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thebigqueer · 3 years ago

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"Stars Bursting Across His Lips" - Valgrace - One-Shot

Summary: Leo & Jason go on a totally spontaneous road trip.

Word Count: 4264

Read on AO3

Leo isn’t sure how he got thrown off a roller coaster, but here he is, hurtling about five hundred miles per hour in the sky. Except he’s not even afraid - in fact, despite the looming ground before him, he actually feels relaxed for the first time in forever.

It isn’t until the black, rocky ground is overwhelming his vision that he feels the panic truly settle in. His heart speeds in his chest, trying to escape the prison of his ribcage, and his stomach feels weightless. The wind’s pressure increases the closer he gets.

This is it, he thinks in fear. This is the end.

He closes his eyes.

BAM!

-------

Leo startles awake.

His head rises from his desk, eyes bleary, and a bright yellow light floods his eyes. He groans in discomfort and sits up straight, trying to find balance in the spinning world around him. Rubbing his face, Leo pushes himself away from the desk and sighs in exasperation. A pencil pokes out from his curls. He blinks several times, trying to flick the yellow spots from his eyesight, but it takes several moments before he can see clearly again. When he finally can see again, the very first thing he notices are stacks of books on his desk, papers flashing in the harsh light, and three pencils pointing at him threateningly, and he almost wishes he really was being thrown off a roller coaster.

Exhaustion has been calling his name for hours now, but he’s been declining since the morning. Instead, he’s had to put himself through hours of work and work and work. As much as he enjoys being a student, there are some points where he truly just wishes he could lie down and never wake up again.

He sighs again and rolls his chair back to his desk. His physics homework glares at him, flashing angry and frustrated black letters, and his body physically compresses at their scolding. He looks longingly over to the comfortable bed in the corner, trying to seduce him with its fluffy pillows and blankets, but yet again he needs to decline.

He shifts his gaze back to his papers. He can sleep later; he just needs to get through this now.

Leo’s eyes rove over the problem before him: From the top of a roller coaster, Anna is going down at a velocity of… No, wait, who’s going down on a roller coaster? From the top of a roller coaster… Why are we riding a roller coaster? Why not a car? Why not an airplane? Who said everyone likes roller coasters? It’s been so long since Leo’s been to an amusement park…

And just like that, Leo’s zoning out again. His eyes catch the sight of a bookmark by one of his books, and he pokes his pencil against it, trying to fit the tip underneath the small purple ribbon that’s looped through a hole in the plastic. His thoughts scream in his head, pouring out from some crack in his brain, and he knows it’s hopeless trying to understand the problem. He might as well just waste time instead of even reading the words before him.

His attention is once again stolen as the sound of a door creaking pulls at his ears. Leo’s head perks up and he turns to the direction of the bedroom entrance, meeting pale blue eyes.

Jason smiles at him and lifts a mug. “Hi,” he says shyly. “I made you tea.”

Leo sighs and turns back around, humming in acknowledgement. “Thanks,” he says, folding his arms across the desk and burrowing his head into their grace. His eyelids droop again, succumbing to the weight of exhaustion.

Soft footsteps thud against the carpeted floor, and it isn’t long before a shift in the air alerts Leo of Jason’s presence next to him. Leo opens his eyes to see his lover leaning against the wall. He gently places a mug by one of the various books and smiles encouragingly. Leo responds by frowning and moving the mug to the other side of the desk, then leaning back against his arms.

Jason’s eyebrows rise behind his glasses. “Well, someone’s cranky.”

Leo throws him a glare but doesn't respond. He doesn’t have the energy.

Jason eyes him warily, and his mouth sets itself into a thin line. He catches sight of the paper underneath Leo’s hand and the pencils poking his skin. Then he lays his eyes on the dozens of books stacked around Leo. Pity overflows his blue irises. “How long have you been working?” he asks sympathetically.

“Don’t know,” Leo says. “I passed out for a while.”

“Maybe it’s time to take a break,” Jason says, a playful lilt in his voice. “Do you want to watch—”

“No,” Leo snaps, raising his head.

He realizes his mistake a little too late. A look of surprise pulls at Jason’s face, and for a second he looks almost like a scolded dog, eyes full of sadness and embarrassment. His blue eyes stray to the side. If Jason could fold his ears, Leo has no doubt he would.

A heavy tension sparks in the air, sizzling against Leo’s spine, and he’s not sure if the air is charged because of Jason or if it’s only metaphorical. Probably both.

Guilt seizes Leo’s chest at the sight of Jason looking so pensive. He sighs and reaches for the blond’s hand, but Jason only snaps it back. Leo’s heart clenches on itself as he witnesses this act of defiance. Frustrated, he pulls at one of his curls. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just… stressed.” He tilts his head at Jason and hopes his eyes betray his genuinity. “I shouldn’t have bitten at you like that. I’m really sorry.”

Jason turns his gaze back to Leo. Leo’s expecting his eyes to flash angrily, or for sparks to shoot out his fingertips, or for the air to thunder in angst, but instead there’s only a calculating look in his eyes, as if he’s making a silent decision. His arms cross against his chest, and a pang of anxiety jabs Leo in the chest.

He knows that look. He knows something’s about to happen.

And Leo’s right. Jason acts too fast. One second, the boys are merely staring at each other, frustration overwhelming their senses; the next, Leo’s stomach rolls over and his entire perception turns upside down. It takes a while for Leo to register that he’s now staring at the floor, not Jason’s pretty face. It takes even longer for him to realize that the floor is actually moving.

“What the fuck?” Leo cries, wriggling around. A tight arm is wrapped around his waist, and a few more seconds pass before he realizes he’s thrown over Jason’s shoulder. He considers shaking around some more, if only to get Jason to let him go, but he knows that would be too dangerous for both of them. Instead, to express his frustration, Leo tries to lift himself up and glares at the back of Jason’s head. “What the hell are you doing? Put me down!”

The air shifts, and from the familiar scent of vanilla and dish soap, Leo knows they’re in the kitchen. Jason shifts around the counter for something - Leo’s not sure what - and then they’re hurtling towards the apartment door.

“Jason!” Leo cries, pawing at his sweatshirt. “Put me down! What are you doing?”

Though Leo can’t see his face, his very blood boils at the thought of Jason smiling. He throws the door open and, through a careful, mischievous voice, he simply says, “You’ll see.”

They hurtle through the unknown darkness of the hallway.

-----

“Aw, Leo, don’t look at me like that,” Jason murmurs, glancing at Leo quickly behind his glasses before turning them back to the road before them. His hands balance gently against the steering wheel.

Leo’s crossed arms tighten their hold on his chest and he continues pointing a glare at Jason. “How else am I supposed to look at you?” he demands. “You kinda kidnapped me from my desk just to put me in the car and drive us away. Where the hell are we even going?”

“Spontaneous road trip,” Jason offers by way of explanation. His foot presses firmly against the gas pedal as he leads the two of them along an empty, dark road, illuminated only by the street lamps standing on the sides. “You’ve been working too hard, and you looked like you needed the break.”

Leo sighs. His chest constricts with a sudden exasperation; he knows Jason’s right, and he knows Jason just wants to help, but he doesn’t think any of this is going to benefit him in the long run. Nevertheless, his eyes soften around the edges and he leans his head back against the seat. “Thank you,” he says, “but I don’t think this is a good idea. I have at least three assignments due tomorrow. Can we please just go back?”

“Leo, tell me honestly, how long have you been working today?” Jason asks instead, avoiding Leo’s request.

He scoffs. “Well, I got home around three. You kidnapped me around eight—”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘kidnapping.’”

“—so I guess I’ve been working for five hours.”

“Consecutively?”

A wince flashes across Leo’s face. He knows what Jason’s trying to get at, but he wishes he’d stop. “Well… yeah, I guess. But I kind of need to.” A frustrated sigh puffs out of him and he lays a gentle hand against Jason’s forearm. Jason spares another quick glance at him, surprised at his touch, then turns back to the road.

“Jason, I know you mean well, but I don’t think tonight is the best night,” Leo pleads, his eyebrows furrowing in stress. “We can do this during the weekend.”

But Jason shakes his head and frowns. “Are you forgetting that we’re busy this weekend? First Piper and Shel are coming over, and then Percy’s hosting a party for them.” Jason stops at a red light and turns the left-turn signal on, and the familiar tick, tick, tick of the car snaps in the silence. Leo spots a Walgreens to their left. He turns his gaze back to Jason’s profile, which glows like moonlight against the brightness of the convenience store.

“Besides,” Jason continues, keeping his gaze ahead, “you really need a break, Leo. You’ve been working non-stop all week.” He tilts his head to the side, and in the haunting light of the streetlamps, Leo gets a glimpse of a faint smile across Jasons’ lips. “And I miss you, you know. It feels like we’ve been off our game lately.”

Leo’s chest overwhelms with a hot and weightless sensation. Despite his irritation, a faint smile echoes against his own face, matching the one on Jason. Leo knows he’s right; they haven’t had a proper date in weeks, and it’s started to feel like they only got glimpses of each other in the morning before they got busy with school. Though Leo hates that, something in him feels warm and gooey knowing that Jason wants to spend time with him; he feels wanted, desired. He feels needed.

Jason’s words evaporate in the air, and soon the only sound is the purring of the car. He turns left.

Leo leans back against his seat and calculates his choices. He could go with Jason, take a break and actually enjoy the next hour or so with him, or he could stay at home and pass out on his desk, trying to plow his way through assignments that he has no energy for.

Just before Jason pulls into the parking lot, Leo gazes out the window, taking a glimpse into the fading evening. Winter is already beginning to steal the daylight from them, leaving the world to face the onslaught of coldness and shivers. A black sky spills across overhead.

Leo glances at Jason again, examining his profile, revelling in his existence. Even under the streetlamps he's somehow found a way to steal the spotlight. He always does.

Jason parks. He bows his head to look for his wallet, and Leo admires the empty steering wheel, gushing with an invitation to turn it. The endless possibilities of the night all reside on this simple wheel.

Leo runs a finger over the rough leather. Then he turns his gaze back to Jason, who offers him a raised eyebrow. He unlocks the door and holds out his wallet in a gesture to join him. “What are you waiting for?” Jason asks, raising an eyebrow.

Leo makes his decision. A smile overwhelms his features, melting away all other signs of worry, and a brightness glimmers in his eyes.

He opens his door and joins Jason.

-----

The hours rush by in a blur. One minute, Leo and Jason are fooling around in the aisles of Walgreens, stocking up on candy and soda, and the next they’re speeding down the highway, disintegrating into the high of the night. Wind rushes in through the wide-open windows and the dark night bleeds in. Leo has never felt so alive.

Music blares from the car radio, though the roaring wind wraps itself over the sounds, making the lyrics so undecipherable that Leo gives up on trying to figure out what song it is. He leans back and kicks his feet on the dashboard, throwing an orange Starburst into his mouth. The taste contaminates his tongue, burning him with its tangy flavor, and he leans his head against the window. Stars poke against the black, and Leo, in his bewildered and excited state, wonders if there’s some kind of world beyond the black. Are those holes just portals to entirely different dimensions? Is there some other reality hiding behind the darkness?

In any case, Leo’s glad to be protected underneath the covers of the night. Because if there are other realities beyond those stars, he’s glad to be in the one with Jason.

He closes his eyes as wind whips across his face. Over the roaring of the air, he can just barely make out Jason’s voice lifting over, threading tightly through the wind and grasping for Leo’s ears. But his words are still incomprehensible, especially at this angle, and Leo has to sit up straight again in order to truly take meaning from his rambling.

And the second he meets Jason’s face, his chest implodes with heat.

Despite the darkness extending all around them, a faint golden light reflects over Jason’s face from the headlights. His glasses flash, and a dim halo surrounds his features, illuminating his skin. His lollipop-stained lips open and close as he goes on about something that Leo hasn’t been paying attention to at all. His hands balance gently against the steering wheel, and just the very sight of him sends Leo’s heart into overdrive.

Something strong and insistent pulls on Leo’s heart, digging into his very muscles as he looks at Jason. A longing so intense and painful clamps onto his body like a parasite, and in this moment, with Jason just existing, his hunger for intimacy suddenly turns into starvation. He’s aching to be in his arms.

How long has Leo been starved? How long has he been longing for Jason and not even realizing it?

“...and I was talking to Percy,” Jason says as Leo tunes in again, “and he was like, ‘Dude, I made out with this guy in my Biology class in my dreams,’ and I was like, ‘Uh-huh,’ and he was like, ‘What do you think that means?’ and I was like, ‘Well, if you want my expert opinion, I’m starting to think you’re not exactly as straight as you think you are,’ and he—”

“Jason,” Leo interrupts. His hand reaches for the other boy’s skin, and in the heat of the moment, he drops his pack of Starbursts and lets it thud to the floor. A few pieces tumble out and gleam in pinks and oranges and reds against the stark black of the floorboards.

Jason tilts his head, lips paused in mid-sentence. “Yeah?”

“Pull over.”

His eyebrows rise up, this time in even more surprise. “Why? Is everything okay?”

“I need to kiss you. Right now.”

And in the dim light, a painful red spikes through Jason’s face, reaching all the way up to his ears. His hand flinches against the steering wheel, but Leo barely notices. He’s too caught up in his longing for Jason, in his admiration of the boy before him, to notice the hiccup in his movements. Usually so stoic and plain, Jason’s entire demeanor changes.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

It takes much too long for the car to swerve to the side, for the car to come to a complete stop, for Jason to park. It takes much too long for Leo to unlatch his seatbelt and for Jason to open his arms and for Leo to reach across the distance between them. He can’t get there fast enough. But when he finally does, when his body crashes into Jason’s chest, when his knees press against the coffee cup holder and his skin oozes with excitement, he realizes the time was worth it.

Leo comes at Jason with such a velocity that his body thuds against the door, and instead of meeting his lips, Jason laughs and pushes Leo away. “We’re going to fall out of the car like this,” he says, but his voice is low. “Let’s go in the back.”

A burning irritation bubbles up Leo’s core. He knows Jason’s being reasonable and, honestly, this isn’t anything to get angry about; but for some reason, he can’t fall into Jason fast enough. He’s frustrated that he can’t touch him right away, that there’s danger in pushing Jason too much. He needs Jason now, now, now.

Why are they scared of falling out of a vehicle? Their entire relationship was made on danger. They could always go further.

But Leo complies, and he pushes himself off Jason, slithering in between the seats and balancing precariously against one corner of the backseat. The seconds go by too slowly as Jason stumbles in, and Leo needs to make up lost time by immediately making his move the moment Jason gets comfortable.

Maybe he moved too fast, because his acceleration has Jason falling over himself in the backseat. But he’s always been quick - he adapts fast enough, and within seconds he and Leo find their music again.

Leo makes himself comfortable easily, locking himself into Jason’s limbs, pressing his chest against Jason’s, touching his fingers against Jason’s face. After weeks of losing each other, Jason feels like home after a long vacation; there’s something different, something unsettling, something unfamiliar about him, but Leo knows every corner and dusty shelf of Jason, every crack and crevice. He knows Jason, maybe even better than he knows himself.

His thighs grace Jason’s ribs, pinning him to the seat, tying him to only the heat of the moment. His fingers hiss feverishly against every inch of Jason’s face; each touch feels like a spark, like a prickle beneath his fingertips, but Leo doesn’t mind the shock. It only reminds him of the pure energy that is Jason, the sparkling electricity that he brings to Leo’s life.

At first, they don’t do anything; they simply lie against each other in the backseat, waiting for something to happen, something to tear them apart.

A car passes by. The wind howls outside. Darkness spills out on every side of the world with its endless possibilities.

But nothing happens. They truly have this moment alone, with no one around to pull them away, with no one telling them what to do, with just themselves in this moment.

So Leo stops waiting. He’s tired of waiting.

His fingers stop right underneath Jason’s jaw and he tilts his head ever so gently, holding Jason’s delicate, porcelain face up to the darkness. When their eyes clash, Leo sees the spark of excitement lying underneath his half-lidded eyes - What’s the best you can do? he seems to be asking. Show me.

So Leo does.

For a second he’s simply wandering, lost and confused in the vast space between him and Jason, only looking for shelter from the chaos. The next he meets Jason’s lips, and his brain explodes, his heart combusts, his skin melts. Leo’s lips tingle at the contact and an electric rush of euphoria singes his spine.

His body’s breaking down, disintegrating, his essence turning into mere packets of energy. He spills into Jason’s skin, aching to become a part of him. It’s a feeling so painful, so intense that he just wants to forget about his own body and find himself converged with Jason for life.

Underneath him, Jason’s lips slide into a smile and his hands press around Leo’s waist, clutching onto his sweatshirt like it’s a lifeline. The boys hold each other in the darkness, because at the moment the only light is them.

There are no thoughts in Leo’s head, no anxieties and no worries and no nothing. Only Jason’s lips contaminate his mind. They taste like orange Starbursts, and Leo supposes that’s fitting because Jason’s lips feel like stars bursting across his lips, like a brand new universe against his very mouth. Each kiss turns Leo so unimaginably dizzy, but he welcomes the vertigo; he misses the disorientation of being surrounded by all of Jason. His touch is like a lightning strike, piercing Leo’s skin wherever he lays his electric touch. And it’s painful, incredibly painful, but Leo welcomes the pain because there is something so fulfilling and alarming about being in Jason’s embrace.

He’s missed this feeling. He’s missed them.

Leo trails his fingers against the soft material of Jason’s sweatshirt, losing himself in his warm arms. His lips tingle every time they meet Jason’s, an electrifying tingle that turns his entire body inside out. Every time they kiss, Jason extracts a little more of Leo’s soul to keep for himself, decoding his very DNA bit by bit, and Leo lets him. He’ll let Jason have as much of him as he wants, because for the first time in a long time, he feels whole; he has more to give than ever before. He feels so unapologetically real and solid and he wants to give Jason all that he can because in this moment he has everything to give and absolutely nothing to lose.

Jason shifts underneath his weight, and his hands press against Leo’s stomach, though this time he’s pushing him away rather than bringing him closer. Leo takes this as a sign and, after another kiss, he lifts his head up and gazes at Jason, confusion blinding his vision.

The air feels electrified, with each movement bringing on a new prick to Leo’s skin. Jason’s eyes shine brightly, sparking with life and euphoria.

For a second, Leo’s chest feels heavy with anxiety; he doesn’t want Jason to let him go just yet. He doesn’t want the moment to be over.

But it’s not over. Because the hand on Leo’s waist travels up, leaving a whispering trail against his sweatshirt, turning the hairs on his arm on end. Jason feels like pure electricity. If Leo moves too fast, he might just start a fire.

The seconds feel timeless as Jason’s fingers continue their journey up. His touch rises, finally whispering against on his collarbone, and Leo’s breath hitches. It feels like lightning, rendering him virtually paralyzed.

Jason’s fingers glide up Leo’s neck, whisper against his jawline, and finally brush against his cheek. For a second he simply waits there, watching Leo with a calculating, mad curiosity, like a scientist about to perform a highly dangerous science experiment. Outside another car speeds by, its headlights breaking through the window and striking Jason’s irises, and in that quick second, Leo sees the insane hunger in him, the desire to break out of some restraint and simply be as he is.

Then the lights slip away, allowing the darkness to pool in again, and Jason closes his eyes. His fingers no longer feel like hot electricity, though; instead they feel gentle and cool, like a breeze that gently caresses Leo’s face. He lowers his lids, too, and bows his head, allowing the dark night to fall over him.

“Leo,” Jason whispers, his voice a knife that slices through the thick silence. There’s something about the way he says Leo’s name, with excitement and awe, that sets his heart on fire. He wishes he’d repeat his name over and over for eternity.

Leo doesn’t answer, though. He only responds by pressing his fingers against Jason’s shoulder, a soft squeeze, telling him that he’s here he’s here he’s here.

A few more seconds of silence progress. But there’s something intoxicating and dizzying and necessary about the air surrounding them, as if the next few seconds will be the most important ones of Leo’s life.

Then, in a hushed, vulnerable voice, Jasons asks, “What if we fell in love?”

Leo opens his eyes. Underneath his sweatshirt, he can feel Jason’s heartbeat pulsing, aching to be heard.

And Leo hears his heart loud and clear.

“Jason,” he whispers.

Jason only stares at him.

A smile crawls over Leo’s lips, striking the darkness with a specific kind of light, an invisible light that illuminates Jason to the core.

“Jason,” he says again, but this time a low laugh echoes from his chest. He brushes Jason’s lips with his warm fingers and leans his forehead against his lover’s. “I’ve already thrown myself head-first into it.”

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echoghost1 · 3 years ago

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Going Angst Day 2021 Day 01: Creation

Title: The Things He Lost

Word Count: 2,476

Characters (who will be suffering): Danny and his whole family.

Summary: Danny wakes up in a room he doesn't recognize to news that something horrible has happened. It doesn't seem to matter that he can't remember it happening. It's already affected him and there's no turning back.

Instead of an accident making him half-ghost, he becomes half-machine.

Guess who's back making yet another AU? Is anyone surprised? I don't think so 😅

Anywho, you can read it on AO3 or down below the cut

Danny opened his eyes slowly and found himself in an unfamiliar room. The ceiling was white and the walls were a soft gray. It definitely wasn’t his house or any room he’d been in before.

His body felt heavy and even though he had just woken up, he was still exhausted.

Before he had a chance to close his eyes and fall back asleep, someone entered the room. His curiosity got the better of him and he turned to look.

“Hey there, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?” his mom asked as she got closer.

“Tired,” he answered honestly, and his voice sounded just as worn out as he felt.

She pulled up a seat and gently cradled his cheek in her hand. She didn’t say anything, just watched him with a sad sort of smile.

Had something happened?

He meant to ask the full question, but his voice cracked and gave out so all he was able to say was, “Where?”

“The hospital,” she answered simply.

“Why?”

“You don’t remember?” she had been gently rubbing his cheek but stopped abruptly and pulled back, “Maybe it’s better that way.”

“Why?” he asked again. How could forgetting something that put him in the hospital be a good thing?

