit, you are. Who are you?”

Hawke smiled. “Oh, I’m Rynne! Rynne Hawke, the Inquisitor’s wife.” She patted Fenris’s thigh. “But everyone just calls me Hawke.”

“Hawke,” Svarah said thoughtfully. “Hawks are fine birds and worthy hunters. I hope you live up to the name.”

Hawke laughed. “So do I, believe me.”

Svarah smirked again, then shifted in her seat. “There is a matter you can assist us with. If you did, I would be grateful.”

“Of course,” Hawke said without hesitation – to Fenris’s mixed exasperation and amusement. “How can we help?”

“Among the Avvar, a hold draws strength from its hold-beast,” Svarah said “They are as kin to us. When our hold-beast is strong and happy, there’s joy. When it sickens and dies, it is an ill omen.” She looked at Fenris seriously. “Our bear, Storvacker, has not been seen in days. The hold fears for her. I cannot ask the hold to break peace-oaths unless Storvacker returns.”

“She a tiny bear?” Sera said.

Svarah looked at her in surprise. “No. Storvacker is a mighty hunter. Why do you ask?”

Sera shrugged. “Just thinking why your people can’t find her.”

Svarah raised an eyebrow. “A great hunt for our hold-beast would show weakness to the Hakkonites, that’s why. But if you lowlanders happen to find her…” She shrugged.

Dorian winced. “I hate to ask, but… are you certain your hold-beast isn’t, er, dead?”

Svarah shook her head. “If she were dead, the augur would know.”

“Augur?” Fenris asked.

Svarah nodded. “He gives counsel and shares the will of the gods with us. Speak to him if you would know more.”

“All right,” Hawke said affably. “We’ll speak to your augur, find Storvacker, and then maybe the sun will come out, so to speak.” She gave Svarah a charming smile.

Svarah huffed in amusement. “Find Storvacker, and we will speak again. In the meantime, feel free to look around our hold.”

Hawke’s eyes widened. “We can look around?”

“You have guest-welcome here,” Svarah said. “Speak with my people and learn our ways, if you would spare the time.”

Hawke grinned at Fenris, and he smirked at her in fond exasperation. Of course Hawke would be thrilled at the thought of making friends with a new group of strangers.

He turned to Svarah and bowed his head. “You have my thanks. For the welcome, and for the information.”

Varric leaned toward him. “The island, remember?” he muttered.

“Ah. Right,” Fenris said. That had, after all, been the point of all this.

He looked to Svarah again. “We had hoped to borrow a boat to go to the island off the southern shore, but one of the fishermen said we needed your blessing.”

To Fenris’s surprise, Svarah snorted and waved a careless hand. “Bah, Rolfsen. He worries like a scared baby goat. The boat is yours. Tell him I said so.”

Fenris bowed his head once more. “Thank you. We will speak again.”

Svarah nodded in farewell as they rose to their feet. “Lady keep you,” she said.

They filed out of the cave, and Varric folded his arms and smirked at Hawke. “So if we’d just straight-out asked for the boat, she would have lent it to us without us having to search for their bear.”

She held up her hands. “I know, I know, I’m sorry! It was like an impulse, I couldn’t help it!” She gave Fenris a wheedling look. “But on the plus side, this will be funny. Finding a bear? What a lark, right?”

Fenris rubbed his mouth to hide his smile, and Dorian grimaced. “Did we ask whether it was a friendly bear? We, er, didn’t ask, did we?”

Hawke pulled a little face. “Oops.”

Bull chuckled and tweaked Dorian’s collar. “It’s a good thing your robe is black, kadan. It’ll hide the blood well.”

Dorian curled his lip. “The only one who will be getting bloody is anyone who dares to soil this damned robe.”

Hawke barked out a laugh and slung an arm around Dorian’s neck. “Come on, you beautiful fools, let’s explore and make some friends.”

“Let’s find this augur,” Fenris said pointedly. “He can tell us where to start looking for the bear.”

Hawke winked at him. “You’ve got it, handsome. Now come on, last one to eat a weird foreign treat is a rotten egg!” She grabbed Sera’s hand and pulled her toward the nearest group of Avvar.

They wandered through the settlement, and half of their party drifted away to inspect the craftsmen’s tables and speak to the locals. Fenris watched fondly as Hawke flirted and chatted with every person they passed, making even the most grim-faced warriors smile. She cheerfully introduced Fenris to everyone she met, and Fenris continued to feel bemused by the lack of fear or worry in their faces as they stared openly at his flickering left palm.

As Fenris, Hawke, Dorian and Cole made their way up the path to the augur’s cabin, Dorian remarked on the Avvar’s strangely calm response to his hand. “Do you suppose it’s because they don’t understand what it does?” he said.

“No, they’re aware,” Fenris said. One person had openly – and very casually – said that Fenris was the one who’d closed the Breach.

“You know what’s really odd?” Hawke said. “Some of the people here don’t really seem surprised by you. It’s almost like they expected you. Not in a ‘we foretold your coming’ sort of way, but in a ‘oh, you’re that fellow’ sort of way, if that makes sense.”

Cole nodded vaguely. “The augur knew, so they know. They follow, flickering, feeling, fluttering along the Fade, and he listens.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow. “I assume you don’t mean the Avvar are following Fenris in the Fade.”

Cole shook his head. “They’re curious,” he said. “They want to know how it feels to be real.”

Hawke raised an eyebrow. “You’re talking about spirits?”

Cole smiled in an absent sort of way. Hawke, Fenris, and Dorian exchanged a nonplussed look, and Hawke shrugged. “Well, let’s hope this augur fellow can clear things up.”

Fenris knocked on the augur’s cabin door, and a rich, deep voice called out from within. “Enter!”

He cautiously opened the door, then stopped short. A large man in furs was standing on the far side of a firepit, which contained a merrily dancing fire – bright green fire that gave off no heat.

The firepit was full of veilfire. Suddenly Fenris understood: the augur was a mage.

He frowned slightly and sidled into the hut so Hawke, Dorian and Cole could come inside, and Hawke gazed admiringly at the firepit. “Wow,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen such a big veilfire flame before.”

The augur smiled at Fenris. “So he arrives. Come, come.” He ushered Fenris closer.

Fenris took a cautious step toward him, then stopped once more. The air around the augur was flickering and dancing with light – light that was vaguely in the shape of people…

Wraiths, he thought in alarm. The cabin was full of wraiths. Stranger yet, the augur seemed happy about their presence.

He wasn’t the only one. “Hello!” Cole said cheerfully.

The wraiths drifted toward Fenris, and he tensed instinctively. Why were the spirits approaching him? Was the augur making them do that?

Hawke took his hand, and he tried to force himself to relax. Dorian, meanwhile, was eyeing the wraiths with interest. “They’re not… harmful,” he said. “I don’t think.”

The wraiths drifter closer to Fenris, and the augur held up his hands. “Don’t throng,” he said reprovingly.

The wraiths stopped and drifted back toward the augur, and Fenris released his breath. Then the augur raised his arms ceremoniously. “Behold, worthy ones! The man who blazes like fire and mends the air.” He smiled and placed one hand on his chest. “I am the augur of Stone-Bear Hold. I greet you, as do our gods and the gods of our ancestors.”

The wraiths flickered brightly for a moment, then disappeared altogether. The augur sighed in satisfaction. “There! It is done. Now come, be welcome! I would hear news of the north.”

Fenris release Hawke’s hand and frowned at the augur. “You summoned these spirits?”

“The gods of the hold clamoured to see you,” the augur replied. “I obeyed, for I am their voice and their augur.” He chuckled and folded his arms. “And if I didn’t show you off, they would hound me for months.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. Not a summoning, then, but a… a visitation?

He gestured at the veilfire. “You keep this burning on purpose to help the spirits to cross the Veil?”

The augur nodded. “I take counsel from the gods and share it with the hold. I make their will known to us, and ours to them. Their will comes to us from the Fade, and the veilfire helps me to hear it.”

“Gods from the Fade…” Hawke said slowly. She looked at the augur with wide eyes. “Your gods are spirits. The Avvar pray to spirits?”

“We offer to them,” the augur corrected. “We don’t pray like the lowlanders to a creator they think will weather all the ages.”

Hawke held up her hands. “No judgment from me. I don’t pray to anyone.”

“Respecting the gods of your hold takes little effort,” the augur told her kindly. “They protect the hold. They help drive off spirits who have gone bad with rage or gloom.” He raised his hands to the air once more. “The gods live with us. Ignore their offerings, offer them nothing, and it weakens us all.”

Dorian stroked his chin. “Do you actually think the spirits are gods, though? That they’re more than just creatures of the Fade?”

A small crease appeared between the augur’s eyebrows. “The spirits watched us even before we came from the north. They shaped themselves into our gods, and we grew to love them. Their secret gift is this: they reflect us as water does the sky. They show us what we wish to be. That image gives us strength. For that, we thank the gods.”

Hawke turned to them excitedly. “That’s like what Solas used to say, remember? He was all, ‘spirits are what we expect them to be. If you expect them to be demons, that’s what they’ll become.’” She smiled at the augur. “You all expect the spirits to be helpful and wise, so that’s how they are to you.”

“The spirits harbour wisdom in many forms,” he said. “They offer much to those who offer respect in return.”

Hawke nodded affably. “That makes complete sense. Be nice, and they’ll be nice back.” She patted Cole’s arm. “Sounds about right, don’t you think?”

“Kindness, learning, sharing across the Veil,” Cole said with a nod. “It’s very nice.”

The augur looked at Cole, and his eyes widened. “Who is this one?” he said keenly. “He has blood and bone, but… there are bonds about his form.”

“Yes,” Cole said. “I am Compassion. I know that now. I want to be here.”

The augur bowed deeply to him. “Well, this is a very great honour. Be welcome, Compassion.”

Cole smiled vaguely, and Hawke beamed at him and hugged his arm. “Aww, you’re a guest of honour here! That’s so cute!”

Dorian chuckled, and Fenris pondered it all in silence for a moment. The Avvar’s most respected advisor was a mage who spoke with spirits for guidance, and all the Avvar accepted it? It was so strange, and so vastly different from anything Fenris had ever seen before.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one other mage he and Hawke knew who had spoken with spirits for guidance.

Merrill, he thought. An instinctive surge of dislike rose in his breast at the thought of her, but it was swiftly followed by a pang of guilt. He could too easily imagine Merrill’s scolding and sanctimonious voice if she was here right now and seeing Fenris speaking to the augur in such a calm manner. She would most certainly call him a hypocrite, and… kaffas, she wouldn’t be wrong.

She wouldn’t be entirely right, either – after all, Merrill’s spirit had turned into a pride demon, and that was her fault. But Fenris himself had called on a spirit for guidance back in the Deep Roads when Hawke had needed healing.

Merrill would call him a hypocrite if she were here, and she wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then looked at the augur. “You mentioned that I blaze like fire. You are speaking of this mark, I assume?” He held up his left hand.

“That is correct,” the augur said. “To those beyond the Veil, your hand burns like the watchman’s bonfire. Nearby spirits follow your mark like moths to a flame.”

“We knew that already, though,” Dorian said.

Hawke looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, that’s how we called that spirit to heal you in the Deep Roads,” Dorian said. “Spirits were near Fenris’s mark in the Fade, and Cole and I helped one to come through.”

The augur folded his arms approvingly. “You do make offerings and appeals to the gods, then. You are more in tune with our ways than you thought.”

