#which hopefully helps clear the writer's block

[sinkingtime]

Remaking the DCU Gaiden 2: Electric Boogaloo

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. I do have more stories I want to add to this, but there's a particular scene transition that's been kicking my ass for a few months, now.

So instead here's a bunch of additional lore, of the "canon but probably wouldn't come up onscreen" variety.

Correction: Pink Lanterns

There are no such. They are supposed to be called "Violet Lanterns". Sorry, Violets.

Correction: Kryptonian and faux-kryptonian lasers

When Supergirl first got her ring, I had her laser it intensely with both eyes. Kinda imagined her crossing them so the lasers converge. But if they can do that, it wouldn't make sense for Wonder Woman and Superman to wrestle her and Zod, respectively; they could have easily looked to the side and killed their respective hostages.

So, in this franchise, their lasers always shoot straight ahead, relative to their skull, independently of whatever they do with their eyes.

Add a distant shot to that scene in Red, to show that one of the beams is crashing against the ring, and the other gets lost into space. Maybe two shots, to show the difference as she increases the output.

Batman's timeline

Canonically, Bruce is in his mid-fourties in Batman v. Superman, and had been operating as Batman for approximately twenty years. A little tight, but I can work with that.

From Martha Wayne's gravestone, we know they died 34 years before the movie began. Bruce would have been 10-12. He then spent about a decade and half training, studying, etc.

I'm also going to officially say it was a random crime. Thomas Wayne was generationally wealthy and a reasonably well-known doctor (heart surgeon, I think? by which I mean that's also canon now), but he wasn't involved in anything that would warrant a conspiracy against him. Still Bruce was convinced there was one, spent a long time digging, until finally he convinced himself there was nothing to be found.

In the comics, Robin (Dick Grayson) was introduced one year after Batman. So let's bring that in too. At approximately BvS-19, the Flying Graysons die after a failure of their equipment. Batman finds the sole survivor, let's say he's about 12, trying to infiltrate the lair of the gang that they both suspect did it.

The kid isn't nearly ready for that and is obviously going to get himself killed, so Batman aborts, extracts him, and brings him to the batcave to talk. He ends up semi-adopting him, whatever a "ward" is, which I assume is just adopted but no change in surname? Sure, why not. He also does take down the gang, afterwards.

Bruce Wayne lets the world think he's taking this kid in because he was there, the day his parents died. He wasn't, but it's very easy for him to fake the records. Dick also becomes a vigilante-in-training, eventually wearing a darker version of his family's uniform, both for tactical reasons and to at least try to hide his identity.

A little under ten years later, BvS-11 or so, Jason Todd steals the batmobile's tires. They catch him, but end up not beating him up, and becoming sort of friends. He's one year younger than Dick.

The year after, Dick leaves for Blüdhaven. Let's say they have a good university over there. Jason convinces Batman to let him take over the position, mostly on the grounds that it'd be suspicious if both dissapeared at the same time. Dick fakes an injury on patrol, to give them time to train him, and then leaves.

Jason lasts one month. The Joker immediately captures him and tortures him for info on what happened to "the real Robin". He says nothing, eventually dying. By crowbar, because of course.

(And yes, I know it was actually the explosion that killed him, but nobody ever cares so I won't be the one to start).

He and Harley bring the body to the top of the police station, uniform graffitied as we saw it, turn on the batsignal, then leave.

The day after, Batman breaks into Joker's hideout to beat him up. Harley's away on some errand. He didn't want to kill Joker, didn't really have a plan but sort of wanted to hear him beg for mercy. But he didn't, he just kept laughing, stopping only when he was dead. Batman left, horrified with himself.

Harley came back and found the body. The next day she takes some hostages, Batman arrives to save them, but she instead defeats him, captures him and takes him to the same warehouse. I had vaguely implied this, but she's definitely the best fighter of all three. That's what tips him off, that she could have bested him at any time, and probably only didn't to spare Joker's ego. He bets on that, gets her not to kill him, and she leaves him there.

The next day he's panicking about that, afraid she may change her mind after thinking about it. He's trying to plan what he'll do about it, but then he sees on the news that she turned herself in at Arkham and requested treatment.

Incidentally, my Arkham will be much better than regularly. Obviously the Joker/Harley thing has to happen in there, but other than that I like the idea that they have a very good track record, actually.

Anyways, over the next decade Batman becomes increasingly more brutal, as we saw. The only thing I have to add is why the inmates were killing those that had been branded by him. That was never satisfactorily explained. Apparently the extended edition adds it to Luthor's plan, but disregard that.

Instead it'll be a crime boss that's paying for those, as part of a campaign to further discredit Batman in the eyes of Gotham city. Succesful, for the record: after the Doomsday fight a few people believe he was a good person after all, but it's almost exclusively the same that believe he died that day. The general public opinion is that he was a monster, whether he started as one or not.

Anyways, the crime boss is Arthur Brown, alias the Cluemaster. Who I guess is more of a supervillain than a gangster, but pretty much all of Batman's rogues have gangs anyways. This is a "more realistic" Cluemaster, or something. The important thing is his daughter, Stephanie, who will be about 15 as of Rebirth. Batman's very much not admired so she'll never be Robin or Batgirl, but I do want Spoiler for later.

Finally, neither Bruce nor Harley knew that Joker had always known Batman's identity, until he broke into Wayne Manor while possesing her.

Languages

Linguistics in this franchise started mostly good. When Zod attacked Earth, we saw his message being transmitted in multiple languages, but it was also imperfect and could be argued to be a work-in-progress, as they hacked the internet for translations. Sure, good enough.

The amazons also make a point of the fact that they speak "over a hundred languages", or maybe "hundreds of languages", I don't remember the exact wording. But, even if the specific number is ridiculous, at least they're establishing the fact that they have put in the effort to study. So, also good.

And the New Gods that attack randomly speak english, but they're aliens advanced enough that we can grant they have universal translation. Also, I removed them entirely, so nevermind.

The one that troubles me are the Atlanteans, who also speak english without further comment, but then Mera specifically didn't speak italian, and so we have to admit it was all provincialism all along and actually everything is stupid. By the way, did anyone watch the italian dub of that? I'm curious what they did with that scene. Please tell me.