His mom ran her fingers through his hair and sighed before finally caving and telling him. “You were struck by lightning. You nearly died.” She took a breath and he could see she was trying her hardest not to cry, “I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you.”

He hated to see her like this. He didn’t want her to be sad. “‘m ‘kay,” his voice was so raw it didn’t come out right. “I’m okay.” he said again, “just tired. Heavy.”

“Heavy?”

His eyes slipped shut so he couldn’t see her reaction. “Too heavy.” he wanted to reach out to her, to comfort him the way she comforted him, but he couldn’t. “Can’t move.”

His voice was so soft he wasn’t actually sure she heard him anymore. Although, he was so tired that he passed out before he could even register what he had been saying.

============================================

He woke up again and this time he was sitting upright.

His dad was the one to greet him, “Hey there bucko! How are you feeling?”

“Still tired,” he said and was surprised his voice sounded a little better than the first time.

“Well, that should clear up in no time!” his dad said with a big grin, “Anything else? Need to readjust?”

He shook his head no but must have moved anyway because there was a sudden sharp pain in his chest. He went to reach for it instinctually and was both surprised when he could move just fine and also even more surprised when his dad stopped him.

“Ah, ah, ah, don’t touch that.” his dad warned as he held Danny’s wrist in place.

Danny looked down and saw that there was some sort of device attached to his chest right over his heart. “What is it?”

“A special heart monitor,” his dad explained with that proud sort of smile that only came out whenever he was talking about his work. “Made it just for you.”

Danny looked a little closer and found a familiar family logo printed on the front of the device. It was nice to know they had made this for him, but he didn’t understand why they needed to. Heart monitors already existed. So why reinvent the wheel?

Unless there was something wrong with him. Something a normal device couldn’t help.

His dad gently slipped his grip from holding Danny’s wrist to holding his hand. “What’s on your mind, buddy?”

“I just can’t figure out why you made this? Is there something wrong with me? Is my heart broken?”

“Come here you,” his dad said just before pulling him into a hug. He was easily engulfed by his dad’s form, but it wasn’t in any way overbearing. “What do you remember about what happened?”

“Only what Mom said. That I got struck by lightning.” Despite the feeling of safety he felt in his dad’s arms, his thoughts started racing with fear. “Why don’t I remember? I should, but I can’t!”

“Danny, hey it’s okay. Just breathe.”

“I can’t!” He sobbed.

Everything was wrong and nothing made sense. Why didn’t he remember? That definitely seemed like something someone should remember and yet he had nothing.

Why was he outside during a thunderstorm? Was he alone or was he with someone?

If he was with someone were they okay? Did they get hurt too?

And if he was alone, why?

What was he doing?

Where had he been?

Was it day or was it night?

He didn’t know! He didn’t know!

His dad just kept rubbing his back and trying to get him to breathe, but Danny was still hyperventilating.

There was a sharp pain in his chest and then everything just stopped.

He wasn’t afraid.

He wasn’t hurting.

His breathing started to even out again and he leaned more into his dad as he felt his body go limp. For some reason, he didn’t mind.

He had been so scared and confused mere seconds ago and now?

Nothing.

“Danny?” his dad asked cautiously as he pulled away to get a better look at his son.

“Yeah?” he answered in a monotone because he couldn’t quite find it in himself to put in the effort to say it with any sort of emotion.

“How are you feeling?”

Danny thought about it for a moment. There was some sort of feeling. It wasn’t exactly nothing.

“Floaty.”

“Floaty?” his dad repeated with a small smile in his voice. It was probably on his face too, but Danny wasn’t facing him and couldn’t find the energy to check.

“Yeah, like there’s no gravity.”

“Ah, well I think we’re going to need to adjust the dosage on that.”

“Dosage?” he asked and now it felt more like he was sinking slowly into the depths of the ocean. It wasn’t suffocating or scary, it was actually sort of relaxing.

“It’s good to know the Fenton Ticker Fixer is doing its job,” his dad carefully repositioned him so he wasn’t flopping over onto himself and was instead using the pillows as support, “but maybe it’s working a little too well.”

“Fenton Ticker Fixer?” he asked and wondered if he was supposed to know what that was or not. Had it been mentioned before and he forgot?

“Yeah, that’s what I call the little device on your chest.” his dad explained and then added, “Did you want to take a nap?”

“No,” he said as he blinked as hard as he could in an effort to wake himself up, “not tired, just swimming.”

“Swimming?”

“Yeah, in the ocean. It’s nice. You should come.”

“Yeah, you really shouldn’t be getting this loopy.”

“Not loopy. Just fine.” he felt his attention drift as he stared at a point in the middle of the room hard enough to cross his eyes.

Then he remembered his dad was still there, “Hey!”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t answer my question! What is ticky dosage?”

His dad was quiet for a moment, then he muttered, “ticky dosage?” to himself before figuring out what Danny was trying to say, “Are you sure you want me to explain how that works right now?”

“Yeah. No sleeping.”

“Okay,” his dad agreed wearily, “you see when the lightning went through you it messed up the natural rhythm of your heart. So we designed this to help. It’s based on a pacemaker, but a bit more advanced, if I do say so myself.”

Danny looked down at the device attached to his chest. Weren’t pacemakers usually on the inside?

“It seems that the sedative is set a bit higher than you can metabolize it. Sorry champ.”

“It’s ‘kay,” Danny mumbled as he poked the device.

That hurt. “ow.”

“I thought I told you not to touch that?”

“Yeah.” Danny agreed as he let his hand drop onto his lap.

He blinked and stared down at his blanket-covered lap.

That didn’t sound right.

He pulled the blanket off as fast as he could. Which given the fact that he was currently heavily sedated, wasn’t very fast or dramatic.

It was a slow and arduous process as he had to wait, what felt like forever, for the blanket to get far enough away for him to be able to really see.

That wasn’t right.

============================================

Danny woke up for the third time and it felt nearly as awful as waking up the first time.

It was so quiet that at first, he thought he was alone, but then he heard the sound of a turning page.

To his right and found his sister instead of his dad.

Of course, she was reading a book right now.

“Hey, nerd.”

She looked up immediately and her face went from annoyance to relief in an instant. “Hey, little brother.” she slipped her bookmark in and set the book aside before leaning forward, “You feeling any better?”

“Yeah, I finally feel awake.”

“That’s good.”

He looked down and saw the Fenton Fixer, or whatever it was called, was still attached to him and also a real thing. “You know I had the weirdest dream.”

“Oh?”

“Or at least I think it was a dream? Maybe I was just hallucinating? It felt real at the time.”

He could feel the concerned look Jazz was giving him and knew he should just tell her, but at the same time, he was worried that maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all.

Instead of explaining, he hit his leg.

It made the same sound. The same not-leg sound that he had heard before.

He gripped the blanket in his fist and wasn’t sure if he was brave enough to look again.

“Danny?”

He tried to steady his breathing. He didn’t want to trigger his device again. He needed to be able to think clearly.

“Jazz,” he took another deep breath, “how much of me has been replaced?”

“I really don’t think I should be the one to tell you this.”

“Jazz, tell me! Please.”

She sighed and got up to walk to the end of his bed. She unhooked a clipboard and flipped a few pages before she spoke again. “The lightning entered your left arm, traveled through your heart, then exited out of your right leg.” she took a breath and busied herself with putting the clipboard away. “The current was so strong and so hot,” her breath shuddered as her eyes started to water, “Danny it was bad. It was really bad.”

“Were you there?” he hated that he had to ask.

She nodded and looked like she was doing everything she could to keep from crying.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

It wasn’t fair.

“No Danny, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“It was my fault you were out there in the first place.”

He opened his mouth to respond but didn’t know how. What was the right thing to say when you don’t even know what happened?

“I left something in my car and it was raining really hard, and I should have just waited, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry!”

“Jazz, I,” what was he supposed to say?

This didn’t sound familiar. It wasn’t ringing any bells.

If he remembered would he blame her for this? He didn’t think so.

But he isn’t sure.

“You offered to hold the umbrella so I wouldn’t get my stuff wet. I hadn’t heard any thunder before we went out. It’s all my fault!” she dropped to her knees and finally let it all out.

He didn’t even think when he stood up.

He just wanted to comfort his sister. He just wanted to tell her it was okay. That he wasn’t mad at her for this. That he was sorry for making her tell him when she wasn’t ready.

Unfortunately, he had temporarily forgotten what had prompted the conversation in the first place.

His leg. His right leg. It had been the exit point of a whole lot of electricity. He had been hurt.

Also, he had been laying in a bed for who knows how long, and standing up was such a head rush he lost his balance.

He was down for the count before he even fully realized that he had fallen. He kept his eyes closed so he didn’t have to watch how fast the room was spinning, but he was still dizzy.

“Danny what are you doing? Why did you get up?” Jazz asked both frantic from her already frazzled nerves and at seeing him collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Just wanted to let you know I wasn’t mad at you. Forgot I’d been lying down all day.”

It was probably longer than a day. He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it had been a week or even longer.

She didn’t correct him.

He didn’t expect her to.

Instead, they worked together to get him back up onto the bed. It was a lot more effort than he wanted it to be.

He was exhausted and he could feel the sedative kick in as his weak heart was forced to slow down again.

It took him a moment to figure out that lifting his arm would be more effort than turning his head, but he did it.

He glanced at his right arm, the one he’d been born with.

Then he glanced at his left. The one that had been made for him.

One soft and pale.

The other is sturdy and metallic.

It was the same with his legs, just on opposite sides.

One warm.

One cold.

One-half of his body would grow and change subtly over time.

The other would need constant maintenance and upgrades.

Half alive.

Half machine.

He had a general idea of how these prosthetics worked. It was his parent’s life work after all.

He knew that it wasn’t just attaching a limb to where the old one used to be. There were wires running to and from the limb and computer chips in his brain.

He knew that he was either going to have to live at home forever so his parents could help him if anything went wrong.

Or he’d have to join the family business just to have some independence.

It’s not that he didn’t think their work wasn’t important, far from it. They never exactly kept it a secret that they wanted him and his sister to take up the mantle when they retired.

He had just hoped he was going to get more of a choice in the matter.

Turns out it was his destiny all along.

That their son was going to end up being the culmination of their life’s work. Whether he wanted to or not.

#Danny Phantom #going angst week 2021 #my writing #Day 01 Creation #Cyborg AU #Danny's having a bad time and now Jazz is too #honestly the whole family isn't doing to great but Jack's doing a better job at hiding it #phan fic

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chuckbass-love · 4 years ago

Text

The Owner | Ari Levinson

Summary: In which the reader has a crush on The Red Sea Diving Resort manager Guy/Ari

Disclaimer: My work is not to be posted anywhere else other than MY Tumblr, Wattpad and Ao3 without my permission. However, reblogs are welcome.

Pairing: Ari Levinson x Female!Reader

I address him as Guy in this since that’s what the hotel guests know him as.

Warning: SMUT. 18+

I was inspired to write some Ari smut by @shellbilee after reading After All This Time and Three Days. So thank you for the inspo and love your writing.

GIF NOT MINE. credit goes to @sheisraging as it states underneath the gif that this account made it! Full credit to them.

You feel the throbbing headache still very much present in your head as you awaken, you’d hoped it would have disappeared after some sleep but clearly not. You slowly open your eyes and look around, squinting at the bright view of the sun shining into your hotel room. Another day of adventure awaits at The Red Sea Diving Resort. You pull the covers off of your naked body and force yourself out of bed, onto your feet. Shower time.

Once showered, you start to change. Deciding on just a bikini for today, sunbathing is all you’ll be doing. You head out, making your way to reception to grab some breakfast before you properly begin your day and as you reach reception, there he is. The owner. Guy.

You take your seat and sip at your coffee, trying not to stare at the man before you. It’s a struggle to say the least. He’s tall, muscly and looks like he’s been sculpted by the gods. His shaggy brown hair is slicked back and wet, he must have been diving with some of the guests recently.

You start getting lost in your thoughts, thinking of all the things you’d want to do to him and the things you’d want him to do to you but it’ll never happen. A girl can dream right? You take another sip of your coffee, trying to pull your lustful eyes away from his physique.

Just as you go to look away, his eyes meet yours. They are blue with a hint of green, perfect just like him. He flashes you a shy smile before looking away to talk to his colleagues.

You’ve been staying here for three days so far, since being here you’ve noticed the ladies fawning upon him whenever they see him. You can’t say that you blame them but you prefer to admire him from afar. Rarely talking to him. You’re too nervous around guys. You don’t do too well with the whole flirting fiasco. Not your scene whatsoever. You finish eating and get up from your spot, making your way out to the beach for some much needed tanning time.

You set up a pretty decent spot on the sand, laying your towel down and getting out your earphones for some musical entertainment. This is heaven.

You feel a sudden splash of what feels like ice cold water drip onto your torso, your eyes flicker open to see him. Stood over you, in his wet suit. You take your earphones out and prop yourself up onto your elbows. “Hi” he greets “Y/N is it?” a huge grin plastered across his face. “Hi and yes it is” you give a small smile, not wanting to look keen. “The next diving tour is in ten minutes if you wanna join” you shrug, sitting up properly “It’s a pretty irresistible offer but i’m afraid i’m enjoying this sun too much” a sad look washes over him and then you see his eyes widen, what is he looking at?.

“You’ve um, your bikini top seems-” you look down, immediately noticing that your nipple was poking out of your bikini top. So embarrassing. “Omg, i’m so sorry” you chuckle in hopes that he’d see the funny side. “It’s no worries, not a bad view actually” he smirks as he stands up and heads over to the group of divers. Did he really just say that? Your stomach starts to flutter with butterflies and the need to have him. Guess you’ll see what happens.

You start packing up your bag and head back to your room for some chill time before dinner. Once you reach the door you notice Guy in the distance, he’s just coming back from the dive. His wetsuit zip is halfway down his torso, showing off his muscly hairy chest. Making you just want to dive onto him and kiss him. But you don’t have the guts. Instead you just stare in admiration and head into the room. You slip the bikini off of your body and head to the shower so you can freshen up. Once out you decide on a simple white sundress for dinner and some matching flats. It’s only dinner, no need to make a lot of effort.

You stroll into the reception area, by the tables, noticing Guy isn’t here. Everyone is but him. You wonder why. You continue with your evening, eating and laughing with the other guests. You’ve made friends with pretty much all of them, which is nice. When travelling alone it’s nice to make friends along the way. Just as you’re about to give up hope that you’ll see him tonight, he walks through the front doors, panting.

“I’ll tell you what, i love the long route they have here, it’s great for a late night run” he starts gulping down some water as the other staff members laugh at his sweaty state. He turns round to check the guests out and his eyes fix on you. He shoots you a quick smile and a wink, making your cheeks heat up.

You go back to the book that you bought down to read in between courses. You hear a chair slide across the ground, you look up to find him sat in front of you. “So how come a beautiful woman like yourself is on holiday alone?” you bite your bottom lip “Well it was booked for me and my ex boyfriend but i found him in bed with my best friend. So i decided i needed some me time” you explain, he looks at you with a sad look in his blue eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that, you didn’t deserve that” you nod in agreement and wave the whole subject off. If you’re finally able to have a full conversation with this man you don’t want it to be centred around your scumbag ex.

“What you reading?” he asks and you hold up the book before placing the bookmark in it and laying it on the table. “Catcher In The Rye, nice choice” you both just sit there for a few minutes, talking away and noticing how the other guests are starting to leave.

“I best get back to my room anyways” you stand up, picking the book up and walking past him but you feel a hand grab a hold of your wrist “You don’t have to go you know” he pleads, you look back to see him staring at you with those eyes, almost like he’s looking into your soul. “Well i suppose another drink won’t hurt eh?” he shoots up, pulling you along to the bar. You both sit on it as you sip your drinks. He pulls out a cigarette, lighting it up as it sits in his mouth, god that mouth of his. Unholy thoughts come to your mind.

You continue to talk about everything. From past relationships to books and even sex. Yes sex. You both share awkward sex stories. “I might have only had one serious relationship but i’ve had my fair share of awkward tales from the bedroom” you giggle after telling him the story of that one time during a one night stand that you’d had sex with this guy and afterwards he asked you to urinate on him and in his mouth. “Now i don’t discriminate but i think that’s more something you reveal about yourself with someone you plan to date, not a one night stand” he throws his head back in laughter, trying to stop himself from making too much noise, being that everyone has gone to bed.

“I’m sorry but that is hilarious. Did you do it?” you shake your head aggressively. “I refused. Made out like i didn’t need to go to the bathroom, i was desperate to go but had to hold it in until i got home” he laughs even more, placing a hand on your leg. “How about you then?” you raise your eyebrows “got any mortifying experiences you’d care to share?” he starts to think, looking around the room.

“Ah there was that one time a girl tried to fuck me in the ass. Which you know, don’t get me wrong people like what they like but i’m not into that so i refused completely. She kicked me out after though” wow “Oh god” you say in shock “Yeah i was butt naked in the street, she didn’t give me the chance to get changed so i had to dress myself on her door step” now that would be a sight for sore eyes. “Poor neighbours” you chuckle, he nudges you slightly making you apologise sarcastically. “I’ll have you know my body is breath taking and as for my dick, that’s even more of a sight” you don’t doubt that for a second. “I bet” you say in a ‘sure’ tone. Earning yourself a glare from him.

“Gee thanks, you’re not so bad yourself by the way” you look into his eyes, wanting nothing more than to kiss him. “About that, i’m so embarrassed about that incident earlier” you cover your face with your hand, hiding the embarrassment. He pulls it away “Don’t apologise, to be honest. If it were only me on the beach then i wouldn’t have mentioned it. But i didn’t like the thought of other men ogling you” what does he mean by that? You furrow your brows, in confusion at his remark.

“All i’ve been able to think about since you arrived is kissing you and since i saw you on the beach earlier, in that very small bikini, your perfect nipples poking out. I’ve wanted nothing more than to have my way with you” shit. Is this about to happen? “I can’t say i haven’t felt it too” he’s in shock “Really?” you thought you’d made it painfully obvious. “You haven’t noticed me looking at you?” he tries to shrug but you can see he’s thinking about it.

“I mean looking back, i can see it now yeah” is he going to kiss you or are you gonna have to make the first move. And with that thought his lips come crashing onto yours, his body moving closer, closing the space between the two of you. He runs his fingers through his hair and then cups your face with both hands, deepening the kiss. He pulls away from you, your breaths are heavy. He jumps off of the bar, standing in front of you with hunger and lust in his eyes and a playful grin forming onto his perfect lips.

“Are you okay with this?” you nod your head and he picks you up off of the bar, your legs wrapping around him and he walks you both back to your room. Once inside, he wastes no time. Undressing himself and then you. Saving the best part until last, your panties. He slowly slides them down your legs, kissing as he goes along. They drop to the floor and you step out of them, leaving you naked at his disposal. “Such a sexy body Y/N” he mumbles, his speech distorted by his face being buried in your skin. Kissing every inch of you before laying you on the bed.

He takes his boxers off to reveal his huge erection. SHIT. You gulp at the sight and thought of that going inside of you “Don’t worry baby, i’ll stretch you out nicely” he hovers over you, his arms either side of your head, leaning down to kiss you. He lifts your legs up and his body shuffles down the bed and towards your soaked pussy. You know what’s about to happen and you can tell he’s taking his time, teasing you. “Fuck” you moan out as he licks from your wet state to your clit, his beard scratching slightly. “Ugh baby, just like that” you tug at his long brown locks, a bit too roughly but you can’t help it. This feels incredible. You try to not scream as he inserts two fingers inside of you.

No man has ever had these tongue skills before and it’s taking you by surprise. Your hands, balling the sheets beneath you into a fist as the pleasure continues. “You like that baby? like it when i suck on your clit like this” he groans, doing it once again. “Please” is all you are able to get out “Please what” you roll your eyes into the back of your head and your back starts to arch, you can feel your forthcoming orgasm getting closer and closer. “Please, i’m gonna cum, don’t stop” the noises he’s making, bringing you closer. Slurping and sucking like a man starved, like he’s not eaten for days. “Cum on my tongue baby, come on Y/N” he encourages and that’s all you need to send you over the edge. Into a euphoric state. Seeing stars. WOW.

Your chest is heaving, you try to slow your breathing but it’s no use. He crawls back up your body, giggling at your reaction. “I would ask how that was but i think i have my answer right here” you slap his chest playfully. He leans down to kiss you, biting your lip to ask for entrance to which you gladly accept. He slides it in, beginning a battle for dominance with yours and of course he wins. You can taste yourself on him, making your clit twitch at the arousal he gives you.

He starts pumping himself a couple of times before resting his tip at your entrance, he peppers kisses from your lips to your neck before looking back to your eyes. “Stop teasing alrea- OMG” you immediately scream out as he slams into you. Not caring who hears at this point. “Such a tight cunt” he grunts “Oh fuck baby, don’t stop” he sits up, lifting your legs and resting them onto his shoulders, still ramming into you as he holds your ankles. “You’re taking this cock so well baby” your eyes roll back once again and all that comes out of your mouth are incomprehensible murmurs. He’s incredible, doing you like he’s known your body for years.

You can’t hold it much longer, your second orgasm nearing. “That’s it, clench that pretty pussy around this cock Y/N. Cum all over me” his words are your weakness. Seeing his face as he fucks you and hearing his words fall off his beautiful lips. You can feel it inside of you, getting closer. “Fuck that’s it” he whispers, continuing to thrust in and out, showing no signs of slowing down. “Cum for me baby” seconds later, you tighten around him, your clit throbbing as he rubs at it quickly. “Good girl” he smiles down at you. “Such a pretty sight seeing you cum on my cock” you bite your lip as he lowers your legs, pulling out of your. He flips you both around so he’s lying on the bed.

