#i posted the first two chapters already and the third is like halfway done and it's not MUCH and it's SILLY but i'm having FUN

[thompsborn]

head empty only homeward bound 💐

HEAD EMPTY ONLY HOMEWARD BOUND

[mementoasts]

in my fic writing era i love writing it's my new passion friendship ended with drawing i'm never drawing ever again

[nonclassyparty]

tins without labels - prologue (j.wy)

summary: Jung Wooyoung's life was always somehow intertwined with your own. from living in the same neighbourhood as kids to attending the same college; fights, bickering, bruises, teasing comments and tears. Wooyoung and you were never complete strangers but never friends either. Always somewhere in between, growing up with each other but never actually knowing one another. The relationship takes a confusing turn in your third year of college after an injury that places your football career on hold. Lonely, lost and confused, you find yourself at your first college party in the presence of none other than Jung Wooyoung asking him to show you what exactly have you been missing out on. playlist // my main masterlist // moodboard (tba) // click to donate to Palestine

pairing: jung wooyoung x reader warnings: none for this chapter i think! word count: 9.3k taglist: just reply or inbox me if u'd like to be added c: a/n: pls don't say damn when u see that i started another story. listen LISTEEEEEN. i know what u all will say..."bree should u rly be starting another series when u havent finished or started the 4757 bajillion ones that u already posted?" the answer is YES. let me explain myself briefly, this summer has been rly hard for me bc i lost someone who was incredibly important to me and i just can't write...i just can't! everything looks like shit!!! im halfway done with soot and something just isn't letting me continue. i can't write pretty on the outside or literally anything else i've started bc its all simply too sad. writing is draining to begin with despite how much i love and enjoy it but writing angst is k wording my mental health lol! so....i present to you this series, mostly dedicated to myself literally no one asked for this, i just feel like its something i need to write and always wanted to so here i go! it will be a little heartwarming series with lots of humor and coming of age shenanigans and huge chunks of it written from personal experience and i hope u guys read it and like it. i had a lot of fun writing this prologue. (p.s. i literally know jackshit about football/soccer so if by some chance someone that reads this knows their football shit....just let it go pls lmfaoo)

(prologue; when we were kids)

and I couldn't find the words, i couldn't think of what to say and all that I can do is stop and think about the days when all we used to dream about was meeting after school

6 and 8 years old;

Your mom helped you build the snowman.

An entire morning of running around your front yard, laughing and playing in the freshly fallen snow, seeing the air you breathe out in front of you that you pretended was cigarette smoke to make your mom laugh as the cold nipped at your cheeks.

The snowman was almost twice your size (which wasn't a lot, you were a fairly small child) with pebbles stuck in as his eyes and teeth pulled up in a big grin. Your mom found a small bucket in the old shed behind the house which she placed on his head as a makeshift hat and because you didn't have any carrots, there was a small twig stuck at the center of the snowman's face to serve as a long crooked nose.

(The snowman didn't have any arms, a detail that went over your head at the time.)

After admiring the big statue in the farther corner of your front yard for awhile, you finally retreated into the house with your socks wet along with the majority of your hot pink snowsuit. As you kicked off the damp clothes and exchanged them for warm, dry ones and fuzzy socks and then settled in front of the TV in the toasty living room with a mug of cocoa - you couldn't help but feel that it was a happy day.

Which is why when, in the late afternoon, once you looked out of your window to see what once used to be your snowman is now nothing but a big pile of disheveled snow with his plastic hat rolling around the sidewalk and two boys running away down the street with shrill laughter echoing after them, you simply couldn't help but burst into tears.

"Mommy!" You screamed out, running outside your front door in fuzzy socks and your sweater, as dramatic as you were. But you were six and your life still ended and began with coloring books and favorite toys, so a snowman that you made with your mom getting destroyed, surely felt like the end of the world.

Once your mom stepped out after you, about to scold you for walking outside into the cold air with no jacket on, you burst into crocodile tears as you pointed to the spot where your snowman once stood.

"Oh, no." She breathed out with a sigh before grabbing her jacket and slipping into whatever shoes were available by the door (they were your dad's old tennis shoes) and walking across the front yard to collect the small bucket from the sidewalk.

All you could do was stand and watch as you wailed so loudly after your snowman that the entire neighbourhood could hear.

"Honey, it's okay." Your mom tried to soothe you as she walked up the steps to your house, carrying what used to be the snowman's hat. "It's just a snowman, we'll make another one tomorrow!"

But you were inconsolable, bursting out in another wave of loud cries as you stomped your tiny foot and pointed to the house across the street.

"They ruined it! W-Wooyoung ruined it!" You sob, waving towards the boy's house with all the anger a six year old could possibly muster. You knew it was him, recognizing the ugly red jacket he wore this entire winter and his even uglier looking friend, Chanwook.

You weren't friends with Wooyoung. He was older than you and all of his friends were mean. You once tried to play with them when you first moved to the neighbourhood but they didn't want to play with a girl. You cried about that too.

They often teased you. Wooyoung said your crooked teeth made you look ugly!

She sighs again, "And that was very mean of him. But, Y/N, we'll just make another snowman tomorrow."

"But-" You start again, tears still sliding down your face. 

"We'll build him in the backyard where we have a fence, so no-one will be able to touch him." She offers with a smile, hoping you'll finally be consoled enough to walk inside and be safe from the harsh cold.

"But I won't be able to look at him from the window." You tell her quietly, voice going hoarse from the crying and bottom lip already wobbling as another wave of tears began to sunk in. She gives you a sympathetic smile.

"We'll get him a prettier hat and we'll use two long branches to give him arms!" Your mom offers again, trying to butter you up so the tears would stop. "We'll get a carrot for his nose and big pretty rocks for his eyes!" Once she realized it was working, she continued; "And we'll take a picture of you with him so you'll always get to look at him, even when he melts away!"

You peer up at her with a hiccup, finally bribed enough; "A picture?"

She nods, holding the door wider for you to finally walk inside as you inch towards the door, fuzzy socks now soaked, "A picture. We'll send your dad to the mall to develop them."

So, you finally walk inside the warm house again, changing your socks and immediately going to your father's home office to pester him about the camera and just how long will it take for a picture to be developed.

-

"-Y/N, we'll just make another snowman tomorrow!" 

Wooyoung heard your mom tell you as he peers at the exchange from across the street, through his bedroom window, freshly changed into dry clothes after a long hard day of playing outside with Chanwook and now, warming his frozen hands on the radiator.

When Wooyoung saw the snowman parked in the corner of your front yard, just a step away from the sidewalk, he and Chanwook thought it would be funny to ruin it. 

The thing was ugly and had an even uglier bucket at the top of it's head, perfect to kick around the street!

He didn't think too much about it, if he was honest. Just saw a big lump of snow he wanted to kick at until it collapsed, so that's what Wooyoung did. It was just a silly snowman.

Besides, you were already six years old. Far too old to be making a stupid snowman. You should've been going sledding with the rest of the neighborhood kids on the small hill just a couple of minutes away from your street. Wooyoung was mature now, so his mom allowed him to go without a chaperone this year. You were always so childish, no wonder your mom didn't let you go with them. You cried over everything.

But he didn't expect you to cry over the stupid snowman!

It was just a snowman. It would've melted anyway when the weather got warmer! Or gotten ruined by someone else! 

The brief fear of your mom telling Wooyoung's mom about what he'd done struck him. He'd positively get grounded for ruining your dumb snowman if she found out and then the rest of his winter break would be spent inside of the house.

You could always make another snowman. A better one. And since you're such a crybaby, Wooyoung would make sure to tell Chanwook that they won't be touching that one. Leave that ugly snowman alone.

Just so you wouldn't cry anymore.

-

10 and 12 years old;

"It's a shame your mother is dead, maybe if she was still around she would teach you how to act like a girl!" 

Your face flushed in anger as you stared the other boy, Beomseok, his chubby fingers still wrapped around your pencil case which was how the argument started in the first place.

He was in the same class as you and a typical bully. Bigger than the rest of his peers and always using it to his advantage to intimidate and tease them. Today, he took your pencil case and when you asked for him to give it back, he only gave you a gnarly smile and started running around the classroom and eventually out on the halls, screaming taunts at you. It would be a lie to say that you didn't scream some pretty mean stuff back but in your defense, he deserved it.

Now, you both stood as if you're ready to duel as the rest of your classmates and even some upperclassmen gathered to see what the commotion is all about, your fury rising so high that tears spring in your eyes at the mention of your mom as you observe his smug smirk. Obviously, from a very young age, you were bad at managing your anger.

"I hate you!" You scream out, voice high pitched. Then you jump on Beomseok with your full weight, successfully pulling him to the hard hallway floors as your hands curled into tiny fists that started colliding with his face.

And Beomseok, for all his intimidating build, talked an awfully big game just to end up bursting into tears as your fist collided with his nose. He was bad at fighting, you notice, if he could be beat up by a lanky girl almost two times smaller than him.

"I just-" Punch. "-wanted-" Punch. "-my pencil case-" A slap. "-back!"

"Somebody help!" He screams from under you, whining under each attack but his classmates were too busy cheering you on to come to his defense.

Once you start harshly pulling on his hair, two arms wrap themselves under your armpits and pull you off of your classmate. You're standing again and are turned by your shoulders to come face to face with your teacher, screaming at you.

"Is this a proper behavior in school?!" and lots of "Your father will hear about this!"'s and "You're going to the principle's office!" as she started pulling you by your arm down the corridor that was still filled with students.

"Everyone to your classrooms! Now!" Your teacher screams from the top of her lungs as she tugs on you and you follow after her with a frown on your face.

Stupid Beomseok.

-

Wooyoung's stomach hurts from laughing, clapping Chanwook's shoulder who was almost sitting on the floor due to his own fit of pure glee, as he watches Kim Beomseok roll around the floor in pain, clutching his nose. 

There's scratches and bruises already forming on his cheeks, little bit of blood mixed with a lot of big, fat tears. It's hard to feel even slightly bad for Beomseok, when Wooyoung heard how he torments his classmates along with the younger kids during recess. Did it count as bullying if the bully is the one getting bullied?

Maybe he finally got what was coming for him, nobody usually stood up to him and Wooyoung least expected you to be the one to put him in his place.

He deserved it, Wooyoung thinks, after what he said about your mom.

Wooyoung remembers her funeral three years ago, he remembers how much you cried and how you didn't leave your house for a month that summer. He even rung the doorbell to ask if you wanted to come out and play one time which he never did because you were a child and he was much more mature than you, you two had nothing in common. But he felt sad for you.

Your mom was nice, she always brought Wooyoung a chocolate when she'd come for a visit.

 Sadly, they discovered she had cancer when you were only seven and Wooyoung was nine. By the time they discovered it, it was already too far along and your mom passed away on a summer evening while you were outside playing hide and seek. 

Wooyoung remembers feeling so bad how they always made you the seeker that day because you were the youngest kid in the neighbourhood and far too easy to convince that it was simply always your turn to look for the other kids.

Your dad opened the door, smiling sadly at Wooyoung and saying that you weren't feeling well enough to come out and play. Wooyoung didn't try again after that.

The teacher is pulling you by your elbow through the crowd, yelling at the top of her lungs for everyone to head to their classrooms since class should start in a couple of minutes. You silently follow her, face twisted into an angry grimace.

Your hair has fallen out of your ponytail, long strands sticking to your face and Wooyoung is pretty sure that your shirt got ripped during the brawl. 

Wooyoung might've been laughing a bit too loudly because with angry eyes and cheeks flushed, your head whips towards him just as you pass by him.

Wooyoung opens his mouth with a smile, to say something like "Good job, Y/L!" maybe. He doesn't get the chance to.

"What are you laughing at, Jung?" You ask loudly and Wooyoung's laughter immediately dies down.

"Wha-?"

And it's then, that your foot meets Wooyoung's shin in a harsh kick that makes him yowl in pain and makes Chanwook burst into another wave of laughter as his hands grab at Wooyoung who doubles over in pain.

"Y/N!" The teacher screams out again, pulling you back by your shirt and going on another rant, filled with threats of calling your dad to school and something else he can't process at the moment.

Wooyoung is too busy feeling the pain and anger that fills him up as he rubs at the place your sneaker covered foot meet his leg.

"Y/N, you psycho!" He yells after you who is still getting dragged away. You don't even bother to look back at him.

(He still collects your pencil case from the floor and throws it on a desk that a classmate of yours says belongs to you before exiting the classroom and going to his own. Wooyoung tells himself it's for no other reason but just so your dad won't have to buy you a new one. He has enough on his plate already.)

-

14 and 16 years old;

Wooyoung has a girlfriend.

You don't know why that's something that bothers you so much.

Maybe because you don't understand what a girl could possibly see in Jung Wooyoung to willingly let him hold her hand or...God forbid, kiss her. Ew.

That's a lie, maybe even a bad attempt at coping on your part because there's a general consensus in your high school that Jung Wooyoung is good-looking. 

You didn't even think he was ugly when you were younger, when he was pulling on your pigtails and teasing you for playing with dolls. He was cute for an annoying kid back then too with his chubby cheeks and bowl haircut.

He was especially cute now, a recent discovery of yours which you have no one else to thank except puberty. It did wonders on your hormones and it did wonders on Jung Wooyoung too. 

His jawline got sharper the more baby fat he lost and lips grew fuller. His boyish smile was very attractive, even his smile lines were captivating. Wooyoung grew taller as well, not by much compared to the other boys in his grade but he was tall just enough so you'd have to look up to him when you argue but not enough to be intimidated by him.

So, yes, you supposed you'd understand the appeal if it weren't for his stupid mouth and mean words more often than not, directed at you. You threw shots back as well, sometimes even started an argument first if you were feeling particularly annoying but maybe that sums up why you're so bothered.

He started dating Chaeyoung at the beginning of this summer and since you have the fortune (read: misfortune) of living in the house right across the street from Wooyoung's, you were an unlucky witness to most of their dates.

And he was so sweet to her. He'd buy her cheap flowers and ice cream, they'd walk around the neighbourhood holding hands, they'd take Wooyoung's younger brother Kyungmin to the playground in the evenings. Wooyoung would smile a lot at her and Chaeyoung would always smile back.

You even saw them kiss. Just once.

When you were folding laundry in your bedroom, you looked through the window just in time to see their lips connect on Wooyoung's front porch. You quickly looked away, feeling shy and embarrassed, not understanding why you were blushing or feeling so sad all of a sudden.

Why was he so nice to other girls but never to you? You shouldn't think too much about it, the problem isn't you. Chaeyoung wasn't just some other girl but his girlfriend. Of course, he'd treat her special.

Whatever. You scoff as you watch Chaeyoung run to Wooyoung across the quad as you adjust your sports bag over your shoulder. 

She jumps into his arms and you can hear his loud, annoying laughter even to here as his arms wrap around her and he picks her up from the ground.

"What are you doing?" You almost jump out of your skin at the sound of Ryujin's voice as she nosily tries to follow where you were staring at.

Ryujin was the first friend you met since you started high school two weeks ago. She might be the only friend you have for awhile since you haven't really been trying to even get to know your classmates as you were too busy trying out for the girls football team.

You don't remember when you started actively playing football exactly. You always played it for fun with the boys from the neighbourhood (Wooyoung included)  but maybe it was around seventh grade when your dad pestered you into trying out a sport because he didn't know what else to do with you so he packed you up and sent you to a sports camp for two weeks one summer, that you started actually playing.

You went there only caring about your iPad and came back saying you'll be a professional football player.

Your dad doesn't want to say it but you know he thinks it's a fickle dream that will fizzle out with age.

Thankfully, Ryujin shared the same love for the sport as you so for now, you were relieved and content to spend time with her. She was nice.

You didn't need anyone else but maybe it would've been nice if someone who was older, who you were familiar with even if you always fought, would give you a couple of words of useful advice. Regarding the new teachers and subjects and all.

High school was scary.

"Nothing." You answer quickly, turning your back to Wooyoung and his girlfriend and fully facing your new friend.

"Nothing?" Ryujin gives you a suspicious smile, eyes darting over your shoulder once more before she ruffles your hair. You yelp. "Do you have a crush already, Y/N?"

You gently shove her away with a huff, fixing your bangs, "Don't be stupid. These boys are all ugly."

A crush. As if!

She laughs at that, throwing her arm around your shoulder as she directs you both to the field where practice was held, already yapping about her own crush.

-

"Hey, isn't that your neighbour?" Chaeyoung nudges Wooyoung with her elbow, nodding somewhere behind Wooyoung. He cranes his neck to follow the direction before his eyes land on you.

He snorts, "Yeah."

You were standing in the middle of the football field, sweaty and red in the face from all the running, with your hands on your hips as you paid attention to what your coach was yelling towards your teammates across the field.

The school's jersey seemed far too big on your lanky form and your hair was a mess, always slipping out of your ponytail. You were much smaller in build than the rest of the team and it looked funny to Wooyoung.

He didn't expect you to be into sports, let alone a sport like football. In fact, Wooyoung is surprised that you don't burst into tears when you start arguing with the makeshift referee played by another student. It's what usually happens if you spend longer than a minute arguing with Wooyoung.

And then he ends up being the bad guy for making you cry but no one ever mentions that you sometimes provoke him first as well but can't take it when it's dished right back.

Since you're such a crybaby.

He watches with an amused grin as you bare your teeth at the referee, who is really just a senior that thought it would be a fun time but now he has to stand arguing with you. And to Wooyoung's further amusement, the older boy who is almost two heads taller than you, looks like he's about to shit his pants in front of you.

Hm. Maybe not such a crybaby when it's anyone else but Wooyoung.

"I think she has a crush on you."

He turns to look at his girlfriend with a confused look, growing further confused when she smiles teasingly at him.

"Who?" He asks and she gives him a knowing look before nodding in your direction again. Wooyoung splutters out a surprised laugh, "Y/N?"

"Yeah." She nods excitedly, giggling, "She's cute."

Wooyoung scoffs with an eyeroll, "She's a kid."

A kid who might have a small crush on Wooyoung but still, a kid nonetheless.

He'd be stupid to say he didn't notice that you sometimes stare at him a little too much but what the hell is he supposed to do about that. You just started high school, you probably weren't even aware of what you were doing. It was a childish crush because at the end of the day that's what you are - childish.

Chaeyoung giggles again, the sound is soft and sweet, leaning her head against his shoulder. 

"It's kind of sweet." She sighs dreamily and Wooyoung snorts because nothing about you was sweet, "You're her handsome neighbour, the only guy who's always been close to her since she was a kid, she probably starts those childish arguments with you so you'd give her attention and then writes about you in her diary and-"

"Y/N is the last person to have a diary, first of all." Wooyoung interrupts with a snicker before looking down on his girlfriend who is teasing him, "Second of all, you sound ridiculous."

Chaeyoung lifts her head up from where it rested against him and looks at him seriously, her lips pressed together. Then she starts imitating Wooyoung's last sentence in a deeper voice that sounds nothing like him, "You sound ridiculous-ah!"

She squeals when Wooyoung pinches her at the waist lovingly and it turns to tickling her as he presses kisses to her cheeks.

As they continue to exchange kisses between hushed giggles, the conversation about you is forgotten.

-

18 and 20 years old;

From the moment you opened the door to greet your date, you knew that the whole night would be a complete and utter disaster.

Maybe you watched too many teen movies that romanticized prom night so much that even you ended up believing and looking forward to the glorified fantasy of it but boy, were you in for a rude awakening.

Your prom date was a boy from your Calculus class named Eunwoo. 

To be completely honest, you were convinced for the entirety of your senior year that you wouldn't have a date for prom at all because not much has changed since freshman year.

You still had one good friend (two, if you count Ryujin's friend that says she likes hanging out with you) and your focus was always on football. Add schoolwork and keeping up your good grades and you truly didn't have much time left for socializing.

So when Eunwoo pulled you aside after your football practice and asked you if you wanted to go to prom together with a handsome boyish smile on his face, your excitement for that night skyrocketed.

Eunwoo wasn't exactly a friend but he was nice to you during class, maybe you were wrong but his niceness sometimes even bordered flirting. Already, you were daydreaming about a possible boyfriend to spend your last summer with before you start college.

With a date or without one, you spend the bigger portion of your senior year saving up money for prom night or should you say prom preparations.

Makeup was never your strongest suit, in fact, it wasn't a suit of yours at all. You never wore it. You never did your hair either. 

Even on the rare occasion that you went to a high school party, you never wore anything else aside from jeans and T-Shirts. You were an athlete and you committed to the bit entirely, always being ready to sweat and opting for comfort of loose clothes above anything else.

But you wanted to look nice for prom, pretty. Not because of Eunwoo but for yourself. Prom is only once and you wanted to make sure you do it with confidence. 

All your saved up allowance went on the hair and makeup appointment along with your dress that Ryujin helped you pick out. The dress was quite simple in your opinion, a dark red one with a square neckline held up by two thin straps that clung to your curves and flared out at the bottom.

With your hair pinned up in an up-do with two curled strands framing your face and glitter on your eyelids, you thought you looked very pretty, beautiful even. Hell, it was probably the best you looked in your entire eighteen years of life. You could even put up with the painful heels for the sake of it.

Your dad made you pose over the whole house while you waited for your date to pick you up. First a photoshoot on the stairs, then one on the front porch, then a little in front of the living room fireplace. 

He seemed so excited with his camera hanging around his neck as he followed you around the house.

It was one of the moments you wished your mom was here for but nonetheless, it was much fun with your dad only as well. You were happy.

It all went to shit though once you opened the door for Eunwoo and he started laughing in your face.

"Oh my God!" He laughs, almost doubling over at the apparent hilarity of your appearance, "What are you wearing?!"

You laugh nervously, ignoring your father's glance at you from the sheer embarrassment, "What? Is it that bad?"

"No, no." Eunwoo shakes his head, wiping a stray tear that escaped while he was laughing, "It's just not like you, at all."

"Oh." You give him a sour smile, your fragilely built ego shattering completely. "I was just...trying something new I guess..."

He snickers with a headshake before offering you his hand, "Come on, let's go take a photo?"

After a small moment of hesitation, feeling your cheeks burn from the humiliation, you let him grab your hand and step out on the front porch. Eunwoo places a hand around your waist to pull you closer as you both smile at your dad's camera.

A couple of photos later, you both head towards Eunwoo's car as your dad waves you goodbye. You give him a small, almost sad wave back as Eunwoo opens the door for you. You ask him;

"Do I really look funny?"

"No, you look pretty no matter what." He answers, helping you with your dress. "It's just doesn't suit you I guess, it's not like you."

"Ah..." You say staring at the dashboard as you watch him round the car to get into the driver's seat. You glance back at your dad just to see him get back into your house and for a split second, you want to call the whole thing off and go back inside with him.