I'm going to go ahead and say scenes like the destruction of Krypton and the like are in their alien languages, translated for our benefit.

Jor-El's hologram absorbed the language from the internet, as Zod had. Slightly weaker, but it'll have to do.

For my part, I already gave Lobo a language-acquisition device; presumably most alien civilizations use something like that.

And I gave Supergirl, and other Legion-era people, english but with a weird gimmick, to hint at the changes in their society over the millenium.

Green Lanterns in the comics can speak all languages, so of course I'll extend that courtesy to all colours, and then just for fun limit it to the emotional connection, so if there were a species of people who don't have a particular emotion then those Lanterns cannot comunicate with them.

Tamaranians in the comics acquire the languages of people they kiss. I actually didn't remember that when I gave them their gimmick, but I guess I must have been subconsciously inspired by it because now I remember there was a flashback to that in the Teen Titans cartoon. Anyways, that's now canon, and it is ultimately the reason why they developed that custom.

This means Koriand'r didn't have a noticeable accent; or more specifically she speaks tamaranian, portuguese and english with perfect diction for high class imperial, São Paulo and Jump City, respectively. Also, Komand'r now speaks english with the Legion's dialect.

Tamaranian culture

Beyond the "kisses" thing, I gave them an aversion to rings, a predilection to gambling, and the expectation that the ruler is required to do the paperwork that keeps the empire running.

The last one is just an excuse to make the older sister less villainous. Their schemes are to avoid the throne, rather than claim it. I can probably cry "realism!", right? Actually being a despot presumably does involve at least a little work.

The rings I prefer not to elaborate on. They don't know what reasons there may be. That's just how they are, culturally.

The gambling could be tied to a form of honour, at the intersection of "my word is my bond" and "let's make this fair". They could also have a god or gods with domain over luck, or promises, or something like that. But mostly what I want to say is that, when their mother was pregnant for the first time, she and her husband made a bet over who'd get to name that one. The Queen won, "Komand'r" is her choice.

Finally, back to the kisses, it's important that they be non-sexual in nature. Not just "don't have to be", but rather "cannot be". Particularly given the languages thing, since that's logically going to be how children first learn to speak.

That's also why I insisted Koriand'r be unambiguously straight. She'd be ace, but she has a boyfriend, so no.

That's also why, in their aborted sex scene, she wasn't using her mouth, and wasn't going to. From her perspective, the incessant kissing they do on Earth is more like spending a few hours going "no, YOU hang up!". It used to make her laugh, but in a charming way.

That was also after an indeterminate amount of time on Earth, and intentionally trying to distance herself from her royal upbringing. Because kisses are also, partially, an expression of authority, bringing one to bed would be more of a BDSM thing.

So if he'd tried to kiss her at that time she'd have been offended, and run away. Then the next morning both would have realized what happened, go to mutually apologize and generally communicated like the responsible adults they are.

If instead he'd asked her for a kiss, which seems more in-character anyways, she'd have blushed profusely and stuttered. She would have accepted, but not before kicking any witnesses out herself. I guess that's another thing, but let's say it's royal-specific.

Tamaranian nobility and exhibitionism

The servants that watch nobles overnight are trained professionals, discreet and respectful, whose presence doesn't threaten their senses of modesty. Naturally there can be occasional abuses, but these two are both individually powerful and personal friends of the Queen, so of course they were assigned the most trustworthy. She probably knows him by name.

As for Supergirl, she doesn't know her that well, but she knows she's his friend and she knows and trusts him. Also the fact that they didn't say anything when they were assigned the same room, which signifies that they're close, presumably close enough that she wouldn't mind them maybe waking her up, and he wouldn't mind maybe taking that risk. You just don't share a room with someone you'd be bothered being there while you (or them) use the room.

They wouldn't have even thought of requesting separate rooms, of course.

That still leaves the possibility that they were maybe close enough that she should be jealous, but she never seriously considered it. She trusts Dick. And then she did walk in and find them sleeping a properly chaste distance away; in three dimensions, even. So, her final analysis: it would be fine.

It was not fine.

Lantern Culture/Psychology

Lanterns can detect when people nearby feel the emotion they're attuned to, which I alluded to with Supergirl and the tamaranian sisters, but I opted to leave that ambiguous because she didn't know how that worked.

They also have instincts vaguely in favour of their emotion. They feel people should express their dissatisfaction, or share their worries, or etc. Some let that reshape their entire personal philosophies, some fight it as an unwanted side-effect of their magic, but mostly it manifests as subtle effects on their behaviour.

This is also part of why they are not united as a nation.

That's why Supergirl spent the entirety of the tamaranian visit trying to bother Dick, but not Koriand'r because she doesn't know her that well (and because she was the Queen). And it's why she decided to bother Komand'r via kiss, after correctly deducing she was upset by her sister kissing her because it's a display of her higher status, even though their relative statuses were her choice.

That's also why Koriand'r suggested she take her vouyerism to her sister; she wouldn't necessarily think they'd fall in love and live happily ever after, but she at least thought they'd enjoy the night. That does mean she thinks her sister is gay, but I specifically want to not clarify whether she's correct, for reasons that will come up later. Assuming I ever get to write that part.

As for Dick, he understood that the entire trip was motivated by Supergirl trying to find her brother, so his instincts were fully satisfied there. And of course the happy couple are happy and a couple, so that's ok for both.

Koriand'r also assumes, correctly, that his Test was specifically about his love for her, and is immensely flattered by that; but she will never ask, because it would be presumptuous. And because she knows, better than most, that "love" need not always be romantic.

Lantern instincts also predispose them towards wearing their colours and symbol, but the magic doesn't automatically swap their palettes. If anyone wants to teach them spells to do so, they learn those easily, but both Nightwing and Koriand'r redid their uniforms manually.

Supergirl is satisfied by her logo, boots and cape being red, even if the suit is arguably mostly blue; though the fact that it's such a resistant material, presumably hard to modify, also factors in her (subconscious) decision.

