#that's why my fics aren't long

[fandomsniper]

I have been sitting on this au for a while now because I got obsessed with this song

and rn I'm putting a trigger warning for underage s3x work and overall stuff in that theme, so u have been warned

it's on ao3 because I went waayyy to overboard, it was supposed to be a quick description but it's over 2k words long 💀

but here you have a bit of it to see if you are interested in reading it

we are starting from the very popular trope of street rat Kallus, him and his family are living in the lowest levels of Coruscant. At that point it's only him, his mom and his older (by 4 years) sister, Kallus' dad died in a work related accident (he was a factory worker so let's say he got crushed by some machinery or something) and his younger brother died from some hardcore pneumonia. Kallus' mom has two jobs that pay absolute shit, his sister can't find anything beside some odd jobs here and there and as a 13 year old all he can really do is pick some pockets and/or steal to try and help his mom and sister. At that age he already hit his first growth spurt so he looks a bit older than he is, what I'm getting at is that one day he tries to pick pocket some flashy dude (which was pretty weird because what is this well dressed guy doing in the slums but who cares, he prolly has a lot of cash) but he gets caught. This guy gets one look at 13 year old Kallus and he can see right through this kid, he grins sweetly at him and starts to play this nice man who wants to help a kid and his family get out of a tight spot so he offers Kal a deal, he will give his mom and sister enough money to get out of this gutter and start a good life and Kallus will perform for him to pay it off. Kallus took the deal, he didn't care what he would have to do because, frankly, he would lie down his life for his mom and sister, the guy actually makes him sign a fucking contract for this. Kallus signs the damn contact and takes the cash the guy gives him, his now boss tells him that both of them are flying off the planet the next day and tells him to meet him right in this spot on that certain time, and he better be there because if he isn't, well, he will need to say goodbye to his precious family. Kal runs back home, gives his mom and sister the money and tells them that he will work off planet for a while, he doesn't know where but he will try his hardest to communicate with them somehow.

the rest is on ao3 :3 but bellow I'm gonna leave some authors notes heh

"well that's all I got, there is so many holes in this, lack of names etc. because I'm on and off about this au. Though, I have a few scenes in my head that are connected to the song itself so I can write those out withe the lyrics they match with if anyone is interested in all of this :))"

also 2 things, I would be happy to hear some feedback form u! I have no one to talk about this so I will be happy about anything :'D, and sorry about any grammar mistakes, I'm kinda brain dead rn pfff

sorry again that it has to be in two separate places, tumblr has a word limit 🙃🙃

[pa-pa-plasma]

you just made the scientific discovery of the century & you want to tell everyone & your kids are first on that list but you can't find them. you manage to get a hold of your daughter & she says everything is fine but her voice gets tight when you try to mention your work & she sucks in a breath & says she won't keep you from it any longer than she already has & doesn't say bye as she hangs up the phone. you have a sinking feeling in your gut & you really want to get back to what you were doing but. something's wrong. where are your kids. why was your daughter not surprised when you told her. why was she so quick to hang up on you. your husband has the same type of mind & that's probably why neither of you can ignore this odd turn of events & so you decide to track them down. the research can wait. after all, the spook got away somehow afterwards. it's not like you have anything to go through but data & recordings.

[katierosefun]

hm maybe i’m going to get flack for this, but i genuinely don’t understand how some self-claimed fic lovers can be the same people who a) pressure and harass writers into producing more and more stories, regardless of their current health or personal lives, b) pressure writers when they aren’t updating fast enough, again, regardless of their current health or personal lives, and c) now, apparently, feed their supposedly beloved writers’ stories into ai bots. it’s becoming incredibly disheartening and clear that some folks don’t care so much about writers and really care exclusively about feeding whatever greedy need they have to just consume.

[arcane-vagabond]

If you're reading this, this is your sign to write that weird/fun AU or trope even if it's been done before.

[doghartzy]

thinkin about the deweys . as always

[wellzofyouth]

That one post of my mine predictably aged like fine wine. Never let somebody on comic twitter in the writer's room😭😭😭 Like imagine a 1 to 1 adaptation of literally any event?? -1b at the box office. "Who are these people???"

[seventh-district]

Could've left me just the way you found me, but you came and put your wings around me. You went out of your way, to fix what you didn't break.

This song is so incredibly Sam & Darlin' coded and no one can tell me otherwise.

[lots of lyrical analysis below the cut] [there's also a short little fanfic blurb of them stargazing down there too (this post got really out of hand lmao)]

For those not fully caught up, note that the following commentary contains various spoilers for Sam and Darlin's stories.