Of course this doesn't suit you. You were the girl guys dapped up in the hallways, the girl that was always covered in hoodies and sweatpants and never wore makeup. You must look stupid, all dolled up like this. What were you thinking.

Prom celebration is usually held at a hotel not far from your high school. The ballroom is enormous, with vast marble floors and high ceilings illuminated by golden, shimmery lights. It looks straight out a fairytale with colorful dresses worn by pretty princess and handsome princes in their extravagant suits. Only, you don't feel like a princess at all.

Eunwoo and you find your table and you briefly say hi to Ryujin and her date. Ryujin tells you how amazing you look and you give her the first (and possibly, only) genuine smile of the night.

"So," Eunwoo starts the conversation a few minutes after you settle down at your table with drinks, "Did you decide where you're going for college? Any scouts?"

"I'm leaning towards SNU. Their Women's Football Club is really strong and I feel like they actually get proper investments and budget." You tell him and he grins interrupting your next sentence.

"See, this is why I like you. It's hard to find a girl who knows about sports and is so chill about everything."

Your mouth stays parted, the rest of your sentence (which was really just saying that the fact the male football team was hot contributed to your decision as joke) went unsaid as his words registered. Every "compliment" Eunwoo gives you is starting to come off so backhandedly that you're beginning to realize that while he thinks he has you all figured out - he doesn't actually know you at all.

You give him a fake laugh and pray to God it doesn't sound fake enough for him to notice as you take a sip of your drink.

An hour later, your heels are killing you so much that you've completely given up on dancing. You observe Ryujin on the dance floor with her date, still going at it and sigh with the silent question of when it would be your turn. Instead, you're stuck to the sidelines with shoes that feel awful on your feet and a date that can't stop talking about how it's attractive that you're a "girl that actually eats". Eunwoo's compliments are becoming weirder by the second.

"Should I just take you home?" Eunwoo asks with an amused smile as he observes you taking off your heels for the tenth time since you sat back down.

"Ah, would you mind?" You give him an apologetic smile, feeling like a burden and a not-so-much-fun date, "I'm sorry, Eunwoo, this is unfair to you-"

"Nah, I had a fun time." He shakes his head, downing the rest of his drink, "Next time, just be yourself though, yeah?"

The weirdly phrased statement makes you pause. "What do you mean?"

"You know, you don't have to dress like this!" He laughs, playfully playing with the thin strap of your dress. You subtly move away from his touch. "It's not like you at all. I don't know if your friends talked you into it just to fit in but you shouldn't let them push you around like this."

He's so wrong that you can't speak for a moment but even if you could, you feel like trying to explain yourself to him would be far too exhausting and would lead to nowhere. Nor do you want it to lead anywhere anymore, if you were honest.

"Girls like that are so exhausting." He gives a tired sigh. "Outfits and makeup aren't the only thing in the world."

"Girls....like that?"

"You know! Like, the touchy-feely shit. Everything is about color-coordination and nail polishes with them. God forbid their hair is out of place. What a headache!" Eunwoo runs a hand through his hear before giving you an award winning smile. "That's why I'm glad I got to hang out with you! You're real."

"I'm....real?" You ask with a cocked head as your eyes start to narrow. He's too busy thinking that you like what he's saying so he continues.

"Yeah. You know, you keep it real. You're not caught up in that frivolous, girly bullshit. You're so chill, Y/N." He keeps smiling at you like he just gave you the highest form of compliment he possibly could.

But you can't bring yourself to crack a smile even if someone held a barrel of a gun to your temple at the moment. In fact, you feel like throwing up. You should've know from the start, from the moment he was so unreasonably impressed with your lack of makeup at the beginning of the year.

Eunwoo was one of those guys.

"Um," You slide your heels back on and grab your clutch, "You know what, you stay. I'll go."

"Wait, what." His brows raise in half confusion and half surprise as he watches you stand up from your seat.

"Yeah, I'll walk home."

"Wait, Y/N. Why would you walk home? I already said I'd drop you off-"

"No thanks. I don't want to get in a car with a sexist."

"What?!" Eunwoo reels back, "What the fuck are you talking about?! I'm not a sexist! I respect women!"

You huff, turning to him with a glare. "You respect women who are "cool" and "chill" and basically act like men. You should've just taken one of your dudes to prom if these are your opinions. I'm out."

So, that's how you find yourself in your pretty dress sitting in one of the plastic chairs of a convenience store with a popsicle in your mouth as you watch the cars drive by. You were too embarrassed to arrive home so early, you hyped up prom night so much to your dad - you'd rather lie and tell him you had a good time.

If the night couldn't possibly get any shittier, while you eat away at your cherry popsicle feeling undeniably sorry for yourself, you hear a familiar laugh followed by sounds of shoes scuffing against the pavement towards the convenience store.

Of course. Of fucking course, Jung Wooyoung would show up now, when you needed him least.

You try to make yourself seem as small as possible in the plastic chair, hoping he or his two friends wouldn't notice you (which in retrospect was a dumb hope, you were sitting right by the entrance in a fucking prom dress).

Ever since Wooyoung graduated high school two years ago, you only saw him in passing. He'd come home for Christmas holidays or a week or two during the summers and you'd only catch him skunk out of his house and into his dad's car if you were lucky. Unlucky, that is of course.

Maybe you were hoping he wouldn't even recognize you and although it would kind of hurt (as embarrassing as that is to admit), you feel like it would be a better option.

But since you were on a roll tonight, obviously this is just another thing that doesn't go your way.

"Nice dress, Y/L/N." You hear Wooyoung's voice speak, followed by snickers from his idiotic friends and his own attempt at stifling his laughter as they walk past you and into the convenience store, the small bell above the door signaling their entrance.

That ends up being your last straw. 

You don't cause another fight or yell something back after him, no, you don't have the energy to do that tonight. Instead, you feel like you will cry.

Tears are already burning at your eyes and your bottom lip wobbles, you're not even aware that your eyes follow Wooyoung through the display of the store, watching him as he picks up a pack of beer and heads for the cashier.

He got even more painfully handsome than he was when you'd see him every day before he graduated. His hair was double toned, the top of it black and the bottom strands bleached, brushing the nape of his neck.

You think you could even see a tattoo peaking under his shirt as he moves.

Jung Wooyoung was so not your type. Not that you really knew what your type was but all the guys that you found cute in your high school years were athletes, jocks who were organized and dedicated to their routine which in your opinion showcased their maturity, got good grades and were respected by their peers. Wooyoung was really the complete opposite of that so it was hard to explain why you so weirdly hung up over his approval.

He's still laughing about something with his friends, it would hurt so badly if it was about you, as his eyes dart through the display and connect with your own.

Wooyoung does a double take before his big smile slowly slips and dare you say, eyes soften as he looks at you and his lips part as if he wants to say something. 

It could all be in your head though and you're feeling even worse now that he caught you staring at him like a total creep, so you throw your popsicle in the trash and get up with a sigh, slipping back into your heels and deciding to just go home.

-

"Hey, Y/L/N! Wait up, I'll give you a ride home!" Wooyoung calls out after you, the plastic bag swinging back and forth in his hand. 

He can hear Chanwook's hushed objection which Wooyoung chooses to ignore, instead focused on walking closer to you. You couldn't make it far since you were basically limping in your heels.

"No thanks." Wooyoung hears your response and rolls his eyes. He hasn't spoken to you in the last two years at all but he can see that nothing has changed much - you were still too stubborn for your own good.

You didn't even bother to turn back and look at him, instead you hitch your dress further up and continue up the street and away from the convenience store.

"Y/N, come on. Quit being a brat and just wait for me to bring the car around."

"I said no!" You yell over your shoulder and let out a small yelp when you stutter a bit on your feet. To Wooyoung, you resembled Bambi right now.

"I'm trying to help you!" He yells back, still following you, "Just let me drive you back-"

"Wooyoung, seriously, fuck off!" You turn to face him with red cheeks and teary eyes (maybe that's why he's insisting so badly to drive you home, you simply look pathetic), "I don't need your fucking help!"

Wooyoung reels back at your tone and harsh words and then a wave of embarrassment washes over him when he hears Chanwook and Eunhyuk laugh behind him, at the fact that he just got told off by his little neighbour.

The embarrassment is followed up by anger that prickles at his skin like needles, he scoffs and if there's one thing Wooyoung will be - it's petty; "Fine! Limp home in your stupid heels then, see if I give a shit!"

You don't give him a response and Wooyoung doesn't bother to look for it either, instead turns around on his feet and heads towards his car (his dad's car). But not before telling a laughing Chanwook to shut the fuck up.

But once he's in the car with the keys in the ignition, he stares at the steering wheel in obvious contemplation before letting out a small groan, "Fuck."

Wooyoung turns to Chanwook, "Sit in the back, please."

His friend looks at him in surprise and confusion. "What?"

"Just sit in the back, will you? Please." Wooyoung repeats, avoiding Chanwook's eyes but feeling his stumped stare.

"Wooyoung, you cannot be serious." His friend laughs in disbelief as if reading his mind, looking around before giving Wooyoung another incredulous look, "She just told you to fuck off!"

Eunhyuk is quiet in the back which is a huge relief for Wooyoung, he really didn't need to defend himself to his other friend too.

"I can't let her go by foot in the dark, you've seen her! She can barely walk!" Wooyoung says defensively to both of his friends as Chanwook moves to the back with a huff.

"And that's your problem...how?" Chanwook, like the annoying pest he is, asks.

"It's not...." Wooyoung trails off, trying to look for an excuse as to why he was going out of his way to give you a ride home. "But...but her dad would kill me if he knew I saw her and didn't drive her back. It's only right."

Chanwook smacks his lips obnoxiously loud, "Sure."

Wooyoung doesn't even need to turn around to know that his friend is giving him a very bold side eye right now.

Eunhyuk snorts but doesn't say anything else. Wooyoung is thankful for that at least.

"She probably won't even want to get in the car." Chanwook comments quietly as they reach you on the sidewalk. He ends up being ignored.

Wooyoung rolls the window of the old car down so he can talk to you, he has to say you're walking at an impressively slow pace. "Y/N, get in the car."

He hears you groan dramatically from the outside, "Jung, you're not my dad. Stop telling me what to do."

Wooyoung ignores Chanwook and Eunhyuk's snickers in the back once again, he grows even more irritated, "I'll call your fucking dad right now and tell him you're walking home alone this late. How about that?"

You turn to him with your glossy lips twisted into a scowl, "You wouldn't."

Always ready to prove a point or in this case, lie straight out of his ass, Wooyoung makes a show of stopping his car next to the sidewalk and fishing his phone from the pocket of his jacket before opening up his contacts and beginning to scroll. He doesn't even have your dad's number.

But Wooyoung is a professional bullshitter so he keeps pressing random buttons with a straight face and presses the phone to his ear before turning to you with his brows raised-

"Okay, fine!" You exclaim with an angry huff and start rounding his car as your cheeks flush a pretty pink color. Wait, pretty-? You open the door and angrily plop into the passenger's seat with a glare directed towards him, "Fucking snitch."

Wooyoung ignores you, locking his phone without another word and beginning to drive away.

There's an awkward silence in the car, only sounds being made are those of the plastic bags filled with beer that keep rustling in Eunhyuk's lap.

"This isn't the way to our street." You say and Wooyoung might be crazy but you almost sound a little nervous at that. He glances at you before it dawns onto him. Of course, you'd be feeling nervous.

It's nighttime and you're in a car with three dudes older than you who you don't know that well. Wooyoung didn't even bother telling you about his plan before he started driving. A curse runs through his head before he clears his throat,

"I'll just drop these two off at a party nearby and then drive you home." He murmurs, chest constricting a little when he sees you cross your hands over your chest, a gesture which makes you seem smaller.

"Wait, wha-" Chanwook, gosh he was really pissing Wooyoung off tonight, starts from the backseat. "Woo, I thought you were going too-"

"I will." Wooyoung interrupts him with a clenched jaw as he pulls up to the house where the party is held, "I'll drop Y/N off and then come back, it won't take more than fifteen minutes. Now get out- Wait, give me that bag right there."

Eunhyuk hands him one of the plastic bags and Wooyoung fishes through it and pulls out two blueberry ice creams out of it before giving the bag back to Eunhyuk. Which he bought for himself, of course. Not because he saw your popsicle melting on the pavement or anything.

Chanwook watches with a dropped jaw before huffing, Wooyoung hears him murmur, "Doing it for her dad, my ass-" 

"I'll be right back!" Wooyoung announces loudly, far too loudly, and Eunhyuk slams the car door shut so Wooyoung can drive away.

When he pulls away, the silence in the car is almost stifling so Wooyoung offers you the ice cream, "Here."

You look at him like a second head just popped out of his shoulder before looking back through the window and ignoring him completely. Wooyoung lets out a small groan. So stubborn.

"Oh my God, just take it." He says, placing the ice cream on your lap as he continues to drive. He bites back a smile when he sees you stare at the ice cream on your lap for a long second before grasping it and opening the wrapper so you can eat it.

Wooyoung really doesn't know what he's doing right now.

He doesn't know why he bought ice creams for you, he doesn't know why he insisted on getting rid of his friends first before dropping you off home, he has no idea why he keeps glancing at you every couple of seconds from the corner of his eye and he especially doesn't have a clue why he takes the longer route home.

When tomorrow comes and he wakes up hangover from the party and probably in someone else's bed, he'll give himself the same excuse he gave the boys. He wanted to make sure you got home safely because it's the right thing to do. There was nothing else to it.

But in this moment, right now, in the stifling silence and the breeze that flows through the opened window's because the air conditioning isn't working - Wooyoung notices things that he feels embarrassed to notice, or maybe he noticed them before but never allowed himself to appreciate them until tonight.

Like, how nice your bare neck and collarbones look now that your hair is pinned up in soft curls. A thin silver necklace graces your neck. Or how the two curled strands at the front frame your face prettily. Your eyelids are painted with something shimmery which Wooyoung doesn't know the name of and your cheekbones are a soft peach color intentionally placed there beforehand. 

Your glossy lips wrap around the ice cream cone and you bite off a huge chunk. 

"Why are you staring at me?" Wooyoung can decipher the question even through the mouthful of ice cream as you give him a slight glare.

Because you're pretty. Is what he wants to say, honest and bare, but he obviously can't because you're you and he's Wooyoung. "Because you have ice cream on your nose."

His hands tighten against the steering wheel when he sees you quickly look to the side and wipe at your nose self-consciously. You blush a scarlet red from the embarrassment. Great, now he feels like an asshole.

Wooyoung clears his throat, "Why did you look so sad? Back there, in front of the store."

He has no idea why he's trying to make conversation with you. You two never do that, never did. The closest thing to a conversation between Wooyoung and you would be the arguments you'd have in the middle of the school hallway when he'd tease you for your braces.

Those came off as well, by the way, he can see the pearly white teeth perfectly aligned now as you speak. No longer crooked. Maybe he'd like to see them pulled up in a smile but that's borderline wishful thinking now. You smiling at Wooyoung? Yeah, right.

"No reason." You tell him quietly, slumping in your seat as you continue to eat your ice cream. You sigh with an eyeroll, "Just...prom sucked."

Likely thing to happen.

The key is to go to prom with your expectations so low that you can only go up from there but Wooyoung had an inkling feeling that having low expectations wasn't in your nature.

Besides, you were a jock. He remembers even when you were a freshman, you were already running with the popular crowd without even being aware of it, with the athletes and the cheerleaders. Prom night is sort of a pinnacle of the high school experience for people like you.

Guess it's a bummer that you look like you had a shit time.

He hums, "At the end of the day, it's just another Friday night. Nothing special. So even if it sucked, you'll get over it."

Maybe he wasn't the best at giving advice or comforting people.

You side eye him and he pretends not to see it before you quietly add, "I don't usually spend a year worth of allowance on just another Friday night."

Wooyoung cracks a smile, teasing you being a second nature even if you barely spoke since he graduated, "What? Did you expect a prince charming to sweep you off your feet so you two can dance the night away or something? I didn't know you were into that corny shit, Y/L/N."

He hears you scoff, cheeks still red as you roll your eyes, seriously annoyed, "Whatever. Forget I said anything."

Wooyoung's gives a forced snicker just to annoy you before his smile drops again and his eyes flutter shut for a moment out of pure frustration at his own stupidity, internally cursing himself. If shooting yourself in the foot was a person - it would have Jung Wooyoung's photo and name posted under it.

Why can't you just be nice to her?

The air in the car turns even more awkward and Wooyoung shifts uncomfortably in his seat while you continue to eat your ice cream in silence as you stare through the window.

He slows down in front of your house just when you're finishing your ice cream.

You crumple the wrapper in your hand, place the second ice cream on the dashboard and grab the small bag laying on your lap before grabbing the door handle.

"I hope," Wooyoung starts and when you turn to look at him, he's overcome with a sudden coughing fit which is really just awkwardness and the need to fix whatever the fuck he broke a little even more tonight, "Uh, hope you took some good pictures tonight at least because..."

He trails off, feeling like it was his first time flirting with a girl. Wait, what the fuck. He was not flirting with you. Not even a little bit. Wooyoung was simply trying to pay you a compliment. Simple as that. It doesn't have to be anything more. You don't even need to be friends to pay someone a compliment, in fact, Wooyoung is positive that regular archnemeses complimented each other at least once.

Unfortunately, compliments aren't the norm between the two of you, so whatever nice thing he says feels wrong.

Your brows raise.

"You know," He trails off, scratching the back of his neck in an attempt to seem cool and collected. He nonchalantly adds but his side glances might give him away, fortunately you're too much of a ditz to notice, "You look good."

You stare at him for a long moment, seriously it's so long that he almost changes his mind and adds an insult just so you two would be back in those familiar waters of bickering and teasing each other but then your eyebrows fall back down and a scowl overtakes your features.

"Yeah, right." You mumble and Wooyoung almost feels insulted for some reason but then you continue, "Thanks for the ride."

And then you're out of the car and already moving across your front lawn before Wooyoung can snap out of it and remember to turn the car back on.

-

19 and 21 years old;

"10 more minutes! Y/L/N stop arguing with that asshole and get back into your position before you're out of the game completely!" 

Your coach is red in the face from all the shouting and you know what's good for you, so you keep your mouth shut as you run to your spot, thoroughly ignoring the glare your team's captain shoots at you from your right.

The 'asshole' that your coach is referring to is the referee who didn't count a player from the rival team almost breaking your leg by bulldozing into you - as a foul.

"-stole Eunha's position from her and can't even play properly." You hear a snicker behind you and don't even have to turn to know who it's directed at.

Despite it being only your first semester, you haven't made the greatest impression on your teammates (nor did you try all that much to change that impression). 

So for the time being, when there was no rival team, you were the collective enemy in the changing rooms and on the practice field. A freshman who kicked their friend from the spot she had since she started college. A freshman who thought she was better than the rest of her team. A freshman who didn't know how to behave at times. A freshman that made them run extra laps because she was bad at remembering all the new rules at times.

And now, a freshman that was playing badly and fucking up things for the rest of them.

"Y/N!" A hiss from your right is heard and your eyes zero in on your captain, Jihyo, who is staring at you. "Focus."

You swallow harshly and give her a quick now before focusing your gaze to the front.

In high school, you weren't used to losing. You were a winner, it's what you prided yourself in. Failure wasn't an option when it came to football.

But turns out in college, when all the other players are as good as you, winning isn't as easy.

In fact it’s a lot harder than you thought it would be. Nearing the end of the first half the score sheet is still empty and it annoys all of the players and the fans as well. The weirdest thing is how ball is not even on your team's side of the field most of the time; your defenders did not have a very entertaining start of the game in comparison to defenders from Busan, who already look out of breath from all of the attacks to their side. Not to mention that they keep teaming up on you specifically.

You can’t pinpoint what exactly is wrong and why there was no goal to this point; half of you thinks it’s because you didn’t blend well with the team. 

"Run, run, run!" Yeonjin shouts, when Sinb loses the ball and Busan’s midfielders rush to their side.

The spike of adrenaline energizes you and your eyes zero on the ball, running after it. Mina’s figure passes from your left and both of you corner the midfielder, successfully getting the ball to your side. You have it and quickly pass it to Yeonjin, seeing her signal for the ball. You watch her run off when a body collides with your own and the impact is so strong, you lose your balance, falling down.

‘What?’ You ask yourself in disbelief not understanding how you're sprawled across the grass again, slowly standing up. At first you're shell-shocked but now anger fills you to the brim when you see that it's the same girl who intentionally collided with you the first time, watching you with a smug smirk and then you're just  ready to fight.

 You push back at her and get even angrier when the bitch doesn't fall. 

"Are you going to go tattle to mommy?" She asks with a mocking concern and you can’t hear anything; you even forget that you are in the middle of the game because your anger turns your vision red. 

With a loud groan, you launch towards her and grab her by the shirt, screaming to her face that 'she's a cunt'. There are hands around you, pulling you away, trapping you and not letting you go even when you try to break free.

Jihyo's face is in front of you and you can't register what she's saying but you can see her turn red from how pissed off she is. Maybe it's better if you're not listening to her, if you can't hear anyone actually...but then-

"Hey, number nine! You better not fucking cry!"

At first, you think the loud yell came from somewhere on the field. You thought another player from the Busan team was talking shit. And then,

"Number nine! Crybaby!"

There's some laughter in the audience and it's then that you realize the voice is shouting from the fucking bleachers.

A teammate is already pulling you in the opposite direction but your eyes are glued to crowd sitting on the sidelines, the annoying voice insistently yelling. Crybaby. Crybaby. Crybaby.

The worst part is that the voice sounds so painfully familiar, you just can't put your finger on it. Who.

You're about to let it go. You're about to be the bigger person and not act like a total brute on the field, just let it go Y/N. But then-

"Hey, hey crybaby!" You stop in your tracks, head whipping to the direction the voice was coming from and eyes coasting over the bleachers. "What kind of hill did you roll down from that you don't even know how to push someone back properly?!"

Finally, you spot it. Him. In a red hoodie, making sure to stand out in the sea of blue. It's no wonder the voice sounded so eerily familiar, you've heard it screaming at you for the majority of your childhood and a good chunk of your teen years. 

Because he rolled down the same hill as you with only a street separating you.

When he realizes that you've caught onto him, he gives you that smile. That grin that never led to anything good, pearly white teeth gleaming under the lights of the bleachers as he taunts you.

You blood pressure jumps so, you take a deep breath and....scream;

"Jung Wooyoung!"

[grounded-gryphon]

Mad Mentors And Fractured Families draft

Hey, so, Rai and I FINALLY finished the draft for MMFF that we've been working on since September and expected to start posting in October.

It's just been that kind of year.

