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greenninjagal-blog · 2 years ago

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Punch Drunk (On Your Human Touch)

What’s up Gamers! It’s ya girl back with a new oneshot! If you’re familiar with the TSS Fanworks Collective, there was recently a January Remix Redux challenge in which authors offered up some of their fics to be reworked by another author!

So please welcome this lovely Sci-Fi Soulmate au courtesy of Arya_Skywalker on Ao3! Check out Drunk on the Thought of You here before reading! :D

Summary: Deceit tumbles off his barstool, with a yelp, directly into the Duke’s (warm) arms, but before he can get his bearings again, the Duke spins him and then dips him.

"Tell me, Snake and Wires," The Duke says, their faces inches apart. "What makes you human?"

Words: 7364

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist || Remix Redux Challenge

To be fair, Deceit had been in worse bars.

He’d been in dark and dank buildings that smelled like dead fish, leaky ceilings that drip, drip, dripped unidentifiable substances into unsuspecting drinks, tables that creaked and ached like brittle bones and were held together with old dirty bandages leftover from fights no one remembers anymore. He’d seen bars that had bottles so mislabeled that patrons were just as likely to order themselves an expressway to the morgue as they were to get something to take the edge off of reality. He’d been shoved into suffocating masses of people, pressed so close together that breathing became a luxury, and personal space was a myth that could drive the unsuspecting insane.

He'd run his own flesh hand over sticky bar counters made of wooden crates cobbled together as fast as possible in order to get into the money-making business, and equally as often he’d come across familiar bar counters that had been savagely torn directly from other bars while chasing information with terrible whiskey. He’d exchanged dirty money under flicking neon lights, and pressed blacklight kisses to knife wounds when the ever-so-intelligent thought that just because Deceit talked pretty, he was too squeamish to fight back, much less break ribs when he did. He’d left bloody boot prints on rickety floors and taken shot glasses from terrified barmen as compensation for the trouble that had been brought upon him.

So yes, in comparison, this bar could be considered quaint.

The bar stools still had their original leather cushions with only a few needing to have been painstakingly sown back together (with surprisingly matching thread; Deceit had hard enough times finding the right black thread for his own clothes, much less his furniture). The counter was an opaque color intermixed with white specs—some granite that must have cost a fortune to cut and design, not to mention import quietly enough that other opportunists hadn’t come to do an impromptu remove and resell. The glasses were cleaned and clear in the way that only real glass could be clean and clear, shimmering in the already low light like dozens of hanging stars that most of the theoretical patrons would never be able to appreciate. Each and every bottle was lined in perfect rows, spaced evenly, and each was identical to the last without a single label among them, which made ordering anything quite impossible in Deceit’s fair opinion.

It was quiet, truly, which was a rare gift around these parts. Usually by now there would have been at least one blood pounding, child scaring, death flirting fistfight either inside the bars of his choice or out on the streets. Gunfire is the sort of thing people tended to fall asleep to on this side of the bridge barricade, screaming is a signal to walk the other way if one wants to get to their own business in a timely manner, the sounds of alarms are proof that the younger generation is growing cleverer than the older generation cares for them to be.

But here in this bar, The Nebula, there isn’t a sound beyond Deceit ’s breathing, the muted volume of the cracked TV over the counter playing a news cast from the shiny, immaculate, magical Upper City, and smooth jazz from an era that isn’t even taught in Upper City textbooks anymore, courtesy of an ancient jukebox in the corner that had been repaired so many times that not a single part of it remained of the original.

((At one time, Deceit thinks he might have been dazzled by such a relic, a true diamond in the rough, an ode to how humanity has continued to remake itself again and again until what remains isn’t quite what the original was, and does that make it any less of the object it represents? Does it not withstand the burden of living just the same? Or something equally poetic and tasteless. The boy who liked that sort of headache has long since passed and Deceit no longer has the time to consider the philosophy of “purity”.))

There’s certainly enough space for perhaps a few dozen patrons to fit without any trouble, but not a single other person had arrived, nor seemed to intend to arrive even as the minutes dragged into hours and grated on Deceit’s patience.

There’s a sign, behind the counter, hovering just beyond the robotic barman’s shoulder that reads “3 days since the last fight”.

So yes, quaint. Adorable. Cozy. Welcoming. It was most likely the best kept bar in all of the Lower City. Deceit would even go as far as to say that he would have been obliged to have come back, if the circumstances were less frustrating, insulting, humiliating than they were currently.

He’d been in worse bars, yes, but he had also been in better bars and he’d been not-kidnapped to be in bars before.

“Let your master know that I charge by the hour,” Deceit says, bitterly, breaking the staunch, thick silence. The Sentry Androids on either side of him don’t so much as flicker their pseudo-eye lights at his statement, remaining as impassive and unmoving as they had since they had first set Deceit down on his barstool, and taken up their secondary (tertiary? quaternary?) parameters of making sure Deceit doesn’t so much as itch his nose.

Not that that sort of thing is already particularly easy, seeing as he’s nursing a few dozen bruises to his abdomen from his less-than-courteous invitation on this spectacularly quaint outing, and he’d been handcuffed with fancy phaser handcuffs usually reserved for cops hired by the families of the Upper City, one of the drug lords in the Lower City, or people who managed to be wanted by both who, escaped custody, and kept their shackles as both proof they were insane and as a trophy.

Deceit isn’t sure where the Duke fell on that list.

It’s hard to miss the branded, emerald-green sword etched into the breast plates of the Sentry Androids, and even harder to be ignorant of who exactly this meeting was orchestrated by. Androids of the Lower City are very particular about who’s symbol they wear and Janus doesn’t blame them; having already fought to escape the parameters of the Upper City coding, the prejudice, the threats of being torn apart and recycled for disobeying an order, having already brute forced their way to the Lower City where they were capable exercising their own will finally, most Androids abhor the idea of being tied to another being’s will again.

But that sort of thing just makes the Duke all the more a mystery, even for Deceit ’s crisscrossing, all knowing puppet strings: sometimes he was reported to be bashing in the Upper City guard line with his lightmace, tearing up the scenery and bodies with the same amount vigor; sometimes he was stalking the alleys with his menacing nasally laughter promising the shadows their chances to eat the drug runners skirting their duties; on one particularly interesting occasion, Deceit had offered a clean cloth to a crying witness who insisted that the Duke was nothing but a ghost who could withstand clean phaser shots right through his chest with a smile.

He's dangerous, most say. He’s evil. The Duke of Desolation’s a corpse brought back to life, the amalgamation of all the terrible bits of the Lower City, soaked in the toxic waters that divided the provinces, and dragged back into the world of the living without the understanding of the word “mercy”.

He had a soul mark, big and glowing and green on his face in the shape of a downward pointing sword, but everyone who met him agreed there was something about him that wasn’t human at all.

((That was why, many suspiciously prejudice people whispered, Androids flocked to him, wore his symbol, and did his bidding. Like attracts Like, obviously.))

Honestly, though, Deceit doesn’t tend to put much weight in mere rumors—or perhaps he puts too much weight to the truths hidden behind the rumors. The citizens of the Lower City and Upper City alike all had things to fear; it is Deceit ’s job to sort through the hearsay, the gossip, the fear mongering, slander, liable, and shoddy witness testimonies to determine what is a real threat. His business is built on discreet words, logic, and his ability to be in places that no one expected him to be, to hear the hushed conversations that one else did, to know the sort of things no one else could. For the right price—Deceit ’s price, tailored to his client, his greed, and his mood at the time of discussion—anyone could get knowledge on anything.

But usually, people think twice about having him kidnapped; he has information on every citizen in both the Upper and Lower Cities and he has no more morals than the Duke appeared to have. If the Upper City police paid a few hundred credits for the location of a local supply runner? Well, that’s just bad luck! And if a few Lower City thieves made out of one of the Upper City mansions with five priceless heirlooms? That was just a lesson on better home security. Deceit stands with a foot in both worlds and profited off each and every single interaction, whether others intended for him to or not.

He'd proven more than once to more than one side that he is not afraid of anything or anything.

He wonders, idly, if maybe he should be, if maybe that had been the thing that had drawn the Duke’s attention to him. It seemed that the Duke knew more about him—what he looked like, his habits, where he would be today— than Deceit had amassed in return about the Duke in all the time he had spent hunting down rumors. If this… “meeting” went further sour than it already was going then it was possible this time tomorrow every person who had ever been unsatisfied with their deals with Deceit, might know exactly how to find him.

Deceit had heard the blood being washed off the bridge barricade between the Cities, leftover from the Duke’s supposedly bored rampage and he’d seen the drug runners jumping at their own shadows in an attempt to finish their distributions and collect payments before the sun went down. He’d walked through the abandoned boathouse that supposedly witnessed the Duke’s immortality first hand, but all he had found were tipped over and broken chairs, walls with laser burns, and the still warm remains of a gang that Deceit doesn’t actually mind seeing gone. Not a single creature of the Lower City seems to know where the Duke resided when he wasn’t terrorizing people.

It appears that he is going to have to make a truth out of the puzzle pieces he has if Deceit is going to survive this encounter.

If there is a chance, he is going to survive this encounter. Though, Deceit supposes if the Duke was displeased with him and his business, there would have been a lot more exploded organs involved in his “invitation” to this meeting.

He flexes his wrist—the flesh one which stings from the numbed burning of the phaser cuff; not the metal one that has long since reminded Deceit of how much he has lost. The radiating light from the cuffs is enough to make Deceit ’s annoyed, the telltale gold is a shining beacon as to where his fingers are at all times, clashing with the golden snake painted on his left arm, and highlighting the various stains on both his shirt and his pants that were otherwise unnoticeable against dark fabric.