Koriand'r's Timeline

(i kinda wanna make up a different possesive for tamaranians)

The only thing I have to add is that, in hers and Dick's first meeting, she accidentally kissed him goodbye, not hello. She then made a bunch of jumbled excuses, then ran away. The next day they talked calmly, agreed to go on an actual date but take things more slowly, and thus the best couple was born.

He thought maybe he looks like her ex, or something like that.

Meanwhile, in the Legion's timeline, she lived out the rest of her life in hiding. Her space surveillance systems succesfully kept any space visitors at bay; without future knowledge, humanity wouldn't develop anything that could detect them until long after her death.

She and Dick did eventually end up living together and so he learned the truth, but he kept her secret. They did sometimes argue, that with all the power she had she should go out and help the world, and conversely that he had none and shouldn't risk himself like that. But they dealt with that like mature adults, and didn't let it damage their relationship. Happily ever after!

Because the relationship was in no particular risk, he never became a Lantern, and Earth had no influence from the White War, which is why Supergirl knew nothing about that.

Reproductive biology

I mostly don't like half-human whatevers. I'll go ahead and say Dick and Koriand'r cannot reproduce, would need to adopt if they ever want kids. Same would have been true for Clark and Lois, if he hadn't died.

I would actually like to extend that to Earth's three (four?) peoples, but unfortunately we have a canon hybrid in Aquaman, and arguably also Wonder Woman. So, sure, those peoples can interbreed, but I'll go ahead and say both of them are sterile, as hybrids often are.

Also, amazons. Sometimes they are human women who became immortal, and so there's a fixed number of them. Or sometimes they're just humans, who go out to have sex for purely procreational purposes, possibly in secret. I choose neither.

Instead they will be a sort of hermaphroditic species. I'm not sure if that's the right word: sex between two of them may result in either or both becoming pregnant, but one alone cannot do it. Also per the "hybrids" clause, they can induce pregnancy on human or atlantean women, or become pregnant from human or atlantean men.

That kinda makes me want to add children to Themiscyra in Wonder Woman. But instead let's just say they didn't let Steve walk over to the nursery.

Also I guess there are three more peoples. Aquaman brought us merfolk, which is good because I want one for later, as well as crab people and some mindless monsters that apparently used to be people. So let's say the first two, but maybe not the third, can interbreed with atlanteans but not humans nor amazons, again giving non-fertile hybrids.

That kinda puts atlanteans at the "center" of intelligent life on Earth. Which feels ok, life started in the sea, etc.

And then gods are magical shapeshifters, so maybe they can reproduce with anything. They're all gone anyways, so it's probably fine.

Finally, kinda, humans in the Legion's future are all sterile, and don't have libidos as we understand them. They reproduce by cloning, with technology perfected across the centuries which ultimately traces back to reverse-engineering the ancient kryptonian colony ship.

That's convenient for their Superman-worship, since objectively speaking he died without having achieved all that much.

That also means Supergirl's brother isn't biologically related to her; the word simply shifted in meaning over time. That will be convenient when it comes time to cast him.

Supergirl's predilections

Coming from, effectively, an asexual species/society, she also was like that. After her augmentation, she becomes effectively bisexual, by way of Sense Freak. She loves her augmented senses, and exploring and experiencing.

On the non-sexy part of that trope, but also probably serving as a metaphor for the same, she enjoys experiencing different food, varied music, etc. I picture the League having a series of social media accounts, probably monitored by Chloe and/or Leslie, which she'd use to request recommendations.

(Power Girl will eventually be extra-ace, for the same reason: her super senses make it disgusting to her)

Siobhan Smythe's timeline

I have decided she will not have or get any powers. She's just her normal friend. If there were a parallel show about heroes' mundane lives, she'd feature heavily; mostly because I enjoy the idea that Supergirl refused to hide, and haven't given that level of thought to anyone else's civillian life.

Anyways, Siobhan used to get dragged all around the world by Supergirl, to restaurants, concerts, museums, etc.

A little after she disappeared, Siobhan lost her appartment, so started secretly living in hers.

When she came back she found her, but decided that was fine, and started referring to her as her roommate.

Diana's timeline

I know usually it's canon that she's a doll Hippolyta made and the gods animated, but we're not doing that. She's Hippolyta and Zeus' daughter. I don't remember if the doll bit was referenced in the movie, but if it was, let's say it was just a cover story, to avoid Hera's wrath. They didn't know the gods were leaving/mostly gone.

Diana's genuinely immortal, but amazons are not, though they'll necessarily be long lived: Wonder Woman was canonically set in 1918, I didn't make that up; her mother obviously was older than that and I had her die about a week before Rebirth.

For more specifics, I'm going to arbitrarily say Diana was approximately 50 when she met Steve. Hippolyta is obviously older but not too much, as there isn't an older sister. Let's say she was about 30 when she met Zeus. So, between 180 and 190 when she died, but that was accidental. Let's also arbitrarily say she was halfway through her life, so amazons can expect to live about four centuries, if all goes well.

Speaking of things going well, or the lack thereof: in the Legion's future, Diana died in the explosion that visibly sundered Earth and left the moon outpost as the last remainder of humanity, some 6 or 7 centuries into the future.

The amazon she romances after going back to Themiscyra isn't the one that's Donna's father (for lack of a better word). Not because anyone would particularly object, but because I said she'd die and don't want to kill off both of her parents.

The gods' timeline

They are (were) shapeshifters, immortal and highly magically adept. Per Ares' fate, we know they are all gods "of" something; they are their own magic source, which is also entwined with their life and health. I'm going to say it was a single race of gods that inspired most or all pantheons through history.

Presumably all the gods were still around at the origin of greek myth, which obviously is hard to trace for certain but a cursory search tells me between 3 and 5 thousand years ago. At that point Ares starts the "evil god of war" plot, so they were all already starting to lose faith in humanity.

Zeus at least is still around by approximately 1868, to meet Hyppolita, and then is unambiguously gone by 1914, when Ares has launched his final plan. Clearly he was second-to-last to leave. Presumably trying to get him to come along.

Other planets don't have gods, in the sense that this race of powerful shapeshifters is Earth-specific, but obviously they do in that most of them have or had mythologies and religions. Some, but not all, may also have had their pantheons inspired by ancient magical peoples, who may or may not still be around.

