#the idea was another General Allen but his hair is already so long in canon it just seems normal lmao

[m-kyunie]

changed my mind I do want to post this here

[harmony283]

[DGM] A Shoulder to Cry On

A/N: So obviously I’ve been dead here the last couple of months. Obvious reasons should be obvious. Trying to get back into the swing of writing (again), starting with this: something I actually wrote literally a week ago. So technically it was in time for Kanda’s birthday.  Thank a1y_puff for the inspiration (based off some fanart she showed me). Sorry if there are any canon discrepancies! I tried my best. 

Also on Ao3

[DGM] A Shoulder to Cry On

Pairing: Kanda/Allen (if u squint)  If this was any other time, Kanda would be pointing out that Allen still wasn't as tall as him. If this was any other time, Kanda would be giving a snide remark, probably even pulling away, but it wasn't. Because now, despite the cold air and the fact they both were worn out (and slowly, slowly healing in his case) from the recent Akuma attack, Allen was tall enough to easily prop his head on his shoulder. He’d just gotten done telling…one possible version of his childhood and if what he needed was a shoulder to lean on? Then fuck it, Kanda would give him that.

It wasn’t like anything could get more awkward between them. In fact he was pretty sure they were long past that stage, even if this would be considered a fair exchange. After all, Allen hadn’t exactly asked to see his shitty backstory—it just happened because of mind-reading manipulative Noah’s. Even now, the reason Kanda was here was because of that. Because even if he wanted to die—to be given that choice to die? He couldn’t.

He owed him.

So a listening ear and a shoulder were easy extras to give. He’d already been risking his life before now, it wasn’t like he was going to fucking stop.

Suddenly Allen let out a watery-sounding laugh against his shoulder and reached out with one hand, twisting it in the fabric of his Exorcist jacket like it was a lifeline, “Thanks.” He muttered, followed by a soft, “Sorry. Give me a minute.”

Kanda snorted but remained still, it wasn’t like standing here was going to kill him. All the Akuma had either fled or been cut down and while the threat of an actual Noah approaching was always very real, Allen hadn’t given them any indication of their whereabouts (having run so far from the actual location the Akuma spawned from). Even Kanda’s golem, who’d flown off in search of Tiedoll and Johnny, hadn’t shown back up. Granted Kanda wasn’t exactly sure, still, how far away they were. Allen had given him the name of the town, but Kanda never had a reason to learn geography and he wasn’t going to start learning now.

They didn’t even know where they were going to begin with.

It was when Allen actually shivered that Kanda realized fuck it was getting dark out. They at least needed to start a fire, or find shelter of some kind. While their jackets were definitely durable, they’d been forced to use the Ark and it had gone based off feelings, not necessarily anything else—which meant it didn’t fucking care that their shit was still probably with Tiedoll in that Innocence Carriage. They also didn’t have any money either, and Kanda only had so many buttons left of his jacket before that would be gone too.

“Oi,” He started, making Allen jerk just a little, “We need to get somewhere warmer. We’re close to town—”

“And it’s not a good idea to go back.” Allen sighed into his shoulder before finally pulling away, his eyes were a little red, but Kanda chose to ignore that when he finally turned around to watch him, “Yeah.” He ran a hand through his longer-than-normal bangs, “I’d say maybe there’s a cheap inn somewhere, I still have some cash—somewhere.” He fumbled around a few of his pockets with a frown before pulling out a wad of cash. “Won’t last us long but maybe a room for the night—if you don’t mind sharing.” He hesitated here, smiling a little bashfully and honestly? Fuck after everything—

“It’ll give us time to plan our next step.” Kanda decided it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Even if Allen meant sharing a bed and not just a room. They’d been on enough missions before, though usually they were able to get their own rooms on those. “Okay. Lead the way. You know where we are.”

Even if he still technically didn’t spend a lot of time here, it’d been memorable enough to send them here. Though Kanda had a feeling Allen had left some details out in his backstory (the abridged version, possibly) he knew better than to point that out. He wasn’t that much of an asshole.

Just like Allen was doing a good job of not pointing out the whole fact that Kanda came back. Out of ‘duty’. Kanda didn’t really want to elaborate either. So they were at a stalemate. A perfect amount of information exchange to be able to work together. If that would hold? Well, they’d find out or Tiedoll would find them first. Kanda hadn’t realized how important Johnny was until he was no longer here, hell, was Link still following them? If so then what? There were just as many unknowns to stack up against the knowns—and Kanda knew there would only be more.