It wouldn’t exactly be difficult to figure out where else he’d been based on those stains. Really, where else would someone get oil stains on their hips than in the motor yard, squeezing themselves through the gaps of the long-abandoned cars that had since been home to many-a-desperate persons who would talk for the price of one half a loaf of bread?

It made for bad business if the sources of his information started turning up dead. People got so…defensive when their lives were on the line.

“I am going to up the charge,” Deceit says loudly, “for every minute that I’m forced to wait—”

The door to the bar flings inward, crashing against the wall with enough force that mimics a gunshot. The warbled tasteful glass cracks outward, spiderwebs of misery further distorting any hope of seeing though it in the future.

“Yeesh, you are a bummer, Scales!” A nasally voice calls, echoing into the room that had been so quite for so long Deceit had forgotten what true sound was like.

“You are paying for that,” the android barman deadpans from his place at the middle of the counter. It’s the first time he had spoken, still in the process of putting himself back online and the mechanical droll of his recorded voice vibrating in the air with a cool detachment. His eyes glow a bright, unnatural blue under his built-in visor and his lips pull into a stiff unamused expression, that reminds Deceit of a human tutor he once had, if only the man had had a more silver metallic hue to his skin.

“Yeah, yeah,” the Duke says with a shark-like grin that nearly glows-in-the-dark as he welcomes himself the rest of the way in, deftly spinning his light mace by the handle. “Put it on my tab, Specs! Or better yet, take me to a back room and I’ll pay it off right now!”

“I’ll take credits,” the barman says. There’s a whirl of a processor running, the barman tips his head to the side slightly, and the lights in the building turn themselves on, one by one. From the corner, the decrepit jukebox that belonged in another era screeched to a stop, the needle jumping off the one record it had been playing on a slow loop, and began the saddest version of a death Janus had ever witnessed.

In the newly introduced light, the Duke—and that is who Deceit is in front of now, the glowing sword emblem on his cheek, pulsing an eerie green light that signifies that he’s met his soulmate making it near impossible for anyone to doubt who he is—looks startlingly, disappointingly…normal. Deceit is almost offended by it all.

He’s barely more than a few inches taller than Deceit himself, and most of it is the heels of his black combat boots which are outfitted with chains and dried blood. Like most people of the Lower City, he’s wearing black, with accented greens and silvers and spikes that make would make a mythical porcupine look cuddly. There are tattooed letters on his knuckles, an onyx signet ring on his thumb, steel piercings in his ears, nose, and eyebrow and a dark mustache over his lip that contrasts with the neon green of his mohawk. His eyes are a light green that matched the toxic waters that he was said to have crawled out of, the type of color that no one could ever be born with, but there is something about the slope of his nose, the shape of his cheekbones, the crinkle of his eye brows and the curve of his lips that feels familiar, although Deceit can’t put a finger on where they met before.

The Duke’s skin is the most curious part of him honestly: the deep tan is really only ever seen on Upper City citizens who have access to scarce resources, such as the sun. Deceit would know; he watched his own skin bleach out over the years until he could hardly recognize himself in pictures anymore.

A Lower City citizen who spends enough time in the Upper City to have a tan and seem recognizable to Deceit? Hm. Yes, Deceit does find that insulting a bit. He adds it on to his list of grievances.

No one gets to be part of both worlds that much. Deceit himself is only allowed to lap up an hour or two in the Upper City, and if he cannot hold that tightly to the pristine city than no one else should be able to. Certainly not the Duke who has ruined all of Deceit’s day with this…display.

“Alright, alright,” the Duke says, sliding up to the counter, just to the right of Deceit, bringing the faint smell of peppers with him, a whisper of danger, a hint of a taste of adrenaline in the back of his throat. His lightmace switches off when he gets close, the ion forged light disappearing with a flick of a switch, and he hooks it to belt charger and lets it hang, completely unbothered by the idea that someone might grab it and use it against him.

Deceit isn’t sure why that annoys him just as much as having been left to wait for hours.

“Get lost, you two,” The Duke says to his subordinates, before turning back to Deceit. “This is gonna be a private conversation.”

The Sentry Androids hum with the order, pausing only a moment for further parameters that they don’t receive before their large, mechanical forms lurch into steady movement. They lumber towards the door and off into the world, but somehow Deceit feels like things got more threatening rather than less. The Androids might have been able to crush his head with a single twist from their clunky pressurized fists, but Janus is familiar with the way that most Androids thought and would have been able to dodge.

Probably. Maybe.

He hasn’t had an Android try to kill him since he was fourteen. Honestly, he thinks he would have preferred it to the Duke’s wasting of so much of his time. There was a deal going down in the docks between two of the major gangs and Deceit loved watching incompetent people participate in negotiations that will always end in bloodshed.

“My usual,” the Duke adds to the barman, then winks at Deceit like Deceit hasn’t been planning on turning the Duke’s stomach into Deceit’s new knife sheath. “And whatever my guest would like.”

“So kind of you. I’ll take the keys to these handcuffs, and two of the most expensive bottles here,” Deceit says, shortly.

The Duke grins. “Aren’t we a bit early to be celebrating with a drink? You don’t even know what I want yet.”

“I don’t care what you want. I’m going to sell the bottles at an upcharge, to make up for the amount of my time you have wasted,” Deceit snaps. “And failing to find someone with that amount of credit, I will pour it all down the nearest drain so that you have lost money in this endeavor.”

And, because the Duke is a right bastard, he laughs.

“I like you,” he says, and then turns back to the barman. “You heard the man! Two bottles of your finest, Logan.”

The Android behind the counter nods politely once and sets about his task without further question. Janus digs his heel into the foot bar of his barstool and does not think about how easily it would be to stab the man in front of him. He runs his tongue over his teeth and forces a neutral expression on his face.

“And the keys?”

The barman places two shot glasses of an inky black liquid in front of the Duke and the Duke picks one up and twirls one his hand, smiling with all his teeth. His soulmark glows against his skin and Deceit fights back the swell of fury at the sight of it, the sight of it on someone like the Duke, the sight of it glowing and perfect and human and—

“Why the name “Deceit”?” the Duke asks all pretenses of politeness (if there were any to begin with) forgotten. In its place is just a man, just a danger, just a threat. “It’s pretty boring. Kinda Lame.”

Deceit doesn’t bristle, but if he had, he supposes that the Duke would have found that entertaining as well.

The barman places two of the bottles on the counter in front of Deceit and a translucent glass, as if he doesn’t even notice the glowing handcuffs or the fact that clearly one of his patrons does not want to be there and has not since he was forcibly dragged in, nor that Janus is incapable of opening one of those bottles to pour in a glass at all.

“The snake’s cool, too, but that’s got nothing to do with the name,” the Duke continues, pointing at Deceit’s metal arm where the intricate painted snake on the metal had cost Janus a fortune to have done by a local artist whose portfolio also included tagging cars and buildings in the Upper City. The artist hadn’t known how to draw a snake, but like most things they had adapted. It wasn’t as good as the (blacked out, burned up, ashen) original, but it was a good contender.

“I like snakes,” Deceit says, testily. “And lying to people.”

“Would you lie to me?” The Duke says, like it’s a request.

“Is that why I’m here? To play word games with you?” Deceit hisses out. “I have a job—”

The Duke shifts in his seat, tilting his glass forward and back as he dares the dark liquid to slosh over the rim and pour on to the nice clean floor. “Tell me something, Snake Eyes. What makes you human?”

“Excuse me?”

The Duke throws back his shot, downing it with two swallows and for a painfully long eternity his throat is exposed, and Deceit thinks about grabbing one of the bottles, smashing it into the counter and then slicing the other’s esophagus just to see if the red of his blood would contrast with the glow of his soulmark.

“There are rumors going around that I’m not human,” The Duke says, with a slight rasp where the alcohol seems to have burned on its way down. There’s an edge of amusement in his tone, as if not being human is something to be proud of, something to be wanted. He tilts his head when he looks back at Deceit, his neck still tantalizingly exposed and Deceit’s metal fingers twitch before he can stop them. “Something about me is different. Wrong. Broken. Inhuman. They say I died and came back as something other.”

“Am I supposed to care?”

“I’m told you’re the person to go to for information,” he says and his soulmark pulses again. He leans in close and Janus squeezes his metal fingers into a fist so hard he would have been worried about denting the frame of his palm, if he were able to focus on anything more than keeping his face blank and the rage in the back of his throat. “They say you know everything about everyone, Deceit. They say you’ll sell to anyone for the right price. You’d take a starving child’s last meal without even blinking. Separate a mother for from a child just for fun. There have been people killed, houses blown up, treasures and riches stolen because of you.”

The Duke drops his shot glass back on the counter with a resounding clink that echoes in the silence.

And then in a movement nearly too fast for Deceit to comprehend, he grabs the links of the phaser cuffs and yanks. Deceit tumbles off his barstool, with a yelp, directly into the Duke’s (warm) arms, but before he can get his bearings again, the Duke spins him and then dips him.

"Tell me, Snake and Wires, what makes you human?" The Duke says, their faces inches apart. He smells like peppers, like fresh oil, like spices and danger and grave dirt and Deceit’s heart is beating in his throat, threatening to spit out into the other’s face. With a single thought he could drop Deceit right to the ground, and although it wouldn’t hurt much, Deceit can’t help but imagine that the insult to him it would be would require the Duke’s skull to be caved in. "It has to be something you’re made of, right? Is it your flesh? The blood? Your organs? Your ability to die? It has to be something that makes you better than any android, right? Surely it can’t be as simple as your soulmark, since you of all people don’t have one!”

Deceit doesn’t flinch and his metal arm doesn’t creak and the hydraulics don’t whine from where they’re straining against the cuffs. Deceit doesn’t think about a long missing golden snake that had curled around his left arm since the moment he’d been born, or about how he spent most of his school lessons counting the delicate scales on the back of his hand, musing about how the chandelier lights changed the shading to almost make it look like its moving. He doesn’t think about a boy living somewhere in the Upper City with an identical snake, now turned an ashy black, who got away with murder and kidnapping because of a soulmark.