Hawke smiled at him. “Does that mean you’ll adopt us as honorary Avvar, then?”

The augur chuckled. “That is up to our thane, not me. You would have to perform a feat worthy of a legend-mark to gain such an honour.”

Hawke lifted her chin boldly. “That sounds like a challenge. All right, my handsome sir, you’re on.”

Fenris shook his head fondly, then turned to the augur once more. “We have been tasked with tracking down your hold-beast. Do you have any suggestions?”

The augur’s expression sobered. “Ah, Storvacker. Yes. Our huntmaster last saw tracks of her near Swamp Kulsdotten. I imagine you may pick up her trail somewhere there. But be wary: the swamp is rife with creatures, and the spirits that linger there are not always kind.”

“Good thing we have our own kind spirit, then,” Hawke said, and she gave Cole’s arm another hug.

The augur smiled at her. “You are fortunate, indeed. Walk well, and may the Lady bless your search.”

They left the augur’s cabin, and Hawke smiled at them. “Well, that was fascinating. Good thing Bull and Sera didn’t come along for this, they’d be having fits. I’m going to go tell them what happened!” She pinched Fenris’s chin affectionately and ran off.

Fenris smirked and Dorian chuckled, and they followed her down the hill toward the main settlement. A minute later, Fenris shot Dorian a sideways look. “You’re being oddly quiet.”

Dorian gave him a charming smile. “I knew you missed the mellifluous sound of my voice.”

“More like I can hear you thinking, since it requires such work,” Fenris retorted.

Dorian tsked. “That’s hurtful. But I shall tell you my thoughts anyway, since I know you adore them.” He stroked his chin. “Well, you may not adore this, in fact. I was thinking that you’ve changed.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“You know, with the spirits and all that,” Dorian said. “You’re very calm about it. You wouldn’t have been this accepting two years ago.”

Fenris sighed. “I know. I was thinking about this myself, in fact.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Dorian assured him. “We’re all different than we were two years ago.”

Fenris gave Dorian a considering look. “Do you think you’ve changed a great deal?”

Dorian wrinkled his nose slightly. “I hope I have. I was drunk more often than not before we met.”

Fenris nodded cautiously. “You… mentioned that, yes.”

Dorian shrugged. “I was running away before all of this. I like to think I’m running toward something now, with Maevaris and the Lucerni. Something important.”

“You are,” Fenris said seriously.

Dorian smiled at him, but Fenris was distracted by the faint thrum of guilt in his belly. Dorian’s words were making him recall his earlier thoughts – wistful thoughts of running away with Hawke and leaving the Inquisition and all its trappings behind. In the context of Dorian’s comment about running toward things, toward important and worthy goals, Fenris felt a bit ashamed. It was selfish in the extreme to even consider leaving the Inquisition when so many people were demanding his help.

“Fenris, are you all right?” Dorian said.

He looked up. Dorian was frowning at him. “You seem more grim than before I left,” Dorian said. “I know your wife isn’t as pretty and charming as I, but still…”

Fenris snorted but didn’t reply. Unfortunately, Cole replied in his stead. “It’s heavy,” he said. “Waiting to be free, wanting something of his own, but weighed down, weary, worn. When will it end?”

Fenris shot Cole a resentful look. “I would rather you didn’t.”

Cole blinked back at him unrepentantly. “Dorian wants to help. Hawke wants to help too, and Varric as well.”

“He’s right, you know,” Dorian said. “If there’s anything I can do–”

“You can’t,” Fenris said. “The Inquisition is my burden.”

His tone was harder than he’d intended, and Dorian raised his eyebrows. Fenris sighed. “I appreciate your concern,” he said in a softer tone. To Cole he said, “Hawke is helping. She just… thinks she isn’t.”

“She would do more if she could,” Cole said softly. “She would take it all away from you if she had the choice.”

“I know,” Fenris said. They all fell silent for a moment.

Dorian broke the silence. “I’m… sorry, Fenris.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Then, with an effort of will, he mustered up some Hawke-like positivity and a smile. “Let us focus on finding the bear and inspecting this island,” he said. “I can think of a special role for you in luring the bear out of hiding, in fact.”

Dorian raised his eyebrows. “What role is that?”

“Bait,” Fenris said succinctly.

Dorian barked out a laugh. “You mean because I’m so tempting and delicious?”

“No. Because you glitter,” Fenris said. He eyed Dorian’s silver-studded robe with disdain. “The bear will see you from a mile away.”

“Ah, Fenris, don’t be jealous,” Dorian said soothingly. “I can have something equally glittery tailor-made for you anytime. Though Hawke would be jealous, I think, if you and I were to match…”

Fenris rolled his eyes, and they continued to pick on each other playfully as they wandered through the settlement. There was no such thing as an escape for the Inquisitor, but Fenris would try and enjoy the bright parts of this holiday while it lasted.

#Lovers in a Dangerous Time #fenris #fenris fic #fenris the inquisitor #fenquisition #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenrynne #fhawris #pikapeppa writes #jaws of hakkon #joh dlc

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sleepy--cal · 5 years ago

Text

hitched pt.1 | ashton

word count | 7.6k → fake dating, tinder, romcom au

synopsis | Ashton lies about having a plus-one for Michael’s wedding, sending his friends into an excited frenzy, and him? Scrambling to make those lies come true.

a/n | i’ve never written anything for the 5sos community before so here is my hello :3 Warning: excessive swearing bc the author has a potty mouth

★

When Ashton thought about it way back when, he really thought he’d be the first to settle down. To tie the knot. To get hitched.

But the first 5SOS wedding is coming up in August and it’s not his. It’s Michael’s - as in feet-on-the-table, milk-mustache-wearing, fortnite-until-dawn-playin’, doesn’t-wake-up-until-2pm, stray-cat-lookin’ ass Michael.

Luke has his plus-one. Sierra. Even Calum’s weekends have been spent chasing after this girl that Ashton has yet to be introduced to. Yet here he himself is at 2 months shy of 25 years of age, and he’s so fucking single he’s pretty sure he and Virgin Mary could be featured side-by-side on an expert level of a spot-the-difference game.

In fact, the last time a female even stepped foot into his mancave of an apartment was before he’d broken it off with his ex-girlfriend over a year ago. And when his ex had moved out, she’d brought all of her stuff with her and when Ashton says ‘all of her stuff’, he means all of her stuff. There’s no longer a toaster oven in his kitchen, only a microwave that he uses to heat up pizza pockets and poptarts. There are no bowls to eat from because he eats his food straight off his only pot like an 18th century caveman. There’s a lacy bra hanging off the doorknob to his bathroom but even that was a gag gift from Calum for Christmas two years ago. It’s fucking sad.

So Ashton doesn’t think it’s his fault, okay, when his phone pings and he comes face to face with the link to RSVP to Michael and Crystal’s destination wedding and the first question that comes up is “Do you have a plus one?”

Ashton scoffs.

He doesn’t know what it is - either the internalized compulsive need to one-up his friends or you know, casual demonic possession but he physically cannot control his goddamn thumb as he checkmarks the little “yes!” next to the question from hell. The panic doesn’t settle in for a little bit, even when he’s staring blankly at the ‘thank you for your response!’ message that pops up after he submits the form.

It’s only when he picks up the phone to an ecstatic Michael less than a full minute since he indicated he wanted steak instead of fish for the wedding dinner that he well and truly has his ‘oh shit’ moment.

And of course, when one person in the band knows something, everyone fucking knows. Which is how he finds himself stuck in a 4-way facetime call with every single 5SOS member and their dogs.

He can see all of Luke’s pores from how close his face is to the screen.

Everyone speaks all at once.

“Ash you’re what?!”

“Mate, why the hell didn’t you tell us?”

“I seriously had to find out from you RSVP-ing to my fucking wedding?!”

Ashton winces as he pulls his phone further from his face. “Guys it’s not that big of a deal.”

Michael scoffs at the same time Calum screams. “Not that big of a deal?! Dude!”

“What’s her name?” Luke demands like he’s asking for tonight’s weather forecast and not the name of Ashton’s fake fucking girlfriend.

“Chernobyl,” Ashton says. What the fuck.

“Chernobyl?” Luke repeats, his nose scrunching up in deep thought.

“Isn’t that the name of the nuclear power plant that-”

“It was a joke!” Ashton snaps, cutting Michael off. “I was kidding. It’s an inside joke between us.” He bullshits. “Um-”

“Aw, you two have inside jokes already!” Luke coos instead. Calum falls for it immediately, cooing alongside Luke and if Ashton’s ego wasn’t so big, he would’ve hung up the call already.

“So what is her name then?” Michael probes curiously. Ashton wants to kill Michael.

“Uh,” Ashton says intellectually. Favourite cartoon character. His grandmother’s name. The name of his childhood stuffie. The street he used to live on?? Ah, his neighbour’s cat! “April! I- yeah, it’s April.”

“Aww! Ashton!” Calum says dreamily like he’s Ashton’s mom finding out about his girlfriend and not his punk rock band member.

“She’s twenty-two,” Ashton’s fat mouth adds unnecessarily, because apparently, Ashton Fletcher Irwin is a closeted masochist and likes his grave deeper than most.

★

When management had approved of the band’s 6-month hiatus in preparation for Mikey’s wedding, Ashton never imagined he’d be spending it alone on his living room floor downloading Tinder.

But as he watches the progress bar slowly fill with green, it dawns on him that this is probably the worst decision he’s ever made in his entire life and that he should probably get psychologically evaluated for compulsive lying.

He isn’t even sure if Tinder is the right app for this, because he’s not looking for a hookup. He’s looking for a very specific 22-year old April who happens to live in Los Angeles, is open to sharing a fake inside joke with him about the tragic 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and won’t think he’s a serial killer when he asks on the first date if they want to accompany him on an 11-hour flight to Bora Bora as his plus one for his best friend’s destination wedding.

Ashton groans, falling backwards onto the carpeted floor. “Fuuuuuuck.”

The only thing that answers him is the mocking ping from his phone telling him the download is complete.

The carpet is rough under his cheek as he turns to grab at his phone, the ‘Let’s get started!’ page of the app staring innocently back at him.

It’s afternoons like these that makes Ashton wish he wasn’t such an insufferable idiot.

In no time at all, Ashton has his profile set up - his name (just Fletcher), age (24), and a couple of long-distance unrecognizable shots of himself because there’s no way in hell the tabloids are about to catch him on Tinder.

He spends the next 30 seconds swiping right furiously on every single girl that pops up because Michael’s wedding is in four months and the fitting for the groomsmen suits are tomorrow and he seriously has no time to be picky right now. He literally needs his 22-year old April yesterday.

He’s about to max out on his swiping limit for the day when a loud knock on his door startles him out of his thoughts. From his spot on the floor, he peers around the corner at the front door and when the lock doesn’t jiggle after another ten seconds, he groans and gets up to see which one of his not-bandmates have decided to show up unannounced.

When the door swings open, Lauren is staring at him from the other side with a giant luggage behind her and a raised eyebrow.

“Lauren!” He greets enthusiastically without missing a beat.

She rolls her eyes at him anyway and pushes her way past him and into the apartment. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

“I did not. I even have a poptart in the microwave for you.” He insists as the front door swings shut with a bang.

Yeah... he should really get tested for compulsive lying.

“Here, let me grab that for you,” Ashton says, hauling the gigantic suitcase Lauren had brought with her, ignoring her sarcastic as you should! as he goes off to dump it somewhere in his room. While there, he shoves his dirty clothes underneath the bed and smooths out the bed sheets so Ashton can at least pretend that he’s somewhat gotten his act together since Lauren had last visited.

