#snailfic

[mr-snailman]

filed under “fics I’d love to write but don’t have time for”—

“Sigils”

2012. The night before they head out to the Childress place, Rust and Marty eat dinner together. It’s late and they’re talking and laughing like they haven’t in years, trying their best to keep from thinking about tomorrow and failing. Marty’s just about at his limit (hate to have a hangover in the morning) and he accidentally knocks his last beer into Rust. Rust takes his beer-drenched shirt off and Marty catches sight of the blue symbol inked into his chest and asks about it. Gets told it has something to do with protection. Makes an offhand comment about being able to use some of that tomorrow.

Rust draws one on him with a sharpie. They’re close, too close and not close enough. The air is humming and crackling with electricity. Perfect weather for a summer storm. When Marty tries to close the gap between them, Rust tells him: later, later, I can’t lose this too. They watch each other in the hazy amber glow of the bar long after closing time. It takes everything Marty’s got to walk away, but he steps out into the velvety darkness with a “See you in the morning” and drives home feeling whatever inscrutable thing it is between him and Rust like fishing line tangled in his ribs, tugging at his chest.

Later comes and goes, and when the dust settles, they’re not dead after all. The healing wound is a jagged furrow up Rust’s side, rippling over too-prominent ribs. The gash in Marty’s shoulder cuts straight through the smudged marker lines just south of his collarbone. They go home, anyway, under a sky slowly filling with stars. Marty wraps an arm around Rust’s waist to shore him up. He’s surprisingly substantial, warmth seeping through the thin fabric of his hospital gown. They make it to the bedroom with some degree of stumbling and swearing. Marty gets Rust settled— as settled as someone like him can ever be— on top of the comforter and steps into the bathroom for bacitracin and fresh gauze.

When he comes back, Rust’s watching him, dark-eyed and unreadable again except that his cheeks are still wet. He begrudgingly allows Marty to move the hospital gown out of the way to get at the wound. Looking at him, Marty gets this feeling that he’s seeing something only a few other people have been lucky enough to lay eyes on: the soul of this battered (but not broken) man. Without stopping to think or ask himself what the hell he thinks he’s doing, he reaches out and traces Rust’s tattoo with a fingertip. Rust follows his gaze and raises his eyebrows.

“Protection, huh,” Marty says, voice barely above a whisper.

Rust makes a dismissive hm sound. “Lot of good it did us.” He gestures at his stomach and at Marty’s shoulder. His hand brushes over the place he’d drawn careful lines with a steady hand and Marty feels the touch burn through the fabric of his t-shirt.

“I don’t know about that,” he says. “We’re still here.”

[snailsnaps]

Me checking daily on a forgotten ao3 relationship tag with barely any fandom hoping there's any new content (the most recent activity was 4 months ago)

[mr-snailman]

Steve and Soda, onstage at the Albuquerque Civic Auditorium, c.1974

this is intended as a coda to this fic, go check it out!

(disclaimer: there are no guitars in the fic)

further notes under cut (includes spoilers):

guitarists, like many other bird species, have been observed to perform elaborate courtship dances prior to mating

they both got their guitars at the secondhand store, slightly beat-up but still in working conditions

what are they playing? honestly who knows. it could be "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR but don't quote me on that

the first song Steve learned to play was "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones

"Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac was not Soda's first but it is his favorite. always gets the girls in the audience weeping. Steve, too, but he'll never admit it.

they mostly play covers because neither of them are songwriters. they let Pony write them lyrics once and Steve couldn't keep a straight face.

the black-and-white saved me from having to navigate the implications of the hanky code but let's be honest they don't know what it means. (Pony might, actually, but that's a whole 'nother can of beans)

yeah that's a scrap of one of Soda's shirts that got too worn out to wear. yeah that's Steve's bandanna. they're sentimental.

this is set after Fortunate Sons, so Steve's got his prosthetic leg on here! I wanted to show it but sadly I could not imagine him wearing shorts on stage.

[mr-snailman]

for the fic questions - ✂️

“what’s your editing process?”

uh. ha. haha. editing? what’s that? XD it’s a lot more haphazard than maybe it should be… I write in short bursts when the Fever gets ahold of me and then every time I pick it up again I reread the last part I wrote and change some things to make it flow better… a lot of rewrites happen on the fly from one sentence to the next, and I do find myself catching typos three months after publishing ;-;

[snailsnaps]

Gdocs caught in 4K

Gdocs, you're fired. Get out. Inexcusable.

[mr-snailman]

so... uh... surprise?

[mr-snailman]

guys guys GUYS you will never fucking guess where I was today!!!!!

this is my train station, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen AND the best possible location for a chase scene lmao (we missed the first train by a minute and I maybe cried a little afterwards but we caught the next one)

and this is the bridge over the reserved channel (reserved for what? no fucking clue)

this is the book sale shelf at the south boston public library, which I was not expecting to be open today (they don’t have cosmos. I checked. and the librarian thought I was asking about spice instead of space because my accent gets stronger when I’m trying to be polite ;-;)

but THIS is the Boston Municipal Court, South Boston Division— photo taken at 2:30 pm, exactly TWENTY FUCKING YEARS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES after the events of chapter five of “say yes”!!! I didn’t even plan that it just happened that way :D

extremely relevant graffiti seen about a mile up the wrong street ;-; incidentally I didn’t realize until I saw a bunch of them outside a bar but the lesbian flag really is dunkin colors huh

pictured: the author feeling like the king of the world. turns out you CAN see the ocean from the bleachers at moakley park :) I was so fucking giddy just to be here lmao

the narrow strip of sand that is carson beach, plus some intriguing dead things I almost stepped on there!

and the train ride back. I love this city so fucking much it’s unreal. Like you gotta know when I moved up here from North Carolina I hated it so fucking bad, but Boston carved a place for itself into my chest and now I carry it with me everywhere. The Hub of the universe, my city.