[fxirybun]

🍡 PAC: script shifting scenarios with your DR s/o + mini moodboards

INTRO

hey there my fellow shifters ! i have a sweet treat that i'm about to offer to you all which was already stated in the title above ^^ if you're currently struggling with writing your script or experiencing writer's block , this post is meant for you ꒰◍ˊ◡ˋ꒱੭⁾⁾  i included some mini moodboards to help you visualize the scenarios.

i would like to thank the person who gave me this suggestion ^^ hopefully they get to see this post <3

READ ME

this is a shift-related pick-a-card reading. DR means “desired reality” whilst s/o means “significant other”. scripting is a useful tool that allows shifters to write down their intentions and add some specific details about themselves and the reality they want to enter.

this is a collective reading ! take what resonates and leave what doesn't. i cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. take the pac reading lightly ჱ̒ ｰ̀֊ｰ́ )

ෆ⸒⸒ pile one🍦

these scenarios can be adapted however you like to fit the connection and dynamic you imagine with your DR s/o. it's also great for visualizing deeper moments and building a strong emotional link to that reality !

01 THE COZY CAFÉ DATE

you and your DR s/o are sitting in a cozy , dimly lit café with warm beverages as you and your DR s/o's order. the weather outside is cool , maybe it’s raining outside due to how cloudy the sky is , similar to london weather. the two of you are both wrapped in scarves and sweaters. there's soft music that plays in the background as you and your DR s/o exchange stories about childhood memories and plans for the future.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : "nothing feels warmer than the presence of your soul residing next to me".

02 STARGAZING ADVENTURE

it's a clear night outside and how you and your DR s/o are both planning to drive out to a secluded hill , a field of flowers / plants, or hanging out at the seashore. with a blanket that is spread out , you lie together with them , pointing out the constellations that you saw from the night sky , making wishes on shooting stars , and talking about the vastness of the universe , while feeling deeply connected between you and your DR s/o.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : "the stars are indeed beautiful but i'm only , i'm only looking at you're glimmering eyes whilst you're admiring the night sky".

03 COOKING MEALS TOGETHER

in a warm , sun-filled kitchen , you and your DR s/o are cooking a meal together. inside the kitchen room, you can hear laughter as you playfully argue about how much spice your DR s/o added , maybe a little flour fight breaks out between the two of you. at the end of the cooking session , you both enjoy the meal that you and your DR s/o prepared. there's candlelight on the table , making a toast to the simple joys of life.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : "“we stirred up more than just a meal—laughter , love , and the kind of joy that fills both the heart and the table”.

EXTRAS : anime world , power / influence (being famous , rich , has authority , strong connection with people of high social status) , grumpy x sunshine , with people around you , magical / supernatural , idol world (kpop , jpop , cpop , etc.) , surprise / unplanned / not much is being scripted , introvert x introvert dynamic , erotic , heart , dragonfly , moon , horse , bicycle.

ෆ⸒⸒ pile two 🍵

these scenarios can be adapted however you like to fit the connection and dynamic you imagine with your DR s/o. it's also great for visualizing deeper moments and building a strong emotional link to that reality !

01 A LAZY MORNING IN BED

it's a slow weekend morning. the sunlight coming from the outside streams in through the window , and you and your DR s/o both lie in bed , wrapped up in each other's presence. there's no rush in trying to get up—just sleepy conversation , giving soft kisses , and cuddling whilst the world outside stays still. maybe or perhaps you can even make breakfast together afterward.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : “no need to chase the day when every moment here feels like forever”.

02 A ROAD TRIP WITH NO DESTINATION

you and your DR s/o both decided to take an impromptu road trip together. the windows are up , music coming from the radio is blasting , and how the wind is brushing through your hair. you knew that there was no fixed destination as to where the two of you were going , just an adventure to look forward to. you and them stop at random spots—a small-town diner , a beautiful lookout point , or a quirky roadside attraction whilst creating memories along the way.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : "with no map to guide us , the open road became our compass , and how each stop is an unexpected chapter.”

03 DANCING IN THE LIVING ROOM

on a quiet evening inside the living room , one of your favorite songs comes on from the speaker. without saying a word , your DR s/o pulls you into a dance. you feel as if the rest of the world fades away and time slowly stops as you move together in perfect harmony , lost in each other’s eyes. the warmth of their embrace envelops you , creating a bubble where only the two of you and the music exist. each gentle sway feels like a promise for a lifetime.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : “we both dance in silence , lost in each other’s gaze , turning a simple moment into an eternal memory.”

EXTRAS : adventure , tragedy , booktok / book world , superhero / villain , thriller / horror , comic book world , magical / supernatural , alone , mythology , fairy , horse , starfish / star , mermaid / siren , anchor.

ෆ⸒⸒ pile three 🍫

these scenarios can be adapted however you like to fit the connection and dynamic you imagine with your DR s/o. it's also great for visualizing deeper moments and building a strong emotional link to that reality !

01 CAMPING UNDER THE STARS

you find yourself in a serene forest by a lake , camping with your DR s/o. after setting up a tent , you decided to sit by the fire roasting marshmallows , sharing stories , and how laughter can be heard. the crackling flames and the gentle rustle of leaves create a soothing backdrop for your connection. later on , you and your DR s/o fall asleep , feeling safe in each other's presence. in those moments , the worries of the world fade away , leaving only the warmth of love and the beauty of the stars above.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : "under a starlit sky , “By the firelight, laughter echoed in the serene forest, as we held each other close, wrapped in love and the magic of a starlit night.”

02 CELEBRATING A SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT

you just accomplished something important in your DR , whether it’s personal or professional , and how you considered it to be a big milestone for you. Your DR s/o found out about this exciting news and decided to surprise you with a small celebration—a homemade dinner , a handwritten letter , or maybe just their heartfelt words of pride and love for the person they love which is you. this moment feels special for the two of you.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : "your support in my achievement made the victory sweeter , but it’s your love that makes every moment feel truly complete.”