When he reemerges, Lauren is relaxing on the couch with a poptart in one hand and his phone in the other.

“Lauren!” He roars as he does a running dive over the back of the couch. Lauren shrieks as she drops the poptart and stumbles to the floor, carrying the weight of her brother on her back as she tries to keep the phone out of his reach. “What did I tell you about touching my things?!”

“I see Tinder, Ash!” She screams back, knocking the cushions off the couch as she shoves a sharp elbow into his cheek. “I have to tell mom!”

“Like hell you will!” He shouts as he makes a grab for the wrist holding his phone hostage. “Give me my phone back!”

“Screw off!”

“I made you a poptart!”

“So?!” Lauren retorts. “I-”

They both freeze at the sound of a loud ping. Ashton can only watch helplessly as Lauren’s eyes dart to the phone in her hands, her expression going from angry cat to sparkly eyed in two seconds flat. “You have a match!” She squeals.

“What?”

Ashton takes advantage of the distraction to snatch his phone back. Immediately, Lauren is peering over his shoulder as he swipes on the notification, watching as the words ‘It’s a Match!’ displays itself on the screen.

Underneath the words are two circular pictures - one is of the blurry ass photo of himself that he’d chosen and the other is a photo of a pretty brunette beaming shyly at the camera from behind a teacup.

‘You and Luna have liked each other!’ Tinder informs him.

Lauren shrieking into his ear is probably the single loudest thing he’s ever heard in his life, and as the drummer of a band, that’s saying something.

“She’s pretty!” Lauren squeals. Two seconds later, she mellows down as she clears her throat and punches him hard in the shoulder. “I guess you have pretty good taste. Proud of ya, Ash.” She grins.

Ashton doesn’t know how to tell her about his blind and desperate swiping spree that he went on seconds before she showed up at his doorstep, or about why he’s even on Tinder in the first place so he doesn’t and just lets CompulsiveLiar!Ashton strike again. “Thanks Laurie. Her bio’s what really got me.” He says.

He has no freaking idea what Luna’s bio says.

“Let me stalk!” Lauren exclaims and snatches his phone back before he can say anything and because Ashton can’t help but admit he’s a little curious too, the pair of them huddle on the couch together, looking at Ashton’s phone like it holds the answers to the future, which, for Ashton, it seriously might, just not in the way his sister might be thinking.

“Luna, twenty-two years old,” Lauren reads aloud. Ashton’s eyebrows shoot up at her perfect age. She scrolls further down. “Hey, she went to UCLA! I wonder if I’ve passed her on campus before.”

“Majored in developmental psychology,” Ashton reads next. “Holy shit.”

Lauren glances at him suspiciously. “I thought you’ve read all of this before.”

“I have!” Ashton says defensively. “I’m just doing a dramatic reading for your sake.”

“God, please don’t.”

They spend the next half hour combing through every bit of Luna’s bio, from the three photos she has of herself and one of her dalmatian to her biography that simply reads ‘wine and pizza and I’m all yours! Protip: +25 bonus points if you have a dog. +75 bonus points if I get to meet ‘em.’

“Borrow Luke’s dog! You have to!” Lauren begs.

“I can’t borrow Petunia!”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t! Luke might ask questions.”

Lauren squints at him. “Are you embarrassed that you’re pimping yourself out on Tinder?”

Ashton snorts and crosses his arms. “First of all, I’m not pimping myself out. Second of all, no.”

“Just tell him it’s for me then,” Lauren urges, nudging his shoulder. “Tell him I’m trying to impress my Tinder date with a cute puppy and that I’d feel safer going if Petunia was with me.”

Ashton thinks about it for a moment. Luke does have a soft spot for Lauren after all, considering the fact that Luke had always wanted a younger sibling but ended up being the baby himself in both his own family and the band, which, in Ashton’s opinion, fucking hilarious but Lauren did have a point. There’s no way Luke would say no to Lauren and her safety on a random ass Tinder date in the middle of downtown Los Angeles.

Plus, he really needs this whole Tinder shit to work out. For Mikey’s wedding. And if he gets +100 bonus points for showing off a dog that isn’t even his? Sign him the hell up.

“Okay, well, I can see your thinking face.” Lauren says nonchalantly. “So while you text Luke about Petunia, I did you the favour of sending your first message to Luna.”

Ashton chokes on his spit. “You what?!”

The sound that Lauren makes when Ashton throws himself on top of her to grab his phone back is inhuman. But the sound that Ashton makes when he sees the message is worse.

I’m told I remind people of a puppy. If you get to meet both me and my dog over pizza and wine, do I get double the bonus points? 🐶

★

His neighbour’s goddamn cat is staring at him when he wakes up to drink coffee on the balcony the next morning.

“April,” Ashton greets slowly as a warning. Previous first-hand experience has told him that the stupid orange cat did not give two shits about piping hot coffee and would lunge at him for the cup if Ashton so much as blows the steam in her general direction.

As a safety precaution, he moves a little farther away because he’s not sure if his sore neck can take a hit from the crazy cat if she lunges, especially since he was forced to fit his 6 foot long body on his two-seater couch last night, Lauren having taken over his bedroom for her beauty sleep as soon as it hit 10 o’clock.

That, and, uh, the fact that Luna had messaged him back less than five minutes after Lauren had ditched his ass in the living room and left him to his own devices. How was he supposed to continue a conversation he didn’t even start?

And seriously? If anyone in the band was the most puppy, it was Calum. What’s he supposed to do? Bring Calum too and get triple the bonus points?

Thankfully, Luna seemed to think Lauren’s bullshit was cute, replying with a “oh, definitely! 😂 guess I’ll have to double the amount of puppy treats on me”, teasingly followed a minute later by a “what breed of doggos will Oreo and I have the honour of meeting?”

And that was precisely what had kept Ashton up all night.

If you look at Ashton’s most recent search history, you’d find the following: Most popular breed of dog Most popular dog breed in Bora Bora Best looking dog breeds Most popular breed of dog for girls Golden retrievers German shepherds Golden retrievers vs German shepherds

Ashton sighs as he sips on his coffee. In the end, he’d narrowed himself down to either a golden retriever or a german shepherd, not because he thought he resembled either of those two breeds at all but more the fact that both seemed to be the most popular dogs with the ladies (in general, not in Bora Bora because that one yielded zero search results when he tried). But before he could decide which one, he’d finally passed out on the couch last night close to 4am in the morning.

A loud meow comes from his right.

“What?” Ashton asks grumpily as he looks over at April. She’s staring back at him with a stinky look on her face.

Then, he gets an idea.

“Hey April,” He calls out. “Meow once for golden retriever and twice for german shepherd.”

The bitch meows three times.

★

Lauren is laughing so hard, she has to bang her fist on the kitchen table multiple times to control herself. “Golden retriever german shepherd mix?!”

“Stop laughing!” Ashton hisses. “Eat your pancakes!”

“You mean the pancakes that I made?”

Ashton pauses. “Drink your coffee!”

Lauren’s still laughing. “I can’t believe you said a mix! Now she definitely knows you spent all night thinking about it.”

You left me out to die last night!” Ashton accuses, pointing a finger at her. “What was I supposed to do?”

“You replied this morning anyway! You could’ve waited for me to wake up.”

Ashton’s mouth opens and closes a couple times but nothing comes out. So he changes the subject because he’s mature like that. “I have to get ready for the fitting.”

Lauren snickers. “Sure.”

Calum and Luke swings his front door open right as Ashton emerges from his bedroom shamelessly in a 5sos tour hoodie and black jeans. They both give him a once-over, both looking confused.

“I thought we were going to get fitted for suits?” Luke says, eyebrows scrunched together. “Or is there a band gig tonight that I don’t know about?”

“A band gig,” Calum replies seriously. “At the wedding boutique. I thought you knew! If we perform for the boutique staff, Mikey gets a 30% discount.”

“Budgetsos,” Ashton butts in.

They finally notice Lauren when she snorts from the kitchen counter.

“Laurie!” Luke beams as the both of them go over to bear hug her and inspect what she’s eating. They don’t question why she’s eating pancakes out of a pot. Lauren offers some of her food and Calum takes it immediately, chomping over her fork for the bite. Luke takes her coffee instead.

“So you arrived here last night and you didn’t even ask us to come hang out? I thought we were friends,” Calum pouts, helping Lauren clean out her plate even though she didn’t ask. He looks like a puppy begging for scraps. “And I’m like 300% sure we make better company than Ash.”

“Hey!”

Before Ashton can say anything else, Lauren is looking over at him mischievously. “Sorry,” She snickers. “I couldn’t. Ashton and I were too busy last night setting up a daaaaaate for him.” She drags out.

Ashton chokes on his coffee. Holy fucking shit.

Luke turns to her immediately with a gleam in his eyes. “So you’ve met April?!”

“Yes!” Ashton interrupts loudly between coughs, voice raspy from the coffee in his goddamn airway. He ignores Lauren’s face that goes from evil to confused in two seconds flat. “Lauren’s met April! They both, uh, seriously love dogs and that’s all they could talk about I couldn’t get them to shut up, like at all.”

“No fucking way! Is she here?!” Calum asks, eyes wide and head whipping around in both directions so fast his curly hair looks like it’s taking flight. “Where?! Is she in your room? I want to meet her!” He asks, already sprinting into Ashton’s bedroom before he’s even finished his sentence.

“She’s not there!” Ashton hisses, running after him. “She left this morning! She had, like, you know... work! It’s a Tuesday.”

Calum visibly deflates and Ashton almost feels bad for a minute before he remembers that he can’t introduce Calum to anyone anyway, because he doesn’t actually have anyone.

Luke bounds over next, immediately taking notice of the odd state of his room - Lauren’s open suitcase at the foot of his bed, a fuzzy purple towel thrown over his bathroom door. Luke picks up a random bottle of face cream out of the many that are lying on his bed covers. “This looks like Lauren’s stuff. Didn’t your girl stay over last night?”

“Uh,” Ashton stutters, pulling an excuse out of his ass. “Yeah, they ended up having like… a girls night?”

Calum snickers. “So you got banished to the sofa?”

“Chicks before dicks!” Lauren shouts from somewhere in the kitchen.

Luke pats Ashton on the shoulder sympathetically but Ashton doesn’t feel any less shitty. There’s absolutely no way Lauren doesn’t know he’s lying now. He sighs. “Come on, guys, I have to change into better clothes. Can’t let you guys one-up me.”

“We’ll wait for you outside!” Luke waves as Calum shuts the bedroom door behind him.

When Ashton reemerges from his bedroom in a button-up and slacks this time, Luke and Calum are listening intently at whatever’s coming out of Lauren’s mouth. Ashton manages to catch the tail end of what she’s saying, something to do with hawaiian pizza and rosé wine.

“Yeah, they’re totally in love,” Lauren smiles. Luke’s smile is even wider than Lauren’s. Calum looks like he’s ready to take notes. “Kind of weird to watch my brother act all lovey-dovey in front of me, but I guess it’s kind of sweet. I can really tell she’s the one, you know?”

On their way out, Lauren pulls Ashton aside with a smile that’s way too wide and whispers, “You owe me an explanation when you get back and also your life.”