Anyway, this is the third in a series of DC x DP that we've been posting over on AO3. I was REALLY bad about sharing the first two here. Because life and brain and shit.

But I though to celebrate finally finishing I'd share the draft of the first chapter here, and if folks like I can share the rest?

Let me know what you think

Chapter 1

Danny Fenton

Danny asked Lady Gotham politely to show him where to meet Batman for this chat

Lady Gotham leads him to the Clocktower. Batman shows up before too long.

Danny nods to him. "Batman."

"Your majesty."

"You asked me to convince Hood to talk with you. I've...done what I can concerning your request. There's a...complication." Danny frowns. "What do you know about ghostly obsessions?"

Batman narrows his eyes, "I am learning. I do not trust all my sources."

"Fair enough. In the plainest English that makes sense, an obsession is like a ghost's favorite...passion but also food. Fulfilling the obsession generates energy for the ghost."

Batman nods.

"I won't give you specifics, but just know that Hood's might...go a little haywire at seeing you. I don't actually know how, though. We believe any reunion needs to be handled… gradually."

"I see."

"Nightwing had extended and invitation to your 'family brunch', but right now we think that would be a very bad idea. His obsession would not handle seeing so many people at once and I don't know what it would do to him.

Batman frowns.

"I promise, we are going to help him everyway we can. He wants you back in his life. Not only that, he needs you. But we need to find a way to do it safely."

Batman nods, deeply enough it is almost a bow. "Thank you."

Danny nods. "You're welcome."

"One other thing," Danny said. "Jason… is concerned abuot how you feel about him now. About if you'll even want him in your life. You're no-kill rule…"

Batman hesitates and sighs. "I am... not comfortable with many things Hood has done since returning to Gotham. But he will always be my son."

"Good."

---

Dick Grayson (needs rewrite)

Bruce was surprised to get home to find Dick already de-suiting in the batcave.

Nightwing had mostly been staying in bludhaven the last week, and Dick had said nothing about returning to the manor tonight.

Neither said anything while they showered, checked for injuries, and changed, but on the way up to the manor Bruce asked, "You're staying the night?"

Dick nodded. “Yeah.”

Bruce nodded. "I spoke with the High King earlier. You were right, something is wrong, probably something related to why he stayed away this long." Bruce is bewildered and a bit hurt that Jason would need support. Surely his son knew how much he was loved, welcomed, missed.... but Bruce had never been a good parent, and it was one of his screwups that had sent Jason to his death, so maybe Jason didn't, maybe Bruce was just going to muck things up again, maybe--

"Bruce," Dick shook his shoulder, and Bruce realized that he had stopped halfway up the stairs. "Snap out of it."

"Sorry."

Dick grabbed his arm and started hauling him up the stairs. "Come on, if we don't both get some sleep tonight Alfred will not be happy. And take a break on the beating yourself up, okay?"

"I'll try." Bruce let Dick lead him upstairs to Alfred's waiting presence.

Alfred hands each of them a plate of cookies -- reward or bribe for finishing the night without injuries, Bruce is never sure which. "I have the menu prepared for tomorrow" he says. "Master Tim is in bed and is restricted to one cup of caffinated beverage a day until further notice."

"Thank you Alfred."

"You are welcome, I'm sure. Now. Eat your cookies and get ready for bed yourselves."

Dick gripped Bruce's shoulder before turning away, but n o so fast that Bruce couldn't see the conflicted emotions in Dick's eyes.

Bruce hesitated. H e was so bad at being a parent. "Dick," he finally said.

"Yeah?"

Bruce thought of Danny's words. Of the things he'd noticed Dick carefully /not/ saying the past few weeks. Jason might not be the only one who needed to know he was accepted. "I'm not blind you know. And it's... okay. What your feeling. It's okay."

Dick looked at Bruce and frowned. "Bruce... I..."

"You never had a chance to /be/ his brother, Dick, and that was my fault. If I'd been better, listened more, you would have been around and things might have been different. But they weren't. So it's okay to start fresh with him. Whatever that means to you. Okay?"

Dick blushed. "You've been talking with Wonder Woman haven't you?"

"Ma Kent," Bruce mumbled.

Dick laughed and went up to bed.

---

Jason Todd

Jason woke up and lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The entire mess that was yesterday replaying in his head. Danny surprising him with Batman's... request. Telling the rest of the Fraid his history. Danny identifying his obsession.

/FAMILY/

It beat at his core, which he was starting to recognize. It felt like a solid hunk of granite, but fractured through with fissures that leaked /green/.

The same green that had been poisoning his thoughts and fucking with his perceptions for the past three years.

/FAMILY/ his core pulsed again, stronger even than the /green/ and the /rage/. Fraid was family, or could be. He knew that now, had felt in the way they had all held him yesterday, sending support and understanding -- even Tucker who still didn't entirely trust him.

But he also felt the bleeding ruptures of his lost family. The bonds that he had never fully trusted until they were gone, ripped away when he needed them most. Poisoned by fucking Talia and the /green/. Then ripped out and destroyed by his own actions.

Except that Dick still, somehow, wanted to see him. Except that B -- as Batman of all things -- had sought Danny out and asked for help seeing Jason.

Except that since the night he'd kidnapped Tim and Dick, none of them had crossed into Crime Alley without his permission. They waited. For him.

And maybe that was telling him something.

---

Jazz Fenton

Jazz tossed and turned in bed. Finally, as dawn crept through the smog, she got up, dressed in one of her new outfits from the shopping trip with Lidia, and went downstairs to make coffee. If Jason's obsession was family, and with everything he'd lost already, she knew the Fraid could never replace what was before. And what was she going to do for Danny? He needed a fucking break, and this last week and a half had gone at breakneck speed.

It took everything in her to keep the protective fury bubbling inside at bay. She didn't know what would happen if she lost her temper now, but it felt dangerous. She wanted her baby brother to have a normal life, her new crush to feel some kind of healing, and she couldn't do any of it. She took several deep breaths as she measured out the coffee. Breakfast first. She always felt better in the morning after food.

Jason came down the stairs quietly -- physically, anyway. His ghostspeak was crying /FAMILY-lost-breathe-green/ with only the faintest whispers of /rage/ underneath it all. "Hey Jazz."

"Hey." Her ghost speak answered his with /here for you/ and a whisper of /fury/ and /need to be helpful/. She winced as all of it came through. "Sorry."

She poured the water in the coffee maker and watched it drip through.

He rubbed his chest as his core continued to cry for /FAMILY/ but was calm when he spoke. "Don't be. I don't... Wherever we're going here, Jazz, I don't want any secrets between us." He smiles, and it's the realest smile she's seen from him. "And I think I'm actually doing better."

She smiled a bit at that. "That makes one of us, at least on the doing better part." She leaned against the counter, eyes on him now. "No secrets, huh?"

He shrugs. "As best we can. I think we both know a lot of other people's secrets, but for my stuff, yeah, ask and I'll tell you." His ghostspeak continues to pulse /FAMILY/ and /green/ but also /trust you/ and /mine-fraid-special/

She sighed. "Well, the first thing I'll tell you, Danny didn't try to become High King. He just did what he does. Protected everyone from the last asshole. We had no idea rite of combat was the way a new king would be decided."

/everything's gone sideways/ and /thanks/ and /he needs a break/

"So..." /FAMILY-fraid-mine/ "what can we do to give him one?"

"I think that's why he tried to plan a movie day. Especially since he said he's planning on torturing us all with space documentaries. He wanted to be an astronaut before everything happened." She sighed, scowled, her eyes glowing aqua fire. "I just want my little brother to be okay." /furious at all the trouble/ and /not you/ and /worried about him/

"I think he just needs some time with Sam and Tucker, and he's trying so hard to help you, me, and Dick as well, that he's getting lost again."

Jason nods. "So we need tonight to be as chill as possible." He takes a deep breath. "Which, if I understand how this obsession stuff words, means I should probably pull on my big boy pants and give Dick a call." /FAMILY-lost-green-mine-pain/

"That's a good idea. I can stay while you do." /obsessions are a bitch/

Jason nods. "That'd help, beautiful. You might want to talk with Danny first though." /FAMILY-idea-green-mischief-rage-FAMILY/

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?" /what are you planning/ and /curious/

"Well, there's no reason Danny has to be dealing with all the JL stuff. For instance, Nightwing could report to /you/ as the High King's representative."

"You are a fucking genius." She hugs him, pulls away blushing. "Except for your plan to shove your whole life into one room."

Jason blushes at the hug, then blinks at her words. "My what?"

"Sam told me you have all of your stuff in that single room upstairs." She crosses her arms and cocks her hip. "You allowed us into your home, not the other way around."

"Yeah, well." He rubbed the back of his neck. "This place was as new to me as it was to you, you know. But I'll probably start spreading out a bit more now." /FAMILY-fraid-welcome-green/ "It'd be good to have a home again."

She smiles. "I'll go talk to Danny, then."

---

Sam Manson

Jazz and Jason head next door. Sam sees them coming in first thing in the morning while the coffee is still hot and groans. "What now?"

Tucker laughs. "Ever the optimist, huh Sam?"

Danny just rolls his eyes and focuses on not freezing his coffee.

Sam grumbles. Jason gives her a light noggie. "Don't worry, we love you too." /FAMILY-mine-green-intruding?/

Danny shakes his head. "Just hoping this isn't some other major catastrophe." /fuck/ as his mug slips through his hand and thuds on the table, somehow managing to stay upright. He goes intangible to avoid the hot coffee that does splash.

Tucker grabs something to clean up the coffee.

Jazz smiles. "No. Just an idea Jason had."

Sam narrows her eyes. /sugar swans/ "What kind of idea?"

Jason chokes. "Hey, those weren't my idea."

Sam, "You practically dared me to!"

Jason, "Me? I told you not to."

Sam, "Exactly!"

Jason rolls his eyes

Jazz giggles, "You told her not to?" /of course she did/ still not fully grasping the sugar swans debacle, and shrugs. "Anyway, he suggested the JL could report to me as the High King's representative."

Tucker finished wiping up the coffee. "Huh. Representative, huh? Kinda like Nightwing is the liaison?"

Danny looked up from his now-abandoned coffee mug. "That's...huh..."

Jason shrugs, "Something like that. Or an ambassador maybe. Kinda like how the president doesn't negotiate directly with the UN."

Danny leans back in his seat, gives Jazz a considering look.

Sam thinks about it a minute, then nods. "It makes sense, Danny. Is there any reason you need to keep taking to Nightwing about everything yourself?"

Danny frowns. /if I don't/ He shakes his head. "I...I don't think so? Jazz...are you sure you want to do this?"

Jazz nods, determined. "I'll keep you updated on everything, but your first priority is to heal right now. That's why we came here. If I can help you do that by taking on JL negotiations, I will."

Tucker snorts. "You're kinda thrilled about this, aren't you, Jazz?"

She shrugs.

"Yeah, thought so." Tucker nods, "I'm down for that. Give us a chance to give you a break, dude." he rests a hand on Danny's shoulder.

Sam, "I wonder if there are like, ghost rules for something like this." She pulls out one of her notebooks. "We should ask Lady Gotham, since she's offered to explain things. The king has to be able to delegate, right?"

Danny shrugs. "Don't see why I wouldn't be able to, but having some more information couldn't hurt."

Sam makes a few notes, nods to herself, and closes the book.

"You're gonna ask her later, Sam?" Danny eyes the notebook.

Tucker chuckles. "That's where she keeps her questions for...well, everyone and everything, so probably."

Sam, "Well I'm not calling her up right now. But it might help."

"Alright. As far as I'm concerned, Jazz, you are now Ambassador of the High King. The Justice League talks to you for everything that I don't need to deal with directly."

Jason nods. "Alright! I need to give dickhead a call anyway, want me to pass on the good news?"

Jazz smiles. "I was gonna leave these three be, but please do."

---

Dick Grayson

Dick was digging into a bowl of Choco-Nut Puffs with peanut butter when his phone rang. He picked it up and saw "unknown number." His eyes widened when the call cut off after two rings, started again, cut off after one ring, started again. He raced to accept the call, not even bothering to finish swallowing.

"Yasyn?" He mumbled through a peanut butter sticky mouth.

There was silence for a moment. "You remembered."

The wonder and surprise in Jason's voice brought tears to his eyes. Dick hurried to swallow and said. "Of course I remembered, Little Wing. You're -- you've always been -- important to me. I remember all of our codes."

"Oh."

Dick took a deep breath and tried to get a handle on his emotion. "So, is everything okay? I figure you didn't call just to chat."

"Kinda? I mean, Danny asked me to pass on a message, but only because I was calling anyway? Just... some personal shit came up and, and I know I don't have the right to ask. Kinda surprised you're still talking to me really, with... with nearly shooting you and everything--"

"Jason!" Dick cuts Jason off before he can talk himself into the spiral Dick can hear building.

"Jason, no matter what, I will always be here for you, okay? We're family. So tell me what you need."

Jason gasped and said, so quietly Dick barely heard him, "Family."

"Yeah, Jay. That's what I said. So tell me what's going on." He was starting to get worried now. Jason sounded so different from the last time they'd talked. Not as angry. Vulnerable. Almost afraid.

Whoever had made his Little Wing afraid was going to learn a new meaning of fear.

"Family," Jason repeated, louder this time. "That's... I need... family."

Dick held his breath, not sure what to say. What Jason meant. Not daring to hope.

"Talia... When first came back, she told me things, showed me things. She lied, Big Bird."

"What did she lie about, Jay?"

"That no one cared. That I'd been forgotten. Replaced. Abandoned."

Dick's breath caught. He wanted to scream a denial, but he sensed that wasn't what Jason needed now. Jason had said Talia lied. He knew it wasn't true, but that didn't tell Dick what Jason needed.

(Dick was going to destroy Talia. He didn't care what she was to Bruce, or how powerful she was. He was going to find the bitch and make her regret ever being born for how she had hurt his Little Wing.)

"She lied, Dick. She aimed me at Robin, specifically. But she lied about all of it. And I was so angry."

"So angry because I needed yous. I needed my family. And I had no one."

Dick filed the comment about Robin away for later. If Talia had sent Jason after Robin there was a reason for it, but now wasn't the time. "You have me. Whatever you want from me, Jaybird. Whatever you need."

"Can you come over early today? So we can talk?"

[annakie]

Fixing The House: Part Fourteen A - In the Kitchen

Aka the (first part of the) FINAL CHAPTER.

Part One: I Do Not, In Fact, Have the Power

Part Two: Let’s Spend Lots of Money!

Part Three: All These Things That I’ve Done

Part Four: I Really Want to Stay At My House

A little interlude.

Part Five: Power Down

Part Six: You Will Leave Some Paint

Part Seven: Backwards to go Forwards

Part Eight: Master of Bathrooms

Part Nine: Within a Room, Somewhere

Part Ten: Rooms With No View

Part Eleven: Big Bang Room Part A and also Part B!

Part Twelve: We Can Make It On the Outside

Part Thirteen: Mauve Haze Symphony

Uhhh yeah sorry it's been like a month and a half since the last post. I have been VERY BUSY. Work. Travel. Dragon Age. All valid excuses, I promise!

But it's time to FINISH THIS because it would be terrible to get this close to the end and not finish. That's reserved for the tops of hall bathroom walls. :p

Y'all. It's time... finally... for the kitchen.

LET'S GOOOO!

As usual, starting in 2003. This is going to be the History Post.

The kitchen was probably always my least favorite part of my house. It's a long, narrow galley kitchen.

And oh boy, when I bought the house, the kitchen was in pretty bad shape.

Here I am with my realtor, Alvin, this might be the first time I saw the house, second at most.

Look under Alvin's foot. The linoleum does not meet in the middle, they started on the left and right to lay it down.

The wallpaper. The original-to-the-house 1963 countertop, and cabinets.

That fridge smelled so bad, IDK how old it was. I called it the ebolafridge. I literally had it written into the purchasing contract that they had to haul it away at their expense.

The sink was enamel and had several chips in it.

You can see here that the countertop was worn through down to the wood in spots. The cabinets, also original to the house.

The dishwasher did not feel like it would actually get the dishes any cleaner.

And the wallpaper... jfc the wallpaper. We're about to get to that.

There was one thing about the kitchen I liked, and that alone may have sealed my decision to buy the house when everything else about it made me feel like running.

The copper backsplash. Probably also original to the house but... it was copper. I at least had something to start with that I liked.

I could deal.

I started after buying the house but before I moved in by tearing up the floor, down to the concrete, through three layers of linoleum, by myself.

I am pretty positive that nobody bothered to ever sweep the floor, especially not between laying down the new flooring.

I laid down new linoleum... mostly. The hall flooring was in better condition so I left it "For now" and never got back to tearing it up.

Then there was the wallpaper.

Three layers of it. You can see two of them here. The bottom one, the third, was neon green and yellow flowers, probably installed in 1963 with the house. I don't have any good pictures of that.

I replaced the screens over the only lighting in the room from yellowed plastic to a grate that I somehow managed to cut exactly right myself the first time.

Brighter bulbs and little blocking the light made it better, but it was still always dark in there with lights that were recessed more than a foot in these wells.

That lightswitch was so, so gross but also like spackled on there with three layers of caulk.

The wallpaper took forever to pull down. Honestly I would have just painted over it if I'd have known how bad it would be. I used all The Products, and still spent many, many hours peeling off that fucking wallpaper. None of it peeled off easily.

this part right here was the WORST. The one big wall that was highly visible. I probably spent twenty hours on this wall and it was still like halfway done.

Forgive me if I told this story already somewhere.

My parents would come up occasionally in those first few years and spend a weekend helping me with home improvements. One of the early weekends we did dozens of things and then this fucking wall was the last thing on the list to tackle.

My parents and I stood there and just stared at the wall at the end of a very long two days, hours more of wallpaper scraping staring us in the face.

Then my dad turned to me and said "I have a plan, but you might hate it."

"Tell me Dad," I said, pretty desperate to never have to peel down wallpaper ever again.

"Just a big sheet of wall panel. We can try to match it to the panel in the dining room or the cabinets."

"I love this plan. Huge fan of the plan. Let's do that."

So we measured the wall, hopped in the car and went to Home Depot and like an hour later the wall from hell instead looked like this.

Before the panel went up, I took a sharpie and wrote on the wall something like "I'm sorry, I just can't spend another minute tearing down this stupid wallpaper. Good luck!" and signed and dated it.

So yeah here you can see I have a new fridge. It was literally the cheapest fridge which fit that I could find at the Sears Scratch & Dent outlet.

The walls were painted... and the floor there is still concrete. I ran out of the linoleum for awhile, but it did get finished eventually.

I took off every cabinet door and drawer, sanded the old varnish off of them. Then sanded down all the cabinets themselves at least somewhat deep, and painted them all a complementary green to the lighter wall green. I scrubbed every inch of the place down as much as I could, polishing up the copper backsplash and copper range hood as much as I could. I bought the cheapest dishwasher, it that was a combined Christmas/Birthday present from my parents/grandma for that year. Worth it.

It still wasn't beautiful, but it was livable.

Those red and green pattern dishes were hand-me-downs from my recently deceased grandparents, which came along with their dining room furniture, the guest bed, an old rocking recliner.

Lately some of my friends and me have been handing down all our old stuff to our friend Marcus & Laura's three daughters, all of whom are early to mid 20's and just starting out. It came at just the right time for me, I have so much to give them especially now since the renovation. Looking at all these pictures the last few months of making these posts have really just reminded me about how lucky I have been to have been handed down things which, maybe they weren't my taste, and now many of them have been replaced or passed on, but I was blessed. And it feels great to be able to bless the three young woman who I consider practically nieces in a similar way.

Anyway.

Here, judge my 2004 food choices.

Oh hey, another thing I loved about the kitchen was the pantry. A really good sized pantry with an awesome copper lazy susan. (Really all of the range hood, backsplash and lazy susan were just copper colored steel or something... but they look great.

I did really hate the pantry door, which you had to know just how to open or else it'd come off the tracks.

It was as good as I could afford to make it after awhile, though there was still stuff like this going on...

Gross.

One other small but impactful change Dad & I made was the knobs and handles in the kitchen.

On the tops, we kept the original 60's knobs but spray painted them a fresh coat of copper spray paint. I'd re-spray them every couple of years.

I had been CONSTANTLY snagging my pockets on the same pulls on the cabinets and drawers on the bottom, so those got replaced with smooth handles which were impossible to snag on. Looked okay. Not great, but better.

---

So this was a really great day in 2009.

New countertops day! I was so damn hapy!

The old, gross stuff got taken out. The pipes under the sink were redone and a new garbage disposal went in that actually WORKED!

*Note: It sometimes worked. TBH it was super temperamental and probably DIDN'T work for about 1/3rd of the time it was in. But at least the pipes didn't clog nearly as much, and shutoff valves were installed down there.

Leela and Jim approved!

BEAUTIFUL, right? I picked all that out myself.

The laminate countertop was literally the cheapest Home Depot had but I actually really liked it, it had flecks of coppery-colored bits in it, also it was, you know, just clean. I honestly loved that sink every day it was installed.

So much better, right? It felt a lot more fresh and clean. A huge improvement over the original.

The new floors helped a lot, too!

So yeah, this was the kitchen from 2009 until 2024, and it was just the world's Okayest Kitchen. I wasn't ashamed of it anymore, unlike the bathrooms.

There were still some pretty big problems. The 1960's drawers were constantly falling off their tracks, wouldn't open all the way, the one next to the fridge had the bottom fall out and couldn't be repaired so I just lost a drawer there entirely. And the pantry door was so ugly, hard to clean, always falling off the track as well.

The cheapo dishwasher died around 2017 and stayed dead for about 2 years until I got a new one in 2019 in time for Ange's visit. I mentioned the garbage disposal.

Another quirk was that the fridge couldn't open the entire way. It would just hit the opposite counter when it was 2/3rds open so you really did NOT want things getting shoved to the far back corner unless you wanted to practice becoming a contortionist.

Oh, and the cabinet doors on the bottom of the kitchen just did not seem to want to stay closed. I'd walk in all the time to partially opened cabinet doors and I'd occasionally bang my leg on them. Re-closing them became such a multi-times daily occurrence that I stopped even noticing I was doing it.

The stove/oven is electric. At some point 5 or 6 years ago I replaced all the burners because some stopped working, but those were easy. The oven itself runs 50 degrees hot. I ruined a lot of meals before I really figured that out, now I just know that i the recipe says 400...that means set it for 350. I put an analog oven thermometer inside that confirms it.

OK guys... there's the history up until this summer.

Big changes are coming. :D

[nostalgebraist]

state of the book

(Attention conservation notice: long, kinda navel-gazey. There are some specifics at the start and end.)

There are 7 chapters remaining in Almost Nowhere.