They had a destination, though: a place to get to.

But for now they just needed some place warm.

***

The inn was just about as shitty as Allen warned it would be. It was one bed, a desk, a chair, and a door that led to a small, thankfully private, bathroom. Clearly meant for only a nights' stay—no more. Unless they expected them to just not take a shower. Not that Kanda minded being dirty, it was a necessity that came along with traveling. He also knew they got the best of the best with The Black Order so he wasn’t going to complain, especially when right now that status wasn’t doing him any favors. But at least they were warm without their jackets on, so Kanda could at least take it off for now—and wait for his turn in the bathroom. He’d already chosen a side of the bed, and was now lying on it, wondering yet again what their next plan of action was. His golem was trained specifically on him, and especially if it found Tiedoll? He knew it would be able to find them here.

He could only hope it happened quickly. Tiedoll could only give his help for so long before the others got suspicious. While it was just like Kanda to go off and do his own damn thing, Tiedoll? Had been a General for much, much longer. His goal would be something different. Yes, maybe he knew there would be help in branches Kanda wasn’t even aware of, but The Order definitely didn’t seem like one of them. Who the fuck knew what they’d do to Allen if they captured him again? Killing him almost seemed too easy.

And if they tried, would Neah come out? Would Neah come out now? Kanda was certain he could handle it, hell Tiedoll could too. But Johnny almost died, and of course Neah would know to go for the weakest link first, so he’d have to make sure Tiedoll knew that too. Fuck. They hadn’t had a chance to talk very long, had they? No. Not enough at all.

The water shutting off and the door clicking open was enough to snap Kanda back to the present. Allen came tumbling out, looking half-dead, with his hair slightly damp around his face. He was still awake, though, but only barely. “All yours.” He mumbled, easily stumbling over to the other side of the bed before sitting down on it. He didn’t even seem to care that Kanda was still lying there.

Not that Kanda would make him sleep on the floor, and not that Allen would make him sleep on the floor either. Not that Kanda was about to bring that up, he knew he’d at least not be sore in the morning but still. A bed was much nicer than the damn floor. It was only when he didn’t move immediately that it seemed to dawn on Allen exactly what their position was. Immediately he glanced over, almost warily, but when their eyes met? Whatever Allen saw, it definitely didn’t make him move.

He’d never been afraid of him, had he?

At least now that was a good thing.

Kanda met his gaze steadily, before nodding his head and shifting off the bed. Like Allen he made quick use of the bathroom, and even made sure to splash his face with water much like Allen did. It was enough to wake him up and to remind him yes it’s fucking cold outside before he made his way back into the room. Allen was still sitting where he had been, moments before, and almost looked like he was about to drift off to sleep when Kanda muttered, “At least get under the covers. Weren’t you cold?”

Maybe he should have been louder, because Allen jumped, then floundered for a second, before grabbing onto the side of the bed, “Oh. Right.” He glanced down then back up at Kanda, “I can—”

“Take the floor?” Kanda snorted, “It’s just for one night. It won’t kill me to share.” Maybe he, again, needed to work on his word-choice, because the look on Allen’s face quickly morphed to concern. He could see the question bubbling up on his lips and knew—he had a few seconds to either deflect, or actually maybe answer the goddamn question because—

Would it really be so bad?

“How are you not dead?” Granted it was asked much quieter than Kanda expected. In fact the look on Allen’s face shifted between so many emotions (some, not so good) that he couldn’t even pinpoint it before he continued, “I mean. I know you heal, but that was—I thought you’d—”

“—Died?” Kanda snorted and walked over to the bed, sitting down on the edge Allen wasn’t on and sighed, “I couldn’t. I told you that. Not yet. I won’t until this is over.” For whatever given value of ‘over’ it was. Until Allen died? Probably. Until they killed the Noah? Maybe. Found out the meaning behind them? Behind what Neah was here for? Another maybe. There were so many fucking maybe’s Kanda wasn’t sure. He just knew this life? Was now not entirely his to give away. “I heal slower. But I always have been, since before.” He knew Allen had seen those past memories, of him losing a fucking arm and laughing about it. He knew what he used to be able to heal from, and he wasn’t stupid. “I’ll be careful.”