★

They make it to Rosie’s Bridal Boutique after 45 minutes stuck in traffic. It’s located in a cute little yellow brick building in the middle of the suburbs surrounded by more greenery than Ashton’s ever seen in his life. On the way there, he manages to evade Luke and Calum’s curiosity by blasting All Time Low at a ridiculous volume with the windows rolled down, letting the violent wind and the voice of Alex Gaskarth constantly try and outdo each other.

Unfortunately, Ashton knows he can’t evade shit for long as they pull up to the boutique and see Michael’s beaming face plastered to the window from the second story of the building.

“Mikey!” Calum greets as soon as the elevator door opens, bounding in like a puppy (Ashton will never stop saying that because it’s true goddammit) to drape himself all over the husband-to-be.

Michael’s already in a little bow tie and a black suit that’s getting wrinklier by the second, no thanks to Calum. He does a little wave despite the weight on his arm, “Hey guys!”

“Shut up,” Luke says as he pulls Michael in almost violently for a hug. “You’re gonna pull a ‘hey guys’ on us when we’re about to be your groomsmen?”

“Best man!” Calum shouts.

“Shut the fuck up,” Luke threatens again, voice muffled from where its pressed into Michael’s shoulder. “Get in here,” He complains to Ashton who willingly obliges and throws himself into the man pile.

The boutique staff giggle at them from where they’re standing around the room holding various pieces of Michael’s suit.

Ashton’s about to crack a joke about how Crystal’s going to be blown away by seeing Michael go from boxers filled with holes to a 4-piece suit when he swears his phone pings louder than the combined pings from the phones of Lauren and all her friends during a girls sleepover.

It’s suddenly awkward. For Ashton. Just Ashton.

Ashton knows it’s coming, but he still flinches when Michael asks, “Is that April?!”

“According to Lauren, they were being lovey-dovey last night,” Calum swoons teasingly.

“And she staaaaaayed the night,” Luke drags out.

Ashton wants to murder all of them.

Michael whistles. “You know it’s serious when the sister and the girlfriend meet.”

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Ashton complains. “We’re getting suits fitted for Michael’s wedding, guys. Be a little respectful.”

“Michael literally started this conversation,” Luke points out.

“Can I just try on my suit now please?” He says unnecessarily loudly.

Immediately, the boutique staff jump into action, pulling suits protected by plastic bags seemingly out of nowhere and ushering Ashton into an open changing room where a lady comes over with bright green measuring tape. The other boys grumble at the change in topic but oblige, spreading out and opening their arms to let the staff take their measurements.

“So I was thinking either a classic all-black colour scheme for the boys,” Michael says, tapping his chin. “Or a fancy navy blue instead. My handsome self in a full suit and you guys in suspenders. That would be hot. What do you guys think?”

“Did Crystal say anything about what she wanted?” Luke asks as he’s examining the suit they’d brought over to him.

“Nope,” Michael replies, pulling on his bowtie. “Said you guys were all mine.”

“Awww,” Calum says jokingly, grinning over the shoulder of the staff person attending to him. “That’s so sweet, Mikey. I love you too.”

Ashton snorts. “Don’t go cheating on your girl with Michael, you homewrecker.”

“Oh, yeah!” Calum exclaims, suddenly perking up. Ashton has a bad feeling in his stomach. “You haven’t met my girl yet, have you?”

“Uh, no,” Ashton replies, unsure. “Not yet.”

The smile that grows instantaneously on Calum’s face almost blinds him. “And I haven’t met April yet! So you, me, our girls! Double date, tomorrow night! You can’t say no Ash, I know you don’t have anything to do tomorrow and you’re the only one that hasn’t met her yet.”

Fuck. “Fuck!” Ashton says, laughing nervously. “I wish I could man, but I have to take care of Lauren.”

Michael snorts from where he’s lounging on the couch. “Lauren’s an adult now. Stop being overprotective. You’re probably smothering her with your axe body spray and protein shakes anyway. I bet she’s gonna go on a date herself as soon as you’re gone.”

“If you’re so worried, she can always come over and hang with me and Sierra,” Luke shrugs. “Sierra’s been talking non-stop about those sugar cookies Lauren gave us last time. And Petunia loves her, seriously.”

Ashton panics. “Well definitely not tomorrow!” Because who the fuck is he gonna show up with? Their PR manager? “Uh, what about like, next week? Or next next next next week?”

Calum ignores the second part of his sentence entirely. “Next week then!” He exclaims excitedly.

Fuck!

“I’m going to try this thing on,” Ashton says quickly, grabbing the suit closest to him before he’s all but throwing the curtain closed. As soon as he’s alone, he throws the suit aside and then can’t dig his phone out of his pocket fast enough. When he presses the home button, it shows he has one message from Tinder, from Luna. He opens it hastily.

So according to Google, you’re intelligent, athletic, playful, affectionate, and loyal? 🐶😂 Sounds almost too good to be true.

‘So let me prove it to you! May Petunia and I take you and Oreo out on a brunch date this weekend, my lady?’ He types back quickly, adding ��my lady’ to hopefully charm the pants off her. He hopes it isn’t too soon for that. Petunia isn’t even his freaking dog.

He’s so busy chanting please say yes over and over again in his head while clutching onto his phone that it startles him when his phone pings loudly again.

Luke, Michael, and Calum start hollering from outside.

Sounds great! 😊 I’m free Saturday. Where to?

★

As soon as Luke drops him off back home, he runs up six flights of stairs back up to his apartment because if he has to wait more than ten seconds for the slow ass elevator, he’s going to lose his mind.

He scares Lauren off the couch when he barges through the front door screaming her name.

“I have a date on Saturday!” Ashton whispers through his heavy breathing, wide-eyed and sounding both smug and scared at the same time because fuck yeah, I scored this date myself but also fuck! I scored this date myself.

“What? With Luna?” Lauren asks, equally as wide-eyed from where she’d fallen to the floor. “How? You were only gone for like 3 hours!” Then her tone switches from surprised to demanding so fast, Ashton gets whiplash. “And who the heck is April?!”

Ashton straightens up immediately and clears his throat. “Yeah, so, uh, long story.”

“I’m on summer vacation right now. Cough it up.”

Ashton goes to the fridge instead where he pulls out a beer because there’s no way he’s about to tell Lauren what’s probably the most embarrassing story of his life while sober.

And then they sit on the couch like they had yesterday when he matched with Luna on Tinder except this time, Lauren’s face gets less and less impressed the more he talks.

“So what you’re telling me,” Lauren starts slowly. “Is that you’re standing in a grave that’s 10 feet deep right now because your pride and ego are bigger than your brain?”

Ashton winces. “Can’t you sugarcoat it a little bit?”

“No!” Lauren explodes, almost knocking the beer out of his hands. “Are you even interested in Luna? What if you guys go on your date on Saturday and she’s completely into you and you’re just using her so you can one-up your friends and feed your male ego?” Ashton opens his mouth to say something but Lauren doesn’t let him. “And also!” She snaps. “What if she recognizes you when she sees you? Your face isn’t exactly clear in your Tinder photos. Your face is going to be all over the news Sunday morning, I swear to God!”

“Hey, just because I’m famous doesn’t mean I can’t date.” Ashton defends.

“Yeah, but does she know? What if she doesn’t know who you are and you two get caught on your date and suddenly, her face is all over the internet too?”

Ashton winces. ”Okay, you’re right.” He pauses. “You’re also right about me leading her on.”

“Thank you,” Lauren says grumpily, crossing her arms.

“But I mean,” Ashton says in a small voice. “I’m also not opposed to finding someone new?”

Lauren sighs. “How about you and Luna go on that date on Saturday, and if it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out. You both wish each other well and both go on your merry ways.”

“...And if it does?”

“Then don’t get mad when I say I told you so!”

★

The days that lead up to Saturday are almost too slow.

On Wednesday, Luna had finally asked for Ashton’s number, texting him a cute puppy emoji to let him know the text was from her. On the same day, Luna had gone from calling him Fletcher to Fletch with no explanation, causing his heart rate to spike for a good twenty minutes before Lauren slapped him back to present-day reality.

On Wednesday afternoon, Ashton found himself frantically googling pet-friendly restaurants that served both pizza and alcohol. For bougie ass downtown Los Angeles, it was fucking difficult. But he’d managed to find one thirty minutes out of the city centre that had a nice outdoor patio and a menu for dogs. When he texted her the address, he got a ‘thank you for finding a place!’ back from Luna and it made his heart skip a goddamn beat because his ex had never thanked him for something like that.

On Thursday morning before the sun had even risen, Ashton had startled himself awake when he remembered he needed Petunia for Saturday. Squinting at his phone in the dark, he’d sent Luke a frantic text, reading: ‘Michael was fucking right Lauren’s going on a date on Saturday!!!!! Can you do me a huge favour and let her borrow Petunia for the day I don’t trust her SKETCHY ASS TINDER DATE’. And then Luke had texted him back not two minutes later, not even about Ashton texting him at ass o’clock, but about who Lauren was going on a date with, if Ashton knew him, why he was sketchy, and if he needed to kick anyone’s ass. He spent the next hour trying to convince Luke that they didn’t need to follow her on her date. In the end, it had turned into a she just needs Petunia goddammit Hemmings go back to bed.

By the time Saturday finally rolls around, Ashton is fucking winded.

Lauren’s still in bed (still in his bed, mind you), half asleep and bleary eyed and watching him dig around head first in the closet, mumbling to himself.

“Dude,” Lauren groans, breaking the silence for the first time since Ashton had barged in with no explanation. “This is too much action for eight in the morning,”

“Brunch is at ten and I still need to pick up Petunia!” He hisses, head popping out of a pile of clothing a moment later with two shirts in hand. “The black button-up or the blue polo?”

Lauren groans again. “What colour pants are you wearing?”

“Grey.”

“Black button-up.”

Ashton flings the blue polo back into the closet before Lauren can even finish her sentence, pulling his sleeping shirt off immediately afterwards.

“Ash, ew!” Lauren grumbles, flopping backwards onto the bed and throwing the covers over her head. Her head pops back out a moment later. “Just make sure to roll up the sleeves so you don’t look like you’re coming from a freaking business conference. And don’t button up all the way!”

“Got it!” He says hastily as he’s running out the door. “Thanks Laurie, love you, see you, bye!”

He’s already sweating by the time he gets into his car, the summer heat already at a sweltering 25 degrees celsius and rising despite it being so early in the morning. But even though it feels like Satan’s armpit, he pulls on a hoodie anyway because he’d rather die than have Luke see him dressed up in a button-up for supposedly no goddamn reason. It’s a little past 9am by the time he pulls into Luke’s driveway, Luke already standing there with an excited Petunia pulling on the leash.

He throws open the car door. “Petunia!” He greets, out of breath for no reason.

Petunia yips, panting happily and immediately trying to clamber all over Ashton’s lap as he bends down to pat at her head.

“I don’t know how useful Petunia’s going to be if Lauren’s date turns out to be a creep,” Luke says worriedly, still tugging on the leash to get Petunia to calm down. “Are you sure you don’t want us to follow her?”

“Mate, we’re both over six feet tall.” Ashton retorts. “If we follow her around, we’re both going to look creepier than her date.”

Luke squints. “How are you not worried?”

“I am!” Ashton insists. He’s lying out of his ass. “But Petunia’s a bulldog. No offense but her reputation is already scarier than any face we could ever pull.”