I'm about halfway through writing the first of those. The current plan is to post that first chapter when I'm done with it, and then stop with the serial updates until I've written all of the remaining six. Then, I'll post those all at once.

----

When I got near enough to the end of writing Floornight, it got frustrating to write in a new way.

The fact that I wasn't just done already was agonizing. Once the finish line got close enough for me to see, the remaining distance felt like it was taunting me.

How did I react? I let it go on for a little while, and then one evening I said "you know what, fuck it, let's get this over with." And I sat down and wrote the last two chapters.

I wrote them with the attitude of a checked-out high school senior racing through his last homework assignment. I wrote them unusually fast, with less "quality control" than usual, and with less passion for the story itself than for the idea of just getting it over with already.

----

When I got near enough to the end of writing The Northern Caves, it got frustrating to write in a new way.

The fact that I wasn't just done already was agonizing. Etc, etc.

I let it go on for a little while, and then one evening I said "you know what, fuck it, let's get this over with."

And I sat down and wrote the last five chapters, in one evening. Unusually fast, with less "quality control" than usual, etc., etc.

I often drink a bit when I'm writing, but I drank more than usual that evening. A checked-out senior, already mentally on summer break. Fuck it. Just get it over with.

----

I have now reached this point of ending-related frustration with Almost Nowhere.

I'm not going to do the "fuck it, let's end this tonight" thing a third time, though.

The endings of my earlier 2 novels were, uh ... not ideal, in a lot of ways. Some of those are related to plot and structure, and can't really be blamed on the way I kind of gave up 90% of the way though.

But there's a weird, sudden, desultory, incompletely sketched feel to those endings that I'm sure was a result of the way they were produced. It wasn't some necessary implication of the broader construction. It was just that I gave up.

And I can just ... not do that. And get a better last part of the book out of it. And then it'll be there, forever, in its better state.

----

(I think this frustration largely stems from serial writing?

Thanks to the peak-end rule [among other factors], endings are pretty important. But the further you go in a serial, the more constrained you are.

No matter how much you plan ahead, there's always some maneuvering room, some opportunities to be creative on the fly, to surprise and delight yourself.

This decreases monotonically as you get further along. You feel less and less like you're creating something in the big, exciting, easily romanticized sense of that word, and more and more like you're doing the yeoman work of painting in fine details between pre-established lines and keyframes.

The upside risk declines faster than the downside risk. In the middle of a serial, you can always fantasize about how great the remaining parts will be -- great in ways you might not ever have expected! And you're not wrong: there ARE things you'll only invent later, which you'll feel proud of, and will be unable to imagining lacking once you've made their acquaintance.

As you near the end, this potential goes away. But there is still the need to paint in between those sketchy lines and keyframes. If you do this very well, the result will be simply as you have imagined it -- not superior to your current vision, in some heretofore-unimagined manner, but only what you already have in mind, ably executed. However, there is still the possibility of severe failure: those painted details could go very wrong indeed. There is a ceiling, now -- but there is still no floor.

That's why I have trouble with endings, I think. But it's no excuse for not doing them well. It's hard, but many things are hard. I simply need to not give up.)

----

Long story short, I really want to be done with the book!! This is eating away at me, every day.

Unfortunately, this year continues to be mildly cursed as far as writing is concerned.

I'm finally (I think? fingers crossed??) coming out of the depressive funk that has afflicted me for most of the year.

In its place, the new problem is that I'm sleeping terribly. I've been sleeping terribly, consistently, for at least a few weeks now.

At first it was due to the sun rising earlier. We blacked out the bedroom windows again, but now my circadian rhythm is all messed up, giving the problem its own momentum even after the removal of the initial stimulus. Presumably it'll improve over time.

(Maybe the sleep deprivation actually helped with the depression? That has been known to happen.)

So I'm in this kind of weird state w/r/t the book.

I have a strong emotional motivation to go as quickly as possible.

I also have a strong emotional motivation to "stick the landing," and not feel like I'm giving up 90% of the way through.

I keep finding myself in states where I can't easily produce writing that feels like "sticking the landing," and certainly can't produce it very quickly.

(Probably I need to just take better care of myself, in all sorts of ways, and then the other problems would work themselves out.

That goes against all the instincts I learned in school, of course: you get the final projects and exams over with first, and you "take care of yourself" after -- not the other way around, silly! But I have not been in school for a long time, and should start acting like it.)

Just to be clear, I'm not posting this out of a desire for people to tell me that it's #valid for me to take as long as I need, and to reassure me that I don't need to rush for my (tiny) readership. I believe that all already, and appreciate it. But the impetus to go fast is coming from me, not from any idea about my audience.

----

Some qualitative statistics.

I keep track of (chapters written / time) and also (words written / time).

Both of these have their flaws, but I think the latter is more meaningful overall. Mere verbosity is no virtue, but one does need to write more words when there's a lot that needs to happen, and chapters very in eventfulness.

My average words-per-time rate over the "third act" of AN has been about 60% what it was during the fast period in 2022, when I wrote most of the "second act."

For what it's worth -- which is disputable -- that slower rate is still faster than my average rate over the entirety of TNC. But of course TNC was a lot less wordy.

(I don't know how I expected to write the whole book in 2022. Well, I do, but it involved absurdly optimistic assumptions about the "third act." The conceit was a useful kick in the ass, though.)

A somewhat optimistic extrapolation, using this rate and the average chapter word count in "act 3," says I will take around 5-6 months to write the remaining 7 chapters.

5-6 months is ... actually not that big a hiatus, by my standards! (That says more about "my standards" than anything, but still.)

It does feel absurdly long, though, emotionally. Emotionally, I feel like I ought to be done, like, next week. Come on, it's so close, just "get it over with" --

On a practical level, I'm a little worried about the size of the planned 6-chapter final block. Less from the length of the pause involved, and more due to the possibility of losing momentum... I guess. Maybe I'm spoiled by the immediate feedback of serial release.

I guess I could shrink the size of the final bunch and push out serial release for long. None of that will matter in the long run anyway, for "archival readers." The current plan feels structurally right, though.

----

I set aside the entirety of the past weekend for writing. I worked as hard as I could, and got ~5000 words of the next chapter. It still feels less than half done, honestly.

I was aware that the words were coming less easily than usual, due to my sleep debt.

On Monday evening, after sleeping very badly, I tried to continue, and did write a bit more. I quickly had to admit, though, that I was simply too tired for my brain to make words of the desired quality at any usable rate. So I stopped.

I have a strong emotional motivation to go as quickly as possible. "As quickly as possible" is currently pretty slow. I'll do what I can to improve that.

[attentive-dragon]

I'll remember it tomorrow

Thinking about that post I commented on, how a great idea will pop into a writer's head, and they might think "I don't have time to write that down today, but I'll remember it tomorrow." I learned the hard way that this way lies regret: I've lost more great story ideas this way. I've cultivated a habit of writing ideas down as soon as I can when I have them. This often means quickly typing something on my phone's notes app right after getting out of the shower, or recording a voice note in the car. It's a terrible feeling to know you had a really clever way of untying a particular Gordian Knot, or a really fun bit of dialogue, and just can't remember it anymore.

This has had some weird impacts on my writing process. I've already spoken elsewhere about how I finished a book (and was about a third of a way through its sequel) when I realized this wouldn't be book one in my series, but would stand as book four (probably.) So already my writing process is out of order. But: it gets worse than that.

I have my entire series planned out, more or less, all the way through an estimated thirteen books. Some of those books I have detailed outlines for. Some I have a couple paragraph summaries. Some just a sentence or two. But the overall arc of the entire series is something I've known for quite awhile, and some of the major events that will happen along the way are things I've already thought up.

So, sometimes my brain will deliver tidbits of those later stories to me, and I have to write them down immediately. Just the other day, a bit of conversation from what will probably be book 12 or 13 popped into my brain, and I had to write it down. I actually really like this little bit of dialogue, and when I finally (hopefully) get that far in my series, I'll be really excited to finally get to use it.

Because of all of this, the writing "progress" on my series is a bit odd. I keep making little side-trips into later books to add things as they come to me, and it means that later books often have a lot more completed than one might expect, considering I have yet to actually publish my first book in the series:

Book one ("The Yellow Earring") is complete, at 71260 words

Book two ("The Silver Sword") is about halfway done with 44427 words

So far, so good. However:

Book three has 27965 words written

Book four (as mentioned above) is complete with 145943 words (and this one obviously still needs much editing.)

Book five has 34846 words written so far

Book six has 6359 words, because I really needed to get a scene written that WOULD NOT LEAVE MY BRAIN ALONE

Book seven has about a thousand words written

Book eight has 6686 words, again, because the first chapter sat down one day in my brain and refused to leave until I acknowledged it.

And of course, the aforementioned short bit of dialogue that will probably go somewhere in a planned book 12 or 13.

There's a part of me that wants to be frustrated about this: after all, if I've written so many thousands of words in later books, couldn't I have better spent my time writing thousands more words in the book I'm currently working on?

I've learned to silence that frustration and embrace the process. One good example of why this works for me is actually in the book I'm currently working on though. I was still working on book one when a really clever idea came to me for something in book two, and I ended up writing an entire scene. It was months before I had finished book one, and gotten book two to the point where my characters finally arrived at that scene, but once they did, I was able to use that previously written scene skeleton as a framework to carry the story forward. If I hadn't written it down at the time, I may not have remembered what I'd wanted to do there, and there's a good chance what I would have written wouldn't have pleased me so much.

Everything I write will get used, eventually. At least, that's my hope. That scene from Book Two finally getting used seems to support this. I just need to trust that my brain knows what it's doing as it doles out these tidbits of story to me out of order - and I also need to make sure I'm making the time to intentionally write in my current book and not letting myself get carried away with things yet to come.

And maybe more importantly, I need to actually focus on the process of getting Book One published. My brain loves these bits of story, the tales they are all a part of, and the characters living within them. I'd like to think some other folks' brains will as well.

[protect-daniel-james]

5, 8, 11!

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

Probably the first to complete is the Unai/Villa Park (so far called Silent Night) after the Legia match. It's already halfway done, and it's a simple enough premise by now that it's quite easy to write.

It's football, it has always been football. He feels his toes curl, and then lets out a ragged breath, still holding onto the seat under him. The relief spreads across his body and he feels himself coming down from the heights of pleasure. The seat is a good, stable thing to focus on. He presses his palms into its edges as if he is desperately holding onto it for his dear life.

I definitely need to finally write the third, last chapter of Jamie in Liverpool. I can see the last scene clearly, but I kinda have to...write the rest? Ha ha, I hate when this happens in fics. But I don't have any proper snippets to show for it yet.

And - Txoria txori, part 5! God, I have the major plot of the chapter written since September and yet I can't seem to write the rest!

Unai walked over to him and grabbed the packet of cigarettes. “Can I get one as well?” Mikel asked, daring to look him in the eyes for a moment. Unai looked surprised, but obliged, pulling two cigarettes out of the packet at once and handing one over to Mikel. In a moment of stupid pride of knowing and feeling power over Unai, Mikel didn't reach out his hand - instead, he parted his lips, just enough for a cigarette to be slipped between them, and Unai did just that, although the stern look on his face froze for a moment, and there was a hint of panic. 

Because I am me, I am obviously also already planning the Unai-bringing-sacrifices-to-his-Villa story. I'm trying to think whether I have any other "urgent" stories to write - e. g. the one with Boehly/Potter has been bothering me for like nine months before I actually started writing it, lol. But I don't think I have anything as urgent now? I feel like eventually there will be more of JT/Eddie, Ange/Poch, Unai/football, Unai/Mikel, but I have already posted at least one fic for all of these, so it doesn't seem so urgent. I still feel like there should be a Frank/Mason fic about them both leaving Chelsea as well!

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

I think there's still a lot to do in the Lampardverse - I don't have the balls (yet) to write and post a fic about ALL the deranged lore. I think I'd need to find a story/moment that could include it to be presented to the wider public.

I need to figure out the level of gore I would be able to include in the vampire stories - I'm not into gore directly, I think the idea of teeth lingering just above the neck is much more erotic! - and I'd need to find some compromise for the "Unai bringing sacrifices to the Villa" story that I would be comfortable and confident writing.

I have a lot of deranged thoughts, but I feel like now that I already posted a couple of fics that include the cousincest openly, the Nasty Dads as well, and even the idea of a football manager making out with a seat of a stadium, humping the pitch, and rubbing himself against a trophy, I can write and post pretty much anything. We'll see how far can the boundaries be actually pushed this year!

11. Would you like to try any new fanfic genres or tropes this year?

Hmm, definitely some dipping into the horror genre with all the vampire stuff. I'm not that much into tropes, so I'm not sure about that - I definitely want to explore and write about more kinks, or to elaborate more on some stuff that I have already touched upon (objectum!Unai, some watersports, Franko dreaming of what would have been if he was A Housewife for Jamie Jamie cousin Jamie...). I honestly don't even know what genre my fics are as they are, so I don't know how to change that. But I have always wanted to write a fic in some very specific style - like David Pearce's Red or Dead (which has lots of repetitions, lots of super short sentences, almost doesn't include speech, but is super readable and interesting). I think it's perfect for the Lampardverse! Lampardverse - especially the Most Fucked Up parts of it - definitely deserve a specific storytelling and an unreliable narrator.

[kattartsblog]

Rated M

Warnings: Swearing, baited fluff, Blood, Anxiety, Death Mention, OC x Canon, Self Esteem Issues

Today is the day, will Ilona finally confess their feelings to Melone or will their heart be crushed?

Author’s Note: If you saw my previous text post, this chapter will not have a “keep reading” due to a glitch on site. (Still unsure about that but hopefully I’ll be back to my usual format soon.) Also the flashback takes place after the one shot, “Banshee Concert”, I recommend you read that if you want to know what’s happening here.

XxxxX

Ilona slowly took off their silvery stilettos and unzipped their gown, they threw it to the side of their bedroom. The look of horror on Melone’s face after the performance at the opera house stained their mind. Risotto was pleased to hear that Ilona was able to get the job done, but in private he had asked Ilona what the others had witnessed. Showing a taste of this new power with an inanimate object, a small glass, Ilona sang a few notes of the song’s climax and the glass cracked. Risotto too grew weary of them. The expression on his face reminded Ilona how they were not human anymore, just a monster amongst men. As their thoughts began to swirl they heard a knock at their room door, Ilona swiftly put their shorts on and walked towards the door gingerly opening it.

It was Melone, “Buonasera, may I come in?” Ilona nodded and guided him to sit on the bed. There was still tension in the air between them, they had sat in silence for what felt like centuries had gone by. Ilona hugged their knees to their chest, “I’m sorry for scaring you at the opera. I didn’t know I could do that and I should have kept it under control.” Ilona curled up into a ball, leaning their back against the wall. Melone placed a hand on their shoulder in comfort, “Actually, I should be the one apologizing. I didn’t mean to run off like that. I just couldn’t face the fact that someone so tiny could have such a powerful stand.” Ilona peaked their head up and scowled at Melone, “That came out wrong, what I meant to say was that you’re strong. And that’s a good thing. I couldn’t be more proud to call you my friend.”

“Then what was with that face, when I walked closer towards you after the show?”

Because I felt unworthy to be standing next to you. You showed us how much we underestimated you. I should have congratulated you, that performance you put on was extraordinary.” Ilona unfurled themself and looked up to see Melone’s face. Like a lost kitten they placed their forehead onto his. “You are not unworthy, it should be the other way around Melone. You’re really intelligent and sweet and… some other third thing that I can’t think of.” Melone giggled and kissed Ilona’s forehead. Ilona’s heart began to beat faster.

XxxxX

This feeling in their chest; it was the same feeling that happened in the opera house, when he apologized, when they first met, and it was the same feeling now. Illuso was right, deep in their heart they knew that if they didn’t ask now, when will they ever? Ilona had only one solution, to get advice from the only people that knew all about the subject of love.

So you came to us for romantic advice?” Sorbet replied Ilona nodded, Gelato snickered at the notion, Sorbet smacked his arm playfully. “Maybe this was a bad idea.” Ilona sighed, “No no, I’m sorry Il. It’s just that you must be in some kind of major romantic pickle if you came to us.” Ilona’s face turned red, “I just need help asking out Melone.” It was as if the entire world stood still, Sorbet sat up straight in his chair. “I thought you two were already an item?” He asked and Ilona shook their head, “Interesting, well. You seem to be good friends with him already so you’re halfway there.” Gelato replied, Sorbet placed his hand upon his chin to think. “Tell us how or more specifically, when did these feelings truly begin to blossom?” Ilona closed their eyes and the question echoed in their mind as another memory began to play.

[jadeile-writes]

Fanfic Progress Update 152

Hello, it's Saturday! That means I'm doing an update on the stories that are currently in the works. Stay tuned for a sneak-peek for Keep the Cuddles Platonic -challenge at the bottom of this post!

Current WIPs:

Keep the Cuddles Platonic -challenge

Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog, movieverse

Summary: Doctor Robotnik is simultaneously touch averse and touch starved, which results in a plan to "get the touching needs over with" in the most efficient way he could think of: cuddles overnight, when he wouldn't be doing anything useful anyway. Agent Stone was not privy to the plan until they arrived at their hotel room for their business trip.

Progress: Chapter 1 is the current latest chapter and was posted on 16th of November. Chapter 2 is finished and will be posted on 23rd of November aka next Thursday. There is a sneak-peek into the chapter at the bottom of this post. Chapter 3 is in a complicated situation - it was supposed to be the last chapter, but it already reached a word count to match the previous chapters and is at a perfect point to end it, should I want to. So, I have two options: 1. I let this chapter be longer than the other ones and keep the fic to three chapters total. 2. I end the chapter at the natural cut off it's currently at and simply do a chapter 4 to finish the fic with. I'm thinking that option 1 will be Plan A, and I'll go with it if the fic gets finished in roughly 500 more words. If, however, the fic keeps going to a 1000 more words, I'll do a chapter 4 and just flesh it out until it matches the other chapters in length. In short: Good news, more story one way or another, woop!

—–

I'm Signing in the Drain

Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog, movieverse

Summary (temporary): Not many people know this, but Doctor Robotnik is actually deaf and uses hearing aids to make up for it. Agent Stone does not know this, he just kind of assumes he's told to learn sign language upon being assigned for some other, mysterious reasons, and not as a "just in case" measure.

Progress: This fic will have at least three chapters, maybe four. The second chapter is almost done, despite the first one not being written yet. I'm actually not sure if this fic will end up being Stobotnik aside from Stone being Big Gay as usual, cause Robotnik is being very aroace right now and I don't know if he'll give Stone a chance or not, as that is not really the point of the fic. Anyway, I wrote a bit more since the last update, but not enough to finish the chapter, as I focused on Cuddles.

—–

SBLF (workname)

Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog, movieverse

Summary (temporary):

Wanted: a yesman who is capable of operating an espresso machine, has at least a higher IQ than your average amoeba, and is willing to put work before having a personal life, or indeed a life, period. The extra in your pathetic paycheck is good, but the strain in your psyche will make up for the positives. Forfeit your basic human rights and apply today if this sounds like you. 

Maybe it said something about Agent Stone - and probably not good things - that the poster in the cafeteria's pin board piqued his interest more than any of his official assignments had for a good long while. 

Dr. Robotnik, huh?

Progress: This one will be a longfic, probably around 20 chapters. It's a bit hard to estimate at this point, so the number is subject to change. Or I might cut this into two fics in a series, because quite honestly, it's two stories in one package (that is, half of it is pre-canon and half post-canon, so you know, could easily have two fics.) My writing hours will be devoted to this fic.

Now the actual progress. I have the first two chapters written (first is a prologue, so about half the length) and the third one is now 3/4s done thanks to a successful writing hour today. I also have two halfway written chapters that don't yet know their exact placement within the fic (somewhere in the early middle, but like, are they chapters 5 and 6 or 7 and 8, nobody knows).

—–  

Other WIPs I’m not currently working on but intend to get back to Someday™:

PoE Drabbles (Pillars of Eternity)

DC Drabbles (Justice League)

Diaphanous Relations (Forgotten Realms, R.A. Salvatore’s books)

Rolling with it (Zelda: BotW)

Hah, our afterlife is the most hilarious bushwa, dearest! (Hazbin Hotel)

—–

That’s it for the WIPs! Here’s the promised sneak-peek into Keep the Cuddles Platonic -challenge (Note: the text may end up slightly different in the fic itself due to more editing happening before publishing). Enjoy!

Every overnight business trip or remote mission involved nightly cuddling these days. There weren't very many of them, as most of Doctor Robotnik's work could be done remotely or the mandatory meetings and frankly pointless presentations were held at the Virginia headquarters, but every now and then travel was a necessary evil.

What had changed between the last trip and the current one was that Stone had found himself holding the doctor in a different regard. As in, he now had a massive, soul consuming, heart palpitations inducing crush on the man, and that was terrifying.

As he dragged their luggage in, he forced himself to remember the doctor's words from the very first time they had this arrangement: purely platonic. Non-intimate.

While the focus had been on Stone keeping his hands to himself and his pants untented, surely that included romantic notions too.

—–

That’s it this time. See you next Saturday!

Links:

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[user-name-password]

I posted 18 times in 2022

3 posts created (17%)

15 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@fiveshortgrayblesofmylife

@kitkat-the-muffin

@a-h-li

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I tagged 3 of my posts in 2022

#archive of user-name-password - 3 posts

#first post - 1 post

#second post - 1 post

#third post - 1 post

Longest Tag: 29 characters

#archive of user-name-password

My Top Posts in 2022:

#3

A little over a month ago, I watched a video which detailed a what if scenario about Sora declining Naminé’s offer to restore his original memories at the end of CoM, and it got me thinking.

How would the series play out if Sora never got his memories messed with in the first place.

Which my thought process interpreted as ‘What if Naminé wasn’t in CoM, What if Naminé was never created, What if Sora never became a Heartless’ you get the picture.

Here’s the thing though, I’m an insecure writer who’s only ever made one other story public before, (not on Ao3, but still,) and I abandoned it halfway through simply because I grew to disgusted with what I’d already released.

(I’m not at perfectionist levels of expectations for my writing, but it’s damn close.)

So I’ve been content to just leave what ever ideas I get in my head to rot away, but this idea about Sora not becoming a Heartless wouldn’t rot, it just stayed in my head for days on end, refusing to fade away, and eventually I decided enough was enough, opened Ao3, and in the span of three days, I wrote chapter 1 and released it.

But there comes the problem, I hadn’t thought this story through yet, I had no outline, I just had an idea, and post it, than I got another idea, and posted it as chapter 2.

Than around three weeks ago, my Mother and I got diagnosed with Covid 19, and I was bedridden for over a week, unable to think of even one coherent sentence.