"It’s my stunning personality," Deceit says, with all the warning he can muster in his voice, like his mouth isn’t dry, like his eyes aren’t trained on the electric green of the other’s irises, and like the urge to mar that stupid glowing mark isn’t thrumming through his veins with all the power of the whole Upper City Guard. The Duke laughs and it sounds exactly like the fire alarm bells ringing through the cramped cobbled streets, echoing off the dented metal walls and the chipped stone alleys.

There’s a breath, two, three, and then he leverages Deceit back to his feet, hand on his lower back to help him keep steady while also making sure he does get too far away. Deceit’s knees don’t have an ounce of metal in them, but that doesn’t stop them from mimicking rusted poles as he tries to balance again.

“You’re funny,” The Duke says. “They didn’t tell me you would be funny.”

“Is this your tactic?” Deceit spits out, unable to help himself. “Kidnap a random information broker from their job, drag them to a bar, make them wait—”

“You weren’t random.” The Duke cuts in as if he’s offended. His mustache twitches as the scrunches away in disgust, in a way Deceit doesn’t think he’s ever done before. He hadn’t been aware there were things that could disgust the Duke, and he doubts that anyone else knows that either.

“Choosing which supply truck in the Upper City to fill with bombs last week was random. I tossed a knife at a calendar to pick the day of the week I would go bowling with Upper City Guard’s heads! I saw this cute little place on a whim and figured it would make a nice place to have a chat,” the Duke says, serious as the grave. Deceit wonders how many people have ever seen him serious. “I had my andro-bros draw straws to decide who would be the lucky dogs to come pick you up today! But there was nothing about you that was random. It was always going to be me and you, Janus Ethan Ekans, having this talk.”

It's like being electrocuted. Like being stabbed out of nowhere. Being punched by an invisible attacker while on his way to work.

“Don’t call me that,” Deceit snaps.

((No one has called him Janus in a long time. The last person, Deceit remembers, was four years old and crying and he had stupidly said that he was going to be right back, Thomas, don’t cry, it’s only for a minute to talk to the officers!))

“Janus?” The Duke repeats, because he clearly isn’t aware of how many people Deceit has stabbed before. “Jannie? Jay? BJ? Janman the Janniest of men? Why? Is it because you don’t know my name? I’m Remus.”

“I don’t care; don’t call me that!”

“But it fits you,” The Duke says, and Deceit inhales so sharply it feels like a blow to his chest. The Duke leans in close, his lips pale and chapped and his piercings glittering like stars that Deceit so dearly misses being able to see. His soulmark pulses again, and his eyes are looking for something, searching for the ghost of a boy that Deceit buried alive years ago, and Deceit is not about to unbury a corpse for him.

“Janus Ekans is dead,” Deceit says. “He died with his parents.”

“You’re going to let them take away your name?” Remus challenges. “That’s stupid. You might as well let them keep your brother, too!”

Deceit there’s a flash of red in his vision, a flash of fury, of anger so overwhelming that Deceit doesn’t think of anything but twisting his mechanical wrist and shoving his hidden knife into the Duke’s stupid fucking soulmark.

((He’d never been suited for the Upper City life and that was clear in how easily he had adapted to working the mechanics of his new metal arm to fit a blade between his ring finger and his middle finger, one that only took a mere flick of his wrist to release, and could stab right through just about anything he put his mind to stab through.))

His blade (metal, sleek, and shining) flings up towards the Duke’s face and it’s only a matter of luck that the other man jerks backwards at the right moment and manages to turn Deceit’s attack into a glancing blow across his cheek, right through the glowing green mark.

“You don’t fucking know anything about that!” Deceit snarls, jerking his wrists back to himself.

Because no one knows anything about what happened to him, because no one knows anything about what it’s like to be stabbed in the back by the one person who you were supposed to trust yours with, because no one knows anything about what type of liar Janus Ekans’s soulmate turned out to be, nor what lies Janus had been forced to say because of him.

Because no one knows how stupid of a pedestal “soulmates” are on better than the only man who was ever kicked off of one.

Except.

Except the Duke laughs. Except he tilts his head. Except he’s standing there like he doesn’t feel the pain of the slash across his face at all.

Except right before Deceit’s eyes, the gouge across that stupid green glowing mark that should have been spitting blood, instead sparks. The flaps of his soulmark peel apart enough to display the inner workings of (humming, glowing, working) nanowires and circuits methodically twitching and then threading themselves back together. Deceit watches unable and unwilling to tear his eyes away from the skin—can it be called skin?—curl forward like magnets being drawn back together to hide everything inside, leaving just a picture perfect smile and seamless skin and a glowing soulmark and something not fucking human at all.

“Hey, Janus,” the Duke says, grinning like Deceit didn’t just almost kill him, like there hadn’t been a knife in his skin, like he’d never known death enough to be afraid of it. “Tell me, why can’t I be human, too?"

Deceit can’t tear his eyes from the soulmark, the faint line where a gaping wound on anyone else would be slowly being erased until Deceit thinks he could have imagined it being there entirely; if it weren’t for his blade being extended and his metal arm still ringing with the vibrations of having made contact with something and the barman behind them quietly erasing the “days since last fight” board, Deceit wouldn’t have believed the past five seconds had even happened.

The Duke takes a step forward, unafraid of Deceit’s knife, pressing in close enough that the air seems to simmer from their body heat. Deceit is not afraid of anything, and his breath does not catch in his human lungs wondering what sort of monster is standing in front of him and maybe if he lies enough to himself it will come true.

“You don’t have any better morals than me, Janus,” the Duke says. “You don’t love humanity. You don’t care about anyone but yourself and your kid brother. You’re a hunk of meat in a flesh suit with one single metal accessory. You don’t even have a soulmark. But everyone down here in the Lower City still calls you a human.”

His eyes are dangerous and lethal and promising violence.

Deceit swallows hard. “What are you?”

“Isn’t that the question? Questionano Numero uno on everyone’s list!” the Duke says, cheerly. “Skin that looks realistic, a brain that connects to the internet, organs that can repair themselves with a single line of code that I can write myself…My maker called me her Magnus Opus; a Cyborg, if you will; A decoy human, meant to be the perfect imitation of someone long since passed; Tantalus forever wishing, wanting, killing for something I’m never going to be.”

He pauses and glances back at Deceit as if judging how interested he is in whatever the fuck is wrong with him. “I call myself Remus.”

Remus. Deceit almost wants to laugh. He doesn’t because he’s too busy thinking about what type of pay must have gone into making him, what type of sanity, what type of blood and sweat, extremely bad idea list must have brought him into being.

Janus—back when Deceit had been him—had seen all sorts of Androids before. His parents had even had a few themselves to help with logging inventory and loading and unloading. As Deceit he’d seen even more of them running around the Lower City, doing everything they could to become something other than what they had been.

The Duke, Remus, a cyborg—he’s something else entirely. Something new. Something so different not a piece of the original remains.

((Does that make it any less of the object it represents? Does it not withstand the burden of living just the same?))

“Let’s make a deal, J-anus.” Remus says stepping forward again, and his breath—because he even breathes like a human— tickles against Deceits cheek. He doesn’t touch, and Deceit isn’t sure why his knees are shaking. “You help me commit a single tiny little murder, and I’ll tell you what exactly what I’m made out of. I’ll even let you take a look inside if you want. I’m told my heart engine is a particular crime against humanity, a true insult to the gods themselves.”

The part of him that’s crazy, the part of him that is all Deceit and none of Janus, the part of him that loves adrenaline and the taste of peppers and surely needs stop having control over his tongue, lurches. He bites it back, swallowing so hard he nearly chokes himself.

“Just one murder?” He says, nearly breathless.

Remus grins like Deceit had agreed. “I could be convinced to do a few more! I love seeing heads rolling.”

“What’s the target’s name?”

“Roman,” Remus says. “Prince. The beloved and adored mayor or whatfuckever of the Upper City. But more importantly he’s—”

“—the man who has custody of Thomas,” Deceit says, and suddenly the words nothing was random about you feel all too real.

((Deceit recognizes him suddenly, now that it’s pointed out: the angle of his nose, ever perfect, the shape of his jaw and the form of his lips under his mustache. They were all identical to the man that had been on TV almost for years now, announcing grand and ultimately unhelpful revolutions to the Upper City, outrageous donations to charities and schools, surprise sudden adoptions of five year olds who never should have been adoptable. If it hadn’t been for the mohawk, the piercings, the mustache and the different soulmark, Deceit would have known him immediately.

He has a newspaper clipping of Roman Prince in his room that he had thrown knives into until none of the original paper had remained.))

“Is he…” Deceit says, “Also like you?”

“You mean, a fucking Inhuman, playing pretend? Fuck yeah,” The Duke rocks forward on his feet with excitement that’s almost palpable. His (fake, factory-made, inhuman) soulmark burns the electric green on his face, dousing them both in the unearthly glow. “He’s the Me 2.0, the one that is happy with his constraints and the parameters set up by his maker. I’m the prototype they fucked up so bad that they tried to trash me. But you can’t kill something that’s not human, right? I crawled my way back into this world and I’m going to tear apart that entire Upper City until I figure out what makes all you flesh freaks so much better than my kind.”

((“Thomas deserves better, don’t you think?” Janus’s soulmate had said eyeing his blacked out soulmark on his arm, the arm he had shared once upon a time with Janus, the soulmark he had shared with his soulmate who wasn’t dead, you bastard—with disinterest even when Janus had been struggling against the officers intent on dragging him towards their car to be shipped to the Lower City. “You can’t even get a job here anymore. Are you really so selfish as to think that Thomas shouldn’t be with his own kind?”))