“Just make sure Lauren picks up the phone if you call!” Luke’s voice trails as Ashton opens the car’s passenger door and ushers Petunia inside. She settles nicely into the seat, looking up at Ashton with more love and adoration in her eyes than her owner ever did. “And take this bag!” He says, shoving a plastic bag that’s almost overflowing with the amount of shit that’s in it. “It’s Petunia’s food and toys. Tell Lauren to feed her and make sure she’s hydrated and-”

Ashton climbs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door on him.

“-And don’t forget to bring Petunia back by dinner! I swear to god, Irwin!” Luke screams through the glass. “Love you Petunia!”

The entire ride to the brunch place, Petunia just sticks her head out the window, tongue flying in the wind as she bops her head to the classical music Ashton had put on to calm himself the fuck down. The closer he gets to the restaurant, the more he feels himself getting a stomach ache. He doesn’t even remember the last time he’d felt this nervous for a date but if this doesn’t work out and he ends up going to Mikey’s wedding by himself, Calum might cry on his behalf and Luke might force him to be his and Sierra’s plus-two and as the oldest in the goddamn band, he’s not sure if he can handle that kind of humiliation.

But if this actually does work out with Luna, then he’ll just tell her the truth after Mikey’s wedding. That would be fine, right? Assuming nobody asks why the names Luna and April don’t match up.

Ashton groans. This is an entire goddamn mess.

The brunch place is packed by the time he pulls into a spot fifteen minutes before his reservation. There are dogs everywhere and Petunia’s so excited to see other beings of her kind that she’s resorted to pacing in circles impatiently in the passenger seat.

“Hold on Petunia,” Ashton groans, cutting the engine and throwing a hand over his eyes. “I’m nervous. Give me a minute.”

And because she’s the most perfect dog to ever exist (don’t tell Calum he said that), she stops pacing and starts licking gently at his hand. For once, Ashton doesn’t mind the slobber. He grins, looking down at her. “Okay, fine. Out we go then, baby.”

Before he slides out of the car, he pulls off his hoodie and puts on his sunglasses, thankfully fitting right in with all the other bougie people in their sundresses and designer purses who have time to wake up early on a Saturday for a brunch date with their dogs. He and Petunia bypass the ridiculous line, ignoring all the people who start cooing at Petunia. Thank fuck he’d made a reservation.

“Fletcher for two?” He says, trying to make his voice sound more like Fletcher Nobody Irwin and less like Ashton from 5SOS.

He tenses for a moment when the hostess pauses mid-greeting to eye him up and down. To throw her off, he gestures at Petunia who’s busy sniffing at a dandelion. “This is Monster Truck.” He introduces.

It’s then that the hostess looks at him again, decides that anybody who names their dog Monster Truck probably isn’t anybody famous and gestures behind her. “Follow me, sir. Your table is right by the water.”

Ashton lets out the breath he’d been holding when he and the hostess round the corner and he sees the only empty table on the patio, meaning Luna had yet to arrive. He picks the seat with his back facing the majority of the restaurant’s patrons. The hostess plucks the ‘reserved’ sign off the table, hands him the menu, wishes him a good time and then leaves him alone which Ashton is thankful for because he’d rather be left alone to have his panic attack by himself.

Petunia sits dutifully by his feet, drinking the water that the hostess had generously poured into a clear glass bowl for her.

Ashton is so busy trying to calm the hell down that he doesn’t notice the giant dalmatian sniffing at him from behind until its nose bumps right into where he’s most ticklish. He jumps at the same time a voice behind him squeaks, “Sorry!”

His heart has time to throw itself wildly against his chest bone exactly 1 time before he’s whipping around in his chair and coming face to face with stunning pale blue eyes. “Luna?” He breathes out, his eyes catching hers just as the words leave his mouth. Wow, okay. Jesus fuck, her Tinder photos had not done the colour of her eyes any justice.

Her unsure face transforms suddenly into a smile. “And you must be Fletcher?”

He almost does a double-take at the name before he remembers that oh yeah, he’s supposed to be Fletcher I-Eat-Brunch-With-Sunglasses-On Irwin and making a good impression right now because Mikey’s wedding. “Yeah, yes! That’s me.” His palms are sweaty and he can’t tell if it’s because they’re sitting on an outdoor patio is 30 degree weather or if it’s just his pretty date making him more nervous than his ex had ever made him.

It’s at this moment that Petunia (god bless her soul) decides to come lumbering over from her water bowl, her panting, drooly, smiling face looking up at Luna like she hung the stars (which, in Ashton’s opinion, is very fitting for her name).

“And this must be Petunia!” Luna exclaims, bending down to pat the bulldog’s head. Luna’s hand is so small it’s practically dwarfed by Petunia’s giant head. “It’s nice to meet you.” She says to Petunia and oh my god, Ashton could melt right then and there.

Instead, Oreo decides to try and sniff his crotch as Ashton tries to stand. He makes a strangled sound as Oreo’s nose digs into the front of his pants. “Holy crap,” He blurts, because he apparently has no brain-to-mouth filter. “Petunia has never reached that high before.”

“I am so sorry,” Luna squeaks again, blushing up to her ears. “Oreo, behave please! This is my first date with such a handsome guy,” She jokes shyly, pulling the dalmatian back by the leash.

It’s Ashton’s turn to turn bright fucking red. Holy shit. He feels like a 15-year old virgin all over again.

“He must smell the golden retriever german shepherd mix in me,” Ashton jokes back.

She pauses and then looks up at him for a moment before she bursts into laughter. “Oh, that’s right!” She says as she reaches into her purse and pulls out a cookie shaped like a bone. It’s wrapped in plastic and tied together with a pink ribbon. She holds it out to him shyly. “I did promise you a treat. I hope you like gingerbread?” Oh, wow.

“Is this for me or for Petunia?” He teases as he takes it, because he wants to see her blush again.

She giggles and Ashton feels like his heart might fall out of his chest. “For you.”

Ashton can feel the heat creeping up his neck. He stands again, without Oreo all up in his crotch this time, and for a second he has to pause because holy shit, Luna is tiny, the top of her head just reaching his shoulders. And then she looks up at him, smiling, which kicks him back into gear, stumbling around the table to pull her chair out of her.

“Thank you,” She mumbles, cheeks still red. Oreo follows her as she sits down, folding his legs underneath him right next to Petunia who he sniffs a couple times before turning to Petunia’s water bowl to stick his face into. Petunia doesn’t look like she minds.

“So,” Ashton starts as soon as he’s settled back down. It’s when he pulls up the menu to his face that he realizes he can’t see the tiny font through the dark tint of his sunglasses. Shit. “Uh.” Luna’s looking at him expectantly from over the top of her menu. “You studied psych in school?” He asks, diverting the conversation by pulling the topic straight out of his asshole.

She smiles so much that her eyes disappear into little moons. “You remember that from my bio?”

“That, and the dogs and the pizza and the wine,” He lists off, grinning on autopilot when she does and trying not to make it obvious he’s trying to find the right time to take off his sunglasses. What the hell kind of expensive ass sunglasses are these anyway? “Psych’s very cool.”

Oreo yips.

“Yeah, Oreo’s pretty cool with me studying psych too,” Luna jokes, reaching down to rub at Oreo’s head. “What about you? What do you do?”

Ashton freezes. Lauren’s words from yesterday start ringing in his head. It’s now or never. Now or never.

His heart is hammering in his chest as he slowly, inconspicuously slides the sunglasses off his face, getting ready to launch himself over the table and towards the car park if she starts screaming.

When nothing happens, he looks back up at her. She’s still staring politely at him even though his sunglasses are completely off now and his bare face is exposed for the world to see and lit up from the glaring sun. Those pale blue eyes blink back at him.

Nothing. Ashton inhales sharply. She… doesn’t recognize him?

“I’m a drum teacher,” Ashton blurts, the words flying out of his mouth before his brain even knows what he’s saying. Okay, too close! Too close to real life, Jesus Christ. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to make any connections.

“No way! Drums?” She says, looking surprised. Her expression melts into a wide smile. “That’s really cool! I don’t think I’ve ever gotten my hands on a drum kit before. Maybe you could teach me sometime.” She compliments genuinely, looking at him shyly. She reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear and for moment, Ashton’s fucking smitten. He forgets all about the fact that he’s the drummer of the band that released Youngblood, multi-platinum certified and #1 on the Billboard Top 200. For today, he’s just a regular fucking guy out for brunch and Luna’s attention is all on him. He feels like a sponge, trying to absorb as much of it as he can.

Thankfully, the waiter that’s serving them chooses that moment to swing by and introduce himself with too much enthusiasm for this early in the morning, looking like serving brunch to people with too much money is his life calling.

“And what would this lovely couple like to order today?” The waiter sings eagerly.

Luna stutters. “O-Oh, we’re not...”

Ashton doesn’t even bother denying the waiter. “The blueberry pupcakes for Petunia and just the steak and eggs for me, please,” He says, smiling before glancing up at his date. The waiter pretends to swoon at his charm. “And for you, my lady?”

Luna laughs at the subtle reference to their tinder conversation, a rosy blush decorating her cheeks. “The Poochini for Oreo, please, and I’ll take the prosciutto flatbread. Thank you.”

The waiter leaves with promises of their food soon.

“So, the prosciutto flatbread?” Ashton jokes. The look on her face says she already knows where this is going.

“It’s the closest thing I can get to pizza here,” She says with a serious face before she bursts into giggles not two seconds later.

Fuck, Ashton’s in love.

★

| TBC |

#5sos #5sos fic #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fic #ashton irwin #ashton #5sos ashton #5sos x reader #ashton x reader #hitched

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i-read-by-lamp · 5 years ago

Note

1 and/or 10 with roman angst for the caretaker prompts? love you!

10. I thought I’d never see you again!

After an unplanned (and unannounced) hiatus I have finally found time to write! Sorry for making you wait so long! This takes place in my monster au before everyone has met.

Word count: 954 words

Ships: Platonic/pre-relationship prinxiety

Warnings: Virgil is the boogie man, light torture of fae with iron shavings. the bad guy is ominously eaten by shadows, nothing to graphic though.

If I missed anything let me know! I do actually love this au.

Roman. groaned as he opened his eyes, his whole-body aching. He wasn’t used to this sort of pain. It usually only happened when he over taxed his power, and he’d been powerful enough for decades to hardly ever use more than he should. He scrunched up his face and slowly dragged himself to his feet, he opened his eyes and his heart dropped.

He was in iron.

A cage of it was put up all around him. He desperately glanced around for a way out, trying to slow his breathing. He tried to feel for his forest but it was a distant call, far away and unreachable. He tried to force his breathing to slow down. The boogie man had been expecting him. The harbinger of fear would definitely know something was wrong when he didn’t show up to the usual place where they bantered, arguing about how V was scaring all the humans away from the forest when Roman wanted to play with the poor foolish animals.

It wasn’t like they made plans for it or anything but they usually met up every couple of weeks to argue, unable to leave the other alone for long.

‘I just have to hold out for a few days,’ Roman thought. ‘He’ll definitely notice my absence.’

The faerie tried to think this with the confidence he usually wielded, but it was difficult. He didn’t know who currently had him, some hunters gloated before their kill, but some just got straight to it. If it even was hunters in the first place. The fae curled into a ball, trying to be as far away from the iron bars as possible.

“Well lookee here!” A door slammed open and two humans walked in.

“This one’s gorgeous! You were quite right to bring it to me. I’m so glad we found a beaut like this while it was still out there!”

Roman narrowed his eyes,

“I have been on this planet longer than you human. And I will continue long after your worthless body becomes fertilizer for Mother.”