Note: Unfortunately this song is gendered, using the word 'girl' several times. Which sucks a little bit for immersion purposes, not only for keeping Darlin' gender-neutral, but also because I see this song as a duet between them, and Darlin' obviously wouldn't be addressing Sam with the word 'girl' either. So! As with most songs on their playlist, we're just gonna mentally omit any gendered terms we come across.

Side note: Frustratingly, this is one of those songs that didn't really even need to gender the subject in the first place. No part of the story or message is lost without it. But alas, many songs are like that, and so the playlist-makers of the world shall continue to suffer. [/lh]

Anyways, preamble's over. It's lyric time now yay!

Sam's Part

I was a ten-year train wreck

Technically for Sam I suppose it was 13 years, but ten is close enough (and 'ten' admittedly flows a lot better in the rhythm of the song than 'thirteen' would.) Anyways, we're not here to split hairs, (I have to remind myself), we're just here to point out similarities.

In Sam's Dec. '22 HBW, he says "For the last 13 years or so I haven't had to care too much about how I look. Seemed a little redundant after turnin', considerin' I didn't wanna be around much'a anybody anyway."

I think he's mentioned or alluded to that roughly 13 year period of time more than once, but that's the one I remember best so it's the example I'm using. There's still about 4 Sam audios I've yet to listen to as of making this post, so if I'm missing some Key Lore I'll edit this later. But for now, I don't think Sam has given many specifics on exactly how bad things got during that time. Luckily, 'train wreck' is a pretty broad and subjective term, so it easily covers any degree to which he may have fallen apart during those years.

It also feels like a very 'him' way of quickly brushing over the details of his past/his hurt, as he seems to tend to do with Darlin', (not all the time ofc but it's still something I've noticed) putting his own hurt on the backburner to prioritize and attend to theirs. Even outside of his dynamic with them, I think as a healer, it's something he learned to do. And now he does it with everyone. Put on a brave face, compartmentalize things and unpack them later, etc. I could go on and on but there'll be time for that in other posts I'm sure. For now, lets get back to the song at hand.

With a last-call longneck

Due to personal reasons, I've yet to decide if I want to HC him as having used alcohol as a coping mechanism during that time. I don't recall him having mentioned alcohol much, if at all, (maybe one mention of whiskey that I don't have time to find right now) so I don't think it's necessarily canon that he did, but it's certainly possible. My personal preferences aside, I'll admit it makes for some good additional angst. (And- self-indulgently- it makes some other songs on my playlist for them more fitting.) So, for the sake of this song, let's imagine that he did.

I was searchin', I'd been hurt real bad

This one feels pretty self-explanatory given what Alexis did, (and, if you wanna get even angstier with it, whatever his family did earlier on in his life) so there isn't much commentary to add on my end.

I HC that in spite of 'not wanting to be around anybody', he- like Darlin- still had a tiny part of himself buried deep down that was, in a way, 'searching' for someone to find solace in. (No this isn't me projecting onto them both haha what are you talking about-)

Movin' on, gettin' sidetracked One step forward and five back

This is generally applicable enough that I don't feel the need to give too much of a specific example. Anyone who's recovered or is recovering from trauma knows this non-linear, back-and-forth struggle well already, and I'm sure he was no stranger to it.

If I were to give some examples though, I could point to Darlin's (and subsequently, Sam's) encounter with Alexis at the summit, or the shit that Quinn dredged up about Fredrick and threw at Sam in the interrogation room. Those are both more recent examples and I imagine these lines of the song to be coming from a place of him prior to meeting Darlin', but still, they're some instances where I'm sure he felt like the past was pulling him back in. I'm sure that there's been many throughout those 13 years that we were never witness to.

Not your fault, I was scared to fall

This line reminds me of their 'Cuddles and Confessions' audio. I don't think he ever explicitly said he was 'scared' per se, so afaik there's no specific line I can quote, but in that and every audio prior, he was obviously hesitant to admit, perhaps even to himself, that he was gradually falling for them. Even after the initial confession, there's certain limits of his (e.g. biting) that he carries for far longer, and some that I (and others) HC that he'll carry forever. So this line feels to me like him reassuring Darlin' that his reluctance isn't the fault of them, but his past.

Darlin's Part

You were the star in the pitch black Shine the way on the way back

We don't have any canon instances of them comparing Sam to a star, but I can see it being something they'd say (perhaps less poetically, but the sentiment would be there) one night while laying up on their roof watching the stars with him. Maybe they're dead-tired, talking nonsense with lidded eyes at the end of a long day, fighting sleep in favor of more time spent with him.