03 A DREAM VACATION

you and your DR s/o are about to embark on a vacation to your dream destination. wether this location or trip to a tropical beach , a walk in a european city, or staying in a mountain cabin. you found yourself immersed in spending days exploring , taking a quick relaxation , and even discovering new things with them. there are moments of awe at observing the beautiful landscapes , and feeling connected to the world. your Dr s/o decided to take you to a quiet , romantic dinner with a breathtaking view , making the vacation feel more magical.

SELF-MADE QUOTES : “with every step we take , the world whispers its beauty , but it’s your gaze that holds the most radiant horizon.”

EXTRAS : shoujo , main waiting room , superstar life (singer , dancer , music-related , famous) , surpise / unplanned / not much is being scripted , fan-fiction / au , platonic soulmates (friends , siblings , family , etc.) , slice of life , josei , sci-fi , squirrel , rose , tree , moon , star.

[sarahs-library]

Forgotten: Pretty Eyes

"You have such pretty eyes," Azriel's thumb dragged your lower lip down, his husky baritone stoked the fire of arousal coursing in your veins. "I can't wait to see you looking up at me, with my cock in your mouth."

A/N - Forgotten is giving me serious writer's block right now, so here's a little smutty snippet from the same universe before the story begins. You aren't together yet, the bond has snapped for Azriel but you remain blissfully unaware. Also I love the idea of meddling Nesta. This is also my first time publishing any smut, so hopefully it doesn't seem as cringey to you as it did to me re-reading it.

Word count: 4704

Warnings: Smut

Forgotten Part One ☪ Part Two ☪ Part Three

Your POV

Settled into the plush leather couch, you pulled the blanket up to your chin, creating a cozy nest for yourself. You balanced the book Nesta had given you on your lap, the worn cover a familiar weight against your skin. The floral sundress you wore fluttered around your legs, exposing the delicate skin of your knees, which you instinctively tucked beneath the warm embrace of the blanket. Once comfortable, you flipped open the hardcover to read the synopsis inlaid on the first page and snorted. Gratuitous smut, that much was predictable. But the story revolved around fated mates who couldn’t stay away from each other, despite every glaringly obvious reason to. Her recent recommendations had all centered on this theme, which you found puzzling. You couldn’t understand the Fae’s obsession with them, or Nesta’s for that matter.

Sure, you understood the religious aspect, most cultures had deities or worshipped magic in some form. Prythian’s Mother was no different in your eyes from the innumerable nameless gods you’d encountered in your travels over the years. But even so, the Fae's sanctification of basic biology was unique. You cleared your throat and looked up.

“Excuse me? House?” It felt strange, to address an inanimate object. You hadn’t quite believed Nesta when she first told you the House was sentient, a byproduct of her cauldron-made power. But it had seen to your needs enough over the last few months, often without prompting, that you’d found yourself creating a tentative relationship with it. “Do you have another book for me? Nesta’s been recommending so many of these, I’d rather read something different.” A moment later, a small pile of books dropped onto the table next to you. You thanked the House as you reached for the top book on the pile.

A God cursed to remain locked in his mountain hold until his soulmate frees him…You stopped reading with a frown, setting the book aside with the other before taking the next one. And then the next. You reached the end of the pile, all books about soulmates or fated mates or love pairs. Maybe the House had misunderstood you. You gathered the books up again, this time placing the one Nesta had lent you at the top of the pile and addressed the House again.

“Sorry, I meant do you have anything different than a romance? Maybe something with a bit of action and adventure?” The pile didn’t vanish, no other books appeared either. You waited for a few seconds. “House?” You knew it was close with Nesta, perhaps you’d offended it by inadvertently insulting her reading tastes.

You considered getting up from the comfy nest you’d created in the sitting room to go to the library and pick something off the shelves yourself. You eyed the book at the top of the pile again and sighed. Grabbing it you cracked open to the first page. Only then did the pile vanish, you couldn’t help rolling your eyes. In its place stood a glass filled with fruity, fizzing pink wine from the Summer Court. It knew that you preferred it to the heartier reds more commonly found in the Night Court. You thanked the House and took a sip from the wine glass before turning your attention to the book propped open against your knees.

A dull pain in your neck drew you from sleep. Your dry eyes adjusted to the low lighting as you began to sit up. You groaned and massaged the sore muscles in your neck and shoulder, cursing yourself for falling asleep in such an awkward position. The book, still open at the last page you were reading, slipped from your lap and hit the floor with a dull thud. Fae light housed in a dark glass shade flickered to life on the table next to your empty wine glass. Freeing the blanket from where it was tangled between your legs, you bent to retrieve the book from the floor. The hand you reached out stopped shy of the cover, the tips of your fingers brushing against the shadows that teeming it, burrowing under the pages.  

They didn’t shy away from your touch. Instead, they pushed the book across the floor into your open hand. You grasped at the leather-bound spine, cool shadows curling between your fingers and sliding up the back of your hand.

“Thank you.” You inclined your head and righted yourself on the sofa, expecting them to disperse in search of their master.

“Don’t tell me you’ve joined Nesta’s smutty book club too.” Reflectively you gripped the book tighter as the voice came from behind you. After months of living together at the House, you were beginning to be able to decipher Azriel’s moods. Smooth, dark, and low his tone of voice rarely gave away what he was feeling. But the slight elongation of some vowels and the emphasis on the word smutty told you he was amused. A delicate flush rose on your cheeks, and you resolved not to look at him.         

“I mostly go for the wine. But Nesta said this was one of her favourites, though I’m not sure why.” The shadows that had helped you retrieve the book began to climb up over the edge of the sofa, to investigate further as you held it in your lap. You could feel him inching closer behind you, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Satisfied with their investigation, or at whatever silent command Azriel gave them, the shadows began to return to his side. You were unsure of how cognizant they were. As one of them brushed against the soft skin of your thigh, exposed from where your dress had ridden up, you wondered if it was intentional. You were glad to not see his face. Not while his shadows snitched to him about the colour dusting your cheeks and the very long, very explicit description of the mating frenzy between the main characters you’d been reading before you fell asleep.