The human laughed and flicked pieces of something through the bars, there were too many for Roman to dodge and he flinched and hissed in pain as they made contact. The bastard was throwing iron shavings! Humans really were the worst.

“Come!” the repulsive thing patted the other human on the back. “We’ll discuss your payment. Then I have preparations to make for the auction!”

Roman growled in irritation as they left the room. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this, but he would find a way. Or V would find him. Right?

A week later, Roman’s optimism had abandoned him. He had been here for days and he was no closer to escaping, and there was no sign of V. The disgusting human kept coming in to taunt and tell him all the kinds of things his customers could need a fae for. Potions and sadism and bait. Not to mention the iron shavings, there were enough of those on the floor of his cage at this point that he couldn’t move without being burnt.

‘Mother’ he thought. ‘If my life is to end here then so be it. But please do not let anymore of my brethren fall victim to this disgusting place.’

He opened his eyes and heard the door open, the human walked in and Roman’s eyes narrowed. He felt his fangs sharpen and his eyes glow with rage. The human tsked andthrew shavings through the bars, causing the fae to flinch back and his growling to stop.

“What is it?” The human laughed. “Not going to try your music? I guess my threat of an iron collar worked. You’re smarter than some of the other fae I’ve had in the past.”

Roman felt his rage bubble, but before he could lunge for the human a shadow caught his eye. It was rippling and he saw a tall silhouette stretch out of the darkness as the room temperature dropped.

The faerie felt relief flood his body. He could feel the start of tears forming as his body released some of the tension he’d been holding for days.

“You’re going to perish human.” He said coldly, seeing the shadows build up behind the other.

“Oh? And how are you going to manage that?”

Roman smiled, a sharp thing with fangs on full display.

“I know a guy.”

Before anything else could be said the human was grabbed by the darkness. He screamed and fought but was no match for a very angry controller of darkness. His screams cut off abruptly as he was swallowed by the shadows.

“V?” Roman asked hopefully after a moment of silence.

“I’m here Tinker Bell.” A somber voice replied, the always feared boogie man stepping out of the darkness and waved a hand so his shadows broke the iron bars.

Roman hesitantly stepped out of the cage, placing a foot out into freedom, and immediately collapsing into the darker clad being.

V caught him, looking at the tiny burns all over the faerie he’s begrudgingly come to like.

Roman burst into tears.

“I…I thought I’d never see you again!” He sobbed as his body relaxed, without his permission, for the first time in days.

The other swept the fae up into his arms, swiftly taking them back to the forest dwelling the prince lived in.

“Come on Princey get some rest. It will all be better in the morning. Just need some rest and your Mother.” He tried to put the other down, but Roman wouldn’t let go.

“Stay with me.” It wasn’t a question, and V understood.

“Alright.”

He laid on the bed. His fae snuggled into him, exhausted. Laying there Virgil let himself relax for the first time since he realized Roman was missing.

“Don’t worry Ro, I’ll take care of you.”

#sanders sides #roman sanders #virgil sanders #my monster AU #prinxiety #Rhen writes

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siiinfvl · 5 years ago

Text

ooc. mic test. hello. anybody home ?? is this working ??

HI !!! i know, i know. some of you are either going, ‘ who tf is this potato ?? ’ or ‘ huh. didn’t know she was still alive. ’ or don’t care at all. but surprise !!! i am actually still alive.

i’m aware that it’s been about half a year, or maybe more, since the last time i have properly been here. and considering that i didn’t really post a hiatus notice, it just seems like i dropped off the face of the earth and would never be coming back. but to those who are wondering, bless your souls, you wonderful, caring people. i am still here. i do still lurk around, like some stuff, check out what’s been going on while i was gone.

basically, like always, i’ve just been very busy with work. nothing new, i know. but recently, in the past two months, i have been missing writing here. don’t get me wrong, i’ve never stopped writing and never really disconnected with my muse. i’ve mostly been on discord, mainly writing with @shewassoferal. and even sometimes opening a word document to write some back stories or simple paragraphs from prompts, all for grant ward.

but, like i said, i have been missing writing here. or even just being here in general. that being said, i am on the verge of a decision. this blog, as of today, is officially being REVAMPED. now, what happens after the revamp, what you will see after the revamp, i still have not decided yet. and if anyone would put their two cents in, i’d really, really, really appreciate it very much as it would help me make my decision.

there are three ways this could go, and here they are:

OPTION 001. i can revamp the page. remodel the theme, revisit my tags, update all the character pages, such as the verses, the biography page and whatnot, all to have a fresh feel to the blog in order to help this restart take off.

post-revamp will then include rechecking all the memes on my inbox and working on them. i am well aware i have maybe half a hundred various items in my inbox raging from random starters or memes sent by you guys that i owe you. basically, what happens after revamp is that i’ll have to drop the ongoing threads as just thinking about them is already pressuring me a lot. for those who have a running thread with me and would like to continue, please let me know and we can maybe start a new thread along that same timeline and plot line, so we can keep interacting. now all those open starters and memes that i have yet to respond to, i will write those. since i have not posted those before, they still have a pretty solid fresh feel to me, even though they’ve been there for about half a year. again, my apologies on that, you guys. you know i love you and i really appreciate the stuff you write for me. life has just been hard recently.

bottomline is that option one means i’ll do a sweep of old stuff, keep working on what feels new, and go back to what this blog was half a year ago, before my unannounced hiatus.

OPTION 002. this one entails that the blog will become a database blog. what does that mean ?? it means i’d revamp the whole page, complete all character pages that give information about the muse. update the verses, rules, bio, tag pages.

and with that completed, my roleplaying will be moved to discord. i’m not sure if you guys still write there, but i do. and if anyone wants to write with me there, we can. does that mean this blog will be dead ?? no. i would still be posting here. back stories, metas, gifsets and photosets will still be posted here. i will still be posting memes as well, and if we haven’t plotted or interacted before, you’re free to send a meme, so we can check the dynamic between our muses, and we can plot based off of that. and once it’s all fleshed out, i’d probably ask if we could move it over to discord. of course, you can say no. if it’s more advisable for you to be here, i can be here.

basically, this option just means that there will be less activity here than option one as most activity will be on discord.

OPTION 003. now, this one is a bit heavier. i do understand that it’s been a long time since i have been here. a lot of the people i used to interact with might have even left already. the muse hasn’t been on the show for three seasons now, and just fyi, i am no longer watching the show. apart from that, i know that there are, at least, a couple of other grant ward blogs that have remained active while i was gone. beautifully-written, beautifully-shaped grant ward muses that i hearteye every time i see on my dash. this means that my heart is at ease in the fact that the character is still getting the love and the understanding he deserves that, sadly enough, the show did not give him. i am at ease in the fact that there are still amazing writers out there that are lending voice to this character that we did not get to hear the real voice of in the show.

with that said, option three entails that this blog will no longer participate in roleplaying. does this mean this blog will die or be deleted ?? hell, no. i still love the muse and the character and the actor too much to do that. so what’s gonna happen is that there will be no roleplaying, but any metas, gifsets, photosets will still be posted here. considering that i also still have a lot of ideas in mind that i’d like to write in order to expand on grant’s PHOENIX verse ( which is his main verse, where he put up his fake hydra to destroy it from the inside and made it his own organization once hydra has been fully destroyed --------- all in the name of his definition of closure. for kara, and himself ) and depending on how things go, i might even put up a separate blog for PHOENIX. you guys have no idea how big that world has become in my head despite not getting to post about it much here. @shewassoferal can, once again, attest to that. you might see some fanfics being posted as well.

so, all in all, while i might say goodbye to the world of roleplaying on this blog, you still will not be saying goodbye to me permanently. awwww. i will still be around, and if you wanna write something together, maybe collab on something, i’m just here, you can let me know, and we’ll work it out.

that’s the dilemma i’m on right now. i have not decided which track this blog is going to take. mainly because while i want to go one way, i’m not sure if it’s even possible because, like i said, i do understand that i have been absent for a long time and people might not even want to write with me anymore. so i need your help in deciding. i need to know where this blog stands, and i need your assistance.

in case i don’t receive any response, the default will be the third option. but if you still want to write with me, and one of the first two options appeal to you, then you can let me know, and i’ll work on it right away.

each and every one of your opinions matter to me. so if there’s even just one person that chose either one of the first two options, the third one is already out of the running, which means i’ll be back. the decision between options 1 and 2 will then be decided based on how many people are willing to do it with me.

thank you very much if you’ve reached this part. i appreciate you reading all of it. you are a rockstar !!!

#* * / / offline ( ooc )#( and now i sit here #unsure if it's the right hour to be posting this #if people are even still awake #but eh #at least i'm getting this out of the way #i have been procrastinating for so long #no matter the outcome #at least i have a decision #the ever indecisive me #will have a decision #that's such an accomplishment u guys #u don't even know #but anyway #***kisses*** )

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windless-hurricane · 5 years ago

Text

Pennywise and the Dancing Girl

Chapter 7: The Ghost Kids

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SUMMARY: Emma has an unknown past with the clown of many names. IT to the ones he haunts, Pennywise to himself, and Robert Gray to her. Although she hates and regrets this, she lives with it anyways. However, that begins to change once she meets Henry Bowers, the local asshole.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: We’re FINALLY back! Sorry for the long and unannounced hiatus, but here’s the new chapter! Side note: Robert Gray (one of IT’s personas) finally makes a cameo! If you’re wondering what he looks like, he’s basically just Bill Skarsgard. Now, hopefully you enjoy this chapter!

WARNINGS (for the entire series): Explicit language, violence, graphic scenes involving blood and/or death, some sexuality, and some underage drinking and drug use.

WORD COUNT: 2.4k

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

PENNYWISE AND THE DANCING GIRL MASTERLIST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(EMMA’S P.O.V.)

“Come on,“ he shouted breathlessly. "We need to go.” He pulled at my wrist, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. Everything was just so blurry and my body ached all over.

“I can’t,” I muttered. “I can’t.”

He let go and crouched in front of me. He started to examine my face, but avoided any eye contact. I did my best to look at him though. His face was stricken with worry and sweat.

He reached his hand out and stroked my cheek so lightly, I hardly felt it. However, it was still gentle and reassuring and I couldn’t help the sigh of contentment that left me. His fingers danced along the side of my face until they came upon my temple, pressing against it.

It caused pain to explode along my forehead and my vision to grow more splotchy. I groaned deeply, causing him to pull his hand away. Somehow, I was still able to make out the red staining his fingers afterward.

I gazed into his eyes and luckily, I could see the blue as clear as clouds could be. They still soothed me, even at a time like this.

“You have to go,” I told him and he simply shook his head.

“If I do, I’m afraid you’ll forget me forever,” he explained softly.

“I’ll never forget you.”

“Then, how do you explain that,” he questioned, pointing behind him.

I followed his finger and my eyes widened. Behind him, Vic and Belch were wandering around aimlessly with a dead look in their eyes. I looked back at him.

“What do you mean?”

Then, a harsh sound echoed in my ears and it almost sounded like thunder. I whimpered quietly as I forced myself to look up at Vic and Belch’s changing figures. One second, they were themselves and the next they were the two girls I saw in the dark shed. Now I knew what he meant.

I winced as the noise grew louder, becoming deafening.

“Stop,” I whispered and he did, leaving only silence and Vic and Belch back to their original selves.

I turned back to him and his eyes were full of hatred, but not exactly for me.

“You’re already forgetting about us,” he accused ruthlessly and it physically pained me to hear him say that.