"What- what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Their hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in their line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above them. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow their less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', their pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along their arm, he takes their hand in his and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." They say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." They nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting them. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

They scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh into their hair. "No- no I mean- like... what's another name for it... Oh! It's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but they cut him off before he can start. "But no- no, this one isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in their overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Their frown is audible in their voice as they latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at their over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, darlin', I promise."

They huff, but thankfully shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention. I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...There you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places 'n people I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, surrounded by the ghost of him. You outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me back home."

In the back of their mind, they recall something they once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can see a star that's already burnt out, because it's light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

They remember Sam's words, once whispered to them on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

They think about dead stars.

They think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand slides up their forearm, pulling them out of their thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

They look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

They reach out, pulling him down into them. Burying their face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear their words, muffled against the thick fabric, but his hearing catches it just fine.

"Don't burn out too quick. Please. I still need you here. I don't- I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

.......Whoopsies! Really, genuinely didn't mean to improv an entire scene there, good god. Also didn't mean to swerve hard into angst at the end but uh. that's what came out! so I'm rolling with it lmao. Aaanyways let's move on, it's getting late and this is a song analysis post, not a fic.

Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers

'Out of nowhere' reminds me of Sam's words from the same HBW video I referenced earlier. "You came into my life like a damn wreckin' ball. There was no preparing for that, clothing or otherwise." While those were Sam's words, not Darlin's, I still feel like they feel similarly to how suddenly Sam came into their life as well. (Not in a bad way, mind you!)

[the significance of 'answered all my prayers' edges into my own personal more headcanon-y/personal/OC-ified Darlin' territory, so we can just gloss over this one for the sake of at least attempting to keep this more universally applicable]

Picked up the towel that I threw in Took in a heart that was ruined

Again, largely self-explanatory I feel. (*proceeds to explain anyways*) I imagine that Darlin' was at the point of throwing in the towel, hellbent on a solo-mission to find Quinn regardless of the danger it posed to them. I doubt they were looking toward the future anymore, (to reference Sam,) fully willing to throw themself at their problems until they really did break.

The specific use of 'ruined' hits hard here, because after everything they went through with Quinn, and especially after he recounted it all to Sam in that interrogation room, I imagine that they really, truly did feel ruined.

Showed me the past ain't a tattoo Loved me even when you didn't have to

These lines in particular make me sick with emotion every time I hear this song, because I feel like they hit the nail on the head for how Darlin' feels.

I'll be here citing various quotes all night that I feel showcase that sentiment, but we don't have time for that! So instead I'm just pointing to the entirety of 'Quinn's Aftermath' video, and leaving you with this single quote from it.

"Everything that he said reflects nothin' on you, and everything on him."

Equally Applicable Lines

And I don't know why Why you saw something in me, baby But you saw right through All the pain, and you came and saved me Yeah, I know you didn't leave me lonely Weren't the one that put the heartbreak on me Picked up the pieces It wasn't the mess that you made Could've left me just the way you found me But you came and put your wings around me You went out of your way To fix what you didn't break

Again, I think these lines are all pretty self-explanatory, and are just as accurate coming from either one of them. To me, at least, their entire dynamic is that they saved each other, in their own ways.

(But I will admit, the final verses about 'going out of your way to fix what you didn't break' are definitely conjuring up memories of Sam in the early days, literally going out of his way to visit and heal Darlin' after their fight with the two vamps. In general, his continued/repeated healing of them after they once again hurt themselves is the very literal definition of fixing what he didn't break.

But! While we may have more blatant examples of Sam being 'the fixer' so to speak, I think he'd argue that Darlin' has done plenty fixing of their own. Physical wounds aren't the only things that need healing, after all.)

-------

[shameless self-promo of my Sam & Darlin' playlist for those few of u interested enough to make it to the very end of this wall of text. if u liked this then u might like some of the other songs on there soooo maybe go check it out and maybe perhaps give it a follow so i can get a little serotonin boost or dopamine or whatever the chemical is that's released when Number Go Up. ...okay that's it i hope u enjoyed my fixation-induced ramblings! thank u and goodnight]

[vmures]

Want to know why I never trust the "protect the children!" crowd?

Almost always the people doing really harmful shit, or even very potentially harmful shit, to children are in that crowd.