“No you won’t.” Allen blurted out, “I mean, I’m glad—you’re here. Helping.” He glanced away for a second like the words were still hard to get out. He was probably thinking of what he told him—the story he shared, the memories that were still pretty fucked up, and definitely not normal for any kid to experience probably, but still one of a supposedly normal young boy—“And I know you’re not just going to stop. You’re going to keep following me. If—Tiedoll finds us, you’d even still follow me after that. Even if it doesn’t work out.”

Kanda shrugged. The answer was obvious at this point, even if it was also probably stupid.

“Would you die if your Innocence turned against you?” Now that question was a bit more out there. Not exactly something Kanda had been expecting.

“Ask Komui, not me.” Not that they’d probably ever see the guy again, “He probably knows. Or Bak does.” After all he still had the files on hand, of exactly how he was ‘made’, and again the Innocence hadn’t exactly killed him back then, either. Now, with the Crystal Type? The only other user was Lenalee. She was still at the Order, technically still doing what the Innocence wanted, “If I become a Fallen is up to it, too, I guess.” Who the fuck knew what the Innocence was thinking, “Are you worried?”

“Yes!” Allen snapped, “Yes! Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be? It’s in your blood!” He held his arm up here, almost like he was making a point, “I might, too. Maybe. I don’t know if it’s even possible for a Noah to wield Innocence,” A ghostly look passed over his face and for an instant Kanda remembered—

Those scars he had. The scream of pain.

 Yes, Innocence fucking hurt Noah’s. He was an oxymoron if there ever was one. At least in theory, even though Kanda had his own body, his brain (and in theory, the vague memories he had because of them) was connected to the Innocence that was now in his Blood. That was the whole point of the 2nd Exorcist project. To see if the compatibility was connected to the brain. In the end it had been forced out, or possibly connected just out of sheer need.

Allen had two different people residing in him entirely. The Noah Neah, and those memories, and Allen Walker—the boy who possibly was only a fabrication of a person to begin with. He didn’t know, Kanda didn’t know, Cross may have known something—all of which leading up to now.

 Fuck.

Kanda took a deep breath before holding his arms out, so Allen could see the scars the Innocence made, “I don’t know.” He answered, “My healing has slowed down, and I haven’t done anything yet to go against it.” He thought for a moment, “Suman, right? He exchanged information for a while before he was found out. I don’t know the exact requirements it chooses—but that’s still time. Time we can use.” They already needed to hurry for other reasons entirely. This was just another tick mark in that column.

Allen still looked distraught, though, and for once Kanda couldn’t be too irritated with him, because he understood why. Of course he did, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew how Allen was—he didn’t want anyone to suffer, even if that meant taking on twice as much suffering in their place. “I’m not a martyr like you.” He finally muttered, lying back on the bed, all while feeling Allen’s eyes on him, “I’ll tell you. If I notice anything. Now you need to sleep. If Tiedoll finds us in a few hours I’m not carrying you if you’re tired.” 

[peppersandcats]

In reply to my comment on 'Bad Wisdom' you said: "Am always happy to try and discuss where my characterization comes from... or why I wrote him as acting as he does, and completely understand that there's room for other people to read him differently." And this does fascinate me, because you take a very minor character (at least, in the TV show) and really bring him to life. Does your characterisation of Axel mainly come from his comics version? Or is it mainly improvised, or a combo of both?

It’s nearly entirely prompted by the TV show, but I tend to go off in funny directions when given prompts.

(Something I feel I should make clear: the TV show brought me to the comics, not the other way around. I did not know who the Flash was before the TV show, beyond “fast guy in a red suit I remembered from one comic book panel”. I had never heard of Captain Cold. I didn’t know Barry Allen and Iris West were a thing, let alone a One True Thing. I didn’t even recognize who Barry Allen was when he showed up on Arrow.)

(I had somehow picked up that there was a thing called the Speed Force and that it made liquids float, and when the light of my life showed me the trailer that was actually what made me realize that I was watching a trailer for The Flash. The guy named Barry, the lines about a good heart and fast legs, the guy in the lightning? Vague nagging sense of familiarity. Floating liquids in a vaguely lablike setting? That tipped me off.)

(The LOML despairs of my awareness of pop culture.)