“I’m not forgetting about you,” I strained.

“Then why,” he shouted, grabbing onto my shoulders roughly. I felt my entire body become numb as he did so. I could feel his sadness through his trembling hands and clingy grip. I felt it each time his shoulders heaved and his breath shook. “Why,” he asked again with tears welling in his eyes.

“You guys died,” I whispered. “And there’s nothing that could be done about it. I spent almost a hundred years mourning you and for what? So I could be miserable? So I could continue to hate myself and be riddled with guilt? I loved you all, but I need to move on or else I’ll be dwelling on you for the rest of my life.”

“I’ll never forget you, but I need to move passed you.” I tried to catch his gaze, but he wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he kept his eyes glued to the floor. Then, suddenly his hands made their way from my shoulders to my neck.

“If that’s the case then, they’ll be your next burden,” he stated angrily and the room was quickly filled with screams and cries of agony. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Open your eyes!” So, I did, attempting to rip his hands off me as well. “You’ll get them killed!”

I glanced behind him and Vic and Belch were hanging off the ground, both held by nooses with their bodies convulsing roughly.

“No,” I shouted. I tore my gaze away, but they didn’t land back on the same boy. They landed on Henry - a bloodied and broken Henry.

I gasped myself awake and was met with the overwhelmingly blue sky, breathing heavily. It took me a few seconds to calm down and process that I wasn’t alone, and that the person that was here wasn’t a person I wanted to see. IT wasn’t a thing I wanted to see. However instead of being angry, I was shocked. Shocked at the fact that he was here and was currently holding my head in his lap while he played with my hair.

“Is this what you do now instead of coming down to the sewers? You just fall asleep on random park benches,” he questioned dully and I couldn’t find my voice to respond.

Then, he looked down at me and I locked eyes with the clear blue eyes of Robert Gray. “Cat got your tongue?”

“No,” I answered dryly.

“Your voice sounds like sandpaper,” he commented. Normally I would’ve said something snarky back, but I wasn’t in the mood.

“Why are you here?”

“Because you are playing a dangerous game.”

“I’m not. I’m playing the game I want to play and you’re not going to do anything about it.”

He shrugged carelessly as he looked away. “You’re wasting your time. A human like that is never going to change no matter how hard you try.” I quickly shot up and removed myself from the bench, glaring at him.

“I’m not trying to change him. I just want to help him.” He tilted his head.

“And you think someone like him is actually worth it?”

In all honesty, yes. I believed he was.

Henry was not completely responsible for the way he was. It was his father that had a good, or rather bad, hand in it. How I knew? Because Butch was all he had and I saw the bruises and puffy red eyes when we would pick him up from his house. Butch broke him, leaving him with nothing else but pain and how to inflict it. He had no one to help him, only people that fed onto his anger like Patrick.

But ever since I started hanging out with him, he slowly started to get better without realizing it. He was less violent, had less outbursts, and was less controlling of Vic and Belch.

Right now, Henry was standing over a trap door and there were two options. One: he could let himself fall and be trapped in that hole forever or two: he could lead himself away from it with the help of another and that’s what I would do.

I would stay with him despite how rough his situation got. I would be his positive hand in a world full of negativity. I would give him support and advice when he was close to giving up or doing something he would regret. I would remind him of what was right and wrong if he had ever gone too far or lost it. Because that’s what helping someone was. Being there for them.

I knew he was worth it because of the day at the arcade. When I stopped him, he could’ve ignored me and still gone in, but he didn’t. Or even when he first wanted to hang out with him and I told him I wouldn’t if he was bullying kids. He could’ve not come to me at all and continued to terrorize, but he didn’t. That was enough for me to know.

“Yes,” I told him proudly before turning around.

“It’s because of his eyes, isn’t it,” he asked abruptly, causing me to stop.

“He reminds of you that boy.” And he wasn’t wrong. He did. He always had, I just never wanted to admit before. He reminded me of the boy the blessed my dreams and haunted my nightmares. He reminded me of the boy with the clouded blue eyes. “You can’t replace him.”

This statement was enough to set me off, but I did me best to keep it together. However, I couldn’t stop my hands from clenching tightly into fists.

“I know,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “But that was never the plan to begin with… I’m tired of not being able to do anything and I’m tired of constantly being controlled by you, but not anymore. I’m going to live my own life and be with who I want to be with, whether you like it or not. This is my life.” I walked away, not noticing the smirk that made its way onto his face.

“Yet, I’m the one who gave it to you… But alright, Emma. Let’s play.”

__________________________

After that unexpected visit, I went straight to the library. It was the only place I could surely be alone. I normally would’ve gone to the quarry, but I didn’t want to chance running into Henry either. I was still avoiding him since the party. However, I was too pissed to be dealing with anyone anyways. So, maybe reading could drown the anger out.

I flipped through the pages of the book, half reading and half skimming. It wasn’t boring, but it was near laughable and extremely cliched. That was how most of these books I read were - romantically cliched. I was currently reading one called “Almost Forever” about some corporate girl who ends up falling in love. It was an okay book and so were the rest, but I didn’t know why I kept reading them.

I sighed softly and rested my cheek against my palm, closing my eyes. My grip loosened on the page as I began to drift off. Then, I pushed myself awake before turning to the next page.

I faintly heard the sound of heavy footsteps and they continued to grow louder until they were right in front of me. I looked up and was met with the sight of Henry. That was quick. The party was only two days ago.

I looked closer and saw that he had a scrape on his head, along with a bump that was beginning swelling.

“What happened to you,” I asked blatantly with a raised eyebrow, but he didn’t respond. He only kept his eyes glued to the floor and when he finally did look up at me, they were full of shame and guilt. It caught me off guard.

“Can I sit,“ he asked quietly and his voice was rough and stripped. I sighed again.

"Well, I don’t own the table,” I answered, watching as he sat seconds later. Then, I looked back to the pages of the book. "You know, never in a thousand years would I have ever imagined you stepping foot into a library.”

“You’re not wrong,” he agreed. “I only came because I knew you’d be here.” I looked up at him in surprise.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, you’re a nerd like that,” he deduced, but with no signs of a smirk. It had just been a statement and I wasn’t offended.

“You still didn’t answer my question.”

“What?”

“What happened to your face?” He shook his head softly.

“I did something…stupid,” he muttered.

“Is that why you’re here then?”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I was wrong…about everything.”

My eyes widened for a split second as I gazed at him intently.

“What do you mean,” I asked, setting the book down.

“The day after the party…after you left…I was pissed, but mostly at myself because…I didn’t want to push you away. Not even a little bit and I thought I could feel better by going after somebody. I thought it would make me feel less angry, but I was wrong.” He paused. “I-I went after the Hanlon kid and it only made me feel worse.”

“Then, when those los-”

I raised an eyebrow and he glanced at me. “Um, wh-when Denbrough and his friends showed up, they got me,” he said pitifully, gesturing to his head. “They got me good.”

“What was it,” I asked sullenly.

“A rock.” I raised my eyebrows in shock. A rock? Wow. I didn’t think they were capable.

I nodded, “Then, what?”

“Then, it all just came crashing in. What you said and what I’ve been doing to those kids… I hurt them and made them hate me. So, what they did to me… I deserved it, because I was an asshole. I realized that everything I did to them was what was done to m-” and he stopped. He wanted to finish his sentence, but he was afraid to.

Was he going to confess what his father did to him or would it be too soon? Either way, it would be his choice.

“I did to them what was done to you,” he finished and I stared at him in shock.

Then suddenly, he leaned forward and reached his hand out, causing me to stiffen. His hand met the side of my neck gently and his fingertips grazed my skin. A shiver ran down my spine as my breath halted. His fingers were warm, yet they were trembling as they traced along my scars. He met my eyes.

“And why would I want to be like the person who did this to you?”

“Before you came along, I thought what I was doing was okay. I thought I needed it to feel better, but you made me question everything. You made want to stop and I don’t know why. You made me want to be me.”

“Why me,” I muttered softly and his hand moved up to my jaw. His thumb stroked my jawline softly, before he removed his hand altogether. I groaned internally as I didn’t want to lose the feel of him.

“Maybe because…you’re the only one who knows how it feels.” He said it. He actually said it. “But still manage to be different. You never take it out on anyone else, even when you’re hurt or angry. You’re still a good person and that’s what I want. I don’t want you to look at me the way you did at the party. I want to be someone you don’t look at like a monster.”

My eyes widened. “Do you mean that?” And he slowly nodded.

“Yes.” It was one simple word, but it still brought a smile to my face. My chest warmed up just as quickly and it was such an unfamiliar yet pleasant feeling. Was this happiness? “Just don’t tell anyone.”

I let out a small chuckle and nodded quickly. “Okay.”

He glanced at me before turning away. “You should smile more often.” I felt some heat rise in my face and mentally slapped myself for it.

“Sh-shut up.” I could’ve sworn he smiled, even if it was just for a few seconds.

“Well, do you wanna stay here or do you wanna get outta here?”

I smirked, "Let’s get outta here.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

END OF CHAPTER 7

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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November 23rd-November 29th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from November 23rd, 2019 to November 29th, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

How do you personally deal with hiatuses, both in regards to planned and unplanned breaks?

carcarchu

I feel very guilty when I go on unplanned hiatuses and I avoid going to tapas and webtoons at all until I've got an update completed. i'm scared to see comments complaining about the lack of updates and how many people have unfollowed me in the meantime. i also find it very hard to bounce back from a hiatus. when i've got a groove going it's easier to keep the momentum than it is to start again after a prolonged absence

Deo101

Kinda a rough question haha. I don't go on any hiatuses other than unplanned ones. It's only out of necessity, in the past I did it if school/health got rough, and I'd try to be back the next week with a normal update!!! However.. I have a second comic which has been on hiatus for a year. I miss making it, but I lost the person who I was working with on it so it has been hard to start again. I'm kind of not really dealing with it, as the anxiety of starting again gets worse the longer it's been! But, I know that the only way to get out of it is to just do it, and I have to do it as soon as I can or it will never end. So, I just work my way through them to get back on schedule.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

So far I've only taken one official hiatus, after I finished the second chapter of the comic - I worked on the next chapter's pages for the next two months, then came back and luckily haven't been off hiatus since.