They're often the type that circulate actual CSA materials as a bizarre gotcha to people they are bullying and calling pedos (as an example, remember the campaign against ao3 staff a while back were policy and abuse volunteers were getting sent this shit).

They are also frequently the ones to include graphic violence and implied or actual graphic sexual abuse in fics deliberately mislabled as General Audiences and tagged in a way that makes the fic seem like harmless fluff. All because they want to harass a group of people and don't care if children and teens stumble upon it. Technically children shouldn't be on ao3 (at least not as registered users since the ToS require you to be at least 13), and generally I say that it's up to children who do go to ao3 to be careful of what they read and mind the tags and ratings. But how can they do that if you deliberately mistag and misrate your fic.

In short, "protect the children" is more often than not a dog whistle. It can be one for the "we must control our children and everything they learn" crowd (frequently but not always evangelicals here in the US) or it can be one for the "I need a weapon to dehumanize, attack and traumatize those I dislike and this serves as both a weapon and a cover for my harassment and abuse of others. After all, I can just say I'm doing this horrible things to protect innocents even though I'm actually deliberately harming or setting up potential harm to children through my actions." Often it's a mix of the two camps. Ultimately, they don't actually care about children, it's just a nice smokescreen.

[manofthepipis]

One thing that I’ve been thinking about is a possible route(?) this story could go, and that is Spamton’s trip to the Ambyu-Lances’s office. And boy do I feel bad for the Addisons because it’s gonna be hell on earth for all of em. Spamton has the mentality of a feral cat and this feral cat is going to the vet in the first time in forever. I don’t think Spamton is a big fan of large syringes, and when you have one of those chasing you down because well, look at him. He’s a walking talking corrupted program. If masters his glitches like Survey says, I can totally see him glitching through the doctors to make his grand escape™️. I feel like all the Addisons are gonna have to be here for both moral support, as well as making sure that he doesn’t attack his doctor. (Maybe they’ll sedate him a little? I know that’s what some hospitals do with rowdy-er patients LMAO, but then the Addisons have a whole new problem on their hands because now Spamton is high as a mf kite or something 😭) the last time I was under anesthesia my doctor said I wouldn’t stop laughing until I burst out into uncontrollable sobs and then I immediately blacked out💀

god a trip to the doctors office would be hell in a handbasket for this guy ;v; because he 100% has the energy of a feral cat finally being checked out

though i think once he gets closer to the addisons he'd agree to go, just to see if he can be set back to normal (spoiler alert: he can't cuz fate has handed his ass the bad luck card from square one) but he immediately regrets it and the addisons have to calm him down

them sedating him would probably be the best course of action as to actually get ANY results (because he will bite and attack on instinct hfjkkdjfkks)

though i feel if i were to write an ambyu-lance scene in the future this is how id imagine it would go:

[sysig]

Gotta sweep up all this Dust (Patreon)

[non-cannon]

I am so incredibly grateful that the way I day dream about fics and the way I write them are different. (and if you read any of my fics you should be grateful too)

If I wrote the way I day dream my fics would be 20% complex fight scenes that would be hard to make sense of on paper, 20% heart breaking angst that only makes sense if everyone is out of character*, and 60% one character ooc info dumping exposition with several tangents while doing something with their mouth and hands that isn't smoking a cigarette tm.

*It's amazing how much of my angst falls apart the moment I force the characters to be in character. So all of the angsty AUs I've posted here, those are the one's that survived being in character.

[ghostoffuturespast]

Being a writer is weird.

[thevioletcaptain]

someday soon i'm going to post several 10k+ deancas fics on ao3 all at once because i'm deranged and didn't want to start posting any of them until they were complete, but that also means that they'll probably all be done at the same time. or maybe i should stagger them over a week or something. we shall see. anyway, lotta words incoming.

[yellowocaballero]

ok so im not very far into trigun (which. you convinced me to read/watch) but ive seen you talk about vash as a christ/messiah figure which. means im kinda obsessed with how you described his impact on the world in no name on the bullet (christ healing the lame, christ feeding the thousand... christ delivering his people from evil.) did you have any specific biblical references you kept in mind while writing?

i also think its super interesting how the fic seems to focus more heavily on healing as opposed to how (what ive seen of) trigun is a lot more gunman focused - is part of that influenced by how knives is a pacifist in a "cold turkey" way, or a choice on your part? i think it makes an interesting dichotomy, christ the gunman and satan the physician

I've gone my entire life without recommending Trigun to anybody, because I always felt it was too weird and ultra-violent and love-it-or-hate-it to actually ask people to watch it. Look at me now. Getting at least 3+ people into it. Boo boo the fool. Also I'm sorry that this response is so long skull emoji.