When I’d finally recovered enough to read and write again, my disgust for previously released work set in, and I decided to procrastinate by finally (finally) writing out a simplified outline for this story.

And I was happy with it.

The day after writing it, i was still happy with it, even now, almost two week later, I’m still happy with it.

It wasn’t perfect, not even close, but at least it didn’t automatically make me feel like the worst writer imaginable.

Except.

There was one major problem with it, one that I couldn’t ignore, or continue from.

The ending of chapter 2.

No matter how much I tried to continue, no matter how many times I rewrote the beginning of chapter 3, I couldn’t stand it, i couldn’t make it work.

But I didn’t want to just abandon this story just because of that one single issue, especially since I still had so many ideas for this fanfic.

And as I tried to think of a solution, the answer became obvious.

Since I was so unhappy with the ending of chapter 2, I decided the best cause of action was to remove it and replace it entirely.

I’ve already made another post talking about the original ending of Chapter 2, what I was going for when I wrote it, and why I decided it was better to cut it, so won’t go over it here.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

0 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

#2

In this post I’ll show what was changed in chapter 2 of Another Way, Lamenting Leaders. (Originally named Restless Respite, but after the rewrite I decided that worked best as the chapter 3 title.)

0 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

This is my first post, it’s not a lot, but it’s mine.

Although I’m pretty sure someone else has already done something like this, probably before I even joined the site, but I don’t care that it’s not original, it’s a good first post.

And it’s mine.

0 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[randalsgrave]

Sweetness and Light: Part Four

Holy absolute shit you guys. I definitely didn't think this would take as long as it did, but uh... 3 months. Yikes. Anyway. I seem to be on this trend of increasing my page count with each chapter, because this one totaled out at 20 pages. I don't think I've ever written that much for one chapter of anything in my life. On the plus side, though, it's pretty much entirely Bob and Katie goodness so THAT'S a vibe👌

Week one starts off about as gracefully as you'd expect it to at TOPGUN. The week, of course, isn't without its bright spots.

BobxFemale!OC. F/C: Kacey Rohl

Word count: 7.3K

WARNINGS: colorful language; not beta-read (we die like men); minor editing

Recommended soundtrack: Turnin' On the Screw - Queens of the Stone Age

***

Week one of training begins with all the grace and elegance of a first-time pilot - that is, to say, rather abruptly and artlessly. Everhardt isn’t there to coddle them with flowery words of motivation and compliments; he’s there to train them, to turn them into the precise, dead-eye warfighters the Navy needs them to be. 

Still, no one’s expecting him to throw them into the fire the way he does.

It’s simple, he says - there will be four areas of instruction, with three weeks of focus dedicated to each one. The first block will focus on air-to-surface; the second on section; the third on division; and the fourth on basic fighter maneuverability, one-on-one sorties - dogfights. 

The last block is what has the class raising a collective eyebrow. Everyone’s read up on the curriculum, researched the course of TOPGUN at one point or another; BFM is the first component of the course, the first thing everyone is expected to master in their time at North Island. 

Everhardt, however, doesn’t see it that way. “The likelihood of you ever winding up in dogfight situations… You probably have better odds of being struck by lightning,” he explains one morning during lecture. “BFM is the exception, the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ set of skills you are expected to have - but likely not going to use. You learn this last under my instruction because, if all else fails, you still have your skill as a pilot to fall back on. However, we’re not here for ‘if all else fails’; we’re here to learn, refine, and master, as much as it takes to perfect ourselves, so that we don’t wind up in those situations.”

And with that, Everhardt not only introduces the class to air-to-surface tactics, but he sets the pace and the tone for the next 13 weeks. We are here to learn, refine, and master. 

And they do. For 12 hours a day, they split their time between class lectures, labs, and hops in their fighter jets (and even then it’s sandwiched between pre-ops and post-ops debrief), working in that endless loop of learning, refining, mastering. Sweating. Straining. Struggling. And that’s not even including PT three times a week, or any of the other trivial Navy bullshit they deal with regularly. It’s just work, on and on and on. 

It’s unlike anything they've done before. Katie - and everybody else, no doubt - looks back on the hardest shit she’s been through, and it all just pales in comparison. OCS? Basic flight training? SERE? It doesn’t hold a candle to TOPGUN, to the paces Everhardt is already putting them through. Two days into the course, they’re already zooming thousands of feet above ground, “dropping bombs” and zeroing in on targets with a precision that’s expected of them in 20 years’ time, much less 20 hours. 

And it’s done, over and over and over again, with this team and that team, in a seemingly-endless cycle of exhaustion and brain-ache, and goddamn, if they all aren’t frazzled by the time they’re halfway through week one. Hell, even Melendez is gassed three days in, and that’s saying something. 

Still, they all know the hardest, the worst, is yet to come. They’re practically hanging on by the seat of their pants, waiting for it to hit them. 

They’re here to learn, and by god, they will learn - but there’s no doubt they’ll get their asses handed to them in the process. 

And every single one of them would be lying if they said that they weren’t nervous.

***

It’s Saturday, the first training-free day they have in North Island. For many, today is a day of rest and relaxation, a day of recovery after the paces Everhardt has already put them through. 

For Katie, it’s the complete opposite. 

While the sky normally calls to her, today, it’s the mountains that do it. She’s up and moving by 07, fresh-faced and bright-eyed for the day of adventuring before her. Coffee’s already racing through her veins like lightning, her hair is double-braided and headbanded, and her backpack is stocked with water and enough granola and trail mix to last her a full day. It might be a little overkill for someone with her level of hiking experience - but given what she’s planning on hiking, she might well need all the snacks she can get. 

The only thing that’s missing now is someone to hike with. 

She grabs her phone off its charger on the nightstand, fires off a blast text. It’s nothing spectacular - a quick blurb reading “Hey, it’s Sand Trap. Planning on driving out and hiking Pyles Peak soon. Anybody wanna tag along?” With how early it is and how much of a beating they took on yesterday’s hop, Katie’s not expecting much of a response, if any. 

At first, she’s right. Her first reply is from Fanboy, a brief “Gonna pass, too tired. Thanx tho.” Her second reply isn’t even a reply, really - more of a notification that Halfpint’s left her on read. After that, it’s one response or the other from the few other classmates she’s gotten phone numbers from. 

Fuck it. Clearly, no one else is up or interested. Looks like Katie’s on her own for this. 

And then her phone dings with another reply. 

It’s from Bob. “Sure,” his response reads. “I’ll need a few minutes because I just woke up, but I’ll go.”

Well, how about that. There are signs of life. 

Katie smiles softly as she picks up her phone to reply. “All good,” she types. “Can meet you downstairs if you’d like.”

“Sounds good. Should I bring/pack anything?”

“Water, for sure. Snacks if you got em, but if not I have plenty of trail mix and granola.”

“Okay. Yeah, I don’t have anything so I’ll take you up on the trail mix offer.”

“No worries. I’ll see you in the lobby in 5.”

“Okay.”

And just like that, Katie has herself a hiking buddy. Even better, it’s Bob. She’s been meaning to interact more with him; he may be more on the quiet side, but he still strikes her as someone with a lot to say - and honestly, she wants to hear what it is. She’s already looking forward to this immensely. 

She shoulders her backpack, grabs her keys and sunglasses, and heads for the lobby, palms drumming an absentminded rhythm on her thighs as she rides the elevator down. She wonders if Bob is as avid of a hiker as she is, wonders if he’s looking forward to this hike just as much as she is. Curious, indeed. 

Downstairs, she’s the only one in the lobby who isn’t staff - but not for long. Two minutes after making herself comfortable on one of the couches near the front desk, Bob appears in her line of sight, wearing a loose gray t-shirt, gym shorts, running sneakers, and what looks like a Camelbak swollen with water, looking for all the world like he’s still trying to wake up - and good lord, if Katie doesn’t find that just the tiniest bit adorable. 

“You weren’t kidding about just waking up, huh?” Katie asks with a chuckle. “You look like you’re still half-asleep.”

Bob groans, removes his glasses and swipes a hand across his eyes. “I definitely feel it,” he replies, voice deep and heavily laced with sleep. “The hike’ll help. At least, I think it will.”

“It will. You’ll probably be tired afterwards, but at least you’ll be awake during it.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Awesome.” Ignoring the semi-awkward pause in conversation, Katie lets her gaze drift towards the breakfast bar in the back corner of the lobby, curls her bottom lip thoughtfully. Food-food sounds like a good idea… “You hungry? Wanna eat before we head out?”

“I’m good. I’m rarely a breakfast person to begin with, but it’s even less so this early in the morning.”

No pre-hike omelet for her, then. Oh well. 

“You ready to go then?”

“Yeah. Whenever you are.”

Katie only grins before nodding to the door and in the direction of the parking lot, a silent “shall we” that cues him to follow. 

And follow, Bob does. Katie feels less like she’s walking with a friend and more like she’s leading a pet along for a lap around the neighborhood. He’s still reserved and guarded; that much is obvious. 

Hopefully, this hike with her will help him break out of his shell. 

She glances over as they’re walking through the parking lot to the 4Runner, takes note of the two cartoon-style lightbulbs on Bob’s t-shirt with a smirk on her face. “Nice shirt,” she comments. 

Bob looks down at his shirt, almost as if he forgot what he’s wearing, then smiles. “You like Queens of the Stone Age?” 

“I only know a couple of their songs, but I like the ones I’ve heard. Guessing the lightbulbs are from one of their albums?”

“Yeah, they’re from Era Vulgaris. It’s one of my favorite albums by them.” He pauses, seemingly contemplates whether or not he should say what he’s thinking. Katie has to resist reaching out, resist putting a hand on his shoulder and urging him to speak. C’mon Bob, talk to me. 

Thankfully, he sucks in a breath and goes for it. “I’ve got it downloaded on my phone. We could listen to it on the way. Only if you want to though, I don’t wanna impose-”

“I’d love that. Let’s do it.” 

“Oh. Um, okay then. Cool.” Bob’s looking straight ahead with his brows furrowed - and hell, Katie can hear the wheels in his brain turning, whirring. He clearly wasn’t expecting that reaction from her - and now he’s looking like he’s not sure where to go next. 

There has to be a reason for that. 

“You seem kinda’ surprised,” Katie observes as they climb into the car and she turns the key in the ignition. 

“Hm? About what?”

“That I said yes.” 

Bob blinks, purses his lips. The wheels in his head are turning again. Spinning for a reply.  

“I dunno,” he finally answers with a shrug. “Usually I get laughed off or brushed off. Your reaction’s kind of a first for me.” 

Well. There’s something she wasn’t expecting. 

“I find that a little hard to believe.”

“You’d be surprised,” Bob replies simply. 

There it is again - the gnawing in her stomach. The hurt she feels for him. It’s strange, she thinks. She’s known Bob for a grand total of a week; why she’s feeling her heart bleed for him like this is a mystery to her. 

Her mouth twists and she contemplates for one, two, three seconds as she maneuvers them out of the parking lot. “Well… fuck ‘em then,” she says after a moment. “I wanna hear what you got, so…” Her lips curl upwards in an encouraging - if not slightly daring - smile. “You gonna throw that album on or what?”

Bob’s eyes immediately flash. Before she knows it, he’s got his phone hooked up to her bluetooth, and the opening notes of Turnin’ On the Screw are beating forth from her speakers, setting the tone for both the album and the half-hour drive ahead of them. It’s punchy, off-beat, and bold, definitely not the shoegaze Katie regularly listens to, but who cares? The sound of this is different and she likes it. 

When she tells Bob as much, his eyes light up like a Christmas tree. 

“Yeah, they’re kind of mad lads with their sound,” he explains, blue eyes practically sparkling behind his glasses. “I don’t know anybody besides Josh Homme who can make an out-of-tune guitar sound good. It’s actually pretty nuts what he’s capable of.”

And he’s like this the whole drive to the Pyles Peak trailhead. Bob is practically a subject-matter expert on this band, from the original lineup and album release order, right down to the history of each song and hell, even the meaning of all the lead singer’s tattoos. Anything and everything there is to know about this band, Bob knows it. Katie’s impressed, to say the least. She can’t ever think of a time where she was able to recall several dense bits of information in a small time frame. The fact that this guy can… Hot damn. 

It’s more than that, though. Bob’s just… talking. Engaging. Suddenly he’s a far cry from the socially pained introvert she spent lunch with on Monday. He’s at ease, comfortable. Hell, he’s animated, voice louder than normal and the gestures of his hands speaking just as much as his words. No doubt the choice of music is playing a part in that, but in any case it brings a small smile to Katie’s face. She likes seeing this side of him. 

They make it through the first five songs of the album before they arrive at the trailhead, the sun brightening and cresting over the mountain sightline. On one hand, Katie has half a mind to have Bob continue the album on his phone as they hike; it’s been a rollercoaster of new sounds and she’s not quite ready to get off it yet. On the other hand, though, with her life and current day-to-day goings being as noisy and busy as they are, the thought of peace, of nature-induced quiet, makes her almost breathless with anticipation. 

Nah. Queens of the Stone Age can wait for a bit. Right now, she just wants her, Bob, and the sounds of the mountain trail. 

Speaking of Bob… He’s out of the car, fumbling to loop his arms through the straps of his Camelbak, blue eyes following the snaking path of the trail. “So this is it… How far is it to the summit?”

“Last time I looked, I think it was a few miles one way. Once we hit the halfway point, we can stop and figure out if we wanna keep going or call it.” She readjusts the pack and straps bearing on her shoulders with a breath, then looks back at Bob. “Ready?” 

“Yeah.”

It’s all the go-ahead Katie needs to begin their long, slow, arduous trek up the trail and into the mountains. She steps off, steps measured and slow enough for Bob to keep up, hands on the straps of her backpack and eyes roving left, right, left, right, taking in the scenery around them. The plant life is low to the ground and scrubby, pale green and dusty brown - quite unlike the mythical forests of her home state, or the woods of the east coast. 

“It’s so dry,” Katie comments to no one in particular. 

Drifting close behind her, Bob chuckles. “Welcome to SoCal. The scenery here is pretty much opposite of what we all grew up with.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me… Where are you from, anyway?” 

“Kind of all over the place.” 

“Lemme guess - military brat?” 

“Oh yeah. 12 years of moving here, there, and everywhere before dad finally retired and we settled down.”

“Nice. Where’d you guys wind up?”

There’s no missing the slight glower on Bob’s face when Katie turns to ask him. “Middle of nowhere Georgia, unfortunately.”

“Ah.” The smallest hint of a smirk tugs at Katie’s lips. “That explains the twang then.”

“Oh god, I hope there isn’t a twang. I fought picking up that accent so hard.” 

Katie snickers, pinches the space between her thumb and her index finger. “There’s a tiny bit of a twang,” she grins. “Just a liiittle bit.”

Bob returns the grin - sort of. It’s heavily tinged with exasperation. “Guess I gotta work on that some more then.” 

“I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a Georgia accent. I think it’s kinda’ nice, actually.” 

“Well, I’m glad you do,” Bob grunts as they begin their climb up a steep incline. “I personally don’t like it. It makes me think of all the backward-ass pricks I went to school with.”

“Fair enough; don’t wanna be associated with them.” 

“Yeah. Besides,” he continues, “I think of myself as being more from Washington, anyway.” 

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. Most of my dad’s family is from the Walla Walla-Prosser area. That, and I was born at the Naval hospital in Bremerton. It’s felt more like home for me than anywhere else - which is weird because I haven’t lived there since I was a toddler, and I don’t really have memories of it, aside from, like, fuzzy images of trees and a dog and my dad in his winter blues and… I dunno… I…” Bob’s face suddenly flushes red and he just stalls, the words dying on his lips as his eyes dart down to his feet, bashful, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes, and the last thing you’d wanna hear on a hike is me babbling for no good reason.”

Make that three times this week that Bob Floyd has made Katie’s heart twinge. 

Her head shakes vigorously. “No, no! Don’t be sorry! You’ve got nothing to be sorry about!” She pauses, considers her words carefully, finally settles for a soft smile that reads ‘please trust me’. “I like listening to you talk.”

Bob blinks. Really?”

“Yeah. The stuff you’re talking about is interesting. You also sound relaxed and comfortable. It’s nice.”

And god damn it, I mean it. 

Another pause, right before Katie purses and quirks her lips to one side of her face. A subject change might be in order. 

“You do a lot of hiking, Bob?” 

There’s a momentary glimmer in his eyes, one of relief. The attention’s still on him, but it’s a little less intimidating than what it was a moment ago - and based on what his eyes did just now, this is a topic he’s much more comfortable talking about. “Uh, yeah, actually. I only really started doing it when I first got stationed at Lemoore, but I try to do it every weekend.”

“Sweet. Where do you go? Or where have you gone, I guess.” 

“Well,” he starts, “I’ve already been to Yosemite and Kings Canyon, plus all the stuff close to base.” His brow furrows for a second. “Technically I’ve already been to Big Sur, but there are so many different parks and trail systems down there that I can’t really consider myself ‘done’ with it.” 

“Oh man, Big Sur… That whole area is on my hiking bucket list. Like, between the mountains and the redwoods and all that…”

“Yeah, it’s beautiful. Definitely one of my favorite places in California.”

“Honestly, I might see about sneaking up there one of these weekends. Bring along some camping gear, hang out in the trees…”

“Lemme know if you do,” Bob says. “I’ll probably go with you.” 

Man oh man, Katie would be lying if she said that the thought of that didn’t make her heart stutter. 

“I’ll, uh… I’ll keep you posted.” She coughs, pushes ahead, puts distance between the two of them so he can’t see the flush creeping across her face. Where in the hell is that coming from?

“Please do.”

“Promise I will. Now c’mon, we’ve got a mountain to climb.”

***

Three miles in, Bob and Katie are standing atop Cowles Mountain, in equal parts admiring the view sprawling below them and deciding whether or not they want to continue on. Whatever decision they make, Katie is ultimately glad she thought to bring two bottles of water; there’s been a lot of up-and-down movement on the trail, and the sun is hanging high in the sky, pounding down on the two of them. This is just a bit rougher than she thought it was going to be.

She tosses a handful of trail mix into her mouth, contemplates. “Y’know, we are standing on a mountain with a nice view. We totally could call it good right here.” 

“But…”

“But… I did promise Pyles Peak, which is supposed to have an even nicer view. So” - Katie looks back over her shoulder at Bob, who’s currently wiping away the sweat on his brow with his sleeve and sipping water from his Camelbak, quirks an eyebrow at him - “whaddaya wanna do?”

He takes another long pull of water, ponders, shrugs. “Well… I’ll happily take whatever I can get, but if you wanna keep going, then I’m happy to tag along.”

Power of decision goes back to Katie. And as beat as she may be from the first half of the hike, she knows what she wants. 

She smiles, reshoulders her backpack. “Let’s keep going, then.” 

Bob nods wordlessly before coming up beside Katie and matching his pace to her slow, easy one. “How far is it to the actual summit now?”

“‘Bout two and a half miles,” Katie replies. “The trail has a bunch of rollers before it goes into the summit incline. It’s a little rough-going at the end, but all the reviews I’ve read about Pyles Peak say that it’s worth the rough stuff. Sounds like some of the Appalachian trails I’ve hiked, if you ask me.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Appalachian Trail anything is brutal.”

“Yeah.”

They fall into a nice, easy silence, their focus on the ever-dipping trail and the footsteps they take. Left foot, right foot, left, right, left right left, slow and steady. At this point in the hike, it’s about all either of them can really concentrate on. 

Until…

“So, uh… Why do they call you Sand Trap? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Katie’s face splits into a beam. Stupid as the story is, she loves telling it. 

She clambers over a large cluster of rocks, pushes upwards and onwards with a single labored breath. “You remember Pensacola, right? How that place was a massive breeding ground for stupid antics?” 

“I… guess?” 

“Did you ever go to Flora-Bama? Or Seville’s?” 

“Eh, not really. Wasn’t my thing.”

For a moment, it seems like that’s all Bob’s going to say - and damn if that doesn’t throw Katie off just the slightest bit. She’s never met a pilot or NFO who didn’t engage in some form of Floridian stupidity. How the hell is she supposed to explain this now? 

Her silence and the stumped look on her face must do a number on Bob; suddenly he looks panicked, like he screwed up real bad, and his mouth goes off running a million miles a minute while he tries to salvage the conversation. “I knew a lot of people that went, though!” he all but blurts out. “I heard all of their stories about how crazy it was!” 

“Oh… Okay then, that works.” Boy, she’s learning all kinds of things about Bob Floyd today. “Well…When I was in basic flight training, me and some friends hit up Seville’s and Flora-Bama in one go one night. Drunken fuckery happened. Like, a lot of it. So much, in fact, that I woke up hungover, in a sand trap, on a golf course the next morning. No clue how I even wound up on a golf course.” 

“Oh my god, really?”

“Yeah, really. Classmates never let me live it down.”

“That is… Wow. That’s kind of awesome, actually.” 

“Mine’s not even the craziest,” Katie continues with a snicker. “We had a guy in our class get stuck with ‘Lord Farquaad’ as his callsign. He, uh, had a tendency to sacrifice wingmen. Totally didn’t help that he was the shortest guy in our class, too - like, five-four short.”

Bob juts his chin out and makes a face that Katie can only describe as pompous. Oh boy, she can already tell where this is going. 

“Some of you may die,” he says in a grandiose voice, “but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” 

He’s a walking music encyclopedia AND he can quote Shrek on command. Katie knew he’d be a good one to be friends with. 

“All right, my turn.” 

“Shoot.” 

“Why is your callsign your name? Seems kinda’… uncreative.”

Bob visibly stiffens, and Katie isn’t sure if it’s because she’s caught him off-guard or because it’s a touchy subject. Both, probably. Shit, please don’t clam up on me, not now. 

“…Is it okay if I ask that, or…?”

“Yeah no, it’s fine, it’s totally fine. It’s… it’s kind of a long story.”

It’s the same reaction from day one of instruction - not rude, not at all, but… closed off. Almost dismissive. This is something he’s not comfortable talking about with her, not yet. Katie can only hope that he eventually reaches that level of comfort with her, but until then…

He must sense the inner whirring of her mind, because he glances over at her with a small, tired but reassuring smile. “It’s not you, it’s just… It’s a lot.” He pauses, tilts his gaze skywards in thought. “I’m sure it’ll all come spilling out some other time.”

And that’s that; that’s all he’s going to say on it for now. Katie’s heart sinks a little bit at the realization, but she shrugs it off and presses on. Whether or not he wants to talk about it is ultimately on Bob, not her. He’ll get to it when he gets to it.

Hopefully.

“You good to step up the pace a little bit?” she asks, effectively ending the conversation before it has a chance to turn awkward. 