“Too tame for you, sweetheart?” You’d been playing this game for weeks now. Glances that lingered a hair too long to be appropriate. Comments that bordered on suggestive but still gave plausible deniability. Any excuse to touch, to feel the other’s skin as you passed a dish at family dinner or assisted Azriel with demonstrations for the priestesses.

And you hated it, the effect he had on you. You knew, somewhere deep inside in a place you didn’t want to acknowledge, that he was part of the reason you’d taken advantage of Rhys’ hospitality. Why you hadn’t been itching to leave, to find another place after you landed unceremoniously, bleeding and half-conscious, in the Night Court all those months ago.

You sighed. “No, it’s not that.” Azriel was standing directly behind you now. When you took your next breath his scent, night-chilled mist and cedar, filled your nose. “I know she and Cassian are disgustingly in love, but I’d prefer her to give me at least one recommendation that doesn’t revolve and two people finding out they are mates, and then fucking for the next 100 pages.”

Azriel made a low, humming sound. Not in agreement, but in consideration of what you said. You thought he was going to speak, grace you with a sarcastic remark. Instead, he leaned over the back of the sofa. His face was so perilously close to your neck that you could feel the hot breath he exhaled, as he plucked the open book from your lap. He retreated as quickly as he’d come; you instinctively turned, reaching one hand up to stabilise yourself against the plush leather.

His hazel eyes met yours, and the triumphant smirk he gave you ignited both irritation and something primal. Held aloft in one hand, he lifted the book to his eyeline as the shadows flicked swiftly through the pages. Landing on the passage he wanted, he began to read aloud.           

“His manhood was hot and hard and thick with lust. He pounded into her rough and ready, their gasps puffing in the air, steam rising off their skin.” Your cheeks flushed deeper. You hauled yourself up the back of the sofa, resting on your knees, attempting to use the leverage to lessen the advantage his greater height gave him. Reaching out, you tried to snatch the book from his grasp only for him to move it away just as your fingers brushed against the cover. He took a half-step back, still within arm’s length but not close enough for you to reach without losing your balance.

Azriel arched a brow, eyes alight with thinly veiled amusement as he took in your flushed face. You noticed the way they strayed, just for a moment, following the path of your exposed neck down towards your chest. A traitorous part of you preened under the attention of his gaze. Instinct prompted you to press the advantage he’d unwittingly given you, using the moment of his distraction to vault over the back of the sofa and close the distance between you. Azriel’s wings flared behind him, but he didn’t retreat from the sudden proximity, even as your hand reached up to grasp the book over his own.

Dragging his eyes away from you, he feigned nonchalance as he continued to skim the pages of the book. You realised your mistake then, calf muscles straining to keep your weight steady as you stood frozen on arched feet. His eyes didn’t leave the page even as his other hand came up to rest on your hip. The fabric of your dress felt dangerously thin as the warmth from his palm and slightly splayed fingers seeped through. Thin enough to feel the callouses on the finger that skimmed tantalisingly close to the edge of your underwear.

“The male says such filthy things.” He allowed you to pull the book down but didn’t relinquish his grip. Hazel eyes met yours, darkened even in the fae light. Slowly lowering your weight back onto the balls of your feet, you held his gaze. You were acutely aware of how little space was left between the two of you. Cool shadows brushed against the bare skin of your legs, catching on the hem of your dress and skirting at your waist. The breath you inhaled, made ragged by the proximity, filled your lungs with Azriel’s scent. Lust fogged your thoughts, quietening the voice in your mind that warned you of the precipice you teetered on. Even through the haze, you recognised there would be no going back, not once you acted on this.

“Do you like it when your lovers speak to you like this, sweetheart?” His voice, guttural and slow, seemed to speak directly to the embers now burning within you. He edged closer, enough that the fabric of your dress brushed against the scaled leather on his chest. You backed away, even as you felt your body react, but kept your eyes trained on Azriel’s face. His shadows returned to him, agitating a breeze that carried the unmistakable scent of your arousal. Azriel inhaled deeply, savouring it like a man half-drowned. His gaze became predatory as he prowled closer to you.

You felt the brush of cool leather against the heated skin of your back and the curve of your buttocks. He stepped closer, muscular arms brushing your waist on either side as he rested his hands on the sofa, caging you in. You held his gaze, even as he lowered his face close enough that your breath mingled. You tried to grasp at something, formulate a scathing remark that would disseminate the tension, that would allow you to step out of this room with your friendship still intact. All you could focus on was how easy it would be to reach up, tangle your fingers into Azriel’s hair, and bring his face down to close the distance between your lips. The corner of his mouth quirked up into a smirk and he feigned closing the distance, tilting his head before passing over your mouth and whispering in your ear.  

“You haven’t answered my question.” His breath danced over the shell of your ear, and you fought against the urge to arch your back and press yourself into his chest. His lips ghosted over the skin of your neck as he traced the curve down to where it met your collarbone.

“My preferences regarding lovers are of no concern to you.” He stilled against you.

“Is that so?” The words caressed your skin, drawled and meant to provoke as he made the return journey back towards your lips. You managed a breathy affirmation, even as he trailed fire in his wake. The barest of touches, feeding your desire for more of them, more of him. You didn’t notice the hand until his palm slid up to rest on the side of your neck, gripping your jaw between scarred fingers and thumb. His grip was firm as he pulled back to look at you.  

“Such lies from such a sweet, little mouth.” His thumb stroked a path up, sweeping across your plump lower lip. You parted them on instinct. Lust-darkened eyes met your own, and a moment of clarity passed between you both. One that spoke of more than just base needs or primal instincts. Hiding in his eyes was a promise of more. Something that neither of you were ready to address just yet.

"You have such pretty eyes," Azriel's thumb dragged your lower lip down, his husky baritone stoked the fire of arousal coursing in your veins. "I can't wait to see you looking up at me, with my cock in your mouth." His other hand moved to your hip as he trailed his thumb down, palm splayed as he traced your jaw; your neck to where the cut of your dress lay at the valley between your breasts. He toyed with the edge before moving his hand to trace down your other side, thumb brushing the underside of the swell of flesh you desperately wanted him to pay more attention to.