You flick your hair to the side as you kneel in between his legs. You arch your back, making sure your ass is in the air, for his purpose only. “Shit” his eyes roll back as you lick the tip before taking all of him. He bottoms out in your mouth, reaching the back of your throat causing you to gag. “Is my cock too much for you sweetheart?” he grabs a fistful of your hair in his hands. Holding it out of your face. You look him in the eyes as you bob your head up and down on his big length, you can tell you’re doing a good job because he’s struggling to get his words out. “Keep going baby” he starts bucking his hips up into your mouth, fucking it. “Taking all of this cock in that tiny mouth of yours. Such a good girl” you continue to let him thrust into your mouth, making you gag once again. “I’m gonna cum baby” and with that, his cock twitches in your mouth, followed by his warm liquid filling you. You take your mouth off of him, swallowing all of his juices and earning a groan from him. “Swallowing all of me like a good little girl” you flash him a seductive smile and he pulls you down next to him,

You rest your head on his chest “That was certainly worth the wait” he pants “It was” you have no complaints. All of those hours spent thinking about how it would feel to have him between your legs and in your bed. Fucking you good. He definitely lived up to your expectations. “We are definitely making this a regular thing” you’re shocked. You expected him to just fuck and be over you. “That pussy is way too good to only have once” your cheeks heat up slightly but you can’t say you’re not ecstatic.

#chris evans #chris evans smut #chris evans fluff #andy barber #andy barber smut #ari levinson smut #ari levinson #the red sea diving resort #steve rogers smut #steve rogers #captain america #johnny storm smut #johnny storm #ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale smut #knives out #defending jacob #marvel #mcu

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hi-its-tutty · 5 years ago

Text

permission to die: denied

pairing: intrulogical!

wc: 610

tw: semi graphic descriptions of dead, and implied nsfw, but also it’s remus so--

summary: Remus absolutely hates math, but, thankfully, Logan’s able to make everything a little bit better.

masterpost! or, if you’d prefer, read on ao3!

“Permission to die?” Remus asked, jumping down on the couch, right onto Logan’s lap.

“Permission denied,” Logan said, his eyes still stuck in his book (if only they were literally stuck to the pages of the book, if only Logan just had eye sockets now, and every time he wanted to turn the page, he’d just have to physically pick his eyeball up and stick it one the next, wouldn’t that be interesting--), paying Remus, like, no attention.

Remus groaned. “Ugh, you suck. Come on, Logie, think about it! I could do poison, just whip up a batch of cyanide from the apple seeds and there you go! Or, I could just go the traditional route and do a plain stabbing in my heart, we do have plenty of available kitchen knives. Or, oo, oo, oo! I could just hire an assassin to do the job for me! All’s said and done!” Remus said, not planning on stopping until Logan finally spoke up.

“Okay, what are you procrastinating?” Logan asked, finally bookmarking his book (not with his eyeball, unfortunately) and setting it down, looking at Remus.

Remus squawked. “Must there be a reason? Can’t a guy just lit all the ways to die just because? I hate reasons, Logan, there’s just no rhyme or reason to what I do--”

“You just do,” Logan finished for him, staring at Remus with a deadpan expression.

“And I wanna do you,” Remus drawled, taking Logan’s tie and starting to fiddle with it.

“What is it?” Logan asked again, looking at Remus with a piercing look (poking straight through his brain, all of his brain matter going bleh right onto Logan’s lap! How fun! How exciting!).

Remus met his gaze for a few moments before letting go of Logan’s tie and sighing, rolling his eyes. “Homework.”

“Is it--”

“Fucking math!” Remus groaned, letting his head fall backward on the couch instead of looking up at Logan. “I hate math!”

“I understand--”

“No, you don’t! You love that shit! It’s all logic and shit, that’s basically your entire thing! Math for me, it’s fucking stifling, it’s boring, it doesn’t make sense to me! There’s no room to do anything except exactly what you’re told, and half the time I don’t even know what that is! I hate it!” Remus ranted, his hands going wildly to prove his point (just barely not smacking Logan in the face).

“I mean that I know that you have such a bias against mathematics,” Logan said with a small sigh. “And while I can’t exactly bend the fundamental rules of algebra for you, I might be able to--”

“Can you do it with me?” Remus asked suddenly, sitting up slightly and grabbing Logan’s tie again, pulling him slightly down. “Well, not do it, but I’m certainly not averse to that, but you always know how to make it fun, please can you do it with me?”

“I might be able to assist,” Logan finished, smiling slightly and nodding.

“Fuck yes!” Remus yelled, pumping his fist in the air, and then groaned, letting go of Logan’s tie and plopping back down. “But, can we start in like, five minutes? There’s something else I wanna do first.”

“And what might that be?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow.

Remus got up again, this time setting up all the way and straddling Logan, a smirk on his face. He put a finger under Logan’s chin and pulled him in, giving a small, but very passionate kiss.

“Oh, I think a smart boy like you would be able to figure it out,” he said with a wink.

Well, the homework could wait for another time.

thank you for reading! if you'd like, consider checking out my ao3! thank you! have a nice day! and happy birthday remus!!

#tutty writes shit #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #writers on tumblr #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic #sanders sides fanfic #remus sanders #logan sanders #intrulogical #ts remus #ts logan #remus #logan #happy birthday remus!!#fluff #sanders sides human au #sanders sides college au

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not-majestic-bluenicorn · 4 years ago

Text

Crescent || Chapter 10

Fandom(s): ATEEZ

AU: Treasure Hunters

Genre: Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Relationship: Everyone x Everyone, Established Hongjoong x Yunho

Language: English

Status: Ongoing

Chapter WC: 5,414 words

Warnings: Character Death, Stabbing, Fighting, Blood, Aliens, War, Funerals, Kidnapping, Attempted Kidnapping, Mentions of Child Abuse / Child Work, Explosions, Murder Attempt, Robbery, Homeless/Runaway Character, Torture, more will be added.

Chapter Warnings: Blood, Injuries (Dislocated shoulder), Torture (electrocution).

Summary:

"You don't make friends easily, do you?" Yunho asked.

"Why does that matter to you?" San immediately retorted, posture growing even more tense. Yunho raised his hands in an attempt to placate him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, it was just a question..." Yunho opened his eyes wide, not expecting this reaction from San. "I genuinely just want to talk to you, I've never seen you interact with anyone else from the crew..."

"You're worried about me, basically?" San asked, looking at him with distrust, but relaxing a little bit more.

"Yeah, you can put it that way." Yunho smiled, putting his hands down.

AO3

<< Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter >>

Tagged: @angel0taiyo

Jongho was lying on his bed, reading a book about other treasure myths and stories. Hongjoong had picked it up for him in the last stop they had made when it had caught his attention. He wasn't much of a reader, but with their hunt for the treasure, he had gotten interested in it. Jongho had never received a formal education, and so everything he knew had been learned from the workers that had taken care of him all of his life.

The reading was simple enough that he could understand it and enjoy it, but every once in a while he would stumble against a couple of words that he wasn't too sure of their meaning. Whenever this happened, he would ask the person closest to him. At that moment, the person was Mingi, who was sprawled on the bottom bunk bed, more asleep than awake. Jongho poked his head from over the railing on his bed and observed the taller man as he fought sleep.

"Mingi..." He called. If Mingi didn't answer, he would just let him sleep and go look for someone else.

"Hm?" Mingi replied back, eyes opening and meeting Jongho's gaze. "Oh, hey..." He yawned softly. "What's up?"

"Do you have any idea what these words could mean?" Jongho asked, passing him the book and using the bookmark to point at the words.

Jongho noticed as Mingi immediately tensed once he received the book. He put it on his lap and just stared at it blankly for a moment, eyes fixed at the point in the page marked by the bookmark. Jongho waited, patiently, maybe Mingi wasn't sure either and was trying to decipher them. He knew how much Mingi liked helping others, maybe he didn't want to disappoint Jongho.

Still, the seconds became minutes and nothing came from Mingi's mouth, and Jongho started to get worried. The truth was that Mingi couldn't read. He had been orphaned pretty early in his life and raised like most kids in an infirmary until he had had the age to work at the mines. The only education he had ever received was how to operate explosives. So as Mingi started at the words, he began to panic, and without realizing, he started to breathe heavily.

Jongho got off his bed and knelt in front of Mingi, grabbing his shoulders with both hands and shaking him softly, urging him to react. Mingi looked at him after a moment and Jongho took the book from his hands, throwing it away. He couldn't understand why Mingi had panicked like that, but that wouldn't matter until he calmed down.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Jongho asked, grabbing Mingi's face with one hand to make sure he was looking at him and was focused on something. "Follow my breathing, it's okay."

Mingi did as he was told, following Jongho's breathing as he looked into his eyes, unable to tear his eyes away. Little by little, his breathing returned to normal and he no longer felt like he was about to pass out. Jongho didn't let go of his face until he was sure Mingi wasn't going to faint in front of him.

"What happened just now?" He asked softly, when he felt like Mingi would be able to reply.

"I'm sorry," Mingi apologized, looking so regretful that anyone would think he had committed some sort of crime.

"Why are you sorry?" Jongho continued speaking in a soft voice to him, softly coaxing the answer out of Mingi.

"I'm sorry," Mingi repeated again, closing his eyes. "I don't know how to read, or write... I-I never learned, I'm sorry."

Jongho's eyes widened slightly before his expression softened once again. So that was the reason Mingi always refused to help when there were documents involved. It also explained why he hadn't wanted to order at the restaurant bar when they had gone, even though he had been staring hungrily at Jongho's food the rest of the night. Mingi didn't know how to read.

"It's okay, it's not your fault." Jongho reassured him, trying to come up with the right thing to say at a moment like that.

"It's pathetic, though, it's such a basic thing... and I can't do it." Mingi sighed, feeling worthless. A little voice in his head shaped like Wooyoung told him he wasn't, but he pushed that voice away, feeling tired and defeated.

"It's not pathetic, you're not pathetic," Jongho insisted, grabbing Mingi's hands. "It's not your fault that you didn't get the chance to learn. There's nothing wrong with you, you're perfect."

Mingi looked at Jongho with big eyes. He almost looked like he was about to cry, but didn't, deciding to hold it in instead because he didn't want to ridicule himself in front of Jongho more than he already had.

"You do have the universal translator installed though, right? Those are supplied by the government." Jongho asked, wanting to make sure that the situation wasn't worse than it seemed. Mingi nodded. "Then I can try to teach you how to read and write, if you want. I'm sure the others would be willing to help as well."

"No!" Mingi raised his voice, startling Jongho. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell, just- You can't tell anyone." Mingi insisted, looking a bit scared. "I don't want them to think badly of me."

"I'm sure they wouldn't," Jongho reassured him, but Mingi's expression told him that he just wasn't ready to believe him something like that. "But it is not my place to tell them anything, so I promise I won't."

"Thank you." Mingi smiled weakly, and Jongho smiled back at him.

"Don't worry about it, go to sleep now." Jongho leaned closer to ruffle Mingi's hair and Mingi stared at him.

His heartbeat picked up as he stared at Jongho from up close. No one had ever told him he was perfect, yet Jongho knew so much about him, about his imperfections, and he had not hesitated when he had looked Mingi in the eye and told him he was perfect. Jongho told him to rest well before getting off of his bed and going back to the top bunk.

Mingi could only stare at him. His heart was beating so fast and loud that it flooded his ears and he couldn't hear anything else. There was no way Jongho couldn't hear it too, but if he did, he had decided to spare Mingi the embarrassment and not talk about it. Mingi, too, decided to spare himself from the conflicts that came with feelings and just covered his head with a pillow and willed himself to sleep.

The next morning, Yunho felt so much better after spending that small moment with Hongjoong. He wasn't necessarily a stranger to sailing through space, but he had never before passed so much time on a vessel with no obvious destiny in sight. He could tell he wasn't the only feeling like that, though, so he knew he had to keep himself in high spirits to motivate the rest of the crew. Yunho did wonder though how Hongjoong wasn't absolutely exhausted of the whole thing yet. He suspected it was probably because he wanted to honor his brother, and nothing would stop him from doing just that.

As he paced around the deck, Yunho spotted San softly stretching on the opposite side. Yunho observed him with curiosity. Since the beginning of the journey, San had kept to himself for the most part; he didn't really speak with the rest of the crew members and was always locked with Hongjoong in the quarters just working on the map. Yunho had heard from other crew members that they found him intimidating.

San had never complained about how much time he spent working on the map, and there was no way to tell only by his expression if he was enjoying it or if he hated the whole thing. Hongjoong had become sort of close to him after spending so much time together, but other than that, no one ever talked to San. Yunho couldn't help but feel curious about him. Especially after what he had noticed when they had revealed the little bet they had going on with Hwanwoong and Siyeon.

To be fair, Yunho understood how people would sometimes be drawn to Hongjoong. He was just attractive in many ways. Yunho himself wasn't jealous, so he found it very amusing when other people showed interest in Hongjoong and then were surprised when they learned about Yunho. Which was funny, because they were hardly ever apart and they weren't secretive about their relationship either.

In a split second, and driven by curiosity, Yunho changed his route and walked towards San. San looked at him at first, but seemed to convince himself that Yunho was just going to pass by and didn't say anything until Yunho stood in front of him. San continued stretching until he noticed Yunho wasn't leaving, and decided to ask him if he needed something.

"Not really," Yunho shrugged. "I was just thinking of chatting with you."

San looked at him with confusion, stopping mid stretch to just look at Yunho from head to toe and then back up again. Yunho chuckled, unable to understand why it would be so weird to San that someone wanted to talk with him. Maybe he was conscious about his intimidating presence. Maybe he was doing it on purpose and hadn't expected someone to bypass it and talk to him. Whatever it was, Yunho had made his decision that he would learn something about the man that day.

"Why are you so weirded out?" Yunho smiled. "I mean, I know we've never had just a chat before, but it can't be that weird, can it?"

"I guess not..." San mumbled, finishing his stretches before facing Yunho.

It was obvious by the straight line his shoulders formed that he was tense, and Yunho couldn't help but find it amusing. San was always so serious and kept to himself, but Yunho had never seen him tense. Now though, he looked uncomfortable and out of place, and he realized that this might be the first time someone from the crew was actually talking to him.

"You don't make friends easily, do you?" Yunho asked.

"Why does that matter to you?" San immediately retorted, posture growing even more tense. Yunho raised his hands in an attempt to placate him.

"You're worried about me, basically?" San asked, looking at him with distrust, but relaxing a little bit more.

"Yeah, you can put it that way." Yunho smiled, putting his hands down. "We've barely spent time away from this ship, and I can imagine it might be getting to some of the crew members, so I just wanted to check on you." Yunho shrugged. "It's harder when you don't have someone to rely on."

San sighed and leaned against the rail with his back, tilting his head backwards to look at the black canvas that was space. There were so many stars and planets and whatnot out there, but even with all of that, it was dark. He reckoned it would probably be difficult to see on the ship if it wasn't because the artificial atmosphere it came with emitted a glow of its own.

"It is a bit hard, yeah," San agreed, letting his defenses down a little. "I'm okay though."

He was very stressed, but it was not for the reasons Yunho was thinking about. Honestly, he couldn't care less about being away from land for so long, it was something he could handle. But the stress of not fulfilling his mission was killing him. He had yet to make the choice of killing Hongjoong and each day it only became harder and harder to pull the trigger on the Captain.

Of course, that wasn't something he could share with anyone, so he had to carry the burden alone. Plus, even if he could share it by some sort of miracle, no one was willing to approach him, and he wasn't there to make friends, so there was no one to share with anyway. Yunho didn't seem quite satisfied by his answer though, so San guessed he wasn't going to get away from that one easily.

"Why don't you try to approach the others?" Yunho suggested, leaning on the rail by San's side. "Also aren't you close to Hongjoong? You could try talking to him, he wouldn't push you away."

"Well, why don't the others approach me, then?" San huffed, not wanting to have this conversation. "I wouldn't say I'm close to the Captain either..." He mumbled right after, trying to ignore the feeling akin to guilt setting on his chest.

"It would hurt him quite a lot to hear you say that," Yunho smiled slightly, but he seemed uncomfortable. "And the others don't approach you because you look..."

"Scary?" San supplied, having heard that countless times before. "You can go ahead and say it, I don't mind."

"I wouldn't say scary," Yunho shook his head. "Maybe a little intimidating."

"Well, I didn't do anything to intimidate them so..." San shrugged again. "They can just think whatever they want, I'm okay anyway."

"You're a difficult one, aren't you?" Yunho chuckled, looking down at San.

"I get told that often, yes," San nodded, scoffing.

"What is the real reason you don't approach others?" Yunho insisted.

"Why do you think there's a reason?" San crossed his arms and looked back at Yunho, challenging him.

"Well, you're particularly defensive about it, so there must be something, right?" Yunho leaned in closer unconsciously, putting an arm behind San's back on the rail. San briefly looked at it before looking back at Yunho.

"Not really," San let out a deep breath. "Let's just say it's something my people are not very good at."

That wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't completely true either. San just had never had an opportunity to socialize. People like him were especially raised, from a young age, to be used as weapons and tools. He knew nothing but the training he had received in proper etiquette, how to act like a normal human being that had grown with a normal background.

San had never particularly excelled at those classes though. He was an expert at managing all sorts of weapons and carrying out any kind of technical task. He had learned so many languages in case his universal translator ever failed, and he could absorb almost any kind of information. But he didn't know how to properly interact with others. He couldn't pretend to be a friend or play games of seduction.

Because of that, he was usually sent out on missions where he didn't need to interact with people much, and this one was supposed to be like that. He would just get in, kill Hongjoong, and disappear. But it had not gone as it was supposed to, and now he was basically trapped in the ship with no idea of what to do and how to deal with his situation. And he was alone, because he just didn't know how to interact with the others.

"Fair enough," Yunho said after observing him for a while and stepped back. San had to hold himself from sighing in relief. "There's not much that can be done in matters of culture and such." San nodded and stepped away from the railway, assuming that was the end of the conversation. However, Yunho spoke again. "You can come speak to me if you need something to, or to Hongjoong. You don't have to think of us as friends, but we won't push you away."

"Okay," San agreed, his voice quiet and small. "Thanks." He didn't look at Yunho as he said that and just left towards the crew's quarters.

Yunho stalled in the main deck for a little while before going to Hongjoong's quarters to look for him. He found him sitting next to Yeosang, their heads close together as they examined a picture of a statue, probably trying to find the code in it. He smiled, amused, when he noticed the glances Yeosang would spare at Hongjoong every few seconds.

He decided it would be fun to give them a surprise and approached them in complete silence. He looked over their heads at the picture, it was kind of blurry, so no doubt they were looking so closely at it. And after a few seconds waiting for them to realize, he decided to announce his presence.

"What are you looking at?" Yunho asked.

Hongjoong raised his head in surprise and hit Yeosang on the eye by accident. Yunho grimaced at the nasty sound of their bump as they both complained in pain and tried to rub the spots. He felt only mildly sorry as his grimace turned into a laugh. Neither of the two victims paid him any mind as Hongjoong checked on Yeosang to see if he was okay.

"I'm so sorry," Hongjoong repeated, grabbing Yeosang's face delicately to check on him.

"I'm fine, I'm fine..." Yeosang insisted, trying to push Hongjoong away because he was too close.

Instead, Hongjoong pushed Yeosang's hands down with one hand and used the other to check the affected area. Yunho had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing as Yeosang's face became red and he made the inhuman effort to not look Hongjoong in the face. When Hongjoong was satisfied with his little checkup, he patted Yeosang's head and then turned to confront Yunho.

"Why did you do that?!" He yelled, standing up to confront him. Yunho's shoulders just continued to shake slightly as he laughed, trying really hard to keep it under control. "Stop laughing!"

"I'm sorry!" Yunho tried to pull a serious face before he broke into a wide smile again. "I just wanted to see what you were looking at," he turned to look at Yeosang, "it's not my fault that your reaction was so funny."

Judging by how red his face went, Yeosang knew that those words were directed at him. He stammered an excuse before giving up and just turning to look at the picture again, wanting the ship to swallow him whole instead. Yunho grinned until Hongjoong slapped his arm, claiming his attention back. He didn't seem very happy with his little prank.

"Stop teasing him, you have no rights," Hongjoong reprimanded him. He looked adorable when he wasn't truly angry, just like right then.

"Oh, and you do?" Yunho teased, raised an eyebrow. He could see how Yeosang sunk deeper on his seat from the corner of his eye, and it took copious amounts of strength to not start laughing again.

"Shut up, shut up!" Hongjoong whisper-yelled, looking absolutely scandalized at Yunho, who just shrugged.

"Yeosang, can you give us a moment, I think the Captain has something he wants to talk with me?" Yunho glanced at Yeosang before looking back at Hongjoong, who was trying to kill him with just his stare.

"Y-Yes, I'll be outside." Yeosang dropped everything he was doing and left the quarters in a hurry, gone within seconds.

Yunho turned to look at Hongjoong and smiled, but Hongjoong only looked at him with murderous intentions. The taller man raised his hands in defeat and yelped when Hongjoong hit him on the arm again. Hongjoong could be short, but he was ferocious, and usually only Yunho could get out of it unscathed.

"What was that, Yunho?" Hongjoong asked him, serious this time. "Are you trying to scare him off because you didn't want him on the ship to begin with?"

"I promise I'm not." Yunho's smile softened. "I genuinely just wanted to scare both of you 'cause you looked so focused on that picture, thought it would be fun."

"And?" Hongjoong pressed further, not satisfied with that answer.

"And he might have been looking at you in a way that made me want to tease him a little." Yunho grinned, exposing his intentions.

Hongjoong hit him again, a few times for good measure, and Yunho ran away from him until he stopped. Hongjoong seemed a little ruffled, and Yunho wondered if maybe he had hit a sore spot. He had seen the way Yeosang was looking at Hongjoong though, so he wasn't about to take back his words, he was an honest man after all.

"Stop joking about these things," Hongjoong mumbled once he got tired of hitting him on the arm.

"I'm not joking! I seriously think you've charmed at least a couple of our crew members," Yunho exclaimed. He was trying to look serious, but Hongjoong's embarrassed expression made it hard for him. "You should stop seducing our crew, Captain, it's going to make work difficult."

"I'm not seducing anyone!" Hongjoong yelled, hitting him again, but weekly this time.

His face was so red that Yunho decided to take pity on him. He brought Hongjoong into a hug and he buried his face on Yunho's chest, taking deep breaths to calm down from how embarrassed he was.