“Uh, yeah. That’s fine.”

“I’m sorry; normally I like taking my time on hikes but it’s starting to get hot out here.”

“Hey, no complaints from me. It’s your hike; I’m just here for the ride.”

“Yeah, well, I’d still like to not bust you up in the first week.”

“You won’t. Trust me, I can handle it.” 

“If you say so.” Her stride lengthens and her steps quicken, just the tiniest bit - not enough to blitz ahead of Bob, but enough to step up the pace and really get them moving. Just get to the top, that’s all she wants now.

She’s willing to bet that Bob isn’t far off from that sentiment, either. 

She sucks in a long breath, forces it out with a single exhale, and pushes on. 

Time to climb this rock. 

***

It’s half ‘til noon when Bob and Katie finally reach the summit of Pyles Peak, out of breath, sweaty, and sufficiently red-faced. The sun is hanging directly over them now, without a cloud in sight to break up the beams beating down on them. Katie has no doubt that she’s going to come out of the hike sunburnt as shit, but right now, she couldn’t care less. They made it up the mountain. 

And oh boy, is it worth the suffering. 

In her 27 years on earth, Katie has seen some pretty spectacular views from high places. Virginia has offered panoramas of the Appalachians in ways she never would’ve imagined - and Oregon? Good god. Her home state has arguably the best views in America and she’s gotten to experience every single one of them in their prime. Few things - very few things - can top the vistas and sheer glory she’s witnessed. 

This one, however, comes pretty close. 

On top of Pyles Peak, it’s a whole other world. The entirety of San Diego is laid out before them, gently rolling suburbs and grid-like urban areas, stretching and fading into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean off in the distance. It’s tranquil, peaceful - and undeniably awe-inspiring. 

“Would you look at that,” Bob murmurs, the reverence clear in his voice. “Can see the whole city from up here.” 

“Beautiful, innit?”

Bob nods, then chuckles to himself. “Can almost see my house in Lemoore.”

“Har har.” With a rather unceremonious grunt, Katie all but flings herself onto one of the boulders in the middle of the outlook, legs dangling haphazardly over the front of it. “God, it feels good to sit.”

Bob doesn’t quite collapse on the boulder the way Katie did; he seats himself quite neatly beside her, arms pillared on either side of him to keep himself upright - but his back rounds, sags even. When he exhales the long breath he’s apparently been holding, it sags even more. Clearly, this hike has taken just as much out of him as it has out of Katie. 

“You’re right,” he says, “that does feel good. Oh man…”

Katie snickers, digs through her backpack for her water and some granola. “Told you.”

“Wonder what the return trip’s gonna be like.”

“Eh, let’s not think about that right now, yeah? Let’s just process that we’ve climbed two mountains today.”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

The conversation soon dies away, and for a while, silence stretches between the two of them, comfortable silence, save for the sipping of water and the quiet crunching of granola. It’s silence that Katie appreciates; she now has an opportunity to put her brain in neutral, to let it wander. 

It’s a rare moment, being able to just sit and ponder. With her line of work, it’s always do, do, do, always go, go, go. For as much as she loves what she does, sometimes Katie wishes that it didn’t have to be this way. Hell, it probably couldn’t be this way; she can’t think of anyone who could permanently sustain that level of constant motion. 

But, if she’s not doing this for the rest of her life, then… What is there?

Maybe that’s why she asks the question that’s started floating in her head. 

“You ever think about what you’d do if you weren’t in the Navy?” Katie asks, eyes on the expanse of land below them. 

Bob shrugs, takes a pull of water from his Camelbak. “Sometimes. Not sure what I’d do, though. This job is all I’ve ever wanted, really.”

Katie can understand that. Life as a fighter pilot just makes sense to her; it always has. Most days, she’s like Bob and can’t really imagine doing anything else. Up here in the mountains, though? She sees another life, another free existence. Up here, even when she’s tethered to the ground, she feels like she’s flying. This is home just as much as the clouds are. 

“I think I’d find a way to hike for a living, or be a park ranger or something.” Hell, anything to tie her to the land, to the trees and wilderness. Anywhere that she can’t be found easily. 

Anywhere that she can’t find her easily. 

“Park ranger would be cool. Where would you wanna work?” 

“...Probably Mount Hood. Or Crater Lake. I mean, any one of the national parks would be amazing, but… I think I’d wanna stick to the ones from back home.” Shockingly. 

“Mount Hood…” Bob’s eyebrows furrow, the name visibly tumbling, rattling around in his head as he tries to connect it to an unknown point B. “...Oregon?”

“That’s the one,” Katie smiles. 

“Never woulda’ guessed you’re from Oregon.”

“Surprise. Born and raised in Portland.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yeah…” Clearing her throat, Katie rolls up the right sleeve of her t-shirt, revealing a small, but detailed panorama of the Mount Hood sightline tattooed along her inner bicep. “I haven’t been home in years, but home’s always with me.” 

She makes it a point not to elaborate on how long ‘years’ is. The exact number is wrapped in truths and memories she can’t afford to dredge up, not now - and certainly not while she’s with someone as sweet and unassuming as Bob Floyd. Would he understand? Who knows. Katie’s not going to find out. At the end of the day, it’s all just drama, sob stories. 

And that’s probably the last thing he wants. Damn certain it’s the last thing Katie wants.

No one likes a drama queen, Katherine Mae, NO ONE. 

“...Sand Trap?”

“Hmm?” 

“Are you okay?”

A furrow of her eyebrows. “Yeah, I’m fine. Is there something wrong?” 

“No, just… You had this really intense look on your face all of a sudden and… I dunno, you looked like you were mad.” 

Katie’s heart lurches in her ribcage. Fuck. It seems her thoughts made their way onto her face just now. 

Defensive, now - “No no, not at all! I’m just…” Now her brain is turning somersaults, scrambling for a reply that’s equal parts honest and deterring. “I dunno, I’m…” Jesus Christ Garland, SPEAK - “I guess I’m just wiped from the climb up.”

There are lame excuses, and then there’s whatever the fuck Katie just came up with. There’s no way Bob’s buying it; the slightly furrowed look on his face tells her as much. Still, whether it’s because he’s too much of a gentleman to pry or because he wouldn’t know where to start or what to ask first, he doesn’t comment on it, something that Katie is deeply grateful for. She knows it’ll come up in conversation again and that there will be no avoiding it when it does - but she can at least avoid it for now. 

She diverts, switches subjects. “You okay with taking a picture with me?” It’s a bit of whiplash, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s the best course of action at the moment.

If it weren’t for the fact that they’re the only two people on the summit, Katie’s certain Bob would’ve glanced around in search of someone else. He doesn’t even need to speak for her to know what’s running through his head and across his face: “Me?”

“They’re keepsakes from the places I’ve been,” she explains, right before a wry smirk makes its way across her lips. “And, y’know, proof that I’m not a loser with no friends.” 

Bob opens his mouth to speak - no doubt to brush it off or to self-deprecate in some way. However, he surprises Katie when he closes it instead, and nods. “I could probably use my own proof too, honestly.” 

“That’s the spirit. C’mere.”

Bob complies, hopping up on the boulder and squatting behind Katie with a closed-mouth grin on his face, while she throws up a peace sign with one hand and makes a scrunched face. One tap later, the ascent up Pyles Peak is immortalized on Katie’s phone. 

“Started from the bottom, now we here,” she quips as fires the picture off in a brief text to Naomi. “Literally.”

“Aren’t those the lyrics to a song?”

Katie shrugs. “Probably.”

“Thought as much.” As Bob rises to his feet, a wince slips from his mouth. “Oh god, my legs - y’know what, I’ll definitely take you up on food now. This hike was rougher than I thought it was gonna be.”

“Thank god, I was hoping you’d say that…” Katie purses her lips together in thought, surveys the horizon from their perch atop the mountain. “You oughta know this - what’s the west-coast equivalent of Waffle House?”

“What is it with you and breakfast food?” Bob laughs. 

“No, it’s not a breakfast food thing! I just… I’ve been out in Norfolk for the last three years, and there’s always been a Waffle House close to everywhere I’ve gone hiking. Kind of a ‘post-hike’ tradition, you know? Bust your ass climbing up the side of a mountain and reward yourself with a bunch of carbs at the end of it.” 

“All right, you got a point there. Um… Denny’s, I guess?” 

Katie makes a face. “Bugh, Denny’s?”

“Hey, it’s low-cost breakfast food, and it’s probably cooked by a guy with a cigarette in his mouth,” Bob replies with a shrug. “What more could you want?”

“You do realize that you don’t go to Denny’s; you end up at Denny’s, right?”

“People ‘wind up’” - fingers crooked in air quotes - “at Waffle House, too.” He hops down from the rock he’s been perching on, turns to Katie with a smirk on his face. “I mean, c’mon, like any of us have never wound up drunk at Waffle House at 2 AM.” 

“Whatever happened to ‘drinking’s not really my thing’?”

“No, Flora-Bama and Seville’s weren’t really my thing. There’s a difference. Trust me, I did my fair share of drinking in BFT.” 

“Why Lieutenant Floyd, you troublemaker!” 

“Oh, I’m the troublemaker, miss ‘night of drunken stupidity’, miss ‘somehow wound up blacked out on a golf course’?”

“Damn Bob, you didn’t have to call me out like that,” Katie retorts with a laugh. “All right then, what were your chosen spots for weekend debauchery?” 

“Old Hickory, mostly. Sometimes O’Riley’s. Places where I was less likely to run into a bunch of rowdy E-2s and E-3s.”

Katie grins smugly. “Or rowdy ensigns.”

“That too. God, sometimes they were worse than the enlisted guys.”

Bob slips off his glasses to wipe away the sweat and grime around his eyes. Katie can’t help but stare when he does. He’s quite handsome, Bob. Not that he wasn’t handsome to begin with, but without the glasses to break up the lines of his face… Wow. If Katie didn’t know any better, she’d say she’s been hiking with an old Hollywood star this whole time. The wavy, windswept golden-brown hair, the bright blue eyes, the strong jaw… 

“You okay?”

Blink. Blink. “Huh?” 

“You looked like you zoned out.”

Oh god, he’d caught her staring. Christ, it’s a good thing her face is already red from exertion; she’s pretty sure it would be turning beet-colored if it wasn’t. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles sheepishly. “You kinda caught me off-guard there.”

“Oh?” He readjusts his glasses, perched once more on the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean?” 

Oh my god, this isn’t happening, is it?

“I mean… You look different without your glasses, is all.”

“Well… is that a good thing?” 

Oh, Bob. 

She lets a small smile creep across her face. “Yeah… Yeah, it’s a good thing.” 

Bob doesn’t seem to really react to the admission - not in any blatantly obvious way, anyway. Katie does, however, glimpse a slight puff of his chest out of the corner of her eye. And that? That really makes her smile. 

They loop around the boulders to the mouth of the trail, looking at it with a mild sense of dread curling in their stomachs. Doing almost five and a half miles in one direction is one thing - but doing it twice? Oh man. 

This is going to suck a bit. 

And it does. Funnily enough, though, the return trip goes by a lot quicker than the initial climb to the top of Pyles Peak. Probably because we’re desperate to be done with it, Katie muses to herself as they make their way back to the trailhead. 

Three hours and ten minutes later, they’re finally back where they started - and though they may be worse for wear and drenched in more sweat than they would’ve thought possible, there’s no stopping the grins from spreading across their faces at their accomplishment. 

“So, what do we think?” Katie asks as they walk - or, rather, hobble - their way back to the 4Runner. “Pyles Peak: worth the ass-kicking or not?” 

Bob wheezes out a chuckle. “Dunno. Can’t really decide if I don’t have a brain - and I’m pretty sure I left mine somewhere on the mountain…” 

That merits a snicker from Katie. “Means it was a good hike, then.” She pauses to fish her key ring out of the front pocket of her backpack, unlocks the car with a click of her button fob. “Of course, if you wanna make it a great hike, then you gotta have a massive plate of food at the end,” she says as she all but flings her backpack into the back seat area. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah. Where I’m from, it ain’t successful unless you have the food at the end.”

“Well, I’m still up for Denny’s, if you are.”

“Oh same. I know what I said earlier about Denny’s versus Waffle House, but I’m absolutely starving right now, so I’ll happily take you up on Denny’s.”

“Good.” Bob pulls his phone out of his pocket, searches for restaurants in the nearby area. “There’s one 20 minutes out. It puts us a little further from base, but-”

“That’s fine with me; let’s do it.” She hops in the driver’s seat and starts the car up, slumping in the driver’s seat with a blissful sigh as cold air whirls through the car. She’s only like this for a moment, though, before she’s sitting back up, and maneuvering them out of the parking lot towards their designated food spot. It’s been a long day, and she’s gone long enough without much to eat.

She turns to Bob, smirk on her face as they hit the main roads. Time to pick up where they left off earlier. 

“Now then, where were we with that Queens of the Stone Age album?”

***

It’s closing in on 1600 when Bob and Katie make it back to the Navy Lodge, bodies and minds sated with carb-laden breakfast plates and good conversation. While the rest of the lodge patrons are getting ready for or are on their way to an evening of excitement and socializing, the two of them are ready to call it quits. Pyles Peak was a lot longer and more intense than either of them realized; even with the large post-hike meal, their bodies are exhausted beyond repair. Long rest is an immediate necessity. 

When Katie says as much during their slow - very slow - amble to the elevators, Bob nods wearily in agreement. 

“Gotta say,” he chuckles as they step inside one of the cars, “I’ve done some intense hikes before, but you? You’re hardcore. That was the longest hike I’ve ever gone on.” 

Katie knows Bob’s being good-natured about it, but she’s unable to stop her face from contorting into a wince. “I promise I wasn’t trying to break you - or me, for that matter.” If the dull aching in her legs is any indication, she came damn close to it. She severely underestimated that hike.  

“No harm done. I’m just not gonna have a good time at PT on Monday.”

“Make that two of us,” Katie chuckles weakly.

It’s a short ride up in the elevator. Within seconds of stepping on, it dings and jolts to a stop at the third floor. The two shuffle off, make their way down the corridor to Katie’s room, swaying, drifting close to each other. The distance is a lot smaller than the arm’s length they started the day with, Katie notes absentmindedly.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Bob says during the slow walk. “Pretty sure I would’ve spent all day holed up in my room if you hadn’t said something.”  

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” Katie replies, lips curled in a gentle smile. “I had a great time with you. You’re a good hiking buddy.”

“I try to be. Honestly, I should do it more often.”

The words hang in the air, open, inviting, tempting. It’s a golden opportunity for someone to jump on them and make a move of some sort. That’s not the surprising part. 

What’s surprising is how fast Katie seems to jump on it. 

“Well, I’m always up for it, so… anytime you wanna go, lemme know. I’m happy to take you with me.” 

The corners of Bob’s eyes crinkle as a smile spreads across his lips. “I’d like that.”

They’ve long since arrived outside of Katie’s room, and now stand opposite each other before the white-paneled wood door, looking, staring - and god, if it isn’t the strangest, but most intriguing thing. Today’s hike was only the second time they’ve spent time together, and yet, it felt like they’d been hanging out for years with how easy, how relaxed their interactions were. It felt… nice. If this is what it felt like after a week of acquaintance and two social interactions with him, Katie’s eager to know what the feeling’s like after another week or two, maybe three.

She’s gonna need to hang out with him more.

And one look at the blue eyes behind the wire-frame glasses tells her that he’s thinking the exact same thing. 

“I’ll, uh… I’ll see you later then.”

Yeah, you will.

“See you later, Bob.” 

“See you.”

Then, Bob turns, walks off down the hall, and disappears around a corner. 

And Katie? Katie shuts the door with a quiet click, and leans back against it, a tired, blissed out grin blooming on her face. 

It’s a grin that sticks with her for the rest of the weekend. 

@thestagsheadsblog @everything-i-love-in-life @luckyladycreator2 @docdetective

[hlizr50]

Update: The Raven and the Songbird

Chapter 3

Read on AO3

Four days.

Four days of training with no sign of Azriel.

Four days of the pitying side-glances from Nesta and Cassian when she arrived to the ring to find that he still wasn’t there.

Gwyn gritted her teeth and peppered the post with blows from her fists and feet. She hated pity. She didn’t want it. They knew it, too. It was all she could do not to scream at them, and part of her wondered why exactly she hadn’t. A few weeks ago she probably would have. Her scowl deepened.

She punched harder.

As much as she’d denied it to the general and her friends, she was acting differently. She wasn’t upset about being spurned by a male. She had never had any claim on Azriel, never had any expectations. She was not a female that would allow a male to have power over her emotions – her very being – like that.

But she felt like she had lost a friend, and not due to tragedy or death. She had lost a friend by their own choice. She wasn’t sure how to handle that.

Had it been pity that made Azriel placate her? Is that what he had done? She’d told him that she missed him. It was true, and she had never questioned uttering her truth to anyone.

He hadn’t returned the sentiment.

Perhaps it had been pity, then. He had said what he knew she wanted to hear, enough to get her out of his hair…

“NO,” she scolded herself through her panting. Gwyn would not allow herself to go down that road. She did not need pity from herself, either. She was strong and capable and confident. She was a Valkyrie.

The dull ache in her knuckles distracted her from her rushing thoughts and the sun beating down on the training ring. It was hotter than she could remember it ever being since she’d started training – so hot that Cassian had allowed the trainees to forego the Illyrian leathers in favor of lighter, cooler clothing. A year ago the idea may have terrified her, but she had fought Illyrian warriors in nothing but a nightgown, so she graciously accepted Nesta’s offer of the light blue linen tunic that bared her shoulders and lightweight leggings. Gwyn was grateful for her friend’s consideration, even though she knew the sun would likely end up burning her rarely-exposed skin.

Another distraction. For the best.

“Gwyn.”

The priestess started as the general’s voice boomed from behind her. She turned her wide eyes to him and saw an eyebrow raised at her.

“Cassian?” She had grown increasingly comfortable with him in the months since his and Nesta’s mating ceremony. She had spent a considerable amount of time with both of them, and while she still used his title, it was usually in jest and banter. He had become a friend, something of a brother, perhaps.

“I said you need to take a break.” His eyes shifted to her hands before returning to her face. “Water. Now. And take care of those hands.”

“I’m fine -“

“You will take care of them or I will sideline you for the rest of the day, Berdara,” he spoke sternly, every bit the weathered veteran and general of the most feared forces in all of Prythian. He had mischief in his eyes, as per usual, but there was something that darkened them.

Concern.

“Yes, general,” she drawled before muttering under her breath as he walked away, “Mother-henning busybody.”

“What was that, Berdara?” he challenged over a broad shoulder.

“Nothing!” she sing-songed back to him as sweetly as she could muster, lest she not sound convincing. His wings flared slightly as he paced away, and she waited until he was halfway across the ring before she stretched out her arms in front of her to survey the backs of her hands. The fabric wrapped around her hands was stained crimson across her knuckles where her skin had surely cracked open. In multiple places.

She hadn’t even noticed.

Gwyn uttered a low curse, scowling to herself, and stalked over to the table where Nesta and Emerie were watching her. Her sisters. Regardless of whatever this storm was that she was experiencing, she knew that she was not alone. That was the greatest comfort.

“If I were you I’d save some of that aggression for someone who actually deserves it,” the eldest Archeron offered, eyebrows raised. “What did that post ever do to you anyway?”

Gwyn scoffed, looking back at the padded wood that she had been battling for Mother-knew how long before glancing at her bloodied hands. “I think it still came out on top, anyway,” she grinned, and began peeling the fabric away. Emerie passed her a basket of gauze, ointments, and clean wraps as Gwyn lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the ground.

“You… uh… you were really in the zone there, Gwyn,” the Illyrian female said as she knelt beside her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” The copper-haired priestess looked at her friend, warmth blooming in her heart when she saw the concern written across her tanned face.

“I’m fine,” she smiled brightly at Emerie and then looked up to Nesta. “I promise.”

“Regardless,” Nesta answered as she sat down with her. “Save a couple of those shots for that idiot Spymaster. That’s what I’m doing.”

Gwyn managed a laugh before returning her attention to her stinging, bloodied hands. She hissed as she dabbed ointment over where her skin had split before laying gauze over the freshly cleaned wounds. Maybe she would save a punch or two for Azriel, if she ever even saw him again.

Or maybe she would just continue to savor the distraction of the pain.

~~~

Punching something until her hands bled had proven to be an effective distraction during training.

And again that night, when her demons had chased her out of bed for the third time in five days. She hadn’t told Nesta and Emerie how bad it was getting since Azriel had chosen to remove himself from her life. They were already worried, and it was something she would need to learn to manage on her own, anyway. At least she could still go to the training ring, work herself to bone-numbing exhaustion, and then collapse into slumber for a few precious hours.

Azriel was never there.

And while punching and kicking until she was bruised and bloody bought her some reprieve from her nightmares, it was not conducive to her work in the library. Her swollen fingers could barely grasp her quill.

Definitely weapons tonight, then.

She paused, feeling her eyes prickle as she realized her assumption: that she all but planned on being unable to sleep yet again.

What a mess she had become.

Regardless of what potential may have existed between her and Azriel before, what tore at her was the loss of a dear friend, a confidant. He had seen her darkest days and nights and had never run away from her. She had tried to ignore it the first night she had sensed him in the archway to the training ring before he retreated back into the House. But he’d kept retreating, again and again.

And now he didn’t approach at all. She hadn’t even sensed or scented him in the House, ever since that day he’d assured her that they were friends, and that things would go back to normal. What a foolish hope that had been.

“Gwyneth, girl, where are those books I told you to fetch? I sent you for them hours ago!” Gwyn winced as Merrill’s voice carried through the stacks. She had known it would only be a matter of time before the elder priestess found her. To an outsider, Merrill’s voice would have sounded pleasant, but the Valkyrie heard the venomous threats underneath. She put down her quill and rubbed her eyes as the beautiful white-haired female approached her, eyes gleaming with malice.

“I apologize, sister. I have been struggling with this transcription.” Indeed, the pain in her hands had caused her to be much slower than usual. “I’ll retrieve those books for you immediately.” Gwyn moved to push herself from the table when Merrill’s soft tanned fingers yanked her bruised hand to study it, her grip like a vice. The teal-eyed priestess winced.

“Poor little Valkyrie, can barely even write her own name,” Merrill scoffed. “Perhaps I should replace you, Gwyneth. Nobody has use for a foolish girl who is too broken to look out for herself.”

Gwyn pulled her hand back, the pain forgotten after the words that lanced into her soul. It was a ‘gift’ of Merrill’s, knowing exactly what to say to cut her to the quick.

“Can’t sleep without someone to coddle you, so instead you resort to brutality. Poor excuse for a Valkyrie. Poorer excuse for a female.” How could she know?

Gwyn rose abruptly, tears stinging at her eyes. But she would not let them fall in front of the witch. “I’ll go get those books now,” she managed to rasp, before retreating into the stacks.