[mr-snailman]

hmmm writing this down here so I don’t forget I guess

seeing stars and say yes were originally supposed to be one fic spanning seven years and obviously that didn’t happen because it turns out seven years is a long fucking time

but there’s one deleted scene from the time between that’s near and dear to my heart in which Chuckie was gonna be working on some trade school related homework to do with geometry (cause if you’re gonna build houses you do have to understand spatial relationships) and maybe it’s taking a while

and Will sits down beside him and looks over his shoulder and starts pointing out the answers— and this becomes their first real argument that we see. obviously it’s ripping off the organic chem scene with Skylar in the movie because I think it’s something we see over and over from Will, that it’s SO easy for him and he just doesn’t get how other people have to work so much harder at it— and he really does think he’s helping, is the thing

because for him it’s just oh let me do this in fifteen seconds so it’s done and we can spend some time together— almost like “oh don’t worry about it I’ll do the dishes” XD— because for him homework was only ever busywork

but for Chuckie, this is something he has to do himself, because he’s gotta learn this stuff, and it kinda feels like— what, you don’t think I can learn this? you think I’m too stupid to figure this out on my own? because I think for a long long time he’s been struggling with the idea that he’s not good enough for Will in the same way that little league and patriots games and Southie itself aren’t good enough, and that’s part of what lead to the California thing in the first place

and obviously he knows it’s all bullshit— because Will came back, because Will chose him, because he knows Will loves him and would never think he’s stupid just because he’s no Ramanujan, he KNOWS all this— but still. those insecurities are still there, and it stings

BUT they’re two grown ass people who love each other very much so they talk it out like adults instead of flying off the handle, and Will backs off a little so Chuckie can finish, and Chuckie gives him stuff to check and asks him for an explanation, NOT the answer, to a difficult problem, and when it’s all done Will finally gets Chuckie’s undivided attention XD

[snailsnaps]

Don't talk to me or my pal or their cookie ever again

In front of my oatmeal raisin cookie??

Yes, I am still writing New Hardware, I’m just a busy college student so I don’t always have the time or energy to write.

[mr-snailman]

…yeah still wild about them. this is actually the sequel to a fic I just finished called “seeing stars” which should be up any day now! just ironing out a few last wrinkles :)

^was NOT kidding about seven pages of handwritten outline

[mr-snailman]

today I wrote a seven page outline for the sequel to the fic I still haven’t finished yet. I hate writing I hate being a writer. the worst part is that I can’t show it to anyone here because they don’t care but also I can’t show you because a) illegible and b) surprise

[mr-snailman]

AHHHHHHHH I DID IT!!!!!

eight days, 16.5K words, and countless vietnam war playlists later, here we are, babey!!!! woooooo!!!!

it's been so long since I read The Outsiders for the first time (sixth grade, wow) and I finally came back to it, the way I always would, with a much better understanding of my own queerness! so!

please go read my masterpiece. I am not ashamed to beg.

[mr-snailman]

honestly have no idea what to say here.

[mr-snailman]

say it with me guys: do it scared do it scared DO IT SCARED

[mr-snailman]

okay right so this has been swirling around in my brain for AGES so in honor of me hitting the halfway point on “say yes”:

what if we stuck them in the OTHER award-winning movie that came out in 1997?

I don’t have a defined plot here or anything this is not gonna be a fic (I have my hands full) but here’s what I do know:

Skylar’s here! because guess what I love Skylar! and she’s basically taking Rose’s role, but her whole deal is that she’s got this dream of becoming a doctor but is getting pushed into marriage for financial/societal/plot reasons (Asshole From Harvard makes a cameo as the fiancé)

but then she meets Will, who really just wants to get back to Boston and his job at the dockyards, and his childhood friend who can’t stop staring at him when the wind’s in his hair and the sun’s streaming down the side of his face!

so it’s Skylar and Chuckie and Will running around the lower decks. they sneak her into a party, she drinks them under the table, Will has to undergo the nightmare scenario of having two people who love you dearly gang up on you and ask what the hell you’re going to do with your life (oof)

Not sure how or if Sean fits into this. Sorry, Sean.

uh but then obviously shit hits the fan, and it’s been a LONG time since I actually watched Titanic because my father insists on shouting “my fart will go on” at the top of his lungs throughout so I don’t remember all the details

but they end up in the water! fun fact did you know that in the original drafts for Good Will Hunting Chuckie was supposed to die in a construction accident?

so he’s in the water and it’s so fucking cold and he’s trying to tell Will to be happy with Skylar and do something with his life

but Will just won’t let go and hauls him onto the door, which almost capsizes but doesn’t because somebody here is enough of a math genius to figure out the weight distribution so that doesn’t happen

and Skylar, the woman who’s read every medical textbook she could find, who had to teach herself because no one else would do it, manages to keep all three of them from succumbing to hypothermia before they can get picked up by the rescue ship

cut to Boston, Massachusetts, May 1913, and Skylar walks into a certain bar not far from the docks in Southie to tell her boys (now including Billy and Morgan) that she fucking aced an exam at the Boston University Med School (because Harvard’s med school didn’t admit women until 19 fuckin 45, the bastards)

and if she catches Will (who is actually doing something math-related these days) and Chuckie tangling their legs together under the table, well, hey, it’s good to be alive

[mr-snailman]

somehow they are STILL not at Sean's house. guys. guys I get it early morning domesticity is the SHIT but don't we have something kind of important to say to somebody???