I'm ex-Catholic so you have asked the right question lol. Vash is very inspired by the Old Testament God. I have a strong mental image of him obsessing over the Noah's Arc story in his cute children's Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah is brought up again much later, in an extremely important way. Garden of Eden and Paradise, as the show does. The Plagues where every firstborn son dies. These is all imagery that Vash specifically evokes on purpose. Vash...uses the Bible to understand his own experiences and feelings and desires (that's the most neutral way to phrase it), but like a lot of people he uses the Bible/God partly as justification for his actions. God destroys cities for being sinful, and Vash is the closest thing to God this planet has, so he's entitled lol. God Complex McGee up in here.

And Vash's cult has no Jesus, because there is no forgiveness for humanity, and no way for them to be saved. Which is how you know that Vash's Jesus-ey actions as described in the story are very deceitful on a lot of different levels. Kind of like regular Vash lmfao - as I said earlier, he's VERY much also a messiah deconstruction. Vash is a pacifist partly because he needs it - he needs to be believed that people can be saved, that the world can be good, that nobody has to die, because otherwise the world is nothing but an endless parade of misery and death and his own suffering. It's about saving his own soul, and the memory of Rem.

For me, on a writing level: Cain and Abel, obviously. 'My brother's keeper'-ass mofo lmfao. It's more themes for me, though - redemption, salvation, forgiveness, original sin, sin in general, guilt, fate. Knives is pretty obsessed with all of these topics. I make fun of him for it. None of it's healthy. But Knives embodies a few other Christian ideals that I don't make fun of him for, such as the importance of good works and good actions, and dedicating his life towards helping others without the desire for a reward. There's also some subtle 'shepherd and his sheep' stuff going on later.

Re: the gunfights: can you IMAGINE Knives carrying a gun. He is WAY too proud of his own #biologicalsuperiority and #ultimatelifeform and #impenetrabledefense (literally Shadow AND Gaara-ass mofo) to rely on cheap human trinkets like guns lol.

The plot has more action than my usual (yay! - that was what I was working for lol), but it's based off the skeleton of the Stampede plot, which is genuinely a lot more space opera than Western and as such its action looks different. Turns out that when you remove the Gung Ho Guns from a story, there are a LOT LESS gunfights, lmfao (I don't know what kind of errands Vash sends the GHG out on, I am afraid to find out). So partly there's less gunfights because a) Stamp plots don't require too many gunfights, and b) without a Gunman (TM) there's no reason for the group to use guns to solve their problems if at all possible.

It's also just that, basically, Vash's plots are partly man vs self and partly man vs other. When a character is level 99, the tension of the fight scene isn't if they'll win the fight - it's if they'll win the fight under their self-imposed conditions. In Vash's case, the Q in every gunfight is 'can Vash win the fight and save people without compromising his principles?'. For Knives, he is so ridiculously OP that it's impossible to write a fight scene with genuine tension, and he doesn't care nearly as deeply about casualties. So the most engaging plotlines for Knives are entirely man vs self, which tends to shake out into a lot of trolley problems lol. That's the answer to your Q from a writing perspective.

So it's mostly a choice for plot/writing reasons. But YUP the dichotomy is SUPER JUICY, and the fun part of the story is reading the Ultimate Killing Machine be forced to do literally anything else than Ultimate Kill - to do the only thing he wasn't meant to do. Because doing what he was meant to do reduces him to a biblical figure instead of a person - it makes him just a devil, who's never exercised the free will God gave him, and as such can't be called sentient. It's not what Rem would want. And it's a very juicy juxtaposition to somebody who interprets his own meaning in life as a Christ figure as a divine compulsion to brutally murder orphan.

[nostalgia-tblr]

but what will i do now i dont have to look up obscure shite about anglo-saxons to then not put it in the fic anyway???

[justplainsalty]

How Soon is Now? 🌻

Me, wading through the angst muck like a pig in shit ☝️. I would not make this a song fic but it would be multichap and every chapter would have an epigraph with a section of lyrics.

[Insert footage of me deleting and rewriting this several times.] TIME FOR BULLET POINTS.

Tess falls pregnant in September.

Unfortunately, she does not realize this until early December. She had assumed she was pre-menopausal, and food has been scarce. She's happy to not have periods.

She and Joel have been busy, busy prepping for winter, doing as many runs as possible, stashing food away so they can survive until spring.