I have done some reading since; I generally characterize my knowledge as patchy, although I remember what I have read fairly well. I’m sure I’ve put in a couple of nods to the comics as I’ve read them (e.g. I know that his hair being blond when he was younger was a direct nod to that), and there are obviously parallels (Axel in the comics I’ve seen is almost always portrayed as a kid trying to live up to and get to be a part of something, and that’s blatantly in the show), but most of my headcanon for TV!Axel is either based off the TV episode, or at least checked to make sure it doesn’t contradict it.

From the TV show, boiled down to something coherent and stripping out the extra paragraphs of justification because they meandered, here’s what I got about Axel:

He is incredibly devoted to TV!James Jesse, who I feel comfortable summarizing to people who don’t watch the show as “basically the Joker.” (Let me tell you, when I started looking into the comics, I had so much to unlearn about James Jesse. So. Much. Thanks, Mark Hamill.)

Between Axel’s devotion and his desire to be like Jesse, Jesse’s master-manipulator schtick (talking a criminal psychologist into killing himself based on weekly visits), and the fact that this has been going on for ten years, we can assume that the interaction was deeply affecting pretty early on. A lot of things people do when they’re fourteen or fifteen get dropped pretty fast, in the grand scheme of things; a fifteen-year-old who kept up a relationship for ten years, especially one where exchanges were conducted at the relatively glacial pace of postal mail (as opposed to, say, texting), was one who was really into it.

(A lot of this, by the way, is me trying to articulate the gut reactions I went with. I am doing that thing humans do where they make a decision and then explain it; I think I am managing to give you a fairly accurate explanation of how my thoughts ran, but I can only do so well.)

This means that the fifteen-year-old teenager who was getting obsessed with a serial killer managed to successfully hide it from everyone who should have been keeping an eye on him; either he’s really good at hiding things or he didn’t have a lot of close adult supervision. I figured the latter was a bit easier to swallow and easier to swallow was easier to write (I am still trying to settle entirely comfortably on how the hell Jesse found Axel in the first place; I’ve got a couple of semi-solid ideas, but nothing set, so I tend towards keeping the rest of it simple), and there are already enough actively terrible parents in the Rogues, so I went with Axel not having parents present (biological or foster) and figured he grew up in state care.

Kids who age out of foster care are not often given a lot of support.

Incidentally: I (largely - I have one counter-example head-canon that I want to write up) do not believe that Jesse is Axel’s biological father; I ramble about why here, but it boils down to “that is a perfect example of a cold read and given everything you have shown me about the Trickster this episode like hell I am believing him thank you”.

Furthermore, I get the appeal of true crime geekery, but I would not write to an actual serial killer, and would expect that the general reaction would be shock and disquiet if I did. From this I’m figuring that Axel not only didn’t have much attentive supervision, but he did not grow up with a lot of close/concerned friends; either he scared people off, or he kept up a normal facade but kept the really important thing in his life a secret from everyone. (I went with both. Both is good.) This isolation also meshes with the kind of distance from other people that I feel would be necessary to bring yourself to drop bombs on small children, even if the most important person in your life was asking you to do it. (Would you do it for the most important person in your life? Like, not to save their life but as part of a plan to rob people? No? Yeah, me either.)

So far, what you’ve got is a kid who cares about Jesse, only cares about Jesse, and has not particularly bonded with social norms of behaviour.

But in a counterpoint to this… well, I can’t really imagine Axel sitting still much; he cackles, he preens, he slinks, he threatens, he giggles, he moves. So he gets a letter, he reads it, he writes a response, and then… he waits for two or three days? Five, if there’s a weekend in there? Longer, if whoever’s sneaking letters out from Jesse needs a little extra time? Axel doesn’t seem like someone who’d just sit around; I feel like he must have been doing something during the between times, and recreating a 2010s version of Jesse’s costume would only take so much time. Plus he was twenty-five; since I’ve already written off the idea that he was living with parents, he has to have been able to function well enough with people to earn money, pay rent, buy food, and avoid leaving any police records worth mentioning. Admittedly everyone on the CW is TV-pretty, but Axel does look like he’s putting resources and time into maintaining himself. He doesn’t look like a guy who over the last ten years was regularly forgetting to eat or brush his teeth or get out of bed because he’s been spending the last two days rereading this week’s letter, you know?