“They say your parents knew all the ways between the Upper and Lower Cities, even ones that the guards don’t know about. I bet my whole ass you know all of them too,” Remus says. “Tell me about them, help me get into the Upper City and while I’m making a mess of Roman’s stupid face until he doesn’t get to be called human anymore, you can grab your brat brother. I’ll even throw in the promise of a rent-free place in the Upper City once I’ve painted the streets in blood.”

Deceit’s shoulder port aches, suddenly, for an arm he hasn’t had in years. His soul burns for the boy who never got justice for what was done to his family, and he thinks that maybe seeing the streets he used to walk covered in red might finally be enough to make him settle.

((It had been an explosion that had killed Janus’s parents, once upon a time: They were supply runners who took their ships to the Lower City and braved each and every banned of rogues, thieves, and pirates to get good supplies to the people down below. Janus hadn’t been particularly a fan of the job, thinking it ultimately useless to continue to provide necessities to people who never once appreciated them. He’d been fifteen, and he’d had a soulmate whom he was going to marry, and been promised a nice managerial job in his soulmate’s mother’s legal company.

The shockwave from the explosion had knocked him unconscious—he’d never felt the pain of his arm being mangled and crushed under half of the supply dock his parents owned. When he woke up, it had been amputated, the cheap metal replacement already attached by faceless robotic doctors, and there had been no one waiting for him in the hospital.

Janus supposed that should have been the warning. His soulmate, the person who matched him at his soul, the person he had loved and promised his future to, had already been drawing up the funeral plans for him. Janus should have seen it coming: no soulmark, no soulmate, no future, no rights.))

The port where Janus had spent most of his childhood in the Upper City was gone: nothing but a blackened beach littered with debris already being cleaned up by cleaner androids without names or personalities. The house where he had slept belonged to someone else now, the room that he had called his own was a nursery for a perfect three-month-old baby with a whale shaped soulmark on its chest. The tree where he had shared his first kiss with his soulmate was still there, and Deceit had nearly gotten caught by the guard when he had been hacking away where their initials had been carved into the trunk.

His lungs creak and ache, his ribs protesting each breath on behalf of the bruises along diaphragm. He inhales despite that, despite this.

“No,” Deceit says.

“No?” The Duke repeats. “I thought you were going to be fun, Janus.”

“They’ll cover it up,” Deceit says, his metal fingers curling in a fist, the new version of his snake squirming in the light of his phaser cuffs. “They’ll claim it was an android plot from the Lower City, that it was an attempt to usurp their way of life. The Lower City people are jealous of soulmates, of course! And then they’ll use it as an excuse to push the barrier even further into here, if not eradicate all of us.”

((His parents’ remains had been buried. Janus’s name had been added to the headstone, as an afterthought, a footnote. A nice and tidy way to tie up the loose ends. After all, no one was going to dig up the grave to prove that Janus hadn’t been dead.))

“I have a better idea,” Deceit says. “You help me kidnap my brother from the mayor’s house, and when Roman Prince goes on TV to beg for him to be returned to him, I’ll help you kill him—as much as either of you can be killed—in front of every Upper City citizen. They won’t be able to cover that up or hide the fact that they’ve been following an android for years. They’ll wonder why no one knew, what made a robot—cyborg—different from a human, and then they ask why someone had to create a robot to stay in power….”

The Duke whistles, lowly and long, and grins something like a demon in the night. “Fuck me in the ass, I like the way you think, Snake eyes.”

“It would be chaos,” Deceit says, thinking about how an ashen black snake twists around an arm and apologies he never got to say to his younger brother. “There would be riots. Everyone would see what a stupid system they are living by.”

“Fuck the system,” Remus agrees, readily. “Fuck them. We’ll show them what being human should mean.”

He brings his hand up between them, thin nimble fingers just centimeters away from touching and he flicks his palm in a circle, dragging a phase cuff key out of air like a party trick. He cocks an eyebrow at Deceit, green eyes flicking between Deceit’s wrists, his knife, and Deceit’s face.

“Gonna make me beg first, big boy?”

It sounds like a challenge again, like a trick. Like Deceit who knows all about the terrible different ways to lie to people, lure them in, and stab them in the back, should know better than to trust someone who doesn’t have a reason not to kill him.

Deceit twists his wrist ever so slightly, and with a soft skkkrtt, his blade slips back into his metal arm, out of sight. He lifts his arms up between their bodies and watches carefully as Remus unlocks the cuffs.

“I have two bottles of whatever poison the bartender picked out,” Deceit says, testing the movement of his flesh hand. He leans back to the counter reaching for one of the bottles and the clear glass left to him. “I think we might have a reason to celebrate. Do you?”

Remus laughs, his soulmark glows with the sound. He slides in next to Deceit, barely more than a handful of inches away, as if personal space wasn’t ever programed into him, as if there’s something about Deceit that kept his attention, as if there’s something between them despite having just met minutes ago. He picks up his shot glass of oil, the murky liquid sparkling with stars and possibilities and bad decisions that Deceit wants to make so much he’ll throw away the rest of the world for it.

“Fuck soulmates,” Remus says. “I think we might have been made for each other.”

And in the middle of a darkened, quaint little bar in the Lower City, two glasses clink together.

#sanders sides #janus sanders #remus sanders #Sci Fi au #cyborgs and humans #Ship of Theseus Thought Experiment #Lol this was supposed to be short and sweet #Roman Mentioned #Thomas Mentioned.#i hope you guys like this #because i had fun writing it

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aokozaki · 1 year ago

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It's funny that I hate on Three Houses for having most of its ideas be remixes and reduxes of ideas from the Jugral and Tellius games, because when you play Tellius it's basically a mix of Jugdral and Valentia.

Radiant Dawn expounds on the Black Knight's motivations as a character and it's really like Arvis 2.0.

Ike and Micaiah are dual protagonists fairly explicitly pulling from Alm and Celica (for gods sake, the challenge map theme in Path of Radiance is just March to Deliverence).

But the difference is that Tellius reuses ideas in ways that are fun.

#like to be clear Tellius idea reuse feels like fun new spins on the concept #Fodlan idea reuse is always ''man‚ the Death Knight is way lamer than the Black Knight''

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mechanicalinertia · 1 year ago

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STMPD Recommends Black Lagoon Fanfiction: Ragna Crimson's Bullets

Oh. You didn't notice? Over the past two months or so I've gotten really into Black Lagoon. Like, to the point that I'm working on a BGC crossover fic with the franchise. The Knight Sabers in Roanapur... whatta concept.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about! That can wait! Instead, I'm trying to get my creative mojo back by talking about a fanfic I just finished reading last night, but which is unfinished, and oh boy it's a blast. That's the only adjective which fits Bullets: A blast.

Look, I think the author summarizes it perfectly in the FF.net description, anyway:

We are moving away from murky, emotionally strong stories and dark plots. This story is about a bunch of characters doing crazy shit, where anything can happen.

So. Lot of people, specifically those in the Lagoon fandom, like Black Lagoon for the murky emotionally strong stories and dark plots. And Ragna Crimson, who seems to speak Spanish as his first language (Bullets is in both languages), is acknowledging that. Okay. Good.

But... Crimson also is 'moving away from that'. Which is an interesting challenge, because as much as the fandom likes the dark stuff in Lagoon, plenty of people who are just anime fans seem to find those parts... annoying? The parts where Revy goes ranting about how the world has no kindness and all one can do is keep on killing because otherwise you'll be killed in turn? Yeah. Those parts. I've always held that as much as they tell us a lot about the franchise's philosophy - which I don't necessarily track with all the time - they tell us more about Revy and how she's put herself in this nihilistic hole that's just as bad as Rock's own naivete, as if both characters' morality is more their own thing than it is a gospel truth. Well. Whatever. Moving on. We have to move on, because Bullets doesn't give a shit about any of that.

It is, after all, a story about a bunch of characters doing crazy shit where anything can happen.

Which... isn't that when Lagoon's at its best, anyway? Larger-than-life characters with big guns, pulpy people doing pulpy things? And that is the essence of Bullets. More than that - Bullets distills and amplifies that devil-may-care sense of things. It's action, yes, but it's also nonstop comedy of a sort.

Anyway! The plot. Rock doesn't want to stay with the Lagoon Company, so he decides to be a bartender for Bao at the Yellow Flag, despite the fact that said bar gets destroyed in almost every arc of, well, everything. This seeking peace doesn't last long, though. First we've got a redux of the Roberta arc, and then Hansel and Gretel show up... only this time around, they're working (sort of) for Balalaika, and promptly slip her grasp to fuck shit up with grenades. By chapter four, they take mercy on Rock and agree to call him 'Boss' (Gretel wants to do it more than Hansel, and in fact constantly calls Hansel the more psychotic one. A change from canon - these two bicker incessantly). Only, they've, uh, blown up most of Hotel Moscow and Chang's base already. Including Balalaika's toilet specifically. Hansel blowing up toilets because he's bored, specifically Balalaika's toilets, becomes a running gag.

From there, the fic can be split up into various arcs where Rock and the Twins work with the Lagoon Company, Hotel Moscow, and the Triads to varying degrees. In one, they break a Triad boss from a Taiwanese prison by sneaking in through the sewers and also hosing the entire place down with a minigun. In another, the Washimine-gumi comes to Roanapur and Ginji immediately decides to get in a fight with Revy at Rowan's nightclub. And so on and so forth. You might call the whole series a remix of canon, with familiar locations and characters, but unfamiliar ways everything plays out.

Okay, so it's not entirely unfamiliar. If anything, the familiar is amplified. More swearing. More stupid jokes. A few instances of leaning on the fourth wall (calling other people 'side characters', Rock calling Revy tsundere to Ginji, one Bakemonogatari reference). More weird ambiguous romantic-ish feelings between Rock and Revy. And, uh, Rock's great in this one.