[More under the jump.]

She has an IUD. Had an IUD. It was due to expire anyway, but turns out it fell out sometime during her last two extremely hellish periods, when she'd been stuck shivering and groaning over the toilet for hours. (Thank god those only happen a few times a year.) She figures it all out when her breasts are tender and she can't feel the strings anymore.

Unfortunately part II, FEDRA requires pregnancies be registered, and bans abortions for people who fall pregnant from August through November. They have to keep up enough population to feed their supply chain, and the summer months are when resources are most plentiful for supporting births and families newborns.

Tess will have an abortion, one way or another. She refuses to be pregnant, refuses to go through that misery again, especially at her age, refuses to put their work on pause and leave Joel without a partner, refuses to risk death during the delivery process, refuses to bring a child into this fucking hellscape world.

She doesn't tell Joel any of this. She'll figure it out on her own, as soon as possible; he doesn't need the weight of this burden on his shoulders. And maybe, a part of her doesn't want to face what it would do their relationship. She doesn't know what the consequences will be, but she knows they'll show up if she doesn't act fast, and there will be a reckoning.

She starts taking more risks during their runs, and during their daily life -- drinking more, going out without Joel more, taking the more physically demanding route around and outside the QZ, provoking the people in the slums known to be happy to swing a fist at anyone so she can put herself in that path. She won't go to one of the dirty back-alley butchers with unsterilized tools. She'll figure this out on her own. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Joel calls her out on it one day, and it's the knock-down drag-out fight of a lifetime. He gets her backed into a figurative corner. And the truth comes out.

Joel turns white and storms out. Tess gives him a minute, and then snatches up a bottle of moonshine that was for trade and storms out in the opposite direction. She won't wait at home for him to slink back, shitfaced and having whatever reaction he's going to have. She's glad Tommy is gone, if he was still here, Joel would be tempted to tell his brother.

She stays out as late as possible, going nowhere in particular, just stalking their usual paths around the QZ, ducking the checkpoints. It's so much harder without Joel, she'd forgotten.

By the time she gets back, she's hammered. She lies down on the cold, refreshing, disgusting tile of their bathroom and hopes, just this once, not to wake up in the morning. Her arm and the tile beneath her are wet. She's not crying, is she?

Joel is back the next morning. They're both hungover, so prickly with each other. It's not forgiven, and it's not forgotten. Even if they somehow seem to be in consensus that this pregnancy is bad and should be terminated, Joel's reasons feel so much more personal. He never wanted to be a father again. He doesn't blame her for getting pregnant, but he blames her for not telling him until whatever date it is, late December or early January. She doesn't understand why it's the case, but somehow, for him, that's worse. And he blames her for the foolhardy way she's been acting. And probably, on some level, the anger is probably covering up for his fear, so it's particularly vicious. It's hard not to take it to heart. He's angry at her. She starts to withdraw, to lash out. To assume everything from him is said and done backhandedly.

They don't patch it up. It's approaching February. Tess is probably close to five months along. Her body is changing; it remembers her last pregnancy from a lifetime ago, when her son was born, and is trucking along fast enough that she's looking quite far into the pregnancy. She hates every single day. Time is running out for her, for them.

As with everything in their lives, the best luck and the worst luck seem to collide and happen at the same moment:

Someone she crossed has snitched. One of their regular FEDRA clients warns them that FEDRA is coming to pick her up, now, tonight, to put her in custody until she can be screened by an OB/GYN, and possibly to be kept in "protective custody" until her little parasite is born.

They're out at a drop. Someone has changed their mind, doesn't like the terms. Ammo has been scarce this far from FEDRA patrols, so no one has guns.

Someone comes barreling at Tess. Normally Joel would step in front. He meets her eyes, looking sick, and steps aside, faking a stumble.

He lets them hold him back, sagging in their grip. His eyes and face are dead. He has gone away somewhere else.

She wakes up in FEDRA custody. She hurts all over. That fucker was thorough.

There's a doctor, comes in with a clipboard and a falsely sympathetic expression. No heartbeat. Sick relief warring with strange and unwelcome shame. Not for what she'd done, but for the how. For the expression she'd seen on Joel's face. For the fact that she'd put too much stock in blissful ignorance and gotten pregnant in the first place.

The FEDRA fuck can't keep her mouth shut:

Her fetus, their child. It was a boy.

A son, an heir, of their nebulous and unstable empire, of things that could be snatched away at a moment's notice, of nothing in particular.

Send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it!