His grip tightened for a moment at your waist before he hoisted you into the air. You gasped in surprise at the sudden movement before he perched you precariously on the edge of the back of the sofa. The increased height made your face almost level with his, something that Azriel took full advantage of as he captured your lips with his own. Your hands moved to steady yourself on his broad shoulders, fingernails digging into the leather as you swept your tongue against his bottom lip. You opened your thighs in invitation, Azriel stepped closer so that your chest was flush with his. His hips settled between your legs; your thighs clenched on either side as he deepened the kiss. His skilled tongue stroked against your own as you moaned, breathing heavily through your nose.

His fingers tangled into your hair, pulling it aside as his other hand moved down from your waist to trace a path under your dress against the smooth skin of your inner thigh. His mouth left yours, moving to capture the soft skin of your neck, lathing his tongue against it in between delicate bites as his fingers slid higher on your thigh. You rolled your hips, trying to coax him as his fingertips grazed lace. You slid your hands over his shoulders, finding purchase as you pulled him closer. You felt him smile against your neck as he trailed kisses lower, freeing his hand from your hair, as he pulled the delicate fabric of your dress down roughly to expose your chest. You barely registered the sound of it tearing as one hand came up to clasp your breast, thumb running over the peaked nipple as he bent further to capture the other between his lips.

You groaned as he continued to nip and suckle and bite at the pert bud, hazel eyes observed your through dark lashes as you arched into him, bringing one hand up to tangle into his dark locks. He groaned against your skin as you pulled at it, moaning his name in between panted breaths.

“Fuck, Az. Please…” he sucked hard on the nipple caught between his lips, releasing it with an obscene pop and a parting flick of his tongue against the tip.

“Please what, sweetheart?” His mouth moved to capture the nipple under the ministrations of his thumb, the callouses rubbing deliciously against the sensitive skin. Words died on the tip of your tongue as the fingers dancing beneath your skirt finally brushed against sodden fabric, rubbing against the slick folds of your pussy. He grunted in approval as he continued to probe, pushing a finger into your aching hole as much as the lace would allow. You moved your hand from his shoulder, taking advantage of his bent position to trace two knuckles against the dark membrane of a wing.

Azriel’s growl was feral as he bucked his hips. His mouth left your breast to kiss up your neck, teeth scratching against the pulse thrumming at your jugular.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a wicked, wicked tease?” His lips once again met your own in a rough, opened-mouthed kiss. You purposely dragged your knuckles back over his wing, it flared out under your touch as he caught your bottom lip between his teeth. You pulled back, your lip catching before he released you. He stared at you, panting and pupils blown wide. You smirked as you put your hand back on his shoulder, resolving to explore the sensitive expanse of his wings further another time. You trailed your fingers down, feeling the hard expanse of muscles on his chest and abdomen before settling on the strings of his leather breeches.   

“I may have heard something like that before.” You pulled at the knot, struggling to undo it with just one hand. Azriel’s hand left your breast, placing it over your own to still the movements. You furrowed your brow, questioning him with a gaze as he made no move to help.

“There’s something I need to do first.” He stepped back, moving out of your reach as you planted your hands on either side of the sofa to steady yourself. His wings flared for balance as he slowly lowered himself to one knee, then the other, maintaining eye contact with you as his hands slid under your dress. Tracing up to your hips he caught hold of the lace of your panties, slowly pulling them over your thighs and past your knees to drop over your bare feet onto the floor. His eyes never left yours as he rucked the thin skirt up to your waist, leaving you panting and exposed under his gaze. His eyes trailed down slowly as if committing the sight of you to memory, taking special note of the flush on your neck and chest, littered with a constellation of bruises he had sucked onto your skin. Lower still, until his gaze came to rest between your legs, fixated on the way your cunt glistened in the fae light.

“I can’t tell you how often I’ve dreamed of this.” He ran the back of his hand down the side of your thigh as you opened your legs wider for him to nestle his shoulders between your knees. “Of how you taste, what you’d look like underneath me, the sounds you’d make when you cum for me.” He made sure to catch your gaze again as he lowered his mouth towards your slick folds. The hand that wasn't tracing your thigh moved to part your lips as his tongue delves between them. He moaned against you at that first taste. Dragging his tongue in a long sensual stroke up, barely brushing the edge of your clit before returning to tease at your entrance. Biting your lip your hands found his hair, wrenching him closer as you slid your knees over his shoulders. He cupped your arse, rough fingers digging into supple flesh as he fucked you with his tongue. Languid strokes that brushed his nose against your clit every time he pushed in deeper.

You moaned, grinding against his face, the hand not tangled in his hair circled at your nipple still coated in his saliva. His tongue slid up through the wetness to toy with your clit, circling dangerously around the edges before he caught it between his lips, suckling on it hard. You cried out his name at the delicious pressure, bordering on pain, his eyes watching you through dark lashes as you writhe and grind against him. He releases your clit, pulling back after a small gentle parting lick.

“Look at you.” His thumb moves up to trace your clit. He looked debauched, lips swollen and pink, chin soaked with your pleasure. “Such a pretty little cunt.” His thumb slides down through your wetness as he teases it through your puffy folds. “So wet for me, just begging to be fucked.” You felt your pussy clench as he traced past the hole, dipping further down in between your cheeks to toy with the wetness around the puckered ring of muscle there. He returned torturously slowly to where you needed him most, before plunging one finger deep inside of you. You moaned at the intrusion as he curled his finger up, rubbing purposely against the sensitive wall before pulling out. He added another finger to the first, inserting them at the same glacial pace, finally looking away from your face as he watched your walls stretch to accommodate his thick fingers. It wasn’t enough, you needed more of him.

“Please,” you begged, tugging at his hair. “Please Az, I need more. I need…” You trailed off as another finger slid into your tight hole, the pace still slow as he watched you grind your hips against his hand, trying to fuck his fingers deeper and faster into you.

“Whatever my beautiful-“He stopped himself, throat bobbing as he swallowed hard, eyes on your face again. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.” And with that promise, he lowered his mouth to your cunt again. The speed of his fingers increased, fucking into you with abandon as he caught your clit between his lips once more, licking and sucking, dragging his teeth gently over the sensitive nerves. He skilfully brought you to the precipice of your release, alternating between curling his fingers and lathing his tongue against your clit before slowing down. You keened, undulating your hips against his face and hand. Shadows bled out the sofa, fixing your hips down as he continued to tease.