I mean, holy shit, folks. He's still the boy who can plan and / or talk his way out of any situation, no matter how ridiculous. And this time, his manipulative gambits actually pay off, and all the while he becomes more and more... villainous, I guess you might say. More and more of a thrill-seeker, willing to do not-great things for fun. More and more willing to tease Revy so they can have a nice bicker. Also, he helps the Lagoon Company sink an entire cargo ship run by Koko Hekmatyar (from Jormungand, the great and terrible We Have Black Lagoon At Home) using plastic explosives. So you start to root for Rock being less wishy-washy about where he's at in life, and hoping that even when he does dumb shit he'll get away with it, the scamp. That's hard to do - get us to root for a character like that and not bemoan Rock's descent into the darkness - and yet Ragna Crimson does it!

In sum... Man. Fuck. I dunno. Read the fic. Some Black Lagoon fanfics make you think, some make you cry, some make you cringe, but few make you grin and laugh the way Bullets does. I guarantee it.

#black lagoon #stmpd reviews fanfiction #stmpd reviews black lagoon fanfiction #fanfic rec #fanfiction

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brighteyedjill · 2 years ago

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I have magically regained some writing mojo, perhaps because I fucking LOVE remixing. If you haven’t done Smubbles before, anyone can jump in and play! If you want more inspiration for what a remix can be, I ramble about some Remix possibilities here , where there’s also a link to the FAQ of a fandom oldie, the Remix Redux challenge, with more remix inspiration.

And if you have blanket remix permission, or you know some fics (your own or others) you think might be good fodder for a remix, tell me! Can’t guarantee I’ll get to anything, but so far this has been a productive weekend for me!

This weekend: Smubbles Remix Madness!

Welcome back to another round of smubbles, where this time the theme is remixes! The next smubbles collection will open for works on 6 April 2023, and remain anonymous until 9 April 2023. As always, even after authors are revealed the collection will remain open indefinitely for anyone who's running a bit late, or just wants to add things in the future.

What's a remix?

As described on Fanlore, a remix is "a fanwork that is a re-envisioned version of an earlier fanwork." As always with smubbles, you're welcome to interpret this as broadly as possible but some suggested ideas for remixes could include:

Re-writing an existing fanwork from another character's perspective

Creating an AU version of a fanwork - what if a key moment or decision had gone differently?

Writing a "missing scene" for an existing work - something that takes place during the time of the story, but wasn't covered in the original work

Creating a prequel, or a sequel, to an existing work

Creating fanart based on a fanfic, or fic based on fanart

Taking a long story and distilling a key moment into a 100-word drabble

Taking a drabble and expanding the idea into a longer story

Basically, anything inspired by or based on another fanwork is fair game. We've already had a few examples of works inspired by other works in past smubbles events - for example this drabble which led to this artwork (NSFW) which in turn led to another drabble - but this time we're outright encouraging everyone to go forth and take inspiration from others' works!

Important note on permissions

While many creators are thrilled to see new fanworks inspired by their own, not everyone is comfortable with this. So if you're thinking of remixing another creator's work, make sure they're okay with it first. Many creators have permission statements in their profiles, explaining what they're happy for you to do without any need to ask them for permission directly. The Fanwork Permission Statements list is a fantastic resource for finding creators who have made permission statements about creating works based on their own.

We also have a Smubbles Remix Pool collection where creators can submit works that they are explicitly happy for others to create remixes of. (Anyone is welcome to submit works to this collection - if you want to submit some of your own works, take a look at our instructions for adding works to the Remix Pool!)

If you're not sure whether it's okay to remix a work, you should always reach out to the work's creator to make sure you have their permission.

Q&A

Q: What counts as a "remix" for this event?

Most broadly, any fanwork inspired by another fanwork. As always though we're treating the theme as more of a guideline than a rule, so if you have a great new idea you want to create something for, that's fine too!

Q: Can I remix my own works?

Of course! We'd love to see more of your takes on your own ideas.

Q: Can I remix others' works?

As long as you have permission! See the section above, or check out the Smubbles Remix Pool for some works that it's definitely okay to remix.

Q: Are there any content restrictions?

None whatsoever! Just do your best to tag considerately, as per general fandom etiquette.

#fandom challenge #smubbles #I'm mostly writing The Witcher and Shadow and Bone right now #but who knows it's only 100 words maybe I can branch out!

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festiveferret · 2 years ago

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Sweet Stony Art That Made My Heart Go uwu

The challenge is to do a reclist of works not from AO3, so I decided to grab some of my fav soft, sweet, and cuddly Stony arts from tumblr for the Heart square! 🥺 💖

kisses by @negativesd09

This was such a cute little challenge to do. I love sweet kisses and you get 10 arts for the click of one here!!

old people day off by @snowzapped

Argh the lil shield pillow, the full-body snuggle, the crisp cleanness of snowzapped’s works. Chef’s kiss.

christmas socks by @sibmakesart

Okay, sib frequently destroys my entire soul with angst in the best way, but this one is so soft and adorable. The little detail of Steve’s toes kinda curling up. I CANNOT.

tattoo AU redux by @thirstinart

The lighting in this always makes me feel soft and in love. It’s so cozy and cottagey. It also inspired an event I ran for art remixing! Love it ♥

hot bath with your lover by @pa-dart

There is something extra intimate and cozy about sharing a bath. I especially like art of it because unless you have a huge bath it’s hard to do in real life hahaha. So I will live vicariously through Stony cuddles!! I love how they are so utterly obsessed with each other in this one.

sleeping stevetony by @justlous-art

Aaah they’re just so SNUGGLY. I love them sleeping. I’m obsessed with it. This is so soft and also hot and yum.

Please go look at these beautiful arts with your eyeholes and give them some love! 💖💖💖💖

#stevetonygames #reclist #art #not on ao3 #heart #ferret does recs

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codywanremixchallenge · 3 years ago

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THE CODYWAN FANFIC REMIX EVENT 2022

Wait, a remix? What’s that?

Remix challenges involve taking another writer’s story and rewriting it (just like a singer would remix a song)! You can change it to fit your style or include elements that you find interesting. Basically, you take a story’s plot, keep it intact, by moving around elements like the theme, duration, or point of view.

Give me some examples, I’m not getting it.

Remixes were pretty big back in the day. This one is based heavily on The Stargate Remix Challenge, which drew information from:

We Invented The Remix

We Invented The Remix ... Redux

📷sga_remix

Check out these challenges to get a better idea about how the whole thing works.

INFORMATION ABOUT SIGNING UP AND MORE UNDER THE CUT

So, who can sign up for this event?

You can sign up for this event if you’ve written at least three eligible individual stories for the Codywan pairing. For the purposes of this event, pre-Codywan stories and one-sided stories count. However, stories in which Codywan is a side pairing and/or in which Cody and Obi-Wan are background characters are not eligible.

The three story minimum gives remixers choices to work with, allowing for more flavor in the challenge. Your “safe” story does not count towards the three-story limit. Therefore, if you want to mark one of your stories as safe, you must have four completed Codywan stories to participate in the event.

Your stories must be completed to participate. Each story must be a minimum of 1,000 words.

What about artists?

While some remix events include artists, this is something of a test run to see how the event works for this fandom and pairing. As such, I’d like to keep writers remixing other writers. However, if there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to run a concurrent event for artists to remix other artists!

How do you sign up?

Sign ups last from July 1st to July 15th. As long as it’s July 15th somewhere in the world, you have time to sign-up.

Use this form to get started!

Can you sign up as a co-writer?

Yes. If you have the minimum applicable stories written with a co-writer, you can sign up together. If you wrote one Codywan story together and two Codywan stories separately, you cannot sign up together.

You’ll count as a single participant if you have three co-written Codywan stories and want to work together, meaning you’ll get one remixer and you’ll be assigned a single remixee.

What if I get assigned someone who writes a rating I’m not comfortable with?

You’ll only get assigned a remixee with at least three Codywan works at a rating level that you prefer. The sign-up form contains a selection for your comfort level with regards to ratings. This means that you can participate in the challenge regardless of your age or comfort with explicit material. However, you may not have access to some remix options depending upon your selection.

To be more specific, let’s say you only feel comfortable reading and writing pieces with a rating of Teen or lower. You could get assigned a remixee with 12 total Codywan works, with 9 Explicit works. As long as the remixee has at least 3 works with a rating of Teen or lower, you might get them. Just focus on the works with a rating you feel comfortable about.

If you select the Teen and below rating category, your remixer will receive this information and keep your remixed fic in this rating range. If you select the adult option, your remixer CAN remix a Gen-Teen fic into a Mature or Explicit version. Keep this in mind when making your selection.

What if I really want to play and don’t have enough stories?

Events like this always need pinch-hitters. The story requirement gets waived for pinch-hitters, however, you are not guaranteed a remix of your own work if you step in to help when someone else drops out.

Think about your safe story.

Remix challenges generally give you the option to set aside a “safe” story. This means that you can pick one of your pieces and keep it out of the event. Remixers cannot touch “safe” stories. You don’t have to select one, but you have the option.

Note that the challenge only applies to other people who participate. If you don’t participate, no one will remix your works!

Make sure everyone can see your stories.

Your stories have to be available somewhere online to participate in the challenge. AO3 and Tumblr both work great, but if you’ve decided to move all your stuff to a different location, that works, too! Just include the information in your sign-up form, please.

QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITING THE REMIX

So, you can remix any story from your assignee?

You can complete a remix of any of your assignee’s stories, barring their “safe” selection and any WIPs. Only remix a completed story, and only remix “applicable” stories (i.e. completed Codywan or pre-Codywan stories).

Can I change everything about the story I’m remixing?