"Stop teasing me..." Hongjoong complained weakly after staying in that positions for a few minutes.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," Yunho smiled. He knew Hongjoong wasn't genuinely upset beyond his embarrassment, but he still felt a little bit bad about it. "But for the record, you know we can work things out if one of them catches your eye, right?"

"I know,"Hongjoong nodded, voice muffled. "But that's not what's happening, okay?"

"Okay, I believe you," Yunho kissed the crown of Hongjoong's head and dropped the topic. It had been enough teasing for one day.

Wooyoung was sitting on his bed in the hotel room he had booked in Umeri. He had been having more dreams recently about his destiny. They were still confusing and he couldn't completely understand them since he didn't have the full picture, but the one thing he knew was that they weren't supposed to meet yet. He knew his dreams would show him where to meet them once it was time.

Truth be told, he was starting to get a little impatient. He had been visiting Mingi and Yeosang in dreams, and had already met Hongjoong once, but he really wanted to meet all of them, in person. Yunho scared him a little bit, because from what he had heard, he didn't seem to trust others easily. And San was, apparently, intimidating. The only other options were Jongho, who Mingi seemed really fond of, and the mystery man they were missing.

He went to bed trying to make his mind, and before he realized it, he had fallen asleep without choosing who to visit next. The place he found himself in was far from pleasant as Yeosang, Mingi, or even Hongjoong's dreams had been. Wooyoung was inside of some sort of building, completely white, which made the light bounce off the walls and the floor in painful ways. It took him a while to get used to it, but once he did, he began walking around.

Wooyoung had never seen a building so white, and it was starting to make his head hurt, but it's structure was so detailed that this could only be another memory. The hallway was slightly curved, and Wooyoung deduced that the building he was on was some sort of tube. Eventually, after walking for an eternity, he found an entrance on the wall to his left, towards the interior of the building.

There was nothing near the entrance that told him what it was, but it was completely open, and since he was tired of just walking around in literal circles, he decided to try his luck. The inside of the room was the same blinding white, but here and there were specs of black that filled it up. They were training equipment. He had stumbled upon some sort of training room, and he wasn't alone.

In the center, there was something akin to a boxing ring, and a tall man dressed in black clothes stood in one of the sides as two other people sparred in the center. Wooyoung walked closer, and soon he noticed that one of these people was San, dressed in completely gray clothes. The person he was fighting with was also wearing gray clothes only, which had made it difficult for Wooyoung to differentiate them at first.

The breathing of the two fighters was heavy, and they were both covered in sweat. San had a little bit of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, where a purple blotch was starting to form. However, this was nothing compared to the other person, who had multiple bruises and gashes and was holding their left arm close to their body, probably dislocated. Wooyoung wanted to interrupt the dream, but San's determined eyes deterred him from it.

Instead, he watched how the other person dashed towards San and tried to throw a punch. San easily dodged to his right and grabbed the person's arm, using their weight to throw them over. He sat on the floor and pulled the arm between his legs, placing them on top of the person's neck and cutting their air flow.

It couldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds before the man dressed in black, who Wooyoung guessed was some sort of coach, stopped them, but to Wooyoung it felt like an eternity. He watched the other fighter struggle, but it was obvious he had already lost. He tried in vain to ask San to stop, and then the coach pulled a small device and pressed a button. San yelled and shook in his place before his body went limp, and Wooyoung had to cover his mouth to not scream.

The coach called someone else to pick the body of the person that had lost before leaving San abandoned on the floor. Once everyone had left, Wooyoung got on top of the ring and approached San. He was on the verge of crying, unable to comprehend where the horrible dream was coming from, but he held it in and sat next to San. San was awake, but he was breathing hard from the pain of the shock, and seemed to be unable to stand up.

"Are you okay?" Wooyoung asked with a trembling voice.

San eyes immediately shot open and he looked at Wooyoung. Despite having talked to him, the dream place didn't disappear around him like it had happened with the other dreams he had visited before, and Wooyoung looked around in worry. With some effort, San sat down and grabbed Wooyoung by the neck of the shirt pulling him closer. Wooyoung yelped and looked at him in fear.

"Who are you?" San heaved out. He sounded exhausted, and Wooyoung knew that his real body was probably also restless.

"I-" Wooyoung didn't know what to say. He was terrified by what he had seen before and couldn't make up his mind.

"How did you get into my dreams? Unless..." San narrowed his eyes as he examined Wooyoung closely. His expression lightened up with understanding. "You're a Somnum."

Wooyoung's eyes widened, and he immediately tried to rip San's hand off, but it was like the other had regained all his strength all of a sudden. San pushed him to the floor and sat on top of him, immobilizing both his arms with his legs. Wooyoung trashed around, panicking, but San was too strong and he couldn't push him off, couldn't get him to move.

"Calm down!" San yelled. He too was panting, seemingly still tired from the sparring he had been doing before.

San conjured a knife and pointed it to Wooyoung's neck. Wooyoung immediately stopped moving and looked at San with tearful eyes. He was scared, this was not how things were supposed to go. San wasn't supposed to be threatening him with a knife inside his dream. Wooyoung's panic was so strong, that he couldn't even remember how to force his body to wake up, to leave.

"Who sent you here?" San asked, voice rough.

"W-What?" Wooyoung asked, a couple of tears spilling from his eyes.

"Who sent you, to kill me?" San's mind was going a mile a minute. He knew that the Organization had captured a few Somnum and used them on special missions to kill particularly difficult subjects that wouldn't be easy to take care of with their normal tools. San was probably one of those difficult subjects.

"No one sent me!" Wooyoung yelled, trying hard to control his tears.

"Stop lying! Why else would you be here?!" San was starting to lose his patient. Had they finally decided to get rid of him?

"I promise I'm not going to kill you!" Wooyoung was now full on sobbing. If San chose to kill him, that would be the end of it all, he couldn't let that happen.

"Then why are you here?" San's resolution lost force as he saw Wooyoung cry. It made him uncomfortable, but it was impossible to think that someone who looked so afraid was there to do him any harm.

"Because you're part of my destiny," Wooyoung sobbed. His arms hurt under San's weight, but he was too scared to try moving again. "I saw you in my dream, you know what I am, you must know!"

"I don't believe you," San muttered, but his resolve was shattering.

He knew very well about the traditions and lifestyle of the Somnum, they were always urged to capture them if they saw one during their missions. Captured Somnum were treated worse than the soldiers of the Organization, worse than even animals. San had met a few and it was like their personalities had been stripped away from them. But the man under him still seemed human, still seemed like himself.

"P-Please," Wooyoung begged. "You can ask Yeosang, Mingi or Hongjoong, they've seen me in dreams too, I beg you."

"Why them?" San asked, leaning closer to Wooyoung. It was a dream, but he was still self conscious of his surroundings.

"Yunho and Jongho are also part of this, and someone else, but I haven't met any of them yet..." Wooyoung began to calm down as San's aggressiveness died down as well. "We're supposed to be together, there's something else beyond finding the treasure, but I don't know what it is yet."

"So you know about the treasure," San mumbled. "What else do you know, about this destiny of yours?"

"I really don't think you want to know..." Wooyoung mumbled. He still hadn't revealed to anyone what happened to them, and he was afraid to.

"Tell me," San insisted, reminding Wooyoung there was still a knife pressed to his neck.

"We're supposed to fall in love," Wooyoung mumbled, his face growing red with embarrassment. "The eight of us."

San dropped the knife, feeling genuinely shocked about the revelation, and the knife vanished in a cloud of thin smoke. Wooyoung looked at him in curiosity. The grip on him softened and he was able to get his arms out. He sighed in relief as he watched all sorts of thoughts reflect on San's face, like he was trying to decide just how bad these news were.

"That's impossible, it can't happen as you say." San mumbled, remembering his mission.

"Why?" Wooyoung had managed to stop crying. He was still pretty much shaken, but he didn't think San would try to kill him again.

He sat down instead, causing their faces to be just millimetres away from each other. San pushed him away, slightly startled, and moved to sit down beside him, suddenly too self conscious about Wooyoung's presence. What Wooyoung was saying just couldn't be possible. San had been sent there with a mission, and yet... And yet he didn't think Wooyoung was lying either. He was in trouble.

"I think you should leave..." San said, looking at Wooyoung without really looking at him. Wooyoung wanted to complain, to stay and clarify things with San, but that empty look San gave him was enough to deter him from insisting. He nodded and stood up.

"Just... Please don't tell the others, they're not supposed to know yet." Wooyoung added, looking at San with worry.

San nodded, and Wooyoung woke up.

#kwritersworldnet #kdiarynet #kpopscape #8makes1teamnet #ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #ateez fanfiction #atz #kpop #kpop fanfic #kpop fic #kpop fanfiction #crescent #bluenicorn writes

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kingreywrites · 5 years ago

Text

Golden Strings

Fandom: Tangled

Words count: 2684

New Dream Appreciation Week Day One: Sun and Moon

Summary: If he hadn't been in love before - and he had been - he would have certainly fallen for her all over again that night, when the light of the moon made her smile so much brighter.

Read on ao3

Note: Happy birthday to @tangledbea , @theofficialkai517 , @alrightginger and @tangledaddict !! (and to me :P) It’s quite a day for the tangled fandom, between the start of the NDAW and all of those birthdays <3

@our-newdream

Eugene woke up feeling like death warmed over. His head was smushed against the side of an armchair, he knew he was in for a mean crick in his neck, and he was pretty sure he had been drooling in his sleep - despite his dashing good looks, that was never a beautiful sight. Cracking one eye open, his only hope that no one had seen him like this disappeared as soon as he noticed the note someone had placed on the table in front of him. Rapunzel, to be precise - he could recognize her handwriting and her doodles anywhere.

Ah, and someone had tucked a blanket around him and had taken the time to bookmark the page he had fallen asleep reading. Definitely Rapunzel, Eugene thought with a smile, still exhausted after his untimely nap in the library. He summoned all the bravery he had and finally stretched, thus feeling the full extent of his bad decision. Living in a castle had ruined him - he wasn't made for sleeping in armchairs anymore.

Although, when he first arrived here, he remembered spending a lot of time in the library to calm down when he felt lost. It had been a weird time, for Rapunzel mostly, who was only discovering life after eighteen years - but it had been weird for him too. Communication didn't come easy for him and, even if he made efforts to be honest with her, he had often sought the comfort of the library - there, alone with his thoughts, Eugene felt like he could breathe.

That was, until Rapunzel discovered about it - until he realised that for this to work, they both needed to be open with each other. They had talked a long time that night, about their new lives, their fears, their boundaries, and stuff in general, and that was when Eugene realized that being alone wasn't the way he could finally breathe. Being alone helped him be calmer - being with Rapunzel gave him a peace and an happiness he had never achieved before.

If he hadn't been in love before - and he had been - he would have certainly fallen for her all over again that night, when the light of the moon made her smile so much brighter. He knew he was the first one to compare her to the sun, not only because of the pun but, above all, because she made his life brighter and warmer; however, Rapunzel was more than that. She wasn't just his sun, she was his whole universe - the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets, but also the darkness in between, which made everything more vivid and alive. And he wanted to be there with her, for the good and the bad, the light and the dark. He knew she wanted the same - the good, the bad, and even the drooling.

Eugene scrubbed his eyes blearily, noticing that the sun wasn't even set quite yet. He had been reading some old book about laws for his Captain duties, but had clearly lost that battle. When he straightened up, he took care of folding the blanket that Rapunzel had put over him - it smelled like her, and he knew she kept it in her bedroom, so she must have seen him, gone all the way up to her closet just to keep him warm. And warm he felt, he smiled, love blooming in his chest in a familiar way. The first thing he saw on the note she had left was a doodle of him sleeping quite unattractively, which drew a groan from him - and a grin, but he wouldn't admit it, instead starting to read.

Hi Eugene!

I wasn't sure if you wanted to be woken up but you looked so tired and so cute that I didn't have the heart to do it!

I love you!

Rapunzel

He folded the paper too, carefully putting it in his pocket - he could never throw them away. His neck was still protesting loudly the position it had been in, so Eugene stretched once again, yawning. He never took naps because he thought they were scam, since you often woke up more tired than before, but he had apparently been more exhausted than he realised. Thankfully, he hadn't been expected anywhere, and if he was lucky, only Rapunzel had seen him. The other guards wouldn't let him live it down otherwise, Captain or not. Blanket in hand, he decided to go put it back in Rapunzel's room so he could then try to find her - and he hoped it would be before she had doodled his drooling face somewhere everyone could see. He had a reputation to maintain.

The trek to her room was quick, and he thought it would be an in and out trip to put the blanket back where it belonged, but when he opened the door, he immediately saw Rapunzel painting high up on her ceiling. Thanks to Varian, she had now a complex pulley system to get to the higher spots of her room, and the kid had even added an automatic safety net that could deploy if Rapunzel fell - a suggestion that Eugene made and that he was forever grateful to Varian for.

Rapunzel hadn't heard him open the door, too focused on her painting and, even from down there, Eugene could see her poke a tongue out in concentration. He could feel himself melt at the sight, because he knew he had the cutest wife in the world - and he would never hesitate to brag about it. Then, he saw what she was currently painting, and felt affection swell in his heart.

It was them, sitting together on her windowsill. But, what touched him the most was how much care she had put into painting him specifically - his hair, his eyes, his expression… It seemed like he was glowing. Like he was the only thing painting Rapunzel could see, like he was the centre of her world. To say that Eugene once thought he wasn't an emotional man; Rapunzel had sure proved him wrong every day since he met her.

"Eugene!" she exclaimed, startling him a little. He hadn't noticed that she had seen him. Before he could say anything, she grabbed a rope near her and slided down easily. "Did you have a good nap?" she asked cheekily.

Eugene wanted to joke back, but nothing came to him. She was so beautiful, as always, but he felt like he rediscovered it everytime - rediscovered just how much he was able to love her, because each time it felt more than the precedent, more than he could ever conceive. Rapunzel was his light, his sunshine, the warmth and the brightness in his life - but she was also his moon, the softness and the tenderness in his life, the gravitational pull that made his love rise like an unstoppable tide. She was his everything, and he was the luckiest man in the universe.

"Yes," he finally smiled, putting the blanket in one arm, "my nap was nice, thank you."

He opened his arms and Rapunzel immediately to hug him, her body fitting into his like nothing else ever could.

------

At times, it seemed like Rapunzel's entire life had resolved around the sun. Her birth, the first eighteen years of her life, and the next four too - the power of the sundrop inside her body had regulated most of the big events she lived through. She had been kidnapped for it, yes, but had saved the love of her life and two of her best friends thanks to it so, overall, she couldn't help but be grateful. For all the pain these magical powers had caused, Rapunzel thought she received five time the happiness. She was the girl who had everything, and she knew it.

Today, though, she kept thinking about the sun comparisons.

It wasn’t rare that her friends told her she was the living embodiment of the sun and, in a way, she loved what they meant by it. It was just another way for them to compliment her kindness, or to tell her that she lightened up their days - and she was grateful to be able to do these things for them. They were a source of joy for her, and if being compared to the sun meant that she was a source of joy for them too, then she’ll accept it gladly. In the end, it was always Eugene who managed to make her heart beat faster with a simple word. Sunshine. She loved that nickname, loved how it sounded on his lips, loved what shined through his eyes when he said it - loved him, simply. The first time he used that nickname, she had felt her stomach flutter by the sheer emotion it provoked in her. She felt so lucky to be the woman he considered to be his sun, and she always knew his mind was the furthest thing away from the flower when called her sunshine - he was talking about her, Rapunzel, and only her. He never cared much about the whole destiny thing, except for what it meant to her. Today, though, it was bothering her. Not because of Eugene - it would never bother her coming from him - but because of what Sarah, an handmaiden, had told Rapunzel earlier, when they got a glimpse of the guards training by one of the castle’s window.

“The Captain is very impressive,” she had stated, and Rapunzel had nodded with a smile, indulging in a few more seconds of watching her husband being all competent and beautiful before they started walking again. “Still, I can’t believe how much you changed him!”

“What do you mean?” Rapunzel frowned.

“Well, you know, the whole thief turned good guy story! He told some of us about it again three days ago, but I’ll never get over how romantic it is,” Sarah gushed. “He’s very lucky to have met you, your Highness, because he said you were the sunshine that put the light back in his life!”

That was it, but Rapunzel mulled over it all through the meeting she was attending this afternoon. And now that she was back in her bedroom, with nothing important to do until at least an hour, she could ponder to her heart content.

It was strange, because she had heard the same sentiment before, often from Eugene himself, but it had never sounded as wrong as in Sarah’s mouth. Perhaps Eugene was lucky, but she was at least as lucky as him - and she didn’t like the idea that, without her, he would have been condemned to darkness. Eugene was much more than what she could give him. And she was much more than what he could give her, because together, they were everything. And she knew he thought as such, knew that he called her his sun he saw how brightly she shined, but did he know she thought the same of him? Did he know that she never thought he needed her to be the best thing in her life? They both changed together, they both were more together, but Eugene was already all she could dream of and more - not just a reflection of her light.

“Sunshine?” Eugene called, opening the door to pass his head through. “Ah, guess what I have for you!” he beamed once he saw her, officially interrupting her train of thoughts.

Before she could really try to guess, he got two cupcakes from behind his back, and went to sit next to her on the window sill.

“You read my mind,” she grinned, grabbing the cake out of his hand and drawing a laugh from him. “Training was okay?” she asked, her mouth full of sweet vanilla flavor.

“Pete only nearly fainted today, so there was a definite progress.” He winked and she smiled, her heart full.

They chatted about their days - nothing particularly exciting had happened but, today, Rapunzel couldn’t even remember how she could have been scared of being too comfortable and bored if she was married. Not only Eugene could talk to her all day about the rain, and she would be happy to listen and watch him talk; but she also knew that her husband would always, even unconsciously, try to make sure that she was interested in what he had to say. That was without counting on the fact that she fell a little bit more in love with him everyday, and that marriage hadn’t changed that at all - it only heightened her feelings, if anything.

Which was also why she didn’t like the idea that she was his sun, and that he was nothing that great without her. Because that was how it had sounded earlier, when Sarah said it, and that was what had bothered her so much. Eugene was… incredible. Demanitus last words to them had seemed, at the time, really sweet, but she caught herself doubting them today.

The moon can't be seen without the sun's light. She gives you light. Did she? Was Eugene really the moon that only shone under her light? And what about her, was she really that perfect sunshine that made everyone better only by having contact with them? Now that this seed of thought had taken residence in her head, she couldn’t help but feel that it was a complete misinterpretation. Or, at least, it wasn’t the full metaphor - if she was the sun, she certainly remembered burning too bright and too quickly, until Eugene cooled her down. She remembered discovering the real world for the first time in eighteen years, and she remembered wishing she could do it all at once, until Eugene helped her realise that she wouldn’t enjoy anything if she was exhausted. He was her anchor just like she was his, her savior just like she was his, her light just like she was his. She might give him light, but he gave her so much love in return that she refused to believe that he would only know darkness without her. He had too good of a soul.

“You okay? You seem deep in thought,” Eugene smiled, his brown eyes shining gold under the sunset light.

Rapunzel tried to form an answer but, before she could, he got closer to her face and, gently, stroked his thumb over the corner of her mouth - and she realised that, married or not, she still felt butterflies in her stomach because of the warmth of his smile and still shivered at the softness of his touch.

“Sorry,” he said cheekily, not sounding sorry at all, “you had frost on your cheek.”

Well, the only correct answer to that was to kiss him - so she did. She put her arms behind his shoulders to press even closer to him, feeling his own warm hand going to her back to stabilise them. Her hands were colder, though, and she didn't hesitate to slip one in his collar to draw a startled gasp out of him, just enough for her to slip her tongue between his lips. (He was happy to reciprocate.)

“Wow,” he breathed when they finally separated, Rapunzel still in his lap and her hands still around his neck, “I'm not saying that I'm not loving this, but what brought it on?”

Their breaths were still mingling together, and Rapunzel, from her position, could see every details of his face. The sky outside the window was orange now, and it only highlighted the blush she had brought to his cheeks, and the disarray of his hair, and the softness of his skin. Most of all, it highlighted his eyes, highlighted it until it seemed to hold tiny specks of gold in them - until it made his love shine through brighter than any star.

“You're my sun, Eugene,” she finally answered - it puzzled him, but then she kissed him again, and he forgot about it. Rapunzel didn't forget, though. She couldn't forget what she had finally understood, because he gave her light too - he made her world a brighter and better place everyday, and she loved him for it.

#really not sure about this one but hey when will i ever be #to say that this has a plot would clearly be an exaggeration #they just... love each other... and think about each other #love the sun and moon comparisons but the truth is they are each other UNIVERSE #New Dream Appreciation Week #Tangled #New Dream #Eugene Fitzherbert #Rapunzel

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ltleflrt · 5 years ago

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I have some thoughts on the fanfiction app.

My first reaction was “oh no, someone is scooping up fics again”, but then I saw that it was just a GUI (graphical user interface, for those of you who don’t know the term... it’s the same term used for your computer’s operating system, btw, and thank god we don’t have to use DOS anymore right?), and I calmed down. They’re not hosting the fics, alright, that’s fine.

But then I got swept up in the general anger about the ad revenue and subscription fees and donations. Because I’m upset that someone else can make money off my fics, but I can’t. And I’d really like to, but I don’t want to have to rewrite them as “original”, since I love them so much as they are. I do get jealous that fanartists can take commissions and have patreons, but fanwriters are still treated like the lowest thieves.

But then I learned that these apps have extra features. The ability to change the font, or go to dark mode. Things you CAN do on the AO3 page through your browser, but the options aren’t always as robust as some people want. (I prefer to use Firefox, but on the tablet I read on all the time, I can’t get the font big enough so I use Chrome. And whooooboy, Chrome LOVES how much money it makes off me). There’s even more features for the subscription fee, which is nice.

I saw that comic going around about the app maker being someone chopping a new door into the library, and I laughed and agreed, and reblogged.