~~~

That night she hadn’t even tried to sleep, the scholar’s dagger-like words twisting in her chest. Merrill was right, wasn’t she? For all Gwyn had done, all that she had overcome and accomplished, she was falling apart. She was adrift, uncertain of where to turn. Nesta and Emerie would never turn away, of course. But Azriel…

It had been different with him, she didn’t know why. But the gaping wound left in his absence was proof that maybe the necklace had meant more than she cared to admit. So had not being the intended recipient. It hurt.

Losing him hurt.

And even though she had realized that day that she wouldn’t have his heart, she had hoped that he would be willing to continue with the friendship they had built.

But she had lost even that.

Gwyn burst through the door and into cold rain, steam rising from the training ring as the droplets hit the stone floor still warm from the daytime sun. She stood there for a moment, letting it wash over her. Her robes grew heavy with water but she barely took note as the downpouring cold soothed her aching hands and soul.

Robes swished as she moved to the center of the ring. She sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. Closing her eyes, she tilted her chin up, allowing her tears to fall and mix with the rain that had dulled her usually vibrant hair to a drab chestnut.

Just breathe. Let it be and breathe.

She didn’t know how long she had been there, letting the storm wash her clean, when she felt him. She had always been able to sense him, shadows or no. She faced forward, determined not to turn toward him, lest he see how weak she had become. So she simply gathered her courage and spoke. It sounded steadier than she had expected, much stronger than she felt.

“Hello, Azriel.”

~~~

He wasn’t surprised that she knew he was there. She always seemed to know, and not just because his shadows were traitorous bastards who would tend to attract her attention – seemingly on purpose.

Gwyn always seemed to… sense him.

And, if Azriel were ever honest with himself, he would probably admit that it was the same for him. She had a presence that he was drawn to.

Constantly.

The restraint that it had taken to stay in the townhouse, maintain his home base there as he fulfilled his reconnaissance missions in Vallahan and the human lands – it was wearing on him. He’d barely slept in the last week, throwing himself into his work and training when the darkness and shame kept him awake in the night. The guilt was a festering wound inside of him.

He’d told Gwyn that they were friends. That things would return to normal. And then he’d run from her like a fucking coward.

Azriel. Spymaster. Shadowsinger. Death Bringer. The lethal dark of the Night Court had run from a 29-year-old priestess who loved nothing more than to smile and laugh, whose only crime was caring for him. Five centuries of training and death and calm calculation had not prepared him for her innocence and trust. It was dangerous.

The shadowsinger stared at her rain-soaked form huddled in the middle of the training ring, shadows curling around him – begging him to go to her. Even without the moon her skin seemed to glow. It was pinker than usual, likely due to her training underneath the midday sun. His gaze drifted to her hands, long fingers wrapped under her knees. His eyes narrowed as he spied the discoloration of her skin and cracks over her knuckles. He’d assumed that Cassian was exaggerating when he had told him that Gwyn was beating herself bloody, taking out her emotions on every piece of equipment available to her.

That knife of guilt twisted in his gut.

His brother had been waiting outside his room when he’d returned to the townhouse the night before, leaning on the doorframe casually with crossed arms.

“So this is where you run off to when you have too many feelings?”

Cassian had never been known for his tact.

“I’m working, Cassian. It’s quieter –“

“Cut the bullshit, Az. You and I both know that things are quiet and that your spies can more than manage their assignments.” Azriel growled and barged through the door, Cassian on his heels. “And you and I both know that this has nothing to do with your responsibilities to the court and has everything to do with Gwyneth Berdara.”

The shadowsinger halted, suddenly finding the navy silk sheets on his bed very interesting. Anything to avoid looking at the other Illyrian in the room. No matter what mask he slid over his emotions, Cassian could see right through it. Always.

He shook his head and tore his shirt off over his arms, stalking into the bathing room without acknowledging what the general had said. “I’m exhausted, Cassian.”

“Then listen to what I have to say, Az. You listen, then I’ll leave.”

He turned back to his brother, Cassian’s hulking form taking up most of the doorway. The dim fae lights of the bathing room cast shadows that sharpened the angles of his face. His usual mischievous glint had been replaced with resolution and concern. The shadowsinger sighed and motioned for Cassian to speak before turning to lean his hands on the refreshing cool porcelain of the bathtub.

“She’s working herself until she’s black and blue and bleeding. I’ve had to threaten to sideline her twice this week, just so she’ll take a break and tend to herself. Sound like anyone you know?”

Azriel could only sigh and hang his head. Of course it did. It was exactly what he always did to work through his frustration, to battle the demons that chased him out of bed too many nights. It was the reason she had found him in the training right that first night, the beginning of that friendship he’d told her he would uphold.

“I know you, Az. I know you feel guilty for upsetting her. I know what you see inside yourself. But you need to give yourself more credit, and Gwyn, too. Whatever this is, it’s hurting you both. So stop getting in your own way and be honest with her. Both of you can have what you deserve.”

The spymaster didn’t answer but raised his head to gaze at the moonlit garden through the window. He imagined there were lovely summer blooms and leafy vines slithering around the pane of glass – a lovely view for a relaxing summer bath. Cassian’s wings rustled has he turned to leave.

“If you can’t get your shit together and come back to help with training I need to know. The advanced females are having to sacrifice their progress to help with the novices. If I can’t depend on you to be there, I’ll need to find someone else.”

Azriel let out a sardonic laugh. The general knew just how to play him, like a fucking fiddle. He could never stand a jab to his dependability.

“I’ll be back next week.”

It was that conversation that had brought him to the training ring tonight, only to find the copper-haired priestess sitting in the cold rain. Even through the downpour he could smell the salt on her cheeks.

“What brings you here tonight?” he asked, like a useless fool. He knew the reason. Azriel was not the only one with nightmares.

“Same as usual, Shadowsinger.” Gwyn’s voice was tight. “Fourth time since we last spoke.”

He inhaled sharply. It had only been six days since he last saw her, in this very spot. “I thought they were getting better.”

“They were.”

They were.

Those two words hit him like a physical blow, but the white hot brand against his soul was the implication – the words she hadn’t spoken in that voice that was too shaky and small for the Gwyn he knew.

Her nightmares were getting better. But now… worse.

He had done this.

His absence, his cowardice, his stupidity, his darkness. It was his fault. He’d ripped his support away because he was a coward, unable to forgive himself for something her generous heart had forgiven almost as soon as it had happened. She had assured him of that. The sincerity had shone like stars in her incredible eyes. But he hadn’t accepted it. She had considered him a friend, and he had abandoned her to face her darkest memories alone.

Azriel’s eyes stung with the understanding, the wretched self-loathing, and he dared a glance again at those gentle hands he longed to hold. Bruised fingers and cracked skin.

He may as well have put those marks there by his own scarred, cruel, sadistic hands.

“I thought – maybe I just hoped – that I’d find you here one night.”

He swallowed the threatening emotions and could only manage a rasped, “I had work to do.”

“Of course.”

She saw right through him. She always had. Panic and guilt and grief rose like a tidal wave within him. He could never forgive himself for this pain he had caused her – a Carynthian warrior trying to hold herself together in the deluge. He would not forgive himself for the tears that she’d shed, the pain that she’d put herself through to cope.

I miss you, Azriel.

The shadowsinger took a shuddering breath.

Cassian was right. Gwyn deserved so much more than he could ever give, ever be. She was light and joy and he would not let his darkness snuff her out. He was broken, soulless, and cold – death on the wind. The terrible things he had done, would continue to do, would make even the strongest warriors flee in terror. He would not bring any more blood and fear and pain into her life. She deserved happiness and joy, and he deserved suffering and the dark.

They would both get what they deserved.

“You should get inside, Gwyn. The rain is cold and you’re soaked to the bone. Get inside, warm up, and get some rest.” Azriel had no idea how he’d managed that cool, detached voice when his chest was cracking open, allowing the shadows and shame to flood into him. He watched her form, swallowed in waterlogged robes. Everything about her seemed less vibrant in that moment.

“Yes. I will. Soon.”

He waited a moment longer, and when she made no move he stepped back into the stairwell, letting the night cover him. He dared one more glance over his shoulder, heart splintering when she lowered her head to her knees, shoulders shaking.

Azriel bolted down the stairs then, knowing that facing the 10,000 steps down to Velaris would be nothing compared to facing the gut-wrenching sobs he pretended he couldn’t hear.

~~~

Gwyn knew that he could probably hear her, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

So she let herself cry – full choking sobs – into her knees. But she didn’t cry for Catrin, or her lost innocence, or for Sangravah. For the first time in a long while she cried for her – this pain, heartbreak at losing someone who had become so dear to her and being powerless to stop it.

Tomorrow would be better, she knew. She had overcome far too much to let this break her. She would survive this, maybe even be better for it.

But tonight she would cry.

Because for the first time in over a year Gwyneth Berdara did not feel strong.

Tag List: @tealnymph-writes @trashforazriel @secretlovelybeauty @meher-sumedha @imsointobooks @flora-shadowshine @positivewitch @tanvee1231 @imwritingthesewords @camreadsum @vikingmagic33 @shisingh @ddsworldofbooks @gwynrielsupremacist

[youneedsomeprompts]

I became a writer one day.

There was a time when I was feeling really down during the last three months of 2020. It was hectic and was probably the most saddest months of my life.

The only last string of happiness that gave way to my depressed mental state was when I started reading Lout of Count's Family.

I had enjoyed myself and was so engrossed with the novel and manhwa that I have never felt so deeply enchanted towards a story and a character before.

During the start of the year I have distanced myself with a bunch of people and I may or may not have hurt a few of them along the way. The only given comfort I could have, as I tried to move on from the issues I have been fighting from within, was through reading the novel and gaining online friends in discord.

It was all so much fun!! So many talented artists and apparently a LOT of those authors I have read fanfics about TCF/LCF (like those big big names whose fics had a bunch of hits and kudos) where practically living in the server.

Oh man the joy I had was intense when I realized I was actually mingling and talking to them. I was just at awe with how their thought process worked, how they articulated those details and plots in their writing, and seeing them creating AU's in the AU's channel whether it be fluff or angst or crack or a mix of the three XD. I was reading and chatting with them live and it felts so surreal to have read so many different alternate universes and stories created on the spot.

So main point.

One day, as I was craving for more fics of my otp, AlbeCale (I love these two so much), I tried asking in one of the channels in  the server if there were any new ones, because apparently I have read everything already in ao3. However, I did not expect a magnificent coin named Penny, a beautiful fruit named Mango, a fancy potato called Fancipotato, a sweet purple dragon named Miru, the Boss of our server, Boss Ren and a bunch more writers would tell me something that would change my life for the better

"If you can't find what you want, write it yourself~"

"You don't know until you try! You can just write and not post it if you want!"

"Join us!"

"Just write down ideas you have and who knows maybe it will evolve into an oneshot and before you know it a multichapter au!"

"Ohhhh!!! You should try writing!! I highly encourage just to try even if you don't think it's good because it's fun, therapeutic."

It still gets me laughing whenever I recalled my past self, who after creating a username and wrote 3 chapters in, posted in two days immediately. That was when the Boss Ren, Mango and my beta partner Butter, gave me a looong lecture at that moment XD I didn't know what was 'spacing' and that it was better to set schedules. And they were also kind enough to tell those things  to me so I wouldn't have a burnt out.

I was just so new to everything, heck I haven't even written a fanfic before in my life, never even read fics/ original stories in wattpad or ao3 before I found my love for the novel. (This novel has also been the third story I've read when I only mostly bury myself with manhwas/mangas)

It ended well and I have learned so many things along the way. My writing has greatly improved because of the people I have conversed with for the past 4 months. I have these tiny gremlins named Aster, Polka and Elli who are with me in a private server made Crypt who always seemed to persuade me in creating more plot to the story. These damn little enablers where the reason why the story is still not stopping anytime soon... (but they are a blessing and I would kill for them)

Crazy thing here is, if I told my past self who was still down in the dumps back in 2020 that I was writing in 2021 she would probably say,

"No shitting way!"

So enough backstory, since I've explained the depth of how I was just a beginner writer with no experience whatsoever, I am proud of where I am standing right now.

To think I have found this magical outlet to release my stress and to feed myself when I am craving for 'food' for the heart and soul at the same time. I have met so many kind humans down in the comment section who believes, supports and loves my first fic. I won't ever shut up about my this fic everywhere because the moment I posted that story was the day I felt somewhat lighter, satisfied and... well free.

To my past self who wouldn't stop crying her tears every night inside the bedroom, you'll be surprised to know that I'm already at the 20th chapter of the first fic I've written with 100,000 words count. (And I'm not even halfway done with the plot) I have garnered 2k kudos which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even believe, knowing you were just a reader and did not think you'd be a writer.

I was unexpectedly influenced in the pursuit of the vast horizon of writing where I still can't see the end, but I'm enjoying every bits and parts of the journey.

In simpler terms, I am happier now. Why? Because I became a writer one day.

Thank you for sharing! It is great to see which healing effect writing can have. And how awesome what successes and affirmation you've already received! I wish you the best for your future writing!

Share your writing success! (x)

[engagemachine]

How would J react if Taylor swore infront/at him?

May 22nd: New update

Anon, I’ve been thinking about this ask for daaaaays. Had to write a fic. This is just part one (turned out a lot longer than I thought it would be--wrote it in one sitting) and I’ll post part two as soon as it’s done!

FYI: This takes place early on in Burn, probably sometime around chapter two, so Taylor is back in high school. 

---

It’s still snowing outside when Taylor slides into her seat for third period English. She loves the overlarge windows in here, stretching along almost the entire wall of the left-hand side of the classroom. Black windowpanes showcase the little fountain in the courtyard, the stone benches seated around it, and the long, winding sidewalk where each senior from the class of 2002 got to lay down a single handprint in the cement to commemorate their pending graduation. Taylor thinks she would’ve liked that, to immortalize a piece of herself in that way, inscribing her name inside her handprint. Taylor B. It intrigued her, the thought of someone walking over her handprint years later, wondering who Taylor B was, what she was like, where she was now.

The fountain is frozen over, and the courtyard is blanketed in a thick layer of snow, still untouched. She wonders what it says about her that she often fantasizes about being the first one to run out and ruin it, leave her footprints behind, crunch through snow that is knee-deep, that no one else has sullied yet. There’s something about being the first person to disrupt the beauty of nature. Like stepping on a fallen dead leaf, the satisfaction of hearing it crackle beneath your feet. Or jumping into a still lake, watching the ripples that fan out across the water as you break through to the surface. Like leaving footprints in the sand at the beach, only to have them rinsed away by the incoming tide moments later. It’s a temporary disruption—and perhaps that’s the appeal.

Taylor settles into her seat and takes out her books. The classroom is unusually bright, the sky outside milky and pale as the snow piles up, falling softly in great big clumps. Mrs. Herndan leaves the lights off because they don’t need them.  

Everyone is a little more animated than usual. If it keeps snowing like this, they might call it a half day and get to go home early. Taylor hopes that happens, that way she can order take-out and hang out with Mr. J. Maybe they can watch a movie together—something scary, so she has an excuse to cuddle up next to him, if he’ll let her. She’s been testing the boundaries of affection he’s willing to allow her to bestow, and recently she’s been surprised by how much she’s been able to get away with. Just last week she fell asleep next to him on the couch with her head on his shoulder—totally by accident—and he didn’t even move her. Just let her sleep there like that until she woke up, his hand heavy on her thigh, right above her knee, at which point she jumped up, all groggy and still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She swore up and down that she was sorry, she’d never do it again. She was so afraid he’d be mad, but he just looked at her kind of funny, like he was trying not to laugh, and she blushed furiously and hurried off to her room.

Class is kind of boring, and it’s hard to focus when everyone seems just as distracted as she is. Mrs. Herndan has to stop her lesson twice just to tell everyone to be quiet and put their phones away. Taylor is snapped to attention each time she does. She didn’t even realize she had been staring at the window.

When the bell rings, Mrs. Herndan shouts out their homework assignment for the weekend, but it’s mostly lost to the din of jostling bodies and excited chatter of weekend plans as everyone fights to get through the door at once. Whatever. She’ll just have check the syllabus when she gets home. They’re reading Romeo and Juliet and it’s really hard to understand. Maybe she can find a way to rent a movie of it from the library—there’s supposed to be a version with Leonardo DiCaprio, she thinks. Maybe that’ll help. Sometimes she wants to ask Mr. J for help—and in the past she has, like when she had to make that volcano for science class, and he knew exactly what to do—but Romeo and Juliet is way too embarrassing. All those thees and thous, the declarations of love. Like she could ever ask Mr. J to interpret that for her, not without dying from embarrassment first.

She gets twenty minutes into her next class before they finally call it on the overhead speakers—school is closed. She smiles to herself as she packs up her books, already imagining herself curled up on the couch with her sketchbook and a cup of hot cocoa. She should still have some marshmallows left over—as long as Mr. J hasn’t eaten them all. He’s always eating her snacks. Sometimes, in a moment of pure frustration upon stumbling onto an empty bag or box of secret snacks she had stashed away specifically for herself, she tells him to buy his own snacks, but he always counters with, I did buy these, giving her a pointed look, and, yeah, he kinda did. It’s his money, after all. Not like she could buy any of this stuff without him.

She’s pulling the rest of her books from her locker and shoving them into her backpack when she feels a tap on her shoulder from behind. She turns around to face Jennifer Bartlett—from her geometry class—who is holds out a pink envelope decked in glitter and little metallic hearts.

���You’re inviiiiited,” she sings, thrusting the card into Taylor’s hands. Taylor blinks at her.

“Me?” she asks. Clearly this is some kind of mistake. Maybe a joke.

“It’s a sleepover, so bring a sleeping bag, okay? And like, don’t tell your mom or whatever, but my parents won’t be there, so make sure you just get dropped off in the driveway and none of your parents try to come inside.”

“Oh,” she says, her mind still swirling from the invite. A sleepover. “Okay.” She forces her gaping mouth shut, quickly nods, tries not to look too overeager. “Okay,” she says again, a little cooler, smiling a little. “I’ll totally be there.”

“Great!”

Jennifer bounds off down the hallway, joining a group of giggling girls waiting for her at the end, and Taylor looks down at the envelope in her hand, her name on it and everything. Taylor B.

She bites her lip and smiles.  

--

Taylor can’t get home fast enough.

The bus takes forever, and they have to divert into South Side because of an accident near Paramount Park.

When she finally hops off the school bus and bounds for home, perhaps she takes off a little faster than she should. One moment her backpack is bouncing behind her as she races down the sidewalk, and the next, she’s spread-eagled and lying flat on her back, staring up at the gray sky as snow drifts down in soft little clumps around her. Oof. That hurt. She didn’t hit her head—thankfully—but she managed to scrape her cheek on the icy pile of snow packed into a miniature wall along the edges of the sidewalk. She thinks her cheek might be bleeding.

She doesn’t know what’s more embarrassing: the fact that she fell, or that the bus driver didn’t stop to help.

She winces as she gets up, wipes the blood from her cheek, brushes the ice and snow from her hands, wipes her palms on her jeans. The bus hisses as it pulls away, and Taylor’s cheeks burn. Maybe no one saw?

Her right leg kind of hurts, and she hobbles the rest of the way home, her excitement not dampened as she crashes through the front door, making it halfway through the kitchen before she remembers to shimmy out of her wet boots. Her socks are wet—there was a lot of slush on the sidewalks the closer she got to home—and her feet leave little wet prints on the kitchen floor before she gets to the carpet. 

“Mr. J!”

He’s not in the living room, and he’s not in his bedroom, either, when she throws open the door and scans the bed, his empty desk. She frowns, pokes her head around the doorframe to her own bedroom. Not there, either.

“Mr. J?” She goes back to the beginning of the hallway, knocks eagerly on the closed bathroom door. She can see yellow light bleeding out from the crack beneath the door, doesn’t know how she missed that before. “Mr. J, you’ll never guess what happened at school today!” She waits a beat for him to say something—a grunt, even, some form of acknowledgement that he hears her, she’d take anything—but when she’s met with silence, she barrels on. “I got invited to a slumber party!” she gushes. She has both palms pressed flat against the door, is bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I ran all the way home to tell you, I can’t believe it!” she squeals. “It’s this Friday so we have to go to the store A-S-A-P so I can get a sleeping bag, okay? I mean—if it’s okay with you that I can go. But I’m sure it will be because I really want to go and I’ve never been to a sleepover before.” She sighs, taking a breath. He still hasn’t said anything, so she turns her back to the door and leans against it. He has to come out eventually. “And you won’t even have to worry about dropping me off because I can just take the bus, okay? I looked up Jennifer’s address at the library at school and I already wrote down how to get there, so I won’t get lost! Oh, and maybe I should get new PJs, too? And do you think that—”

The door is jerked open so suddenly she doesn’t have time to react, and she’s falling backwards before she can catch herself, straight into Mr. J’s chest.

He’s holding her underneath her arms, and she tilts her head back to look up at him—upside down—as he looks down at her. His greasepaint’s bright. Fresh-applied. She can smell its gummy texture.

She smiles up at him, a little unsure. A little frightened. His eyes are so dark. “Jeeze,” she says, lightly, trying to dissolve the tension. “You have to give me a warning, Mr. J.” She tries to laugh a little, but it comes out stilted, and the look he pins her with makes the smile slip right off her face.

“Maybe I would if I could get a word in,” he replies. He gets his arms behind her and pushes her off him. Taylor’s cheeks burn as she stumbles a few feet into the kitchen. She knows she talks a lot when she’s excited. She’s like a faucet that won’t turn off.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. She keeps her head low, a little afraid to meet his eyes. He’s in a bad mood—but she’s determined to go to this party either way, and she won’t stop prodding until he says yes. She glances up for just a second to catch the narrowing of his eyes, and then his hand is reaching out, closing around her jaw in a way that makes her flinch, pulling her towards him.

“What’s this?” he says. His eyes on her skin burn, and it makes the cut on her cheek throb in memory.

“It’s nothing,” she says, annoyed, maybe a little embarrassed. She doesn’t want to have to tell him that she slipped and fell. Also, can they please get back to talking about her slumber party? She impatiently reaches up and pries his hand off her—he lets her. She ventures a few steps back, watching him, and her back hits the counter with a thud. “But about the party—it’s okay if I go, right?”

He ignores her question in favor of taking a few lumbering steps closer—towering over her—and his fingers around her jaw are much softer this time when he takes it in his hand, tilts her head to the side so the cut on her cheek winks at him in the light that streaks out from the bathroom.