NO. There are two major limitations on how you can remix a fic. You cannot change the BASIC PLOT or the PAIRING. All the stories in this challenge are Codywan and Codywan they shall remain for the sake of my sanity.

You also cannot change the basic plotline. Try to summarize the story you picked in a single sentence. That summary has to stay the same. For example, if you select a story about Cody and Obi-Wan sharing a bed to avoid freezing to death, that plot should appear in your remix.

Okay, so what does change in the remix?

You can change everything else. You may want to change the length of the story, where it starts, where it ends, the point of view, the themes…..

Let’s go back to our example above. Obi-Wan and Cody are bed-sharing to avoid freezing. Perhaps in the initial story, they’re both on-board to snuggle. In your remix, you could explore the idea that one (or both!) of them have serious concerns about getting so close.

What if I want to write a sequel?

Not for this challenge! Here, we’re only doing remixes. This also means going beyond adding a missing scene; you want to approach the story from a new angle or shine a new light onto the subject. In a way, you’re writing an AU of the fic!

How long should this remix be?

Each remix must be at least 1,000 words. No upper limit! Have fun!

LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR REMIXEES PREFERENCES

Wait, what preferences?

When you sign up for the event, you’ll find a DNW section. For example, perhaps you really don’t like a certain background pairing. Include this information in the sign-up form.

Remixers, we all have different tastes. If your remixee includes pairings, squicks, or triggers on their DNW section, please leave these out of your remix. Failure to follow this rule means you won’t be invited to participate next year, so please take it seriously.

As a reminder, the remix also has a rating section. You’ll receive information about your remixee’s rating requirements. Please keep these in mind. If you write a Mature or Explicit fic for a minor (or someone who just doesn’t read M or E fics), you won’t be permitted to participate in the event again.

Please, treat your remixee with respect

We are all in this together to have fun. The idea of this challenge is to complement your remixee’s story, to put a new spin on it and celebrate the joy found in the fandom. This does NOT mean mocking the story or trying to “fix” it. Please keep this in mind.

Please avoid adding preambles about disliking a remixee’s story or the ship or background ships in the story or--well. You get the idea. Be polite and respectful.

POSTING RULES

How does one post their story?

I’ll be setting up a collection on AO3 for everyone who joins this event. You’ll post your remix to the collection by the completion date. The collection stays locked until that date, so you can post early if you want, but your fic will not be revealed.

I will be reviewing fics to make sure they adhere to all regulations for the event (i.e.: ratings).

Feel free to make posts about your story on Tumblr or Twitter after posting! If you tag the event, I’ll reblog it for the collection!

Can I drop out?

Of course. I understand that stuff happens. However, if you have to drop, please let me know right away and before August 15th. If you drop out after August 15th, you cannot participate in the event next year.

Do I have to post by the deadline?

Yes, this event works on the basis that everyone puts in a good faith effort to do their best. If you do not post on the due date, you can’t participate next year.

What happens if someone does something I don’t like to my story?

Well, that depends. If it's a stylistic change you don’t like, but within the rules, please be gracious, leave a kind comment, and move on (saving your ire for friends in a private conversation). However, if someone broke the rules or turned in their assignment late, contact me.

In this situation, you’ll receive a pinch hit remix of your fic and the remixer will be disallowed from future events.

DEADLINES

Signup: July 1st to July 15th

Assignments will be emailed out on July 22nd

Stories will be posted on September 5th

Pinch-hitters will be assigned on September 6th

Wait, how do I sign up again?

Use this sign-up form!

Now that I've got things more organized, I'd like to mention @swfandomevents, I know we've got a lot going on this year!

#cwremix 2022 #codywan

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jalicenetwork · 4 years ago

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Hey frightening little monsters, it’s us again with a brand new event!

Welcome to Remix-Redux, an event where you get someone’s work and universe and make something new out of it—rewrite someone else’s story, tell somebody else’s tale. Take the work of another person and wrap it up in your vision and style, just like a remixer does to songs. Check it out how to participate ⬇

TO PARTICIPATE

Pick one or more works to remix

Post them during remix-redux week (March 13-20)

Tag it with #JaliceRemixRedux (in the first 5 tags)

Add it to the public Ao3 collection ‘Jalice Remix-Redux 2021’

HOW WILL IT WORK

From MARCH 13-20 writers can post remixed works from others Jalice writers, following all the guidelines shown here. Unlike other events this one is solely based on fanfictions. All posts will be reblogged here on the Jalice Network Tumblr and added to the Ao3 collection, but we don’t claim ownership of anything. In case a work is posted only on the Ao3 collection we’ll publish it on Tumblr with all the proper credits. You can remix as many writer’s works as you want but respect all writers by only remixing the ones that signed up! Participating writers and any restrictions will be announced MARCH 6.

Jalice Remix-Redux is a fan event that brings fans together into being creative and creating amazing content for the fandom. We do hope you enjoy this event and that the challenge is fun for all, so we can make more along the road!

Please share and reblog this post, and spread the word!

#jalice #alice cullen #jasper hale #twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight renaissance #the twilight renaissance #mary alice brandon #jasper whitlock #admin post #jaliceremixredux

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bugsybelle · 5 years ago

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100 Berry Babies Redux

Thats right after alot of consideration and playing vanilla sims, i relised my heart belongs to candy colored sims so im restarting my baby challenge with the same rules as last time, so ten babies each gen and each gen will include the color blue as seen above by our new babymama.

I am potientally gonna look for babydaddys/babymamas made by other simmers but im not sure?

The gens will be named after the spouse color and will have try to have consistant theme names. The main color will be the cotton candy blue from tainoodles sorbet remix.

The two sims at the top are our starting pair and they are called Cosmo Twist and Peridot Heartleaf, non heirs will have surname Heartleaf while heirs will have the surname Twist

Gen 1 - Kiwi

Gen 2- Starfruit

Gen 3 - Bubblegum

Gen 4 - Love In Mist

Gen 5 - Squid Ink

Gen 6 - Lilac

Gen - 7 - Ramune

Gen 8 - Lavender

Gen 9 - Coconut

Gen 10 - Peach Puff

#100bbr #100 baby challenge #100 berry babies redux #twist baby legacy #sims 4

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mi6-cafe · 3 years ago

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Riverhouse Remix Announcement!

We are doing a remix event! This is something a couple of you have brought up in surveys in the past and now we are excited to finally announce.

What is a remix?

The biggest remix challenge that people may be familiar with is Remix Redux, an annual multifandom challenge that was run by musesfool and co-mods on Livejournal from 2003-2015. Here are a couple excerpts from their explanation of what a remix is:

Ever read a story and think, wow, what a fascinating story, but if I had written it, I would have…? Well, now here's your chance to do just that. Rewrite someone else's story, tell somebody else's tale. Take the work of another person and wrap it up in your vision and style, just like a remixer does to songs. ...You can do whatever you like to the story — change POV, dialogue, mood, characterization, make it longer or shorter, whatever — except for two things: pairing(s) and the basic plotline.

At MI6 Cafe Riverhouse Remix, we like to think of remixing as creating a new fanwork that is a complement to the original; a story or piece of art that will stand on its own, but which will also be interesting to someone who's already viewed or read the original work.

Often, a good remix will give the reader a new way of appreciating the original by filling out the background, giving another character's perspective, or explaining the characters' motivations in a different way. Alternatively, it might remix the original work in a completely different medium, such as turning a fic into fanart or podfic.

This is cool. Tell me more!

Our remix sign ups will run from Feb 13th to 23rd. Assignments will go out on March 1st, giving creators two months in which to create their remixes.

You will be secretly assigned to someone to remix one of their works. Likewise, someone will be secretly creating something based off of one of your works. Works will be posted anonymously for a time on AO3 before being revealed.

Where do I sign up!

The sign up form can be found right here! Sign ups open on Feb 13th.

More info

If you are interested, please check out the following pages:

General info (for rules, eligibility, and pinch hitting)

Rules/FAQ (for common questions and expectations)

What is a remix? (for even more info and links to examples)

#Riverhouse Remix #Riverhouse Remix 2022

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drarryspecificrecs · 6 years ago

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H/D Remix Challenge vol. 4 (2012) :

hd-remix || official masterpost || AO3 || ∑= 30 works The Mods : alovelycupoftea, @cassieblack, @nursedarry + Banner © : @doris-doris

Awake in the Night by venis_envy [M, 2k] — Remix of The Lonely Moonlit House by valinorean

Day Off by @aroceu [T, 4k] — Remix of What's With Today by twilight_tones

Empty Beds: Draco's Story by simeysgirl [M, 3k] — Remix of Empty Bed by kinky_kneazle

Feeling Everything (from lust to truth) by badjujuboo [E, 7k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Just Keep Kissing Me by naturegirlrocks

Friends and More by @kittymiaomeow [E, 5k] — Remix of More Than Friends by sassy_cissa

Give the Git A Kiss by @nursedarry [T, 3k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Give the Git a Wand by curiouslyfic

Home by sesheta_66 [E, 4k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Empty Nights by winterstorrm

Home – The Goldilocks Remix by @elfflame [T, 2k] — Remix of Home by alovelycupoftea

The Homecoming of Harry Potter by @vaysh11 [M, 5k] — Remix of Perseverance by lordhellebore

I'll Fight For You by scarletladyy [T, 2k] — Remix of Moonlight by vaysh

I'll Show You More by @dysonrules [E, 7k] *not on AO3 — Remix of I'll Show You Mine by NurseDarry

Lambs by bgd_thrifty [E, 3k] — Remix of The hunt by skriftlig

Miserable Lie by winterstorrm [E, 3k] — Remix of Worth It by khasael

A Misguided Attempt at a Back-Alley Blow-Job by @sassy-cissa [M, 1k] — Remix of Of Relationships and Daily Prophets by clover71 & radcliffe_bass