But the more I think about it, the less I agree. And I feel like we’ve done the app maker a huge disservice. (especially for the bullying, wtf guys, for reals)

I’d like to offer an alternative view.

Instead of chopping a new door in the library and charging people to go through it, the library door is still the only one, the walls are intact. The app maker sets up a little booth outside the library, just close enough to be seen, but not blocking the entrance. Heck, most people barely notice that it’s there.

At their booth they offer nifty glasses that change the page color or font when you put them on. The glasses took time and effort to create, time the app maker could have been spending on literally anything else, so they put little ads at the bottom of the lenses as a way to gain compensation for creating them.

They offer little bookmarks, also with ads, but they’re special bookmarks that can save your spot on the page, not just your page in the book. They also put little ads on the bookmarks, because again, they spent their time creating these little marvels of convenience.

And if you don’t like the ads, well you can pay a small subscription and use the nifty glasses and bookmarks ad free as long as you want. Even if it’s just long enough to read that one book. Oh, and as a bonus, here’s a few suggestions for things you might like to read based on what you’ve already checked out at the library.

There’s also a tip jar on the app maker’s little stand. Voluntary gratuity is just that. Voluntary.

The librarian (AO3) pokes their head out and says “hey, just make sure you don’t use our logos n’ stuff so that we don’t look affiliated, and get in trouble with the government, please”. The app maker repaints their stand purple instead of red, just in case.

I can understand people being concerned about the legality issues. That’s what AO3 is concerned about too. They can’t be seen to be making a profit for hosting fanfiction. But the money issue? I think if we can pay fanartists, then we should look at a GUI app as a type of fanart. A special piece of fanart created specifically for the readers. The fic stealing issue? It’s not like they’re slapping their name on our stories and offering them to publishing companies. They’re making an effort to make sure the app users can still leave kudos and comments (from what I understand, it’s buggy, but at least they’re aware that feedback should be given to the writers).

Edit: to be clear, I'm ONLY defending GUI apps. The apps that let you view ao3 through different lenses, but they're not storing the fics on their own servers OR trying to make it look like their app is the only place to access the fic. We conflated mirroring with view access, and attacked some folks who didn't deserve it.

#ltleramblings #the fanfiction app #i wouldn't use the app #and i hella wouldn't log into it based on their t&c about storing that stuff #but i wish i'd kept calm and carried on

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blu-eh · 4 years ago

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peter parker’s field trip to stark industries fic rec list

someone asked me to do a fic rec for the “peter goes on a field trip to stark industries” and i am happy to oblige because i have read way too many of them and wrote one myself So. anyways these are all COMPLETE. im aiming to get some unique/newer ones in here but yknow

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

Finished (tho only about 22k words, so it’s still not really long-fic for all it’s not a one-shot either): with an if in its soul

WIP: I am for you

Favorite Story You Wrote:

fAV0riTe?!

that’s an impossible nebulous criterion wtf

today I am going to pick out of some dreaming tree

Because Fairy Tales! (In tone, not specifics.)

There’s a plot! (Said plot is a quest and very straightforward, but still!)

(because a dash of speculative metaphysics!)

BECAUSE THERE’S A FOREST THAT (sometimes) EATS PEOPLE! Or Demons. And stuff?

Romance and sex magic! Flirting over weird magical investigations! (My favorite lady Cat makes tea!) It was for a BANG. It’s the only Bang-Fic I’ve ever finished! It has pretty art!

It’s a good story, y’all should give it a try. (Even if I haven’t sucked you into watching the joyfully sincere trash-fire that is Shadowhunters. It’s Very AU! It stands alone whether you know the SH canon or not!)

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

known subjects because that is a heck of a niche fic, it’s about an OC designed to fit the fusion setting (Criminal Minds’ BAU) rather than the fandom the other characters are from (Shadowhunters), it’s an outsider POV of the main ship rather than being about said ship... It is basically five steps sideways from all the things that usually attract readers but wow, am I ever so glad I wrote it and posted it anyways.

I love Fuller. I may very well stick him into my actual-Shadowhunters-canon fic as a background character some day. <3

How You Choose Your Titles:

For Malec I cruise my way through my e.e. cummings complete poems book until I find a thing I like and then I poke at it ‘til a line falls out

For everything else I reference the canon or do something relatively literal, an emotion or an event or a description of the main character. Sometimes I grab someone else’s poetry or song lyrics! (I like things besides cummings, who knew. Me. I knew.)

/I’m bad at titles, y’all. SO BAD. Sometimes I get an AO3 email and don’t recognize my own title and have to click the link to figure out what fic someone liked. I honestly have no idea why anyone ever clicks on my fic, I am not good at selling them 😅

Complete:

Uh. Published? I have 104 completed fics on AO3!

(Excluding fanmixes (because not fic!) & ficlet collections, because counting those/their chapters gets REALLY WEIRD AND EXCESSIVE VERY QUICKLY.)

In-complete:

(published, and again excluding ficlet collections because those are both always finished and yet potentially never done)

FOUR:

12 Moons is an old DA2 game prequel fic that will never ever get any more but a few people seemed to quite like so I haven’t taken it down.

Persephone Rising is a Mass Effect collaborative fic, and my two co-authors and I just cannot seem to line up for writing together again, so it probably won’t ever get any more, but you never know. Life is weird. It could happen.

Next is if broken hearts were whole, (Malec soulmarks fic!) which I am still working on but I’m not going to post again until it’s all done. (To avoid more things like those first two.)

And last is i am for you, my epistolary!fluff fic! I posted a chapter for it last week and it’s actually pretty close to the end? Should only be a couple more chapters, I just have to, you know, actually write them.

Do You Outline:

I wish. So much no.

Coming Soon / Not Yet Started:

More Clizzy post-canon fic. It appears to be turning into ficlets rather than a long-fic, but IDK, we’ll see what happens.

I also have a wing!fic that is remarkably about politics more than wings, some relationship reconciliation/Pandemonium Porn, a s3 retelling/sequel to with an if in its soul, mer!Alec sequels, priest!kink, a weird mafia/procedural/omegaverse thing that was SUPPOSED to be a sex!farce and isn’t cooperating, a Practical Magic thing I want to do for Halloween and MANY MANY Shadowhunters CODAS/FICLETS.

And maybe some day I’ll dig the Persuasion!AU or the pro-bono-porn or the sequel to out of some dreaming tree out of the archive and try them again. Or some #7kpp fic, or the Code: Realize and Scarecrow & Mrs. King epilogues I started!

My brain is full of possibilities. I don’t actually finish a lot of them though, clearly. 😳😅🙃

Do You Accept Prompts:

Yes. I may not fill them, but I am never unhappy to receive them. <3

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write

Malec Arranged Marriage AU. I did a twitter thread on why I like this particular trope, like, literally two years ago and then I tried to write it for the 3b countdown thing but realized very quickly that it was going to be MUCH TOO BIG to finish in time, and started something else (Pandemonium Porn iirc?) which also didn’t cooperate, and then I finally managed i cannot touch because they are too near instead! And now I’ve pulled the Arranged Marriage back out for the @wipbigbang this year so HOPEFULLY YOU WILL ALL SEE IT AT LAST IN AUGUST.

#on writing #writing memery #twistedsinews #shameless self promotion #on ao3

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hddnone · 5 years ago

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Title: Bedtime Tales for @marvelpolyshipbingo Square : B5 - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Rating: Teen Pairing: Pepper x Steve x Tony Warnings: None Summary : Steve almost missed bedtime, but he makes it. He's there - home, exactly where he wanted to be.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241629

Steve skidded his motorcycle to a stop on the gravel. He turned off the engine and dropped the kickstand.

The quiet in the wake of his bike’s roar felt oppressive.

The silence was accusatory.

Steve practically leapt off the bike and then bounded up the porch steps. The setting sun had told him that he was running late, and he still didn’t dare look at his watch to figure out exactly how late.

He threw open the door to the house.

Pepper was there.

Steve started with his apologies, already wincing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m late, very late and -”

Pepper started toward him, alarm on her face. “Steve, is everything alright? Are you okay?” She cupped Steve’s face in her hands, searching his eyes for answers. “Is someone hurt?”

Steve winced. The thought to lie, to create some emergency, flitted through his head. He had a reason for being late - it just wasn’t a good one.

“I’m sorry,” Steve repeated, hands circling Pepper’s thin wrists. She felt fragile under his touch, though Steve knew she wasn’t. “No, it wasn’t - everything is fine. I just lost track of time with Sam. I’m sorry.”

Pepper sighed in relief. “Oh, honey, that’s okay. We know your friends want to spend time with you.”

She smiled at him, and Steve’s heart eased.

“I know,” he said softly. “I just - am I too late?”

Pepper’s hands were still warm, her fingertips wrinkled. That meant bathtime wasn’t too long ago so maybe -

“Relax,” Pepper ordered, patting his cheek before dropping her hands. “We aren’t going to toss you out over missing one bedtime.”

Steve swallowed. “I know,” he said, which was mostly the truth. They were far enough along in their arrangement that he wasn’t walking on eggshells.

He just wanted to be sure to make the least amount of mistakes possible. He’d already made so many before they’d ever started this, and sometimes Steve didn’t know if he’d ever make them up.

“But I didn’t want to miss it,” Steve said.

Pepper leaned forward and kissed him, her lips soft and still carrying a hint of her smile.

“Go on up. I’m sure they’re still awake.”

Steve returned the kiss with a quick peck on the corner of Pepper’s lips, and then darted up the stairs.

He’d meant to leave the Compound earlier, but his conversation with Sam had taken a turn and he’d gotten caught up. Sam had so many questions and concerns since Steve had passed on the shield - all good, fantastic questions that Steve wished that he’d had someone to ask when he’d first taken up the role of Captain America - that once Sam opened up and started sharing, Steve couldn’t have stopped him.

Steve hadn’t wanted to either, it was just - the timing hadn’t worked out tonight so that he could support Sam how Sam needed it and be back home in time for bedtime. Hopefully there was still time and he could have both.

Steve had every confidence in Sam, with the shield, with the title of Captain America, with the responsibility. Eventually Sam would have that confidence in himself, too, and Steve was excited for Sam to have that moment. But Steve - Steve was so relieved to not carry that weight anymore. Sam had everything under control, and if not Sam then Bucky and Sharon certainly did. Steve caught enough stories during their weekly lunches that they all have together to know that.

Steve wished them all well, and he rarely felt the need to go out in the field alongside them anymore. Handing over the shield to Sam and stepping down had given him plenty of time for other things, and he was grateful for that.

The second door on the left was cracked open, lights still on. Steve knocked softly and pushed the door open.

“Steve!”

Steve’s heart melted at the excited smile on Morgan’s face. She clapped her hands together and beamed, her damp hair clinging to her face.

“There he is,” Tony said from where he was kneeling next to Morgan’s bed. He levered himself to his feet with a smile. “Told you there was hope. Steve is simply too fast.”

“Did you run the whole way?” Morgan asked, her eyes wide.

Morgan, like the little scientist she was, loved testing out Steve’s limits. Afternoons in the backyard had her putting Steve through a whole manner of tricks. How high could Steve climb? How high could he jump? How high could he jump with Morgan on his back? How many stuffed animals could he hold at one time? How many toys could he juggle?

The important questions of how the serum affected Steve.

“I did not run the whole way,” Steve gently denied. “I used the motorcycle your Dad built for me, so I was much faster.”

“Did you use your helmet?” Tony asked with a knowing look.

Steve didn’t want to lie, so he didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled Tony close and kissed Tony’s temple.

“That’s what I thought,” Tony grumbled.

“Genius,” Steve teased.

Tony squeezed Steve’s arm, his look both admonishing and fond. “Okay, then, I guess this means it’s story time for munchkins. Do we have any munchkins here?”

“Me, I’m a munchkin!” Morgan said. She grabbed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from her nightstand, where Steve had set it down after last night’s chapter. “Story time, Steve!”

She wiggled to make space on the bed.

“Story time for Munchkins, as read by Steve,” Steve narrated. He stepped over to Morgan’s bookshelf and bent over to scan the titles, pretending that he was choosing. “Let’s see, what shall we read today.” He ignored Morgan waving her book at him. “Hm, so many choices!”

“We’re reading this one,” Morgan demanded as she slapped the book on her bed. “We’re on chapter seven.”

“Oh, right!” Steve slapped his forehead. “I totally forgot. We’re in the middle of a story already.”

Morgan harrumphed at him, not amused. Tony hid a smile behind his hand from where he’d faded to the shadows of the doorway.

Steve shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it at Tony, since Tony was going to hang around. Steve got comfortable on top of the covers, in the open spot that Morgan had left for him.

Morgan thrust the book into his lap, and Steve smiled as he carefully cracked the book open and removed Morgan’s sparkly blue unicorn bookmark from its place. Unicorns were a new phase, and - since no one could be certain unicorns didn’t actually exist - Steve knew that Nebula was under strict orders from Morgan to keep her eyes peeled during her space travels.

Steve took a breath, gathering his courage for the reading. The character voices were a requirement, and Steve had needed practice at dropping his self-consciousness as well as the voices themselves so that he could give a worthy bedtime story performance. By now, though Steve had gotten plenty of show time. Steve still thought that Tony did the voices better, but he knew that wasn’t why Tony watched.

Steve glanced up so he could catch a glimpse of the warm, fond smile on Tony’s face as Tony watched them.

Yeah, Steve would watch too, if the positions were reversed. For now though, Steve was granted the gift of telling Morgan a bedtime story, and it was one that he didn’t want to give up.

Morgan snuggled into his side, and Steve lifted his arm to help her get comfortable.

“Chapter Seven,” Steve started. “A Day with the Beavers…”

When the chapter was done, Steve placed the bookmark in the pages and set the book aside. It would be ready and waiting for tomorrow night.

Steve gently slid an almost-asleep Morgan down until she was properly situated with her head on the pillow. She grumbled, but her eyelids were closed and she only twitched.

Steve eased himself off the bed and turned Morgan’s lamp off. The room wasn’t completely dark - an Iron Man night light glowed softly in the corner. Steve quietly made his way out of the room, shutting Morgan’s door behind himself.

Tony had disappeared sometime after four pages, and Steve hoped Tony hadn’t done anything terrible to Steve’s jacket in return for not wearing a helmet.

Steve found Tony and Pepper on the couch in the living room. No motorcycle jacket was in sight, and Steve eyed Tony. Tony grinned back, and Pepper twisted her lips in amusement. She went back to the book she was reading - probably more composting ideas, Steve guessed, as Pepper’s legs hid the title.

Steve took a seat on the couch with them. They’d left the middle cushion open for him, which he appreciated. He liked having them on either side. When they climbed into their shared bed every night though, they had to take turns. Pepper had drawn up a schedule.

“And how are Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy today?” Tony asked.

“They had a wonderful day with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver,” Steve replied with a smile. “Well, Edmund didn’t.” Steve wrinkled his nose. “I think he’s still with the witch right now.”

“Oh no,” Tony gasped.

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Am I the only one who knows how the story ends?” Pepper asked as she flipped a page.

“Please,” Tony scoffed. “Of course I know how it ends. It’s been out since Steve’s been born.”

“No it hasn’t,” Steve protested. “I checked the publication date and I… uh, I meant to read ahead, so I’d know what was coming, but -”

“Ha!” Tony crowed, poking Steve’s shoulder.

“Just because you looked up the children’s names before Steve came down doesn’t mean you know how it ends,” Pepper said, amused.

“Give me two minutes,” Tony said, pulling out his phone.

“Cheating,” Steve said, swiping it away and keeping it out of Tony’s reach.

“I’m not stopping you from looking it up,” Tony said as he climbed over Steve to try to reach the phone.

They fell onto Pepper. Pepper sighed, but Steve could feel her chest move in a silent giggle of laughter. Tony gave up, but stayed on top of Steve and so Steve stayed on top of Pepper.

Pepper carded her nails through Steve’s hair, and Steve closed his eyes in relaxation. Her scratches sent warm, pleasant tingles down his spine.

“How is Sam?” she asked.

“Does he need anything?” Tony asked next.

Steve grinned. He wished the best for Sam, Bucky, Sharon, and all the rest of the Avengers who continued to run missions and save the world. And he would answer the call if they needed him, but for now -

For now, Steve was happy to be home.

#pepper x steve x tony #pepperstony #is that the ship name?#tony stark #pepper potts #steve rogers #poly relationship #domestic fluff #megan writes things

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sheliesshattered · 5 years ago

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Fic meme

I was tagged by @primarybufferpanel -- thank you darling, this was a ton of fun to do!

This got a bit long, so I’ll put the people I’m tagging here at the top: @claraaoswald, @ambitious-witch, @someillplanetreigns, and @junoinferno, if you feel like playing!

My AO3, my old non-updating fanfiction.net

Fandoms I’ve made fanworks for: Oh lord. I’m only going to count fanfiction that has actually been posted, but if I tried to count up every fandom that I’d started writing for and left unfinished fragments languishing on various harddrives and googledocs over the years, it’d be at least double this list. I have two pseuds on AO3, with the fics roughly organized by fandoms that I post about on this Tumblr account (sheliesshattered) and fandoms that pre-date my time on Tumblr that I don’t post about very much (glasscannon). Putting all the fandoms together in one alphabetized list:

Black Sails - 5 Doctor Who - 8 Firefly/Serenity - 1 Game of Thrones - 1 The Hobbit - 1 The Hunger Games - 1 Iron Man - 2 Law & Order: Criminal Intent - 1 Mad Max - 2 Once Upon A Time - 1 Poldark - 3 Star Wars - 3 Twilight - 7 The West Wing - 1

Number of fics: 38, including a big unfinished epic that I never moved over from ff.n, and don’t plan to unless I finish it someday.

Fics I spent more time on: I’m not even quite sure how to measure this. I’m a slow writer, and a single story can easily hold my attention for years at a time, or be something I return to when there isn’t a newer fandom temporarily consuming me. I don’t tend to keep track of how many hours I put into a fanfic, though. The unfinished epic I mentioned is probably near the top of that list, and was a huge part of my life from 2009 to 2013. Other contenders would be the All Hands series (written with PBP!), and Truth Universally Acknowledged, particularly if you include all the massive world-building that went into that one.

But really probably the one I’ve poured the most hours into, between research and writing, is a Doctor Who epic that hasn’t yet seen the light of day, called Home The Long Way ‘Round. Because I have such a habit of starting long stories and then not finishing them, I’m making myself get that one completely done before I post any of it to AO3, so I don’t have anything to show for it yet, but I’ve put a ton of time into it over the last five years or so. Hopefully someday I’ll actually get to share it. :)

Fics I spent less time on: Like I said, I’m a very slow writer, so any time I can turn out a story in a matter of days I’m just absolutely shocked. I wrote The Message over the course of about 24 hours, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever finished anything in my life ever, lol.

Longest fic: The All Hands series is sitting at 126,800 words, and PBP and I have more finished for it that we’re hoping to post soon-ish. The unfinished epic made it to almost 119,000 words before I ran out of steam. Truth Universally Acknowledged racked up about 54,000 words before my co-writer and I took a break from it, and probably triple that in world-building bibles and timelines, etc. On the works-in-progress side of things, Home The Long Way ‘Round is sitting at about 40,000 words currently and only about a third of the way done, and the For As Long As We Get series is at 21,000 words between what I’ve posted and what I’m still working on, and will definitely continue to grow.

Shortest story: 10 Seconds, at 208 words. Also one of the very first fanfics I ever finished and posted online.

Most hits: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by like a factor of 20 vs anything else I have on AO3. It’s the only time I’ve written for the main pairing in an active fandom (tho my purview in the co-writing was more on the secondary pairing), and that translated to a stupidly large number of hits. Fanfiction.net doesn’t count hits the same way, but the unfinished epic is sitting at about 3500 favs.

Most kudos: Setting The Stuns’ls, the first in the All Hands series -- which is SHOCKING considering that’s a tiny rowboat of a fandom, for a non-canon background pairing that has literally about 30 seconds of shared screentime, and the two romantic leads don’t so much as kiss over the course of 94,000 words (longing looks, significant hand-touches, mutual pining, definitely, but kissing, not so much).

Most bookmarks: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by a long shot.

Fic you want to rewrite or expand: I don’t tend to edit a story once it’s been posted, beyond correcting a typo or adding a missed word. Once it’s published, it’s finished and I don’t change it significantly. I do have quite a few (so, so many) unfinished stories that I would love to finish up at some point.

Total words combined: Counting only published fics, including the unfinished epic (and a companion piece for it) that lives only on ff.n, I’m currently at 376,542 words total.

Fav fic you wrote: How can you make me choose between my children like this, honestly?? Siiiigh. I’m with PBP, whatever I’m working on currently is usually my favorite. I’m having a ton of fun with For As Long As We Get, and can’t wait to publish the next part of that, hopefully sometime this month. I’m incredibly proud of All Hands, and that occupied such a specific time in my life that I’ll always think of it fondly. I’m exceptionally happy with the character voices and use of language in both Breathe Again and Upon This Rock Will I Break Myself, Until It Shows Me Your Beloved Face, and tend to feel like they don’t get enough love vs how much I love them. But my one true favorite is and will always be Home The Long Way ‘Round, and hopefully I’ll actually be able to finish it and post it someday.

Share a bit of your WIP or idea if you have anything planned: Again, how can I possibly choose just one?? Even just within the Doctor Who fandom, I currently have more than half a dozen stories actively in progress. But since I’ve talked it up so much without being able to link to it at all, and just declared it my all-time fav, I’m going to break one of my own rules and post the whole first chapter (eek!) of Home The Long Way ‘Round behind a read more:

Chapter 1: Orange Dreams

The sound of the wind is whispering in your head Can you feel it coming back? Through the warmth, through the cold, keep running ‘til we’re there. We're coming home now, we’re coming home now. —Home, Dotan

The winds shrieked and howled around her. Clara had never been in a tornado, but she imagined it would feel like this to stand in the eye of one. She could see gusts lifting the tops off the sand dunes in shimmering ribbons, gold against the orange sky. The waves of airborne sand dissipated a few feet from her, leaving only a jagged grittiness in the air.