I have another planned hiatus after the next chapter, and this time, I'll be accepting guest art to fill the space - it's not something I was aware was a thing until it was suggested to me. It'll be interesting to come up with a cool way to feature any art I receive. I like the idea of highlighting other artists' work while I'm taking a breather!

eli [a winged tale]

There’s such a huge mental barrier for me when it comes to announcing a hiatus but ultimately life and health come first. I have a comic on hiatus since 2015 (one day it’ll come back haha), and sometimes things happen to push my current one back for updates. I want to tell myself that since I’m producing free content, it should be for fun and not a source of stress (despite industry standards and what I want to achieve). It’s a balance. I think the readers who wait are the ones I am most grateful and treasure.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I have chronic health issues that can be very debilitating, so having hiatuses is something I have to deal with all the time. I might be able to update regularly for a few months, but eventually and inevitably, a sudden hiatus will come. It’s something that causes me a lot of stress on top of an already stressful situation. Readers leave, and then when I’m well enough to work, I don’t just have to churn out as many pages as I can while I can, I also have to rebuild my audience all over again. I hate going on hiatuses and having such an unstable update schedule, but there’s not much I can do about it.(edited)

Cronaj

Aw man... I also have been dealing with chronic health conditions, so I feel you. I finally got treatments that have been working, so I'm able to update consistently now. That being said, I was on hiatus for a year and a half until just recently. It really did destroy the momentum I was building up, and readers I had accumulated. Because of that, I am determined not to take long hiatuses anymore (a week-a month at most) and to announce it beforehand. I do find it important to prioritize health and mental well-being above my comic, but I find my mental health suffering every time I neglect to update my comic, so I find a middle ground by taking short breaks occasionally. Moral of the story: build up a buffer, kids. Don't be like me.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, same. I'm still trying to get a diagnosis, but I'm kind of an outlier in medicine- my body chemistry is very atypical. I build up those buffers whenever I can, but they always run out sooner or later. I love making comics so much that my mental health suffers, too. I get depressed if I'm not making progress on my comics. I'm really glad you've found a treatment that helps, though! I hope I can too, one of these years.

eli [a winged tale]

What is this mystical buffer everyone keeps talking about

I jest. Keep up the great work everyone! Everyone is trying their best and that’s most important

Capitania do Azar

I always take a small hiatus on the end of each chapter so I can rest and work on writing the next one, usually for a couple months.

sssfrs

I generally take my time with updates anyway. I've lost followers after hiatuses (strangely people only actually started unfollowing me after I came back with a new update) but I'm more focused on getting more of my comic done and progressing towards it being a finished work than keeping a consistent audience. Even though it would be nice...

DanitheCarutor

Fff coincidentally I'm going on a planned hiatus in December. At the end of every chapter I go on one to get feedback, and have some downtime to better plan the next chapter, as well as to get build some buffer. Usually during this time I either hold a Q&A, or do a call for guest art/comics, and I only ever plan to be on break for a month. I don't like being away for longer than that, and the intermission stuff (Q&A's, call for guest art) is announced a month or so beforehand, that way no one is scrambling when the scheduled break starts. As far as an unplanned hiatus, I don't usually have any with my current project. There have been times I've missed the posting deadline due to my fulltime job, but would post either once the page is done or the next week. With my old comic I took a lot of unannounced breaks, not so much because I was busy but I was going through a lot of crap, and morale was really low. It didn't help that it was my very first real attempt at making comics, so I had no idea what I was doing, the story was also hot garbage and became more of a chore to work as time went on. Eventually I just stopped, went on perma-hiatus totally unannounced to this day. I should have let my readers know, but I was really ashamed of myself for not wanting to work on the project (I promised I would complete it), and with a bunch of things suddenly happening in my life I forgot. I'll probably have to go in an unannounced break someday. A lot of things can happen, and being a traditional art only comic creator I'll probably end up running out of supplies eventually, needing to scrounge up some money for more. The nice thing is soooome, hopefully most, of my readers would understand? They know my comic is super time consuming, and that I've been working on it nonstop for 4-5 years now, so they should? Maybe? Hopefully that won't happen, though!

keii4ii

For those of you who take a break after each chapter, how many pages go in an average-length chapter?

🌈ERROR404 🌈

depends on how you're planning to set up your story, whether u want to prioritize to certain print sizes, but the general average chapter size is about 30 pages

Cronaj

I hadn't been planning to take a break between chapters, but we'll see what actually happens. I have chapters ranging from 35-50 pages in length(edited)

DanitheCarutor

Not sure how everyone else is, but I wing it with chapter length. The chapter I'm currently capping off will be 57 pages, although 30-45ish pages is preferred.

eli [a winged tale]

47 for me for this first chapter!

keii4ii

Cool! Was mostly asking a "so how frequently do you take scheduled post-chapter breaks" worded differently

sssfrs

I do 8-12.. I wish I could do more

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I am taking a short holiday break (that was actually planned this time) in between Eryl chapters. My Eryl chapters usually run 30-35 pages, and the break will be around..., 3 weeks I think? I can’t remember exactly. I’m probably going to have to put it back on hiatus partway through the chapter when my buffer runs out because of the aforementioned chronic health issues, though.

spacerocketbunny

I've only taken one hiatus and that was just while my site was being built! But even then we were able to have a short extra comic updating on an alternative site for that time being. We've been updating consistently for 5 years and that's thanks to the stability we've been lucky to have and the fact that there's two of us sharing the work. We've been able to work ahead enough so we've never ran out of a buffer, I'm pretty proud of that tbh(edited)

DanitheCarutor

@keii4ii Oh! So you were asking the time frame in which a chapter is finished? Correct me if I'm wrong. Normally each chapter takes about a year to complete, sometimes a couple months more than that. (for me, that is.)

spacerocketbunny

Nothing wrong with a hiatus though, especially after chapter breaks, I think those are pretty good to keep yourself from burning out!

Cronaj

I do 2-3 pages a week, so I finish a new chapter... about every 4-6 months

keii4ii

I appreciate the answers, everyone!

AntiBunny

I answered this one on Twitter, but I'll answer more at length here. FIrst of all I think a distinction should be made between a Hiatus, which is a planned break, and an extended delay, which is more missed updates compounding with each other.

The former is easier to deal with. Announce it with a clear return date.

The latter is rougher. The artist hasn't planned it, and feelings of guilt can make it harder and harder to return. The best thing to do in that case is to again, get out ahead of it. When you're delayed point people to your social media, and keep posting to make it clear you're still working, or if work has halted completely at least keep posting to let them know when you will be working on it again.

Either way I try to avoid even using the word "hiatus" because webcomic readers tend to read it as "abandoned." Sadly they're all too often right to do so.

Cronaj

Yeah, usually, when announcing a hiatus to my readers, I like to use the word "break" instead

It's a bit softer for some reason

You know, I am 95% certain that my readers thought I had abandoned the project—or died—when I disappeared for a year and a half

Because I know that I have gotten invested in a comic, only for the creator to go incognito

And I always wonder... Are they alright?

keii4ii

I usually figure either life got too busy, or the creator outgrew the project. Or both.

AntiBunny

I know. I stopped updating for almost a year because I wasn't happy with the planned ending of Nailbat. I lost readers I still haven't regained over that one.

In retrospect "waiting for inspiration" was not the ideal way to handle that.

Cronaj

Yeah, the fact that I returned at all is pretty crazy, from a reader's perspective(edited)

I've seen more abandoned projects than I have, "Hey sorry guys! Was dealing with stuff, but now I'm back!"

I mean, it happens

But very infrequently in comparison to the previous sadly(edited)

AntiBunny

Combine the fact that not updating is easier than updating, and the guilt of not updating making you feel like your return has to be even more awesome with every missed update, so you build for yourself a unsalable mountain of imagined expectation, and you have a recipe for abandonment.

Cronaj

Yep!

I'm still trying to regain my momentum

And I always feel so bad if I publish a less-than-stellar page

AntiBunny

There's also the fact that people grow and change. One problem with long form story webcomics is that an artist can outgrow their story.

Cronaj

That is so true

AntiBunny

The most successful tend to be the ones that can grow and change with the artist.

Cronaj

As a novelist as well, I can say that is incredibly accurate

I have dropped so many novels after writing 30k words or more

The only project I've stayed faithful to for over 5 years IS my current comic project

AntiBunny

Sluggy Freelance for example is very different today than when it began. Gunnerkrigg Court as well, and I like to think mine can too.

Though I'll admit I do have a character I've outgrown, and it bugs me people want to see her again.

Cronaj

I think that's just a desire for closure, and for things to come together in the end

AntiBunny

She was more of a comic relief character really. her sort of humor just isn't something I want to write anymore. That kind of edgelord "lol murder," humor isn't something I can write anymore. And unlike the core cast who've grown so that they don't have to come from the same place I was years ago, she hasn't.

I may be drifting off topic a bit there. Anyway I think it serves well as a reminder that for a long term story the characters need to grow with the artist to keep a comic going.

keii4ii

Not every story is meant to grow with the trends, and that's 100% fine. Just means you have to accept the risk of potentially outgrowing the project.

Using the word "trends" pretty broadly

Mine is not very adaptable, and I can't imagine making it more adaptable without altering its core. It doesn't make it less worthy as a story, just... yeah, bigger risk

seetherabbit

I always took breaks or "hiatus" way before I ran out of pages I could in theory add to the buffer

that way I could more easly relax

but also so I don't have to take an hiatus in the middle of a story

Pistashi

everyone needs a break sometimes

I've been updating and working constantly not only on my comic, but alto my yt channel and freelance jobs (because money is always welcomed, even tho I HATE FREELANCE WITH ALL MY CORE)

but I feel like I got momentum now and I dont wanna stop suddendly

sometimes I feel exhausted but then one day later or after 10h of sleep Im fine

I'll take a break later for sure, but rn I feel like this weight of responsibility is helping me build my work ethics

because we cant work just when we are inspired, we dont have that luxury :P

we cant overwork either, so we gotta be smart with our breaks and hiatuses

mathtans

I've been on hiatus more times than I want to count. One of those things where not having much of an audience helps... if no one's really saying much, they either continue not to say anything, or suddenly surface to wish you well.

I will say that I like concluding arcs. My first hiatus was when my wife went into hospital for a bit, I said I'd return but didn't know when. Most of my other hiatuses have been at the ends of arcs... and I'll add that while they were breaks from the comic, they weren't from content. I put up a few behind-the-scenes things, explaining backstory, and had a friend write a column for me too. I've seen other comics do similar, or use guest art.

And for those of you wondering "who's this guy", I've been on hiatus since my daughter was born. Meaning we're going on 17 months. (I may not return to comic work. I have another website I run where I do serials that I'm still maintaining.)

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

In most cases I take a hiatus at the end of a chapter. I have taken two official hiatuses and I think there were some shorter, inofficial ones that I had to take because of other obligations like my studies/family issues/freelance work or finishing books for print. Personally I have managed to not get myself too worked up about hiatuses. I'm doing comics for free and I can't live off of them, so it's inevitable to take breaks. Though I have to say I'm starting into a new chapter without having to go on hiatus, which is pretty neat C:

Pistashi

@Phin (Heirs of the Veil) thats niice! its like the more we work on comics the better (and faster) we get, so keeping the momentum between chapters without a hiatus is an awesome thing! Its the little things tbh

also, you're right. its inevitable to take breaks. specially when you're not working full time and can't live off of them. and like @mathtans said, responsibility shows up and sometimes we have to put things aside

like having a daugther! thats awesome dude! hope your family is doing well (and I know you said you might not get back to comics, but if its something you enjoy keep it up when you're free! making comics is fun) ahdksjnd

Neguri-Senpai-Author

I've actually never gone on a hiatus ever since I started really doing my comic. I can't really go on any hiatuses because I market mine as a weekly comic and additionally I have an oddly strong obsession over consistently in my life so I just feel really really weird if I'd do something like a break from my comic even if I needed it ^^; But currently it's not really that bad. I've been consistent with weekly uploads for a bit over a year now (I've started doing it weekly in September of 2018) and I don't plan on going on a hiatus any time soon. Maybe I'll work a bit in advance but I'm not gonna go on a hiatus to get a break

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

@Pistashi Yeah it's really nice when you finally get a little faster because you optimized your workflow

mathtans

@Pistashi Thanks! Family's doing great, but yeah, most of my free time goes to writing rather than drawing these days. We'll see how things play out.

Desnik

I didn't spotlight my hiatus, but when I finally return to acknowledge it, I'd like to have something to show for it, like a new project or 'this is where I am now' or 'This is what the comic meant to me' so that at least my readers get closure

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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