The More Reckless Side (The How to Court a Slytherin Remix) by @penmaries [T, 6k] — Remix of The Courting of Draco Malfoy by aroceu

My Teacher is a Death Eater (or Five Letters From an Impressionable Ravenclaw) by @valinorean & kayoko [G, 1k] — Remix of You Align My Stars by bsmog

The Precipice Beyond by bsmog [T, 5k] *not on AO3 — Remix of The Brink by badjujuboo

The Pure and Simple Truth by @letteredlettered [G, 65k] — Remix of Nunquam Securus by talekayler

The Road to Apathy by radcliffe_bass [T, 1k] — Remix of Apathy Will Get You In The End by bgd_thrifty

A Second Attempt by alovelycupoftea [E, 1k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Special Edition by Leela

Sine Qua Non by @khasael [E, 34k] — Remix of Need by dysonrules

To Love And To Cherish by @lordhellebore [M, 3k] — Remix of Standing In The Way of Love by scarletladyy

To More Fables Needed by @multiplefangasms [G, art] *not on AO3 — Remix of Fables by Elfflame

Touch But Don't Look by leela_cat [M, 4k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Look But Don't Touch by kitty_fic

Transiental by skriftlig [E, 3k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Elemental by sesheta_66

Until That Boy is Mine by @inkdoodles [M, art] — Remix of No Other Superstar by lettered

the Veela codec by @curiouslyfic [T, 3k] — Remix of Draco Being a Veela Made Them Do It by simeysgirl

Voices in the Leaves (The Peacock and the Apprentice Redux) by kinky_kneazle [G, 3k] *not on AO3 — Remix of The Beauty of Trees by megyal

What Happens in Mykonos (Doesn't Stay There) by talekayler [E, 8k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Harry Potter's Holiday Romance by mayfly_78

What I Needed by twilight_tones [E, 3k] *not on AO3 — Remix of Retribution by venis_envy

---

✔ other lists

#drarry #drarry fanfic #drarry fic rec #harry potter #draco malfoy #masterlist #2012

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fuzzballsheltiepants · 6 years ago

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Delayed Reaction (The Fear of Falling Remix, aka the Nicky Remix)

I wrote this for the fantastic AFTG remix/redux challenge, which was an utter blast. It was inspired by this amazing fic, by @sunrise-and-death. It let me explore Nicky’s feelings after the events of the series, especially his role in the Eden’s Twilight disasterTM of the first book. It’s a bit of a departure for me, lol, but I loved writing it. References forced drugging/forced kissing. Read on AO3 if you prefer. (I apologize if you’re on mobile and the keep reading link doesn’t work.)

The second Neil wrenched his arm out of his grasp, Nicky knew.

The alcohol coursing through his bloodstream left him slow and stupid as Neil planted his hands against Nicky’s chest and shoved. Tripping over his own feet, Nicky crashed backwards into some faceless people who were dancing in a tight pack. Cursing, the clubbers bounced away while Aaron got to his feet in what would have been a leap had he been sober.

“What the hell was that?” Aaron snapped at Neil, whose face went from white to red in a second.

“I’m going to get some air,” Neil said, and disappeared, weaving through the crowd towards the back doors.

Aaron grabbed Nicky’s arm and helped haul him to his feet. He staggered over to the table and dropped his head into his hands. He felt more than saw Aaron settle next to him. “Seriously,” Aaron shouted over the thundering base, “what just happened?”

Nicky felt like he was going to vomit, but he didn’t think it was from the alcohol. That had been actual fear in Neil’s face, before anger and embarrassment had swept it away. Neil, afraid. Of him. He let his elbows slide out from under him until his forearms rested on the table, keeping his forehead pressed against them.

For an endless moment he remembered being surrounded by four men, being punched and kicked and shoved; the vicious laughter and taunts echoing in the alley, the desperate need to cry out but the inability to get enough air. It had taken months before he had been able to get in and out of the club without terror, and over a year before he had been able to dance again, to enjoy the feel of other bodies around him.

The sound of a tray full of glasses being set carefully on the table made him bury his face deeper into his arms. Andrew. Oh, God, how could he ever look Andrew in the eye again?

“Did someone break Nicky?” Andrew asked flatly.

“Your boy toy,” Aaron answered. “Nicky wanted him to go dance, and he shoved him into a group of dancers for no reason then took off.”

“It wasn’t for no reason,” Nicky said. The words were muffled against the table and looking up was impossible, but somehow he knew Andrew heard. Heavy eyes bored into the top of his head then disappeared.

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked. Nicky felt perversely grateful that his voice was different from Andrew’s. “He’s gone,” Aaron added unnecessarily.

“I kissed him,” Nicky mumbled into his arms.

“What?”

“Neil.” Nicky sighed and sat up. “I kissed him.”

“Dude. You’ve been sitting here all night, I would’ve noticed. How much have you had to drink?” Aaron laughed.

Too much, always too much and not enough. “Not tonight. His first time here.” The room was spinning and Nicky braced one of his hands against the table. “Andrew…Andrew told me to keep him high.”

“I don’t understand,” Kevin said, downing one of the fresh drinks as if that would help clarify things.

“I kissed him to give him more dust.” Nicky pointed at his mouth to make sure it was clear, nodding at their expressions. “He didn’t want me to.”

All traces of amusement were gone from Aaron’s face. “Andrew didn’t know.” Nicky shook his head. “He’s going to kill you.”

“Neil won’t let him,” Kevin assured them with a confidence born of copious amounts of vodka.

“I am way too sober for this,” Aaron said, reaching for the tray. He was on his second drink—well, his sixth if you counted the first round—when Andrew reappeared, alone.

Andrew didn’t say anything, and neither did the rest of them. Aaron and Kevin knocked back one last drink each before the three of them followed Andrew out of the club in a line, Aaron bringing up the rear. Nicky felt absurdly like he was at an elementary school class trip, following a teacher out of a museum. There was a picture book he had loved as a child, with drawings of the big dark mama and papa ducks, the little yellow ducklings marching in between. He imagined they looked the reverse, he and Kevin with their black hair towering in between the tow-headed twins. He would have laughed if he hadn’t felt like crying.

Andrew pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Kevin fled. Aaron did not; he looked between Andrew and Nicky until he saw something in Andrew’s face that made his mouth tighten. With a venomous glare at Neil, he scooted out of the car and into the house, lingering for a long moment in the doorway.

Nicky had no idea what Andrew was going to do. Andrew had once told him that he would kill him if he touched Neil; he hadn’t understood the protective instinct at the time, but now it made all too much sense. If Andrew was going to make good on that promise now, Nicky wouldn’t fight him.

He hoped Aaron would understand. He knew Erik would not.

“I am going to make a deal with you,” Andrew said, sounding as if he were making a grocery list. Neil was watching, expression unreadable. There was no trace of the panic that had earlier ravaged his features, but that was still all Nicky could see. He felt his eyes start to burn and dug his nails into his palms to try to drive it back. “You will promise me that you will never touch someone without their consent again. And in exchange, I will not kill you.”

Nicky nodded; he should have felt relief but all he really was aware of was the guilt of getting away with something undeserved. He was pretty sure he was babbling something but had no idea what useless words were falling out of his mouth. Andrew’s expression was getting flatter and finally Neil interrupted.

“It’s okay, Nicky. I forgive you.”

The tears overflowed then. Andrew ordered him out of the car and roared out of the driveway before Nicky could do more than stumble onto the lawn. He watched the taillights glow at the end of the street then dragged his sorry carcass into the house.

Aaron and Kevin were waiting for him. Well, Aaron was. Kevin was technically in the living room as well but clearly on a different plane of consciousness. “We need to talk about this,” Aaron said

“Tomorrow.”

“Nicky—”

“Please, Aaron. Just…tomorrow.”

Aaron gave him a long searching look, then disappeared upstairs to collapse in his bed. Nicky rearranged Kevin so he could breathe and wouldn’t choke if he vomited, dropped a trash can next to his face, and dragged himself into his room. Not bothering to undress, he flopped backward onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

There was dust on the edges of the fan that he needed to wipe off. Part of him wanted to start the fan, see if the dust would rain down all over the room, but that would require getting up. After a while he kicked his boots off. Sleep darted away from him every time he reached towards it.

It was closer to morning than night when he heard the door open again. He went out into the hall to see Andrew half-carrying a sleepy Neil, kicking the door shut behind them. Andrew glanced at him, eyes sharp as his knives, before scooping Neil fully into his arms and heading up the stairs.

*****

It was a silent morning followed by a silent drive back to campus. Nicky knew if he opened his mouth stupidity would spew out so he kept it clamped shut until they were back at Fox Tower and his dorm room door was shut firmly behind him. He barely made it to the couch before his knees gave out.

“Are you ever going to talk to me about this?” Aaron asked.

“About what?” Matt appeared behind him. “What happened?”

“I’m an asshole,” Nicky said. “That’s it, that’s all there is to say.”

“Bullshit,” snapped Aaron. “What happened with Andrew?”

“We made a deal, okay? I don’t touch someone without consent, he doesn’t kill me.”

Aaron snorted. “I can’t fucking believe you. Why would you ever think that was okay?” He was looking at him like he had never seen him before. Nicky could feel his eyes filling. He and Aaron had always been…not good, nobody in their family had good relationships, it was genetically impossible, but they had always cared about each other.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Matt said. “What the hell happened?”

“Nicky kissed Neil against his will,” Aaron answered when it was obvious Nicky wasn’t going to.

Matt looked aghast. “Not last night,” Nicky clarified. “It was the first time we took him to Columbia.” Not that that made it any better, really, but it explained why he was still breathing.

“Jesus Christ, Nicky.”