A woman with long blonde hair was yelling at her, her words ripped away by the wind.

“Tell me again!” Clara called back to her. “Tell me how to find home!”

“It’s just physics!” the other woman shouted, taking a step closer; they were nearly the same height. “No information can ever be lost! Start from zero, and run the math! We’ll be waiting on the other end of that equation!”

There was something Clara desperately wanted to tell this woman who looked at her with kindness behind the steel of her eyes, but in that moment, the words wouldn’t come.

“Look!” someone yelled behind Clara, and though she didn’t want to take her eyes off her, she instinctively looked up, following the line of the other person’s arm up into the gathering storm-whipped dusk. There, silhouetted against the last of the light, was the unmistakable blue boxy shape of the Doctor’s TARDIS, spinning quickly as it flew away—

Clara jerked awake, her heart hammering against her ribs, already sitting up and pulling off her sleep mask before she realised what had woken her was the sound of the TARDIS materialising in the sitting room of her flat. She took a moment to catch her breath, trying to hold onto the details of the dream. In the other room, the TARDIS’s familiar wheezing and groaning came to a stop with a soft thud, followed by the squeak of the door.

“Doctor?” Clara called, not bothering to hide the sleep nor the annoyance in her voice.

He poked his head around her bedroom doorframe, grey hair awry and his most innocent expression plastered on — which meant he knew he was waking her and felt at least marginally bad about it. “Hello, Clara. It’s Wednesday,” he said pleasantly, by way of explanation.

“Is it?” she asked, deadpan.

“Technically.”

“You do know that I have to work today, don’t you?”

“Not for another six hours. So come on, up-and-at-‘em, plenty of time to go out and save the universe and still be back in time for your morning coffee. I’ve an adventure that simply won’t keep, so come on!”

His excitement was infectious, as he must have known it would be, but Clara clung to her annoyance a little longer, mostly for show. “You have a time machine: everything can keep,” she replied, but waved him off before he could launch into a lecture on all the ways that statement was false, at least from a temporal physics standpoint. He lectured anyway, hovering outside her bedroom door as she dressed, though Clara expected it was mostly to keep himself from pacing in anticipation. She followed more than half of it, and worried a bit over how often she let him babble on about the minutiae of time travel these days.

By the time the universe had been set to rights — or at least one small blue world, home to a race of sentient seahorses, that had been facing imminent extinction in the form of a rogue exoplanet — she had nearly forgotten her unsettling, vivid dream.

Given the recent events on Skaro, Clara was unsurprised when bits of her experiences there began to filter into her dreams. Truthfully, she had expected to dream of it more often than she did, but in the weeks that followed, more nights than not her sleeping mind instead conjured up the strange orange landscape. She revisited that screaming sandstorm so often it became almost comforting, and before long, other dreams joined it.

Clara was leaned against a railing on a high balcony, overlooking a large city coming alight as dusk crept on, a rusty sunset that stretched the width of the horizon bathing the world in amber. The woman with the serious eyes and long, straight blonde hair stood beside her, in the middle of a conversation, as happened so frequently in dreams.

“Alright, but what about the last stage?” Clara asked, elbows resting next to hers on the railing. “That bit depends on us actively doing something, and you know we can’t rely on my knowledge. I can’t take any of the engineering or navigation with me, so it’ll be down to him.”

“And he loves a good puzzle,” the other woman said confidently, flicking her hair over her shoulder with a twitch of her head. “He’ll want to find us. He’ll figure it out.”

“Before I die of old age? Are you sure? My mother was one of his professors at the Academy, I’ve seen his test scores. I think we need a fail-safe.”

“He did graduate,” she pointed out reasonably.

“He passed his exams with a fifty-one percent on his second attempt! No, we can’t assume he’ll have all the baseline information to even consider such a solution, much less actually accomplish the maths. We have to find some way to hide it with me,” Clara said. “Or in his TARDIS.”

The woman was silent for a long moment, her mouth set in a thoughtful line. On the distant horizon, the sun had finished its slow descent, but below them the city was coming to life, the light not so much fading as changing sources, becoming ever so slightly more golden.

“By that point in the timeline,” the blonde woman said, speaking slowly, still thinking it through, “you’ll have been exposed to his timestream and to the crack in the universe, so some of your memories will probably start leaking through. If we structure the extraction the right way, we might be able to embed a particular thought or moment into your consciousness before you go into the Schism.”

“What’d you have in mind?” Clara asked, turning her head to look at her.

“This conversation?” she suggested, laughing, her broad smile transforming her face. “No, a phrase would be cleaner, I think.”

“‘Run the math, you idiot boy’?” Clara suggested, also giggling.

“Oh yes, that’d go over well! No, if you want him to do something, call him clever. Works every time!” she laughed, leaning her shoulder into Clara’s.

“The horrid thing is that I know the temporal physics for this is part of my mother’s coursework,” Clara groaned. “If he hadn’t slept through so many of her classes, this would be a non-issue!”

“Ah, but a Doctor who was always responsible? What a boring universe that would be!”

Above them, the stars were beginning to come out, though the glare of the city obscured them. Through the haze of the dream, Clara couldn’t find any constellations she recognised. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I was the one who helped him steal that box in the first place.”

“And if he could take half a moment to remember that,” the blonde woman said seriously, “he might realise the role of his TARDIS in all of this, and start to think of the solution that way.”

“‘Run the math, you—”

“Clever.”

“—boy, and remember when you met me’?”

The other woman nodded, considering. “That could do it. Your chronodeterminate conjugation won’t work until you come into contact with at least a little regeneration energy. Assuming you choose regeneration on Trenzalore, it might start kicking in then, in plenty of time for the last stage.”

“Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me,” Clara whispered up to the distant stars, cradling her chin on her arms against the railing.

The woman mimicked her position, the golden light of the city and the silver light of the stars catching in her long pale hair. “It’s just physics,” she murmured back. “Start from zero and run the math. I’ll be waiting at the other end of that equation. We’ll all be waiting.”

As unsettling as they were, at least the orange-tinged dreams were better than nightmares of Daleks, of being locked in the Dalek casing, unable to convince the Doctor that it was her, it was her, she wasn’t a Dalek, she wasn’t a Dalek! Dreams of the Doctor peering at her down an eyestock, this face or the last, or any of the others buried deep in her subconscious, hearing her but not knowing her, seeing her but not saving her.

Clara grasped for that orange sky, let it carry her away in bronze sandstorms, golden cities slowly coming to life, and starlight caught in tawny hair.

Monday morning third period found her Year 10 students taking an essay exam while Clara doodled on a scrap piece of paper, trying to pull images and phrases out of the orange haze that had taken up residence in her slumbering hours since Skaro. There were bits that tugged at her memory, like a song she couldn’t quite place but whose tune was intensely familiar.

She’d written Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me across the top of the page, and her eyes strayed to it every few seconds. The phrase had stayed with her after she woke, and had been on the tip of her tongue ever since, as though it was a message she was meant to deliver. Below it she’d rewritten the phrase, but crossed out six words: Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me.

It was too close for comfort to the phrase that had, in retrospect, changed her life, sent her on her current course. The Maitlands’ mnemonic for their wifi password, which she’d said out loud during that first phone conversation with the Doctor, had caught his attention somehow, and it wasn’t until she jumped into his timestream that she understood. It was the last thing she’d said to him before sacrificing herself to save him. Every fragment of her scattered through his timestream had said it to him at some point as well, the words reverberating endlessly up and down his timeline.

Why her dreams would dredge it up now, and in such a strange context, Clara had no idea. They didn’t feel like random images, but more like memory-dreams, like the bits of echo lives that filtered through to her sleeping mind from time to time. It had to mean something.

Half way down the scrap paper she’d written: It’s just physics. Start from zero and run the math. Below this was the very helpful ??? and Clara idly traced over the question marks again. Physics was still a foreign language to her, despite how much the Doctor prattled on about it at times. She could bring this to him, she mused, but what was it, really? Her subconscious doing backflips in the wake of Skaro, that was all. No grand mystery to solve, no universe-altering secret code, just her. She wouldn’t bother the Doctor with this quite yet.

Besides, she was certain she could tease this apart on her own, follow the clues to their logical conclusion without his assistance. The dreams were insistent, and felt familiar, but Clara was sure she’d never dreamed of the blonde woman and the orange sky prior to Skaro. That was the next clue, then, and she jotted it down on her scrap paper. Something had changed after Skaro, something that caused her subconscious mind to dredge up these particular buried memories.

She needed more information. Dreams about her echo lives were always stronger when she was aboard the TARDIS travelling in the Vortex, sharper and easier to remember. Maybe these orange dreams would be, too. And maybe the TARDIS itself would have some answers for her.

Of course, she didn’t sleep aboard the TARDIS very often, with her insistence on returning home for a week of Real Life in between their Wednesday trips. But the Doctor was never adverse to her sticking around longer than she’d planned, and in the end it didn’t take much to convince him:

“I’ve a staff meeting at work that I’m dreading,” Clara told him on that next Wednesday, when they returned to the TARDIS after their latest outing. “So what do you say I have a little kip and then we squeeze in another adventure before you take me back to face my workday?”

She thought for a moment that the Doctor might question the change in their routine, but he seemed thrilled about the idea. When he announced that he had some tinkering with the engines he’d been putting off that should keep him occupied while she slept, Clara made an excuse to linger in the console room — “just going to finish reading this chapter, then off to bed” — until after he’d gone. Once he’d disappeared down the corridor and around a corner, she quietly set aside her book, then slipped out of her armchair and down the stairs towards the console. The rotors hummed overhead, and somehow Clara knew the TARDIS was aware of her, and was curious to see what she would do.

Carefully clearing her thoughts, she made her way over to the telepathic circuits, pushed up her sleeves, and slid her hands into the strange interface. Focus was the key, she knew, and she was nothing if not focused. She closed her eyes and held two very specific thoughts in her mind: the sand-whipped orange sky in her dreams, and the clear question, Where, please?

She hoped the please would help.

It was a long quiet moment with the circuits warmly cradling Clara’s fingers, and then something on the console beeped. Her eyes flew open and she carefully extracted her hands from the telepathic interface before pulling the monitor down to eye level.

Gallifrey the screen read in English, below an image of a startlingly red-orange planet. Immediately prior to the Time Lock.

Clara felt her heart thud painfully against her ribs as she read the brief text again. She’d been dreaming of Gallifrey? She knew she’d had an echo life on Gallifrey, but she remembered that interaction with the Doctor, and it happened indoors. She had never before dreamt of the Gallifreyan sky. Had it been buried somewhere in her subconscious with the rest of her memories of that life? Why surface now?

More confused than ever, she clicked the screen back to the desktop, unreadable Circular Gallifreyan floating idly across the display. Perhaps she should bring this up with the Doctor — it was his home world, after all. But the whole point of this had been to dream while they were in the Vortex, and if she didn’t get a move on, he’d be ready for their next adventure before she’d even managed to fall asleep. She could talk with him about it later.

And if things worked tonight as she hoped they would, maybe she would even have a bit more information to bring to him when she did.

“Fire suppressant in Pod Four!”

The frantic call was quickly overwhelmed by the sound of the requested suppressant dispensing from the ceiling. When it ended, the speaker, dressed in the dark red uniform of a technician, brushed soot and foam off his shirt.

“It hates me, that one,” he said, nodding at the unassuming gray cylinder in the open pod in front of him. It was devoid of features, even its doors invisible now in the wake of the fire, two meters tall and one meter in diameter, just like all the other patients in the workshop. But somehow it did seem to be glowering at him.

“And it always will, stop wasting your time,” his coworker said flippantly. He was perched in front of a console on the other side of the room, deep in his own repairs. “Just get the Impossible Girl to do it, she’ll have it eating out of her hand by lunchtime.”

Their conversation occurred in the time it took Clara to enter the large oblong workshop and make her way to the far end where the two were working. “I heard that,” she said seriously, earning a guilty-looking jump from the man who had spoken most recently. She continued over to Pod Four and leaned against the outer casing, arms folded over her uniformed chest, one booted ankle crossed over the other. “What did you do now?” she demanded of the first technician.

He looked at her with wide eyes, more out of genuine fear than mock innocence, in her estimation. “I just told it—”

“You what?” she snapped, in a tone she usually reserved for misbehaving students.

He wilted a little but started again “…I told it to—”

“Told it?”

“…to give me access to the logs,” he mumbled, dropping her gaze.

“Told it to give you access to the logs?” she asked, voice harsh. “Well first off, Number Four here prefers male pronouns, respecting that might put you on better footing. And secondly, as with all TARDISes, you’ll get a lot further if you ask rather than tell.”

Behind her, the other tech scoffed. “They’re machines, we shouldn’t have to baby them like that. An access request is an access request.”

Clara turned her head to pin him with an icy glare. “Some days I cannot believe I let you work here,” she told him bluntly. “They aren’t just machines, as you very well know. Yes, there’s hardware we need to be able to work with, but that’s nothing more than a radio, at some level — only instead of radio waves, we’re using oswin waves to talk to pan-dimensional beings so large, they can’t have a physical form in this dimension. Who, with a little extra energy, can take us and an infinite amount of folded space to nearly any point in spacetime. Just think about the massive intelligences that speak to us through each of those machines!

“But more to the point,” she said, turning back to the tech still covered in soot, “you have to understand their viewpoint of the universe, and their understanding of time. A Time Lord telling a TARDIS what to do is akin to creating a fixed point in spacetime. It’s in their nature to want to avoid fixed points. Ask instead, let him find his own way ‘round to it.”

Before the beleaguered technician could reply, there came a polite knocking from the far end of the room, and Clara turned to see a soldier standing in the doorway of the workshop, looking a little out of his depth. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a message for—” he paused to glance down at the datapad in his hand, “for the Oswin. From the Lady President. Top priority.”

Clara was moving towards him before he’d finished speaking, curious and concerned, her attention focused on the message in his hands. But the dream faded out before she reached him, her mind moving on to something more abstract, more difficult to hold on to.

When she woke in her bed aboard the TARDIS, she stared at the ceiling with fond frustration. “If that was your attempt at help,” she whispered to the ship, “then I do not understand the message.”

It still wasn’t enough to bring to the Doctor, she decided later that day, watching him spin around the console room in the afterglow of a successful adventure, people saved, the universe bettered. So she was dreaming of Gallifrey, what of it? Many of the details in that last dream matched up with what she remembered of her interaction with the Doctor in that life. And while he occasionally enjoyed comparing memories of all the times her echoes had met him, she’d found he wasn’t especially keen on discussing the one in which she’d helped him steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey. Susan continued to be a point of pain for the Doctor, all these centuries later, and Clara understood him well enough to know better than to pick at that particular scab.

Still. That phrase was on a loop in her head: run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me. The emphasis on their meeting hadn’t been part of the original phrase, and now she was dreaming of the life in which they’d met face to face for the first time, from the Doctor’s perspective. Clearly they would have to discuss it at some point.

Eventually, but not yet.

#long post #about me #my writing #like seriously all of it #fanfiction #fandom life #AO3 #Home The Long Way 'Round #For As Long As We Get #All Hands #Truth Universally Acknowledged #et al #if you read that chapter let me know what you think!#❤️

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vi-olia · 5 years ago

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Yuletide 2019 Letter

Dear Writer,

Hi! I am violia over on AO3 and viiolia here on tumblr.

I am so excited that you have been matched with me for this year’s Yuletide. This letter is intended to expand upon the small details that I gave you on the AO3 signup. If you’d prefer to not have any more details from me, then I understand! Good luck, thank you for writing in these small fandoms, and I can’t wait for the 25th!

On the other hand, if you’d like some more info from me, then please read on. What you’ll find here is a list of my likes and dislikes, and then a rundown of each of my requested fandoms, in which I explain why I love the characters and fandoms that I’ve chosen, so that you may get an idea of what I’d like to see in potential fics, without me just straight up telling you what to do.

ABOUT ME

Likes:

If there’s only one thing that you want to remember about me, please let it be this: at the end of the day, I will love any fic if it is driven by strong, well-thought-out characters and relationships.

Happy endings! I enjoy angst and hurt/comfort, but please let there be a happy ending for all.

Snappy dialogue.

I love canon! All these canons. I also like canon divergence and post-canon fics.

Humour, romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, drama, adventure, magical realism.

I generally enjoy fandom tropes, as long as they’re adapted to suit the specific characters and relationship dynamics. Friends-to-lovers, or 5+1 things, are two tropes that immediately come to mind. The same goes for AUs: I love an AU if there’s been good thought and worldbuilding put into how the specific characters and relationships would fit into a different canonical universe.

I love slash. All my requests contain characters that I love to ship together. I love smut and romance and getting-together fics and established relationship fics. But if slash really isn’t your thing - I won’t mind a gen or pre-slash story either. Again, at the end of the day, if the fic is driven by strong, interesting, emotional characters and arcs, whether in relationships or not, I will be loving it!

In terms of smut, I really enjoy (again, I’m a broken record) when it’s informed by the characters’ emotions/dynamics/relationship at that certain point in the story. I enjoy reading more vanilla smut and more kinky smut; specific likes include praise kink, consent play/dubcon (where it’s still clear that both parties have consented to this kink), body worship, semi-public sex (preferably close calls, or without being caught), tender sex, and rough sex (not too much actual pain though). My bookmarked works on AO3 can be pretty, uh, enlightening in terms of what smut I like to read. Also, this is pedantic but I prefer the word “come” rather than “cum”.

Dislikes/DNWs:

Animal and child abuse/death.

Character death, or characters with cancer/terminal illnesses.

Unhappy endings.

Horror, zombies, cannibalism, and extreme/non-canon-typical violence.

PWP. Don’t get me wrong - I love porn. But please have some plot in there!

De-aging.

Student/teacher relationships, and any circumstances/relationships/power dynamics where a main character is taking unfair or malicious advantage of another.

Rape.

Infidelity.

First person POV.

In terms of smut, I’m really not a fan of BDSM, scat, watersports, vomit, extreme humiliation, body horror, or bestiality.

BLACKKKLANSMAN Ron Stallworth, Flip Zimmerman

This film really got me good. Everything about it struck me - the message, the characters, the plot, the cinematography, the music. I quickly fell in love with Ron and Flip and the idea of those two becoming friends (or something more).

I love Ron Stallworth for his courage and wit. I love how he approaches life and people. He’s so open, low-key and easy to get along with. He’s not quick to judge anyone. Perhaps this stems partly from the time he spent at college. But I truly feel that if someone were to come out to Ron Stallworth, he would never discriminate against them. Maybe he’d need some time to fully understand. Maybe he’s needed some time to fully come to terms with his own sexuality. But he’s not one to judge. And he’s so smart and such a quick-thinker. And probably a little kinky, which I love. Okay I’ll stop rambling about Ron now.

Time to ramble about Flip instead. Flip Zimmerman: the Gruff, Quiet Romantic. I love how Flip can seem so immovable, always unfazed. He and Ron are similar, in this way. But Ron is way more in touch with his emotions, whereas Flip is not so much. Or maybe he is in touch with his emotions, but he just doesn’t often express them. I love that Flip needs to really trust someone before he lets them get close. He’s not quick to judge others, either, but I think he can certainly hold some judgements about himself, and out of the both of them, I’d say Flip would have more trouble coming to terms with his sexuality, or admitting his feelings for Ron. But oh boy - I think Flip would be fantastic in bed. Yes ma’am. Mmm… anyway.

One thing I’m very aware of is that being gay or exploring your sexuality was not totally fun or freeing in 1970s America. It came with a lot of serious dangers. Being outed could cost you your job, your safety, your family, and more. Writer, I would appreciate it very much if you could take this historical context into account. It directly informs whatever friendship/relationship Ron and Flip have. I would find it very difficult to feel immersed in a story about two men, one Jewish and one African-American, who are coming to terms with their feelings for one another, or entering into a romantic and/or sexual relationship with one another, or forging a close friendship with one another, if the story did not take into account the serious issues of racism and homophobia which pervade the era and setting of this film. (AKA, please don’t have them sitting in a public cafe holding hands, or something else that’s unrealistic for this time period.)

My preference for these two characters is clearly skewed towards slash. I would love to read about them forging a relationship, romantic or sexual or both. Maybe they go from friends to lovers, or they do the only fun thing there is to do in Colorado Springs and hike into the wilderness for a private moment. Or maybe they’re in an established relationship, and navigating their lives as a closeted gay couple who both work for the police department. Or maybe you think of something else entirely; I can’t wait. Alternatively, maybe you’d prefer to write gen or pre-slash instead, and in that case, please feel free. I would love reading about the growth of Ron and Flip’s friendship, or more of their time working together as police officers. Ultimately, I am just so excited to potentially receive a fic from you, for me, which I think is so special.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE RPF Colin Jost, Michael Che

Although the first year or two they spent as hosts of Weekend Update was fairly rocky at times, Colin Jost and Michael Che have really come into their own with this segment on SNL, and the hate comments I used to see on their videos a couple of years ago have almost all changed to comments of support and appreciations of their comedy. What makes them so good at this is their dynamic. They bounce off of either other constantly on the show, and they work so well together - they have to, in this job!

Michael Che is the one true trash fire that I know and love. What is he doing? I don’t know. I don’t think he knows either. And I love him for it. One thing that really stands out to me about Che is how good he is at comedy, and particularly stand-up. I can tell that he seriously puts a lot of thought and effort into his delivery. He makes it sound so effortless and off the top of his head, but in reality he is practiced and professional and knows his craft. His humour often comments on big issues like racism and gender, and I personally really enjoy this commentary-style comedy, where you can poke fun at everyone but also have a serious message to convey as well. Personality-wise, I love how Che is a selective over-thinker. He can be so overly conscious of some things, and so oblivious and apathetic about others. I think he might struggle, or has previously struggled with his sexuality; but I also think Colin makes him weak at the knees, and Che finds himself simultaneously wanting to take Colin on a date, and fuck him into the mattress, and run away and hide in another country, and fall asleep for three years, all at once.