So: only cares about Jesse, no real attachment to social norms, but is capable of interacting with others in a sustainable way. He seems to enjoy getting reactions out of people (I think it was @notsolittlegirlevenmorelost who first made the observation to me that no-one becomes the Trickster because they’re shy), but I’ve got no reason to think he’s stupid, he was a kid without the full and active attention of a guardian, and he doesn’t have any police records worthy of mention when the cops identify him. It seems reasonable to conclude that he learned early that there are times you need to limit how much you annoy people who have more power than you - no-one else was guaranteed to be looking out for him, and yet we’ve got no indication that he ever faced significant social or societal consequences for his (probably unacceptable) behaviour. I get that this last is fully into “not contradicted by the show” rather than “actively based on it”, but hey, it works for me.

(He reads as younger than twenty-five to me, honestly; and the kind of guy who has access to a “Felicity-caliber scrambler” might also have a plausible way to change records of his legal age (or, re my earlier point, have erased arrest records). But I still read him as an adult; that’s partly the actor’s age, partly that none of the cops looking at the Trickster II react as if he’s a kid. He’s childish, but you can get childish adults.)

Another thing I got from the show (cheers to Devon Graye’s acting; really, I think he did a great job with very little screentime) was that he doesn’t seem like he’s planned out a lot of what he’s doing. He’s got a kind of “oh come on now, you suck” reaction to getting arrested, which might be not wanting to look weak or might suggest that he isn’t exactly focussed a lot on consequences. Look at his expression when he blows a hole in Iron Heights - it’s very “I need to turn this corner, and then move forward ten feet, and okay now I press the button, and– oh 💥holy💥shit!💥”; I don’t read it as smug, I read it as thrilled. He’s going into the plan without fully understanding it (e.g., Henry Allen’s kidnapping) and he’s okay with this. I ran with this as someone who can be extremely comfortable with living in the moment. He’ll play the long game for Jesse - he’ll do anything for Jesse - but left to himself he doesn’t seem especially driven. He comes across as someone who’d be happy with a kind of kid-in-a-candy-store live-in-the-moment life (and that would be convenient because it wouldn’t result in any attachments that conflicted with what Jesse wanted of him, either).

Finally - and this is not due to the episode, but there’s room for it in the episode because James Jesse is presented as such a powerful influence - I write him as not trying to hurt people unless they’ve hurt him first. I think he’s an extremely dangerous person to be around, and someone who doesn’t really care about people in the abstract. But between the kind of laissez-faire attitude to not-Jesse things and the fact that he can function to some degree around other people, I figured he was capable of being at least casually or superficially social, and he doesn’t actively dislike people, he just reads himself as being nicer or smarter than most of them. (This is a comfort-based decision; there is a limit to the amount of fun I have writing people who are actively malicious and sadistic, and I didn’t feel like doing it. Also I kind of love unreliable narrators, and Axel Walker genuinely believing that he’s a nice person in any kind of objective sense makes me giggle gleefully.)

I think that’s most of it, or at least most of it for the moment. Hope it was kind of interesting?

[justanoutlawfic]

Have you already done Wooden Swan?

WhI have not and I will do it for you now!

Name: Allen Booth-Swan

Gender: Male

General appearance: Dark curly hair, dark brown eyes. He’s pretty tall. He likes to dress in long trench coats and wrinkle tops. He can’t wait to take his uniform off after school and has begged his godmother, Regina to get rid of them, but to no avail.

Personality: He’s a little shit, always trying to stir up some drama or another. He works for the school newspaper and is the kid that’s always there early and leaves late. He started drinking coffee at a young age and can’t make it through the morning without least one cup. Not so good when it comes to other people, but he’s okay with that.

Special talents: He’s an incredible writer. His father and brother have always encouraged him to write and he can whip out stories. He actually writes popular fanfiction, even some on classic fairy tales, including his father and parents’ stories. The people of the real world don’t understand why he ships Pinocchio and the Swan Princess so much…

Who they like better: He’s really close with August, but he has found a new appreciation for Emma as a teen.

Who they take after more: August.

Personal head canon: He’s asexual and likes the idea of true love, when it comes to family. He says they’ll be the only true loves he ever has.

Face claim: Penn Badgley

Send me a pairing and I’ll tell you what their child would be like. :)