He sounds almost curious when he asks, “Did someone hit you?”

His question feels like a gut-punch. She looks up at him, eyes widening in surprise for a moment, and then her gaze narrows, and she’s a little more forceful this time when she pries his hand off her jaw.

“No,” she snaps. She can’t believe he thinks she got bullied. “I’m not a loser. I know how to fight back if I have to,” she scowls.  

He looks at her for a long moment, his eyes hard and calculating, but she makes a point to meet his stare head on. She’s not going to flinch away. After a beat, he grins a little—some secret smile, like he’s in on some joke she’s not privy to.

“Of course you do,” he says.

“So can I go to the slumber party or not?”

Mr. J raises his eyebrows as he thinks about it. “Dunno,” he says, “I seem to recall your last little, uh, party, didn’t end so hot. Maybe you remember,” he muses, leaning down low, so their faces are level, “—or maybe you don’t, since you were high as a fucking kite.”

Taylor balks at him—he never curses, at least not around her—and she can’t help the way her mouth parts in shock. She can feel the threads of hope she’d been clinging to rapidly slipping out of her hands.

Truthfully, there’s not a lot she remembers from that night. Just a bonfire and a stranger’s half-remembered bedroom. The weight of a body she hadn’t wanted, a frisson of fear, electric as it sizzled down her spine, and then fumbling down the stairs, out the front door. Nobody had even cared. And then the frigid moon, the icy bite of wind on her cheeks. She remembers Mr. J, at some point, and waking up in that old airplane hangar, where she’d promptly puked her guts out over the side of the couch. The rest of that night is a blur. It’s probably better that way.

“It’s not—” she stops. Tries to find her footing around the right set of words. She just wants this so badly. It’s her one opportunity to fit in. To make friends. To be somebody. She wants so desperately to try and explain it to him, make him understand how badly she needs this—but somehow she knows he won’t get it. He doesn’t care about fitting in, or being liked—he’s the most unliked person in all of Gotham. Maybe even the whole world.

“It won’t be like that this time,” she assures. “There won’t be any boys there. I promise. It’s just a girl party. And I promise I’ll be really, really good and come straight home after.”

Mr. J’s eyes are dark as he watches her plead her case, and she takes the opportunity to stick out her bottom lip and put on an exaggerated pout. “Pretty please?” she says. “With lots of sugar on top?”

The corner of his mouth curls into a grin. “Okay, baby doll. Since you asked so nicely.”

“Eeep!” She squeals in excitement, immediately perking up, diving forward to throw her arms around his waist. She gives him a squeeze and he surprises her by patting her back. Once. Twice. His display of affection makes her cheeks warm, and she squeezes him a little tighter, happy to bask in the moment. “Thank you, Mr. J.”

--

Taylor buys a new set of jammies and a sleeping bag. She even spends the whole day prior reading about sleepovers, Googling at the library, getting more and more excited. She wonders if they’ll do face masks, or have a pillow fight, or watch a romantic movie, or paint each other’s nails? 

She goes to Mr. J to model her new PJs for him, a yellow top with tiny blue flowers, with little matching shorts and a scalloped hem. She is bouncing around his bedroom—she had a Red Bull earlier for the first time ever, and whoa—and she does a cartwheel on the bed once she has his attention, collapsing into a heap on the floor because she misjudged the distance. She giggles, and then uses the bed to pull herself up while she prances around the room and chatters about her slumber party. She has a little notepad she found in a drawer in the kitchen, and after a few minutes, she flops back on his bed, holding the notepad above her face. She’s making a list of all the stuff she might need to bring. She read online that sometimes you should bring snacks. 

“Hey Mr. J, cookies or chips?” she asks.

She turns to lay on her side, facing him, where he’s seated in his desk chair and has spun around to watch her, his fingers drumming against the armrests. His eyes are dark—but he doesn’t give her an answer. 

She scowls at his lack of participation, and redirects her attention back to her list, tapping her pencil against her lips.

“Hmm… sometimes cookies have peanut butter, even if they say don’t, and I know lots of people have peanut allergies, sooooo… I’ll go with chips,” she decides, resolute. Her tongue pokes out when she makes a careful, neat checkmark next to the word chips.

She crawls off the bed and skips around the room for a little while longer, clutching her notepad, chattering to herself, mostly. She plays with the books on the bookshelf, all the little knickknacks left behind by the previous owner, rearranging them while she talks, musing about how cool this party’s gonna be, how many friends she’s gonna make. It’s gonna be great.

She lays down on the floor to make some snow-angels on the carpet, flapping her arms and legs slowly, staring up at the ceiling, feeling her energy start to wane. She asks Mr. J if he thinks she should wear her regular clothes to the party, or if she should come dressed in her PJs? And doesn’t he think they’re really pretty? And her sleeping bag comes with a built-in pillow, and isn’t that super cool?

She jolts awake when a pair of arms slip underneath her, hoisting her up, off the floor. She must have fallen asleep.

She frantically blinks the sleep back from her eyes. It’s dark, and she can’t see. “What day is it?” she asks, panicked, her voice cracking. “Is it tomorrow yet? Did I miss the party?”

“Shhh.” Mr. J carries her the short distance to his bed, lowers her to the mattress even as she wraps her arms around his neck, refusing to be put down. She doesn’t even have the forethought to marvel over the fact that he’s just put her in his bed, that she’s lying down on his pillow, or that the covers smell like him. 

“But did I miss it? Is it over?”

She thinks she can hear a smirk in his voice when he says, “No, baby doll, you didn’t miss it. Time to sleep.”

He peels her arms away from his neck, and this time she lets him. She sinks into the mattress, and sinks quickly back into sleep. 

[uchihasakurawrites]

Manifest (1)

Rating: T for language & depictions of violence

Summary: Their soulmate bond is borne of blood. With war on the horizon and tensions rising in Konoha, Itachi and Sakura try to navigate their newfound connection while balancing the growing demands of their own worlds. [Non-Massacre AU; Soulmate AU; ItaSaku]

Word Count: 3,394

Warning: This chapter contains somewhat graphic depictions of violence, so please wait until chapter 2 if that's difficult for you to read.

Note: Itachi doesn’t actually appear in this chapter. Chapter 2 will focus more on Itachi’s POV while the events of this chapter are happening - if you’re looking for ItaSaku interactions right away, please wait until I post the next part before you start reading!

(Also, heads up that I’m studying for graduate school & changing positions at work right now, so my updates on any multi-chapter fics will be slow this spring/summer. Thanks to everyone who’s still sticking with me!)

Cross-posted on Ao3 and Fanfiction.net

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Two careless hand signals from her captain telling the team to scatter and engage  bring Sakura’s pristine ANBU record crashing down in blood-soaked shards.

Every logical fiber of her being had screamed at the silent command, her near-decade of experience with Team 7 having seared the importance of teamwork into her mind. If not for the rogue nin on their heels, Sakura would have pressed the issue, arguing for a tactical retreat with the information they had gathered on the budding Iwa-Ame alliance.

Not that her rookie captain - a Hyūga with a superiority complex that could have easily topped Sasuke’s during his genin days - would have listened.

Staying together was the only way they stood a chance. Their mismatched ANBU squad was as well-balanced as Tsunade could manage with the current strain on Konoha’s ANBU forces. Impending war stretched ANBU thin, and those who weren’t assigned to diplomatic security details were saddled with near back-to-back missions; in the past six months alone, Sakura had almost doubled the number of missions she had completed in her entire first year with ANBU.

Intel of a meeting between Ame and Iwa leadership reached Tsunade’s desk when most of her veteran ANBU had already been dispatched. Amegakure, which had never fully recovered from the previous war, had remained neutral despite increasing tensions between the five great nations, and it was imperative that they remain so.

Losing neutral territory that bordered both Suna and Konoha would provide the enemy a staging area far too close to home, so Tsunade scraped together the best reconnaissance team she could with the resources she had left. Sakura knew from the grim look in her mentor’s eyes as she explained the parameters of the mission that she was assigned to this team for the sole purpose of dragging them all back home alive, as was usually the case any time she was assigned outside of her unit.

Sakura counted herself lucky that there happened to be a Hyūga and an Aburame available for the mission to make infiltrating the meeting undetected easier.

Out of her four-man cell, Sakura had the most field experience with just over ninety successful ANBU missions under her belt. The Hyūga had only recently been promoted to captain, and she could read his need to prove his worth in the way he carried himself: nose held a touch too high in the air, a smirk twisting his lips, and an arrogant sway to his hips as he strutted into the Hokage’s office.

A small part of her mind, the one that kept her entertained on particularly mind-numbing missions, absently wondered if punting him halfway to Suna would fix both his ego and his stride.

Pride had no place in ANBU.

The Aburame and the boy who looked as though he had been promoted three years to young were tolerable enough. She’d seen finer control of the Aburame Clan techniques during her occasional work with Shino, but Tetsuya still managed to get the job done and relayed enough information back for Sakura to record in a sealed scroll that she would deliver to Tsunade upon their return.

Kaito, who she discovered had joined ANBU less than a month prior, had surprised her with his fine-tuned tweaks to the strategy she had laid out once she’d managed to get their captain to shut the hell up  for two seconds and listen to input from his team. Sakura became rather fond of the younger boy during their two-week mission, perhaps because his personality reminded her of a teenage Naruto.

When she witnessed Kaito’s chakra control firsthand, she’d proposed the idea of recruiting him into the ANBU medical program. She could hear the grin behind his mask through the string of eager questions he endlessly chattered about as they sprinted home. With a laugh, she promised to file the request with Tsunade as soon as they got back to Konoha.

What she didn’t expect was for him to be slaughtered as they crossed the border into Grass.

With the odds stacked against her team 3:1, Sakura decides retreat is the cleanest option for their team and turns towards her captain, expecting him to reach the same conclusion and give the order.

His two hand signals and the team’s immediate obedience lock her muscles in disbelief; sure, taking a prisoner from this situation could provide another well of information, but that was only if her team somehow managed to win the fight.

Reporting back that their team had been pursued by Grass nin would have been enough information for Tsunade to work with. A different team could have been assembled to follow up, and Konoha would have at least been warned.

Her team is at a severe disadvantage fighting on unfamiliar terrain after a full day of running at top-speed to clear Earth’s border. Torrential rain means that they will have to fight almost blind, and the Hyūga seems to have forgotten that the rest of his team doesn’t have the same benefit of a dōjutsu.

Sakura won’t even be able to provide adequate medical support for her team if they scatter, as summoning Katsuyu would both expose her identity and require more chakra than she should expend with how much further they have left to go to reach home.

Well aware that her actions could give her captain adequate grounds to write her up for insubordination on the off chance they survive, Sakura takes off in the same direction as Kaito. He’s the most likely to accept her assistance, and the faster Sakura can drag him back to regroup with their teammates, the faster they can leave.

The third rule for all medical nin rings clearly in her mind: No medic shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon.

Sakura has yet to lose a teammate on a mission, and she’ll be damned if the Hyūga’s reckless call changes that.

She catches up to Kaito quickly, calling out a quick Doton: Doryu Heki to throw up a fifteen foot mud wall between him and an enemy lunging at his back. She adjusts the flow of chakra to her feet to use the slickness of the ground to her advantage, releasing some of her traction on the mud to slide underneath the swing of a sword and slash chakra scalpels across the assailant’s heels. In a single fluid motion, Sakura thrusts herself up from her crouched position and follows through with a fist into the man’s back.

The sensation of muscle and bone snapping underneath her knuckles is so familiar that she doesn’t falter when the ANBU’s spine snapps clean in half. At some point, she’d lost count of the number of shinobi she’d broken with her hands alone.

Sakura doesn’t have time to check their surroundings further, opting instead to shunshin to Kaito’s right and weave her chakra into a Doton: Iwa no Doomu jutsu. It’s a strategic move to conserve chakra, building on her last jutsu as she wrenches additional walls from the ground to enclose them in a rock-solid dome.

She grabs Kaito’s wrist before the chokutō he jabs in her direction can make contact.

Kaito’s emotions are again an open book, even with his cloak and mask still intact. She can read the fear in the trembling left hand that clutches his shoulder, where a katon has seared his uniform into his skin.

His hoarse “S-Sakura-senpai!” instead of her codename broadcasts his inexperience; it’s pure luck that none of the Grass ANBU have gotten close enough to guess her identity. They don’t need the bounty on her head further complicating the situation.

Sakura makes a mental note to personally track down whoever gave this kid the green light for ANBU. He’s talented but clearly needs more field experience before he’s ready for ANBU-caliber missions and the heightened risks that come with them.

They have just under thirty seconds before she needs to release her hold on the dome. The Grass nins’ lightning jutsu grate at the threads of her earth-natured chakra, and there are already too many negative strategic implications for staying in one place as long as they have.

“Monkey,” Sakura speaks in code in hopes that hearing it will snap Kaito back to his senses. “I’m going to cast a genjutsu over the surrounding ten square meters. Escape underground, and get to Ant. Regroup with taichou and retreat. Move!”

She punctuates the command with a chakra laden smack to Kaito’s uninjured shoulder, just forceful enough to startle him out of the daze he had slipped into. With a shaky nod, Kaito snaps through the signs for the Earth jutsu and vanishes into the ground. Sakura drapes her genjutsu over the area just outside the dome and follows right behind.

Tetsuya is spread across the ground in pieces when they arrive at his position.

Choking down the bile that rises in her throat at the gruesome display - most field kills are more clean-cut, partly for efficiency and partly out of respect, even for an enemy shinobi - Sakura forces herself to focus on nothing but strategy and the enemies fully prepared to kill her next.

The rate she’s been burning through jutsu isn’t sustainable, but there are too many enemies left for her to engage in close-combat, and the ground is too wet to shatter. She’s already having to direct additional chakra to both her eyes for visibility and her cardiovascular system to maintain body heat.

She and Kaito are going to have to make a stand here, at least until they can thin the enemy’s numbers enough to create an opening to their team leader. With what little she’s seen of his abilities, their captain should be able to hold on for another few minutes.

Sakura is painfully reminded of why she prefers to work with her regular team when Kaito dives toward the nearest ANBU, the faint glow of lightning-natured chakra humming down his blade.

Team 7’s battle formations were second nature; they discussed mission-specific strategy setting out, but their battles were almost wordless. In this situation, Sasuke and Naruto would have taken on the long-range fighters as Kakashi drove the mid-range fighters into close-range combat with Sakura. Sai would have provided aerial support focused on mid-range fighters if Sakura had her hands full at close-range.

She resolves to never complain about her teammates’ penchant for turning every fight into a damn competition again - even with their dramatics, she’s never once doubted that her team will be there at the exact moment she needs them.

She’s yet to feel that level of synchrony with any other team, and she certainly doesn’t feel it now.

Sakura keeps Kaito in her peripheral vision as she catches a blade with her kunai and tries to fit his style into one of ANBU’s standard formations. New ANBU squads typically operate on variations of a standardized set of battle formations, as the sets allow for more flexibility between teams.

Kaito’s style, however, is erratic, driven by fear as his eyes stray towards every piece of his teammate he manages to spot on the ground. His stilted movements are more focused on keeping the enemies closest to him back than coordinating an attack with her.

Sakura adds yet another resolution to her increasingly long list, but she’s viciously stubborn that she’ll get back to Konoha and check every one of them off. She’ll need to speak to Tsunade about integrating more teamwork scenarios into ANBU’s training regimen.

Lashing out alone is the fastest way to die in the field.

Sakura sweeps her thumb along the seals on the underside of her left wrist-guard and launches a set of poisoned senbon at the three ANBU closest to her. She doesn’t actually expect the senbon to hit, and they don’t as the ANBU either dodge or deflect. Instead, Sakura takes advantage of the split second distraction to shunt chakra into her feet and drive close enough to an ANBU to trace a chakra scalpel neatly across their jugular.

The body hasn’t hit the ground before Sakura has the ANBU’s katana out of its scabbard and moves towards the next target.

She manages to hold her own for several more minutes, exchanging blows and countering a handful of A- and B-rank elemental jutsu with her own, until a scream cuts through the air. It’s the desperation in the scream - a wet, terrified noise almost ripped from Kaito’s throat - that draws Sakura’s attention from her own fight.

Time seems to slow as she realizes she’s not fast enough to stop what’s about to happen. She can almost hear Sasuke’s constant harping for her to work on her speed over the rushing sound in her ears.

Kaito stands frozen, mask shattered to pieces on the ground, as he locks gazes with one of the Grass shinobi. Before Kaito even has the chance to realize he’s ensnared in a genjutsu, the Grass nin’s companion brings his sword down on the boy’s neck.

Desperation immediately overshadows any grief Sakura might have felt over Kaito’s death as she finds herself surrounded by seven of the original twelve ANBU. Her natural chakra reserves are just over a third full, enough to push out a few elemental jutsu with her level of chakra control, and most of the wounds she’s sustained are minor sans the two-inch deep gash in her thigh. Her eyes burn from the strain of the chakra she continues to circulate through them, and she can feel the rain leeching warmth from her body.

She’s not hopeless, not yet. Not until long after she’s tapped out her byakugō and the scrolls at her waist. She’s got plenty of hell left to give.

That same desperation begins to give way to mounting anger at the brutal way her teammates have been killed, but she shoves it back in hopes of finding her captain in this mess and getting out. If they can lose the Grass ANBU even for a few seconds, she can use one of her personal genjutsu to hide their presence until they can work out a safe route to Konoha.

Her strategy is promptly dropped when the same man who captured Kaito in a genjutsu motions to one of his own teammates. Hyūga Ryota’s body drops unceremoniously to the muddy ground, at the best angle for Sakura to see that his eyes have been taken.

She’s only slightly relieved to notice the weak rise and fall of his chest.

As the pieces click into place, Sakura realizes that the attack with this large of an ANBU force was too well-timed to be a coincidence. If Grass had known there would be a Hyūga on their squad, this was an inside job.

A Leaf traitor had cost her two teammates.

It’s all Sakura can do to keep her breathing under control and steel herself against the steady voice in her mind that calls for blood. She gives Ryota a quick once over and decides that he may not survive long enough for her to retrieve the Byakugan and get them somewhere she can provide proper medical treatment.

Kakashi’s first lesson to her team - that those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum - runs through her head to damn the decision she comes to, but this is war, and she’s confident she can accomplish both objectives if she plays this smart enough. Her mind is already running through every possible scenario in which she can find the eyes in time to get Ryota out of there.

Sakura shifts into a defensive stance and surveys the ANBU who form a staggered circle around her, but curiously have yet to move against her. She promptly discards that observation, as she’ll gladly take the first move. She doesn’t even try to pretend she has a chance against all of them at once, so she prioritizes.

She’ll start with the ANBU who had been carrying Ryota and work her way through the masks she doesn’t recognize from her and Kaito’s earlier fights if that one doesn’t have the eyes.

A low laugh catches her just as she makes her way into the signs of a suiton jutsu she’d intended to use to capitalize on the relentless rain. Again, the voice is there, edging closer to the forefront of Sakura’s mind and clamoring for her to make the man who finds this amusing bleed.

She’s not sure how much energy she cares to spend continuing to stifle that voice.

“Haruno Sakura - the Tsuchikage requests your presence back in Iwagakure. Come quietly, and I’ll have the Hyūga boy dropped safely back in the Land of Fire near a well-traveled trail so he’ll be picked up soon.”

Sakura slowly drops her hands back to her sides, one with an active chakra scalpel and the other resting on top of her kunai pouch, as she unpacks that one statement. It’s evidence that Grass has joined the long list of smaller countries aligning with the enemy and that the contact in Konoha is privy to sensitive information beyond ANBU, who don’t use those regular trails.

She also notes the implications of how the Grass shinobi, who she pegs as the leader, phrased his statement - the Tsuchikage seemed to want her alive, most likely to lure the rest of Team 7 into enemy territory. It gives her a bit more leeway, since she’ll be the only one fighting to kill.

Baring her teeth, Sakura bites out a tart response:

“You can tell the Tsuchikage to go to fucking hell. Keep each other company once I take you out, asshole.”

Another laugh. The circle of ANBU take a step closer. Red tinges Sakura’s vision as the leader twists his sword into Ryota’s palm, earning a broken whimper she can still hear clearly through the rain.

Sakura’s moving with a speed even Sasuke would have been proud of in the next moment, her kunai bearing down on the man’s throat. She meets his gaze head-on, wanting to see the life drain out of them, and instead sees the world melt into an inverted grey-scale before she can even nick his skin.

The lead Grass nin is a fucking Uchiha. A shinobi from one of the Leaf’s most powerful clans turned rogue.

“You traitorous bastard.”

Sakura’s low growl is met with a louder, clearer version of the laugh she’d just heard seconds before that echoes in the empty space around her.

“Just say the word when you’re ready to come willingly, Sa-ku-ra-chan. Or don’t.”

The world around her goes dark. It’s an empty, infinite blackness without the sharply defined edges that come with shadows in reality. This is a formless, all-encompassing sort of darkness that threatens to steal the air from her lungs and breathes a chill of terror down the back of her neck.

It’s a genjutsu. Focus, Sakura.

Over the course of what feels like days stretched into weeks stretched into years, Sakura watches as her friends, family, and comrades are taken apart piece by piece. She feels the phantom pain as Sasuke’s Sharingan bright eyes are torn from their sockets, all while he rages at her for being the same annoying, useless, pathetic girl she was as a child.

Escape, Sakura. Focus.

She feels the slicing and tearing of a hundred swords piercing every inch of her body as she watches the same happen to Kakashi until he bleeds out, all while he spits venom about having ever been assigned to teach such a useless little girl who has no business playing kunoichi. Dead weight, he calls her.

She screams through the torture of having her skin flayed from her bones as Naruto is stripped of his. The image of his bright smile faltering into a silent scream follows her even as she tries to close her eyes.

Lee. Neji. Shikamaru. Kankuro. Hinata. Chouji. Tenten. Shizune. Sai. Ino. Tsunade. Okaa-san. Otou-san. On and on and on.

Sakura snaps. Black lines twist out from her seal, etching themselves down her cheeks and arms. She doesn’t even notice as the force of her chakra and rage shatters the genjutsu around her, the mantra of kill kill kill ringing through her mind as she lunges to the first sign of movement.

Soaked to the bone in blood, Sakura doesn’t notice the red string that knots itself around her wrist as her hand plunges through the chest of her enemy.

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I was a little hesitant to post this since another one of my works starts with a fight scene as well, but hopefully I was able to convey the emotional difference between the two. A Lesson in Practicality will be a Time Travel AU (eventually), while this one is obviously a Soulmate AU! I've also never written ItaSaku, so fingers crossed.

Please let me know your thoughts if you have the time. Your feedback means the world to me. ^_^