Colin’s humour is more silly and less ‘controversial’ than Che’s. I don’t enjoy it less, just differently. Colin definitely has his life more together than Che does - or at least, is great at acting like he’s got his life together. I love that Colin is easygoing and quietly calm and confident, but beneath that, I think he struggles with some overthinking tendencies too. And sometimes he really doesn’t feel confident at all. I think he’s pretty in touch with his emotions, but when it comes to expressing them, sometimes he might just need a moment to get the right words. Especially if he’s nervous. But I love that Colin really likes Che. He finds Che so hilarious (and vice versa, of course). I love how Che can always make Colin laugh out loud, or do his cute little smile that’s a twist of his lips. I love that they can bounce off each other in progressing a joke to the point where it seems like they’re the only two people in the room.

Truly, I think they’re both trash fires in their own ways. I think it’s a minor miracle if they get together, because they’re both second-guessing themselves at some point, and they both treasure their friendship so incredibly much. But that’s why I love them so much - because of how closely tied together they are. They truly value each other in their lives. They are best friends and close confidants and they’ve gone through a lot together.

I love reading about Colin and Che and their lives working at SNL. The work week is incredibly hectic at that show - even more so now that Colin and Che are head writers, as well as managing and appearing in their own segment. I find the whole cast of SNL fascinating and hilarious, and I think a lot of people romanticise what it might be like to work in such a demanding job with such a close-knit community of people. I think who they are at this point in time is tied very closely with their jobs, especially because they work together. If you’re writing a story or some scenes that take place at SNL, I don’t mind if you include other SNL cast members in passing interactions, for the sake of verisimilitude.

Writer, I would love it if you could just pretend that Colin Jost is not engaged to Scarlett Johansson. Or if there’s another way you want to deal with that, then go for it. Please just heed my DNWs: no infidelity, and no unhappy endings. Other than that, I’m so excited about any story you have about these two guys. I clearly ship them together; I’d love to see some aspect of their relationship, maybe getting together or in an established relationship, maybe during the SNL season or something they get up to during their summer holidays. If you’re more of a gen or pre-slash writer, I totally understand - just their dynamic as it is now, as friends who bounce off one another and get on each others’ nerves but ultimately understand each other on a deeper level than anyone else around them, is so interesting and entertaining for me to watch and I’d love to read more of it.

Side note: Colin and Che did an advertisement for Red Nose Day on the Weekend Update desk in which Kate McKinnon, in an old-lady character that I think embodies all of fandom, lobbies for them to kiss. Colin kisses Che on the cheek, but Che was totally ready for a peck on the lips. THIS VIDEO IS MAYBE POSSIBLY REQUIRED VIEWING FOR THESE CHARACTERS. Search their names + Red Nose Day on Youtube to find it; requires a VPN if you’re not based in the USA.

LEGALLY BLONDE Elle Woods, Vivian Kensington

I have two words for you. LAWYER WIVES. Or law student wives. That’s more than two words, but you get the idea.

A couple of months ago, I rewatched Legally Blonde for the first time in many years. My biggest takeaway from this viewing? ELLE AND VIVIAN NEED TO DITCH THOSE GROSS GUYS AND JUST GET TOGETHER INSTEAD. Seriously! Warner is a sexist and self-absorbed asshole. Both Elle and Vivian deserve so much better… aka, each other.

The biggest thing I love about Elle Woods is her positive and caring attitude. She rarely lets things get her down, nor does she fall into self-pity. And Vivian Kensington just screams smol baby gay to me and I adore her for it. Please can someone (Elle) walk into Vivian’s life and pull her out of the humdrum of repetitive, lame, often orgasm-less intercourses with self-absorbed men and into the beautiful world of women pleasuring other women one, two, three times over. But also I do love how Vivian puts on a strong, confident face and is so dedicated to her studies and career but you can tell, beneath all that, she’s still figuring all this stuff out.

I think Vivian can learn a lot from Elle about how to let go, have fun, and most of all, how to be more considerate of others; I think Elle can learn a lot from Vivian about discipline, duty, responsibility, and the more realistic/gritty aspects of being a lawyer. I think that together, these two women could balance each other out incredibly well. They could learn and grow together and support each other.

I think Elle’s naïveté could sometimes get annoying, especially to someone like Vivian, who is incredibly knowledgeable, realistic and down-to-earth. But that’s not to say that Elle is not those things as well. And in fact, I think Vivian can be quite naive herself when it comes to emotions and relationships; this is an area she’s not totally confident in. It’s pretty clear that Vivian’s internalised some sexist and misogynistic attitudes (see: slut-shaming Elle when she was sexually harassed by Callahan). I think Vivian’s jump to conclusions here can also be attributed to her tendency to act first, and ask questions later; she’s quicker to judge others than Elle is.

I hope this whole bunch of random thoughts I have about these characters gives you some idea of why I love them so much. What I’ve written here leans more towards femslash; but please know that, if you prefer to write gen, I would of course gladly accept any gen fic that you gift me. Because it’ll be from you, to me! And that is something so special and exciting. At the end of the day, I just want to read about these two characters growing closer together, whether that be in a friendship or relationship.

Note: if you want to include Emmett and/or Warner in some capacity, I don’t mind, just as long as the main focus of the story is on Elle and Vivian. Tbh I think Elle and Emmett would be awesome best friends.

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justheretobreakthings · 6 years ago

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Welcome to the Family - Chapter 4

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Word Count: 2,898 (Total Word Count: 9,238) Read on AO3

Story Summary: Lance had been excited about his family taking in a foster kid, eager to get to meet his brand new little brother or sister, who would surely adore and idolize their super cool Big Brother Lance. What he got instead was a sullen, quiet, temperamental teenage housemate with a criminal record and a disastrous haircut.

With a shaky breath Keith turned around and leaned his back against the door, listening for Lance’s retreating footsteps and trying to regain his composure. One of his hands brushed against the knob and he debated turning the lock, but ultimately decided against it. Tania hadn’t mentioned whether he was allowed to lock his door, and he didn’t want to get in trouble if it turned out that it wasn’t permitted.

He waited until he was sure Lance was gone before going back to his bag, peering into it to see what had been messed with. He wasn’t sure what Lance’s aim had been, if he were looking to steal or looking for some contraband or something to report him on. Either way, it was incredibly stupid of him to have been commenting on his finds while he was rummaging through the bag.

Keith paused with a frown. That was beyond stupid, actually. Or it would have been if Lance had intended to hide that he was looking through his things. Had he actually thought that it was just an okay thing to do? Was that some personal quirk of Lance’s or would this be the level of privacy he should be expecting at the McClain house? Keith let out a huff of frustration. He hated no-privacy houses.

At least it seemed that Lance hadn’t dug through more than clothes and CDs. The emergency first-aid supplies and food were untouched where they were stuffed at the end of the bag, and his knife was still safely wrapped in socks and tucked into the inner pocket.

He finished unpacking on his own. It didn’t take long; his clothes didn’t even take up a full two drawers of the room’s dresser, and the only personal touches he had brought with him were the plush hippopotamus now resting on top of his pillow, and the little stack of CDs and few paperback books that he set onto the wall-mounted bookshelf over the desk.

Afterward, he collapsed back onto the bed, trying to think of what to do to pass the time next. It wasn’t as if there was much by way of entertainment in this room - probably by design - but he also didn’t want to go back downstairs and interact with the family, not yet. Tania seemed nice enough, or at least was making an effort to be, but she was also kind of exhausting, and Lance was nosy, had kept following them around and staring at Keith and going through his things. He still had yet to get a proper first impression of Rachel, but his hopes weren’t high.

With a sigh, he decided to hibernate in his bedroom for now. He pulled one of his books from the shelf - a weatherbeaten sword-and-sorcery that he had already read a couple dozen times over by this point - and set to reading it again, keeping his ears open for any sounds from the rest of the household. They seemed to be leaving him alone. He wasn’t sure whether Tania had just told them to give him space, or if they were avoiding or ignoring him; he was grateful for the quiet either way.

He had whiled away a couple of hours with his book before he was finally interrupted by a knock at the door. He looked up, letting a few seconds go by before realizing that whoever had knocked was waiting for his go-ahead to enter, so he said, “Come in.”

The door opened and Rachel poked her head into the room. “Hey,” she said. “Veronica just got home and Papá’s a couple minutes away, and dinner’s about ready, so Mamá needs you to come downstairs now, kay?”

“Um, okay,” Keith said, dog-earing his page and setting his book down on the bed before standing up.

Rachel raised a brow and nodded toward the book. “What, you don’t use bookmarks? Just fold the pages up like a heathen?” She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “For shame, Keith.”

Instantly Keith felt his stomach clench as he glanced back to the book. “No - no, it’s - it’s my book, I swear, I didn’t mess up any of your guys’ books, it’s - I mean, the pages aren’t in great shape anyway, and I would use a bookmark if it was someone else’s, I just didn’t think - ”

“Whoa, whoa, hey, easy,” Rachel said, eyes gone wide as she held up her hands placatingly. “Sorry, wasn’t accusing you of anything. Lance dog-ears his books too, I just like getting onto him about it. I say he’s a monster for folding the pages, he replies that I’m just being a snob with my oh-so-fancy bookmarks, and we call each other names until Mamá tells us we’re giving her a migraine. It’s fine, though. Mark your books however you want.”

“...Oh,” said Keith. “Okay.”

“You good to come down to dinner?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

Rachel led the way downstairs, throwing curious glances his way a couple of times as they walked to the dining room. Keith kept his arms folded tightly and his gaze down as he followed her. He had overreacted about the book, started panicking over nothing, and now Rachel was thinking he was weird and confusing and probably overdramatic or something. Just what he needed to make a wonderful first impression.

A paunchbellied man with a scruffy ducktail beard was just entering the front door and he and Rachel landed downstairs, and another new face, a bespectacled young woman, was already in the dining room helping Lance set the table. Veronica, Keith surmised, and he was certain Tania had told him her husband’s name as well, but he couldn’t remember it.

“You must be Keith!” the bearded man said as he shut the door behind him, a beaming smile on his face. “I’m Manuel.” Well, there was that mystery solved. “Sorry I couldn’t come along to pick you up today, got called into work and just couldn’t worm my way out of it.”

“It’s quite all right, cariño,” Tania said as she bustled through the entrance to the kitchen with a pot of rice in her hands. As she set it down on a placemat on the table she added, “I really do wish that you’d talk to your supervisor, though, your hours have been a mess recently. Rachel, dear, could you grab the ropa vieja from the stove?”

“Oh, it’s just for a little while until our staffing issues are dealt with,” Manuel said as Rachel left. He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and plopped himself into it with a grunt. “Don’t want to get into it with scheduling anyhow, seeing as I’ve taken so many personal days as of late. The Guardalavaca trip last month, and we’ve got Veronica’s orientation and move-in coming up - ”

“Which, for the fiftieth time, you don’t have to go to,” Veronica spoke up. She smirked at Keith. “I’m going to college on the other side of town, and Papá acts like it’s the other side of the country. I’m not even officially ‘moving out’, I only have to live in the dorms during the week. I’ll be home on weekends.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t miss you on weekdays,” Manuel said.

Veronica rolled her eyes. “You didn’t do this with Luis or Marco.”

“Oh, I did, you just weren’t paying attention.”

“Veronica is starting her first semester at the Garrison Institute in couple of weeks,” Tania explained to Keith with a proud smile toward Veronica. “Are you very familiar with it?” Keith shook his head and Tania continued, “One of the best research universities out there, and Veronica managed to land herself an absolutely fantastic scholarship package, my little scientist.”

“Mamá, you’re embarrassing me,” Veronica groaned.

“What is it you’re majoring in again, mija?”

“Aeronautics.”

“That’s the one. Thank you, love,” she added to Rachel as the latter set the main course down in the middle of the table. “You can help yourself to as much as you want, Keith, dear.”

“Thank you,” Keith mumbled as he took a seat. The meaty dish that Rachel had set down - the ropa vieja, Keith assumed - was passed his way. It did look and smell appetizing, and Keith was certainly hungry; he’d only eaten a cereal bar for lunch. But he still played it safe, only placing a small scoop onto his plate before passing the dish along to Lance in the seat beside him, who piled a mountain quadruple the size of Keith’s onto his own plate.

“So, enough about me,” Veronica said as she took her own seat. “Looks like you’re going to be my new little brother, huh, Keith?”

Keith lifted one shoulder in a shrug and started picking at his ropa vieja with the tines of his fork. That was the second time he had been called that today, and he honestly wished they would stop. There were always certain foster homes that would do that, foster parents who would call him their ‘son’ and the other kids in the house his ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ and tried to act like they were an official ‘family’. It always just made it that much more jarring when they inevitably sent him packing again.

“Well, in that case, I wanna know a little about you,” Veronica said. “Tell me about yourself, Keith.”

“Um,” was all Keith said. He looked down and stuffed a bite of the ropa vieja into his mouth to keep from answering. It tasted pretty good, he decided, but more importantly it gave him an excuse not to talk. What sort of answer was she expecting, anyway? There was nothing to him worth talking about.

“What do you like to do for fun, Keith?” Manuel prompted when the silence had stretched on for several seconds.

“I, uh…” Keith said, trying to come up with something. “I - I read, I guess?”

“Play any sports?” Manuel asked. Keith shook his head. “Any musical instruments?” Another head shake. “Any school activities? Been in any clubs before?” No, and no.

“That’s something we ought to look into for you, right Keith?” said Tania. “Find something fun for you to do in your free time. Altea High’s got a lot of extracurriculars. And you could always tag along with Lance or Rachel to something. They’re both in drama club, and Rachel is in marching band and Lance is on the swim team. Any of those sound like they’d interest you?” When Keith just shrugged, she added, “Well, we can have Mr. Smythe go over the other clubs and such with you on Friday, see if anything sounds fun to you.”

“Mr. who?” Keith asked, frowning.

“The guidance counselor at the school,” Tania answered. “We’re going to meet with him before the school year starts to get your schedule finalized and get you oriented in the school a bit. There’s another get-to-know-you question, Keith! What’s your favorite school subject?”

“Uh, I - I dunno,” Keith answered slowly. “I’m… decent at science?”

“Another one,” Lance groaned. “My whole social circle is just one science geek after another.”

“Lance, don’t make fun,” Manuel scolded. “I think it’s great, we could be looking at another Garrison student in the family in a few years’ time.”

“Mm,” Keith hummed noncommittally. There was no point in even giving that possibility a second thought. He didn’t have the money to afford college, didn’t have the grades to ever go for scholarships, and the odds that he would even still be in this foster home long enough for the McClain’s to have to be concerned about his post-high-school plans were less than zero. But he didn’t bother saying it. They’d figure it out themselves soon enough.

“Come on, Papá, Keith just got here,” Lance said through a mouthful of food. “It’s too early for you to be trying to push him into nerd school.”

“You know, mijo,” Tania said, “If you took your own schoolwork more seriously I bet you’d be in the running for it too. You have the intelligence for it, you really do, if you would just apply yourself - ”

“I’ve already got a future planned out,” Lance interrupted. “Make a name for myself as a contestant on The Bachelorette, use my fame to market a line of luxury hair-care products, retire in Havana at age thirty-two and die peacefully in my hot tub at ninety-six.”

“See, I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not, and that terrifies me.”

“Serious as a stab wound. I dream big, Mamá. And I thought we were interrogating Keith, not me.”

“Huh?” Keith said, brows furrowing.

“We’re not interrogating him, Lance, we’re just getting to know him,” said Manuel. “Come on, Keith, back on that. What sort of foods do you like to eat?”

“Uh, I dunno,” Keith answered. “Anything, really.”

“How about music?” Rachel asked.

“I already said I don’t play anything.”

“I meant listening to,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh,” said Keith. “Um, I - I like - I like rock, I guess.”

“Any favorite movies? TV shows?” asked Veronica.

“Not really…”

“How long you been in foster care?” Lance asked.

Keith bit his lip and looked down at his lap, his grip on his fork tightening as Tania scolded, “Lance, not the time.”

“What?” Lance asked. “It was just a question. To get to know Keith better, you know?”

“I don’t - I’d rather not, um, not talk about - ” Keith stammered.

“That’s all right, Keith, that’s all right,” Tania said hastily. “You don’t need to talk about your… experience if you don’t want to.”

“I was just curious, jeez,” Lance muttered, lifting his fork and stabbing it into his rice. “Didn’t mean to freak anyone out or anything.”

“Let’s just - let’s just try to be sensitive about the situation, okay, Lance?”

Keith kept his eyes on his own plate as they spoke, and he could feel his face reddening all the while. Okay, so, clearly Tania had some knowledge about his past. He didn’t know if she knew the actual and distressingly high number of homes he’d been through, or details of what had happened with them, but she knew enough to know that his time in foster care had not been a happy story. And she had just made the rest of the family fully aware of that as well, and Keith squirmed in his seat as he felt the others’ curious eyes on him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lance grunted. He took a couple of quiet bites of his food before quietly adding to his mother, “¿Se nos permite preguntar por la cicatriz?”

“No, Lance,” Tania said firmly, shooting him a glare, or at least a close facsimile of one; Tania’s face really was not designed for anger.

Keith glanced between the two of them, confused. “Wait, what did he say?” he asked.

“Nothing, dearie,” Tania sighed.

“But what - ?”

“That’s something we’ll need to do for you now that you’re in the family, isn’t it,” Manuel said. “Help you learn Spanish. Have you got him scheduled for Spanish at the high school, Tania?”

“Not yet, we’ll be going over that with Mr. Smythe,” Tania answered. “Would Spanish class be okay with you, Keith? Altea has a foreign language requirement, but they also teach French, German, Japanese, and Russian, if any of those are - ”

“Nah, um, Spanish is fine,” Keith mumbled. He returned his attention to his plate. Whatever Lance had said, it was obviously not meant for his ears. Fine. He was used to that.

“Are you enjoying your meal, Keith?” Tania asked. Keith nodded wordlessly and continued eating.

The others tried to pick him apart a little more during the rest of the meal, but as Keith just grew quieter, the focus gradually, and thankfully, turned to the others, discussing their lives and back-to-school plans and other miscellany that wound up becoming a buzz in Keith’s ears. The McClains were a very talkative family, and Lance was frankly a louder talker than necessary. It was all starting to grow exhausting and just a little overwhelming.

The strain may have shown on his face, because Tania didn’t push when Keith turned down the offer of second helpings of the food, and when the dinner was finished, she picked his plate up for him. “Don’t worry about dishes or anything tonight,” she said. “Just focus on settling in for now. Tomorrow we can look at fitting you into the family chore chart. Sound good?”

Keith nodded, taking the fact that everyone was getting up from the table as his own invitation to leave. He pushed his chair in with a scrape and headed upstairs, shutting the door to his room behind him and flopping onto the bed, figuring that’s where he’d remain for the rest of the evening.

Things seemed okay so far. Not perfect, but okay. And unless they were putting on a facade for him to start out with - a possibility that he couldn’t outright dismiss no matter how friendly the family may seem - he could deal with the McClains for now. He didn’t know if he’d actually be able to enjoy himself here, or feel comfortable here, but that wasn’t his priority.

He had given up on the possibility of enjoying or being comfortable in any of his homes. As long as he was surviving in it, that was good enough for Keith.

And he was pretty sure he could survive this one.

#keith #lance #vldgen #vld fic #voltron fic #my writing #fic: welcome to the family

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mimik-u · 6 years ago

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Flower Child, Chapter 10, “Steven”

A/N:

Hi, friends.

I'm incredibly sorry about this long hiatus. Inspiration just... flagged, and it was hard for me to pick this fic back up after days and days of, well, not picking it up.

That being said, I still appreciate every kind word and every Kudos on this fic... and I promise, come hell or high water, I will finish "Flower Child" one day. <3

AO3

—

It was the heat, he tried to tell Pearl as she frantically worked to revive him on the wooden floor, but the words were jumbled on his tongue, stew. Steven could barely keep his eyes open, could only dimly make out her face in the darkness—pale, dripping with her tears, terrified.

“Steven!” she cried, her spidery fingers crawling across his face, his neck, his chest. The sensation was vaguely unpleasant. “Steven!”

It was the heat, Amethyst! I’m fine! I’m fine! Please don’t cry. But the gurgling and the bile percolating like acid in the back of his throat would not assume the form of these words. When he turned his head to the side, he could just make out her bare feet stumbling over one another, her apologies coming in hiccups.

“I-I’m sorry, Steven! I’m sorry! I-I just opened the window so he could hear, and—”

Pearl’s hands suddenly stopped on his chest, her sharp features turning to stone.

“You what now?”

“I-I opened the window, Pearl! He wanted to know what was going on. He had the right to know!”

“It wasn’t your right to make that call,” she snarled, her fingers twisting tightly into his shirt. “Now look at him! He’s—”

I’m fine! As he tried to speak, bile trickled out of the side of his mouth in a thin line. With a tenderness that did not befit the scary expression on her face, Pearl lifted his head gently, so he cough the phlegm out. His face was streaked with it. He was limp in her arms, a rag doll.

“Get it all out,” she whispered, her thumb brushing his burning cheek. “Shh, shh”—for he tried to talk again—“I’m here.”

“Hello, 911?! Yes, yes, this is Greg Universe. My son’s in renal failure, and he just suddenly collapsed, a-and we need to get an ambulance out here immediately…”

“Amethyst, make yourself useful and go get our overnight bags. We won’t all be able to fit in the ambulance.”

It’s not her fault, Pearl—please.

“Yes, we live at…”

“Garnet, can you call Dr. Maheswaran? She’ll… she’ll want to meet us up there.”

“Pearl,” Steven moaned, grasping feebly at her silky pajama shirt. Darkness was closing in on him quickly now, weighing down his chest, his legs, his arms. He clung tight to what he had. His hands looked as distant to him as the stars. The bruises on his arms were little blue nebulas, burning and blurring in equal turns.

Pearl’s head snapped down in an instant.

Her touch was soft, gentle, warm—and he was so cold, freezing.

When did it get so cold in here?

“I… I…”

She tried to shush him again.

“Shh, save your strength—an ambulance is on the way.”

But he wouldn’t be deterred.