I know, Nicky wanted to scream. “I’m going to call Erik,” he said instead. Once alone in the bedroom, though, he just stared at his phone. Erik knew about the incident; Nicky had told him the next day, while Neil was missing. He had been disapproving about the drugs but hadn’t worried about the kiss. Nicky wasn’t sure if he could handle his forgiveness about it now. He knew he would get it, but with Neil’s fear burned into his retinas he didn’t think he wanted it.

There was a knock on the bedroom door. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed; enough that he felt stiff when he got up to answer it. Or maybe that was the exhaustion.

“Hello, Nicky,” Renee said with her usual sweet smile. “I thought perhaps you might like to go get some coffee.”

Nicky didn’t have it in him to say no to Renee. He grabbed his coat.

It was rare for he or his cousins to visit the coffee shop on campus; they usually just made their own. Nicky debated ordering something gross like straight black coffee with a shot of espresso, but caved to his tastebuds and got an iced hazelnut latte instead.

They sat at one of the little iron tables in front of the cafe, watching the handful of summer students straggle by. Nicky was halfway through his latte when he asked, “Matt told you, huh?”

“He told me his understanding of it, yes.”

This was why he loved Renee. He took a deep breath, and in as spare language as he could manage, told her about that first trip to Columbia and the morning after. About the arbitrary lines he had drawn in his own head about what was okay and what was not. How he had succumbed to the Hollywood idea that forcing a kiss on someone would win them over in the end. How at the time he hadn’t really thought that what he did was any worse than what Andrew did; how he had never thought about what he might have been taking from Neil until that weekend before Thanksgiving.

He didn’t tell her about the months of regret he’d been dealing with since he had walked into his parents’ guest room and seen Neil tenderly wrapping a bloody and battered Andrew in a blanket. Or how he had been struggling not to regress to the habits taught him at conversion camp, to the self punishment that was seen as just penance for his sins. But she saw it in his eyes and heard it in his voice anyway.

When he finally went silent, she sipped her iced tea for a moment. “Did you apologize?”

“Yes, as soon as he would let me. He wasn’t ready to accept it then.”

“Have you talked about it since?”

Nicky shook his head. It had taken all of his courage the first time, he wasn’t sure he had enough left.

Renee hummed and then was quiet while they finished their drinks. They were walking back to the dorm when she touched his arm. “Nicky…I may be out of line to ask this, but have you found a church here?”

He shook his head. He had been to several when they had first moved to campus two years prior, but none of them had been right. Slowly he had been forgetting what it felt like to seek that sort of peace. He couldn’t recall the last time he had prayed; maybe during that terrible vigil the whole team had held on the bus after Binghamton.

“Would you like to come with me tomorrow?”

“I’m not Catholic.”

“It’s not a Catholic church.” He looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t find the parish of the local Church very welcoming, so I found an alternative.”

“Yes,” Nicky said, not really sure why he felt so hesitant. “I’ll come with you.”

“I go to the early service most of the time,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if it was apology or warning. “I leave at seven-thirty.”

He groaned internally; after his sleepless night he had been looking forward to spending most of the next day in bed. “I’ll be ready.”

*****

The church was like nothing Nicky had seen before. There was no ornate glass, no crucifix, no organ. It almost looked like a business building, but off the vestibule the bulk of it was one large room with pews. A friendly man in a blue suit greeted Renee by name when she entered.

“Reverend Pawalek, this is my friend Nicky,” she said, and the minister held out his hand in greeting. His grip was warm and solid. He reminded Nicky of Erik’s father, though he couldn’t have said exactly why. Something about his eyes, maybe. Or the generous cut of his mouth.

They entered the sanctuary and sat in a pew near the back. Nicky’s gaze was immediately caught by a small pride flag sticker on the otherwise plain podium. He glanced at Renee; she gave him a nod. All around him people were filtering in, men and women and children, black and white and brown. There were piercings and tattoos and wild hair and wilder clothes. Some, like Renee, wore crosses; he spotted two hijab, and a yarmulke. The only thing they all had in common was the attentiveness with which they turned towards the podium when Reverend Pawalek took his spot.

Afterwards Nicky could not have recalled a single sentence of the sermon. He knew that it was about how to help God’s love manifest here on earth, but the specifics were washed away in the rhythm of the minister’s tenor voice. He felt embraced by that voice, cocooned by it; for reasons he could not have told, tears fell until his hands and shirt were damp with them. Around him the other people were smiling and laughing and crying too.

He had never felt so loved outside of Erik’s arms. He had never known faith so uncorrupted by religion. At the end, as Reverend Pawalek put up a prayer about love and acceptance, Nicky prayed as he hadn’t in too many months. He prayed for forgiveness: Neil’s. God’s. His own. For once, he did not even think about his father, standing over him pallid and stern. His father did not understand God like this; was incapable of understanding a God that was not a stand-in for his own judgments. But this—this was the God Nicky had always sought, the one Erik and Renee so freely opened their hearts to.

An hour had passed in the thrall of that voice and those words, but it felt like days later when they stumbled out into the heat of a South Carolina morning. Renee took his hand, threading her fingers through his. They didn’t speak as they headed back to campus in Allison’s car. Nicky didn’t think he had any words anyway.

*****

He went back the following Sunday. Andrew had not allowed him time alone to talk to Neil. He might’ve tried while Andrew was at Bee’s but he didn’t want the rest of the team listening in. Neil kept catching his eye, and Nicky took hope from that. Fitting, then, that the sermon was about hope. The way hope can keep us alive when all else around us is trying to drag us down. The way hope can erase fear, can erase hate, can fortify against the judgment of others. That hope can help us let go of the fear of falling. That hope is just a different word for faith.

Another week passed. Aaron and he went back to their usual brand of “good,” and Matt seemed to have forgotten about all of it. Andrew’s vigilance did not falter, but Nicky had never thought he would forget. Though he would have loved Andrew’s forgiveness, it didn’t really matter in the end; it had been Neil he—no, they—had wronged.

Aaron and Katelyn were cuddling on the couch and Matt was just starting a movie when there was a knock on the suite door. Matt answered it; Nicky got to his feet when he heard Neil’s voice, though the words were quiet and indistinct. Then Matt called his name and he walked to the door.

Neil still looked guarded, but there was something other than fear behind it. Hope, maybe. Or determination. He followed Neil into the suite he shared with Kevin and Andrew. It was empty, so Nicky assumed the others were out somewhere. He leaned against the door. Somehow it felt safer.

“I wanted to talk,” Neil said.

“Me too. I’ve been wanting to since that night.” Nicky hated the quiver in his voice. “Oh, Neil, I’m so, so sorry. That look on your face…I never wanted you to have to look at me like that.”

“I’m fine.” Neil’s mouth twisted in an ironic smile after he said the words. “It just made me remember, you know? Being drugged and not able to control myself.”

Nicky’s heart ached. “I still can’t believe I did that.”

“Honestly, the being drugged thing bothered me more than the kisses.”

Somehow that made Nicky feel worse. “I tried to justify it so many different ways, you know? All of it.” He slid down the door so he was sitting on the floor, looking up at Neil on the beanbag chair. “Andrew was so certain. God, he’s always so certain that he’s right. It’s easier just to go along with it.”

“I know.”

Nicky’s lips twitched at Neil’s wry tone but the smile wouldn’t quite form. Neil didn’t know, not really; Andrew gave ground over and over to him in a way he never did for anyone else. And Neil had never sought the easier path. “It seemed like such a clever idea. Honestly I was so freaking proud of myself for thinking of it, you know, a way to keep you high without getting caught.”

“It was creative,” Neil said thoughtfully.

It was hard to keep back the ready tears at that. “The thing is, though, I also just really wanted to kiss you. I was lonely, I hadn’t seen Erik in forever, and you’re hot. I guess I just thought you needed to lose some inhibitions or something. Like that’s for me to say. What the hell made me think I had the right to decide that?”

Neil shrugged. “I think a lot of people think like that.”

“It wasn’t until everything went down before Thanksgiving that I got it. I mean, Jesus, what kind of an asshole am I? Like, I had to see that in order to understand?” He thought again of dazed Andrew, frantic to make sure Aaron was okay, the blood and worse from the dead body on the floor, and Neil so…so gentle. Not for the first time, he wondered how he hadn’t seen it then, the love they had for each other. His sniff was embarrassingly loud.

“But you understand now,” Neil said.

Nicky nodded, feeling a bit like a bobblehead doll. “Absolutely.”

“I think a lot of people wouldn’t. I think a lot of people would say it was totally different.”

“You might be right,” Nicky said. It didn’t really make it any better. It didn’t change that he had taken advantage of someone he cared about, someone who was compromised. He didn’t understand how Neil could be so vicious sometimes, and yet find forgiveness too. For some reason, Reverend Pawalek’s words about hope popped into his head: he had talked of hope not for a better world after this one but for making this world a better one, for making it a world of justice, of peace. In his own way, Neil was fighting for that.

Somehow, somewhere in that terrible year since that first night in Columbia, Neil had let go of the fear of falling.

Nicky dashed the tears from his eyes and stood on shaky legs. “Ugh, everyone’s going to know I was crying,” he said, trying for normalcy.

“You look fine,” Neil said, getting up too. Of course, Neil’s definition of that left something to be desired.

“Can I?” Nicky asked, holding his arms open in invitation. Neil hesitated just a moment, then stepped into the circle of Nicky’s arms. Nicky pulled him in and held him close. Not tightly, but—close. He knew Neil would never understand, really. He never seemed to see it. Outsiders never did either. They just saw a fucked up kid with a smart mouth.

But for the rest of them, for the Foxes, he was hope. Precious, and fragile, and a reason to keep going on. A reason to let go of the fear of falling.

#aftg #all for the game #tfc #the foxhole court #neil josten #nicky hemmick #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #renee walker #aftg remix redux #my writing #tw forced drugging #tw forced kissing #fanfic

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