His grip loosened, but his words did, too, all of his consonants and vowels slurred with sickness as they tumbled out of his mouth.

“I don’t wanna go to the hospital.”

All those needles and machines.

Poking and prodding and taking something out of him.

At that very moment, he couldn’t quite recall what they did for him.

Pearl’s breath hitched in her throat, but she never stopped dragging her thumb across the side of his face. She was insistent in her touch, almost feverish, perhaps trying to assure herself of his pulse.

“I know you don’t. I know,” she choked out, “but you have to, Steven. It’s the only way.”

He’s heard this one before—time and time again.

Maybe he even believed it to be true.

Laying in Pearl's arms, he couldn't remember if he did.

“I’m so tired,” he whispered.

It was a child’s prayer.

It was an admission.

Pearl’s eyes were wide, pale moons above him, leaking.

“I know, but you have to stay awake, please—at least until the ambulance gets here, okay?”

He swallowed thickly.

He could give her that at least.

“O-okay.”

But as much as he would have liked to stay, Steven fell away from consciousness in the way that stars fell away from the sky.

Like confetti, drifting.

—

If Steven dreamed of anything as he was being transported to the hospital, he dreamed of darkness.

He dreamed that he closed his eyes and never opened them again, his world full of blackness, devoid of any light. He dreamed that he was at his own funeral, and Pearl’s long fingers shook on top of his still chest as she attempted to straighten his little bow tie. Amethyst was crying, and Garnet was crying, and Dad was, too, his red face hidden beneath his big, calloused hands as he sobbed. He dreamed that Lapis buried her nose into Peridot’s neck and that Dr. Maheswaran gripped Connie’s shoulders as Connie gripped her thick copy of My Unfamiliar Familiar. Her little straw wrapper bookmark poked out between the pages he would never get to hear now.

They’d stopped on a cliffhanger.

Her eyes soft, her smile bright, she had promised to read him more.

He dreamed that Blue Diamond sat in the front row, her silvery hair falling across her shoulder in a thick plait.

She was wearing that silky bathrobe of hers.

She twirled a pink hibiscus flower between her fingers as a lone tear slipped down her face and collected on her pointed chin.

Steven dreamed that he was dead...

... and then he woke up.

It was dark when he opened his eyes, not in the way his dream was dark, but dark in the way nights usually were—as though the promise of day just lurked around the corner. As his vision adjusted, he discerned that he was in a hospital room, the lights off, the TV on, a square of orange light slanting in through the crack in the doorway. His entire body was heavy, as though it was weighed down with insistent hands instead of blankets. He tried to wriggle his own hand but found that it was encumbered with wires and tubing.

“Ugh,” he groaned into the darkness, subsequently discovering that his mouth was rather dry.

(Not that he liked to curse, but without a doubt, Steven felt like... poop.)

“Steven?” The mass at the foot of his bed that he originally took to be a pile of blankets suddenly shifted and said his name, which, of course, would have terrified him witless if the light wash from the TV hadn’t happen to flicker across the silhouette at just the right moment.

It was Pearl, and her features were devastated with relief.

“Steven!” She stumbled out of the chair where she’d been sitting and fell next to his head, her lanky arms encircling his neck in such a studiously gentle way that he instantly knew that she wished she could hold him tightly. She was still in her pajamas, he realized with a jolt. Silk brushed against his neck and all of the wires protruding out of it.

He didn’t dare tell her that he was a little sore there, didn’t dare hurt her just a tiny concession to his own sickness more, but fortunately enough, she fell back on her own accord, pressing her elbows into the mattress.

“That’s my name,” he joked feebly, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards into a tired smile. “Don’t wear it out.”

She laughed incredulously, tears glinting in her big eyes, but she wiped at these quickly, her mouth wobbling to keep its smile.

“Silly boy.”

“You know it.”

Steven grinned at her.

(His teeth were like concrete, aching.)

She tried to grin back.

(And that was something, an improvement, at least, on her tears.)

He glanced up at the TV then, squinting to make out the time stamped on the corner of a generic weather channel. It was almost 3AM... he’d passed out around ten if he had to guess.

So much time unaccounted for.

His gaze trailed down to his right arm where a thick tube was laden with some kind of crimson liquid—blood, he realized too many seconds too late. Pearl’s eyes followed his, and her tentative smile collapsed on itself like a balancing act gone wrong. She reached out and laid her hand on his left arm, which was considerably less machinated than the right.

She was so... warm... and he was so... cold.

“Your hemoglobin dropped to a dangerous level,” she explained quietly. “Dr. Maheswaran had no choice but to transfuse you.”

“Oh,” he said. He couldn’t quite draw himself away from the sight. “I... I guess that’s okay. I mean... we knew this was a possibility, right?”

It was a poor man’s optimism, but it was all Steven had in him right now. Pearl’s gaze dropped from the crimson tube to the place where their arms were meeting. Studiously, she began rubbing rhythmic circles into the back of his hand.

“Steven...” He barely heard her. Even the distant hum and buzz from the outside hallway was louder. Someone was tired of working night shifts, and someone needed a mop bucket in Room 11037—stat—and someone was sitting by his bedside, staring at him as though he was already a ghost.

He looked away, eyes flicking upwards towards the ceiling to abate the burning that had suddenly risen in them.

“Just tell me, Pearl... please,” he whispered to the light fixture. “Rip off the bandaid.”

I can take it.

I’ve taken everything else already.

“I… I don’t know if I…”

“Pearl.”

“You’re very sick, sweetheart.” She flinched as she said it; she couldn’t believe it for herself.

“I know.”

He had known for awhile now.

For days, weeks, months.

Tell me something I don’t know, Pearl.

Pearl’s fingers stilled on his hand.

“Dr. Maheswaran wants to keep you here for… for a little while longer.”

He did not skip a beat.

“How long?” (He did not skip a beat, and yet, he was smart, clever—he already knew the answer before it left her mouth.)

She was silent again, agonized, her eyes screwed up against the truth.

Don’t make me say it, the expression said.

With his furrowed brow and grim mouth, he shot back, Why not?

“Pearl… please.”

“Steven—”

“Please," he croaked.

She opened her bright blue eyes; it looked as though it cost her to do so.

“… until we find you another kidney.”

The if was implicit.

—

They unhooked him from the transfusion machine around five, and he fell asleep shortly afterwards, Pearl’s trembling lower lip the last sight his dark eyes lit upon before they succumbed to the utter exhaustion in his body. If Steven dreamed of anything in that lonely hospital room, he dreamed of darkness. He dreamed that he died in the hospital, that he slipped away one night when everyone else was asleep. He was alone, and the white walls were so cold, so sterile. His monitor flatlined, the insistent beeping noise shrilling across the line of his vision like a premonition, a ghost. A scream of discovery dribbled down the air.

Amethyst, he guessed wildly. Or was it Garnet? Pearl? Dad?!

Was it all of them at once?

The sound was agony.

Inhuman.

Steven woke with a start, gasping heavily. The heart monitor whirred in time with his panic, beating a frantic, insistent tattoo.

“Hey, hey, hey—breathe, kiddo!” Where there were once empty ceiling tiles, Dad’s face appeared above him, his bushy brow furrowed in concern, eyes wide with the anxiety he usually tried so hard to hide. He placed a big hand on Steven’s chest in an attempt to regulate his breathing. “Yeah, that’s it, buddy. In and out! In and out.”

In and out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Steven feebly brought his left arm up, up, up... and let it fall against his dad’s as his chest rose and stumbled in short, staccato bursts. His head was light; the touch almost grounded him.

In and out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

In and out.

Inhale.

His fingers curled weakly against his father’s forearm.

Exhale.

Dad's eyes were the color of driftwood, burning bright.

When he could finally catch his breath, Steven did not use it to speak; rather, he closed his eyes, exhausted from even the simple act of trying to breathe. Were his dad not hovering above him, there was a good chance that he’d just pass out again—slip into the familiar nothingness that slipped into nightmares—but slowly, painstakingly, he made himself unclose his eyes.

“Sorry,” he rasped. The gray light pouring in from the window stung him. He tried to focus on his dad’s face, but everything was blurred, fuzzy around the edges. “Nightmare.”

Dad brought his hand from Steven’s chest to his head, resting his palm on top of his curly, black hair. Relief made him look ten years younger, ten years less sad, but the wetness around the corners of his eyes told a different story.

“No apologies needed, champ,” he sighed, a weak smile rippling across his mouth. “I’m just glad you’re”—he hesitated slightly—“okay.”

Of course, okay was not the right word.

Steven tried to return the smile anyway.

(It fell flat in his eyes.)

At that precise moment, though, he was spared from being caught out as Dr. Maheswaran burst through the door, looking, for all intents and purposes, harried. Her salt-and-pepper hair was tied back in a haphazard ponytail, and the usual lines under her eyes seemed harsher, as though someone had run through them with a Sharpie.

“Your heart,” she said gruffly by way of greeting. She barely threw either of them a glance as she proceeded over to the monitor mounted on the wall, arms crossed firmly over her chest as she studied it intensely. “What was wrong with it?”

“Nightmare,” Steven explained again.

“He couldn’t catch his breath,” Dad elaborated further, finally removing his hand from Steven’s curls. “Think he might need oxygen?”

Dr. M pressed a few buttons on the monitor as she nodded tersely.

“Precisely, Universe. Looks like he’s not getting enough oxygen while he sleeps. I’ll get a nurse to come set him up shortly.”

She then swooped down, in a manner vaguely if not exactly hawklike, and briefly looked at the catheter bag poking out beneath Steven’s many blanket layers. It was amazing he hadn’t woken up for that ordeal; when he was conscious, it was rather uncomfortable to say the least.

“Not as much as I’d like,” she murmured, seemingly to herself, “but I suppose that’s to be expected.”

And with that bleak assessment, she straightened back into a standing position, her brown eyes lighting upon Steven properly for the first time.

Looking closely, and knowing where to look, he observed that all of the hardness in them had seemed to melt, like liquid.

For that was the thing about Dr. Maheswaran—she was all bite and no bark—not so much of a conundrum as she was a Russian nesting doll, hiding oh-so-many layers. Her hardened facade was one, and here was another; he could see it in even the way she held her shoulders back, like she was holding something else back in the posture, too.

Something soft.

Something vulnerable.

“I’m glad to see your eyes open,” she said, tucking her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “You scared me for a little while there.”

And maybe he had; her entire appearance certainly attested to it.

“You—scared?” But he'd try to make this old grizzly bear smile anyway; that was his wont. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it, Steven.” Her lips just barely twitched. (He’d take it.) “When Garnet called, I just threw my lab coat over my pajamas and hightailed it up here.” She jerked a thumb over towards his dad. “Greg was there. He can tell you.”

Dad chuckled gamely, lowering himself back into the chair next to Steven’s bed.

“Yup—she got you stabilized all while wearing a onesie.”

“It was a matching two-piece,” she corrected him, “but I digress.”

Steven laughed—how could he not at such a ridiculous image?—but even that proved to be too much on his poor chest. He winced involuntarily, and to his chagrin, the monitor called him out on it, stuttering as he did. Dr. Maheswaran and Dad both collapsed into their former sobrieties as quickly as they had tentatively shed them—stretched rubber bands recoiling.

“I’m going to find a nurse to set up your oxygen,” the nephrologist said suddenly, terse as she ever was but trying too hard to be so. “Universe.” She nodded awkwardly at Dad. “Steven.” Her incisive gaze settled on him for a brief moment before she turned away; he felt pierced through, like an x-ray.

And then she left—(fled)—her white lab coat flaring behind her as she stepped out of the open door. Dad stared at the place her back had been for only a short second more before shaking his head and returning his slow, somber gaze to Steven. There were bags under his eyes, gray whiskers in his beard.

“She was torn up last night,” he murmured, and then, as though it was an afterthought, added, “We all were.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.” It was all he could say. As much as the wires crisscrossing his torso would allow, Steven tilted his head on the pillow, so he could see his dad more easily. The man’s hands were on his lap, limply pointing to the tiled floor.

“S’not your fault, kiddo,” came the mumbled reply.

They were silent then.

It was a small comfort, but Steven’s heart monitor carried on.

—

By eight that morning, the sun was fully peeking out—warm and arresting, falling upon his swarm of blankets in little golden dapples. Steven watched these as the nurse slid the oxygenated cannulas around his ears and into each of his nostrils, and then he watched them some more as she changed out his catheter bag. She hmphed at the less than satisfactory output in the very way Dr. Maheswaran had.

Around nine, his dad left to go find them some breakfast other than the mush that the cafeteria offered, and Garnet came in soon afterwards, her bicolored eyes still edged with the dregs of recent sleep. Attached to the hospital was a hotel that visitors could stay in while they were visiting patients, and only earlier that morning, Dad had made Pearl go join the others for a few hours of shuteye as only one guardian had been allowed to stay with him while he was still being transfused.

Garnet stepped in uncertainly, her discomfort scribbled all across her person in what could have very well been neon for all of her usual subtlety. She wrung her hands in a clear betrayal of the stoicism she espoused on a day to day basis, and she stared at him for what seemed like a long time before she crossed the room and placed her warm palm on his forehead, smoothing away a few of his stray curls. She’d never particularly cared for hospitals, but even still, every time Steven landed in one, she came and stayed anyway.

She was steady like that.

Constant.

“Garnet!” He exclaimed as she patted him.

“Hello, Steven,” she rumbled, her voice rich and soft. (She tended to be the very same.) “How’s my little fighter doing?”

It was a running joke between them. Ever since he’d been small, Garnet had taken him up to the gym from time to time to help her “train” her various clients. This practice ultimately amounted to Steven taking a few concerted shots at a punching bag while his guardian awarded him with a silent thumbs up each time that he did.

You’re a fighter in a whole different way now, she once told him after the diagnosis. Her square chin laying atop of his head, she whispered it into his hair. Keep fighting. Please, Steven.

“Still fighting.” His smile was like a bruise, but it was a smile nonetheless. “But I guess I’m a little worse for wear.”

She was quiet as she absorbed the notion, her gaze flitting from his oxygen cannulas to the multitude of wires springing like roots from his chest—finally landing upon the couple of tubes snaking in and around his arms, red spots already popping up around the injection sites—promises of later contusions.

Garnet brushed her thumb across his forehead one last time before letting go and collapsing backwards into the chair next to his bed in what was more or less defeat.

“Mm, yeah.”

She looked down, her broad shoulders caved in on themselves, fingers templed and fallen between her lap.

That was another thing about Garnet.

She was present—always, without fail—but she could be so very distant at precisely the same time.

Usually, Steven took it upon himself to bring her back, his hand reaching for her hand, his smile a loud invitation home.

Sometimes, he failed.

“Garnet?”

“... yes, Steven?”

And sometimes, he did not.

“Will you come lay down with me?” It was a familiar question, one he asked every time he had a bad nightmare, or every time he landed in a hospital to live through another. In answer, Garnet would curl around his body, her warm arms holding him close.

She’d tell him stories.

She’d hum him to sleep.

She'd be there for him.

And never, would she ever let go.

She stared at him painfully now—well, not him so much as all of the machines that currently swarmed and intruded him. The oxygen filtering in through his nostrils tickled his nose.

“Please?” He intercepted her rational protestations long before she could lay them out with all of her usual practicality. “We can move all this stuff aside—just like before.”

A long pause, long enough that the hum from the outside hallway filled the gap.

Garnet rubbed the heels of her hands against her legs, pulling them back and forth as she mulled the request over.

“Okay,” she finally whispered.

“Okay.”

—

In Garnet’s arms, he slept soundly for the first time since he’d arrived at the hospital.

She was conscientious of every wire, every tube, letting them drift over her shoulder like rivers.

—

One nightmareless hour later, Steven picked feebly at his breakfast to the chagrin of the motley audience who had come to watch him do it: Garnet (still tucked next to him, propping her head upon her fist and her elbow upon the pillow), Pearl, his dad, and Dr. Maheswaran. Amethyst was… missing in action.

(“Last night rattled her,” Garnet murmured in answer to his ensuing question. “She didn’t sleep well.” Pearl was close enough to hear. She shifted uncomfortably where she stood, crossing her arms over her chest.)

“C’mon, buddy,” Dad encouraged, his beard lightly frosted with the yogurt parfait he’d gotten from McDonald’s. “Just another bite.”

Steven stared into the mostly full cup of his own yogurt and tried to envision himself picking up his plastic spoon and shoving another scoop into his mouth. Upon waking up from his nap with Garnet, his stomach had felt full, bloated, as though he’d already eaten a full course dinner.

It was just another symptom in a long litany of many.

Loss of appetite.

Something, something about cytokines, Dr. Maheswaran had wearily explained.

“Maybe later?” He shoved the yogurt backwards on the hospital tray lofted to his height. “Sorry—I’m just not hungry right now.”

He could feel Garnet’s frown better than he could see it at the angle he was laying. It leaned quietly against his shoulder; it worried for him.

He tried to ignore it as best as he could.

“Dad, do you have my phone?”

“Yeah, yeah… it’s in my pocket…”

In the corner of the room, Pearl and Dr. Maheswaran were having a conversation that they believed to be softly spoken.

“UNOS just got his blood work,” Dr. M said. “They’ve moved him up significantly on the list.”

As his dad passed him his phone, Steven worked to listen to what the two were saying, which became increasingly hard as the TV played some stupid jingle about vacuum cleaners, and as Garnet asked Dad about who was taking care of the cats.

Pearl murmured something that he couldn’t quite catch, but her thin mouth floated upwards into a weak smile that collapsed just as quickly as she seemed to realize something.

“But… but what does that say about him, how he's doing?"

Dr. Maheswaran simply shook her head.

Steven's phone buzzed in his hand before he had time to glean any kind of meaning from this tilt of the doctor's head to the shadows in the planes of Pearl's skinny face.

He looked down to see who’d texted him, surprised to find that he had more than a couple of missed messages.

(And, like, thirty notifications from Candy Crush.)

Sunday, 12:09 AM

Group name: Dork Squad

Peridot: Don’t give up, Steven.

Lapis: we’ll kick your ass if you do

Peridot: Yeah, what she said.

Peridot: Text us when you can.

Sunday, 8:24 AM

Connie: Hi, Steven. Mom told me that you were sick. Are you okay? Can I come visit you soon?

Sunday, 10:17 AM

Blue Diamond: Hello, Steven… I drank tea on the balcony this morning and, strangely enough, came to think of you. You would have loved the skyline, I think—all of its many colors. Pink, gold, and blue.

Blue Diamond: But enough about me—have you been well?

At this last message, Steven's chapped lips tilted upwards into a smile, or at the very least, the suggestion of one.

He began to type.

—

Sunday, 10:20 AM

Group Name: Dork Squad

Steven: Hi, guys. Please don’t kick me. :)

Lapis: steven!!!!!

Peridot: STEVEn!

Peridot: You're not dead!

“If we can get him to eat,” Dr. Maheswaran shrugged, “that’d be great, but if we can’t, then we’ll need to resort to something more proactive… a feeding tube, another intravenous line maybe.”

As Pearl opened her mouth to protest, the nephrologist cut across her in a manner that was both curt yet kind.

“I know it seems soon. Hell,” she laughed bitterly, “it seems soon to me… but Steven can take it, Pearl. I’m sure of it.”

If her words were surprising, her next gesture was staggering.

She lifted one of her lined hands and placed it firmly on Pearl's arm.

And to Steven's continued amazement, she squeezed.

Seemingly in spite of herself, Pearl appeared to unbend—just a little, just enough—a wry smile appearing at one corner of her mouth.

“Be careful Priyanka,” she teased. “You're verging on sentiment."

“Oh, shush.”

Sunday, 10:22 AM

Steven: Hi, Connie! Your mom’s in here right now.

“Dr. M, I’m texting Connie! Have anything you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her to tell you that you need to eat more,” Dr. Maheswaran quipped before returning to talk to Pearl.

Steven: She said hi. Come visit me when you can… I’m going to need the company. Bring the book!!

Sunday, 10:27 AM

Hi, Blue, he typed and re-typed into the box. His other well-wishers knew the state he was in, knew where he was and why he was there; Blue Diamond did not. He ate her chocolate cakes and puked them up in her gold inlaid toilet minutes later.

He hadn't told her this.

Didn’t even tell Amethyst.

What could he say?

What did he even want to say?

Hi, Blue. I hope you're doing great! Me? I’m in the hospital on the verge of dying.

No, no, too direct.

Hi, Blue. I’m doing well. How about you?

And that one was both deflective and a lie.

She didn't care much for lying, he knew.

Oh, my boy, she murmured once upon a time, her smile sad, her eyes soft, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been me… and yet, here you are, completely, unrepentantly you.

Completely and unrepentantly, he was Steven Universe... and he wasn't... wasn't doing great.

But he wanted to be.

And that made up for some of the difference.

Hi, Blue, he typed again, his mouth set in a resolute line.

He’d tell her the truth.

Steven: Hi, Blue… that sounds really cool. I wish I could have been there to see it.

Steven: But I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news. :/ I passed out last night and, well, had to go to the hospital. Still here this morning.

Steven: Please don’t worry!

He added as a hurried afterthought.

Steven: I hope you’re doing well!

“Are you feeling okay?” Garnet whispered into his ear. She’d been watching him closely, had been skimming her long fingers up and down his arm, so that he could feel something other than his own coldness. “You look sad.”

He hesitated to respond to her, didn't want to tip off everyone else in the room.

His loss of appetite was one symptom, and his sadness was another.

And it was contagious that one.

Infectious.

So he only nodded.

Garnet, if possible, held him even closer.

Sunday, 11:13 AM

Steven: Hi, Amethyst.

Steven: I miss you.

Steven: Come see me when you can?

I'm okay, he backspaced.

Promise. He deleted that unkeepable word, too.

He texted her later than he did the others because suddenly, without warning, he had begun to spew up yogurt.

#steven universe #pearl #garnet #amethyst #greg universe #priyanka maheswaran #blue diamond #connie maheswaran #lapis lazuli #peridot #s: steven universe #mimik-u #flower child #long post #holy hell - i can't believe this is out

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