“I need to see you cum for me.” He growled against you before pressing himself deeper into your folds. Your legs shook as his fingers fucked you harder, as his mouth latched onto your clit with a hard suck. His hazel eyes were fixed on your face, watching as you climbed towards your peak. Your grip tightened on his hair as your release built. Until finally, it snapped. Sending you careening toward the most exquisite bliss you had experienced in your immortal life.

“Azriel! Oh Gods…” Your legs shifted on his shoulders as your muscles clenched under your release, trapping his head between your thighs. He continued to lick and suck you gently as you came down from your pleasure, fingers moving at a more leisurely pace now as he watched you, eyes filled with lust and awe. You relaxed slowly under his ministrations, enough to begin to bring you towards pleasure again despite how oversensitive your nerves felt. You unhooked your legs from his shoulders as you moved your hands towards them, pulling as his leathers. He released you from his mouth, pulling his fingers out and admiring the wetness left on his hand rolling down towards his wrist. He rose, allowing you to capture his face between your hands in a searing kiss. You groaned at the taste of it, both of you mingled together on the tongue he stroked slowly against yours.

Moving your hands down you broke the kiss, nestling into his neck and tracing the dark marks of his tattoos with your tongue. Under both your hands the knot holding his leathers closed came away easily. You pushed your fingers under the tight band, grazing the head of his cock with your thumb. Azriel panted into your shoulder, his grip on your waist tight as you continued to tease the head, rubbing circles slick with pre-cum into the sensitive skin.

Azriel became rigid under your touch. You pulled away from his neck, from marking him with bruises similar to the ones on your own, to look at his face. A dark tendril curled around his ear, whispering to the shadowsinger. His face darkened and he let out a vicious curse, pulling away from you and turning his attention towards the foyer.

You could hear footsteps now, heading in your direction. Azriel was a picture, rock hard against his leathers, hair a mess from where you’d carted your fingers through it, full lips swollen and red. You looked down at yourself, bare breasts peeking through the ripped fabric of your dress, skirt rucked up still baring your cunt to the room.

“Y/N! I know you’re here. You’re keeping us all waiting.” Nesta was in the hallway now, heading towards the only way in or out of the sitting room. You slipped off the back of the sofa, righting your dress and trying to pull the ripped fabric of the bodice closed with little success. Azriel’s eyes had turned calculating, all trace of lingering lust gone as he ran through possible ways to get you both out of this situation. If you were anywhere else, he could have winnowed you away. You cursed whichever of Rhys predecessors put such stringent security measures on the House to a painful eternity in Hel.

Shadows moved to open the large windows next to the fireplace to let in a breeze, biting cold and pushed through the room as Azriel’s siphons glowed. A fire started to burn, smoking more than normal, its acrid smell filling your nose. Azriel gestured to the sofa, the blanket still coiled on the seats.

“Get under.” You moved quickly, throwing yourself down as you used the blanket to cover up your ruined dress and bruises. Azriel strode toward the window, taking one glance back as you tried to settle yourself before he slipped out into the sky and the fading light. You rested your head against the cool arm of the leather, bringing your legs under the blanket as you feigned sleep.

Nesta’s footsteps stopped at the threshold of the open door.

“Y/N.”

You let out a low groan, stretching as you pretended to drag yourself from sleep. You rose so only your face was visible over the back of the sofa, blanket clutched to your chest as you took in Nesta standing in the doorway. Her silver eyes scanned your face as her nose wrinkled at the smell of the poorly burning fire.

“You’re late.” Silver burned in the eyes she fixed on you, angered at the perceived social slight.

“I’m sorry, I was reading. Must have fallen asleep.” Your heart pounded as she assessed you. You hoped she’d put it down to the shock of being rudely woken rather than your anxiety at being almost caught.

“Everyone’s waiting in the library, let’s go.” You nodded in agreement, mind whirring as you tried to figure out a way out of the room, out of your ruined clothes with the reek of arousal still clinging to your skin, without raising any suspicions.

“I’ll um, meet you there. I just want to quickly freshen up and grab the book from my room.” Nesta’s eyes scanned you, before inclining her head and turning to leave.

“Five minutes,” she ordered as she left, “or we’ll start without you.” You collapsed back into the sofa, relief flooding your veins as you tried to calm your breathing. You hadn’t noticed the way her eyes had fixed on the dark lace half-hidden underneath the sofa before she left.

Thank you for reading, to everyone who asked to be added to the tag-list I think I've included everyone I can but some blogs I couldn't tag so apologies if that's yours.

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[aloneinthehellfire]

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Forgotten and the Remembered

Gates Of Hell

Word Count: 9k

Warnings: swearing, mentions of death, amnesia, the usual monsters, angst ofc, the biggest warning is that this isn't proof-read bc if I didn't release this soon then I was gonna start tweaking

[A/N: Writer's block is currently kicking my ass but I REFUSE to be beaten!! Posting at 3am!! No one can stop me!!]

The Forgotten and the Remembered

“Can I be the first to say that I seriously hate this apocalypse?”

Eddie shoves the dead demodog off of his torso with a groan, a small and grateful nod directed to Steve for killing it before he was literally dog meat.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re the first.” Steve says, offering a hand and pulling him to his feet.

“Ugh, we can braid each other’s hair later, let’s get moving.”

Excluding Billy’s childish remark, Steve had to agree with his urgency; it was getting pretty dark already and if they didn’t speed up their footsteps, they would never make it to the Radio Shack.

The mission was as simple as it could be, drawn out on an out-of-date map with no contingency plans if it all went wrong. Which, as Steve goes over it all in his head, was a terrible mistake. When has anything ever gone smoothly for him?

They needed to get to the Radio Shack for nightfall, grab a spare walkie and contact their respective groups to alert their survival. Steve wondered if they'd be happy to hear his voice. After all, his absence was probably a relief considering how suffocating he had been lately.

Next, they were to trail around the outskirts of the centre, hopefully avoiding bigger hives of monsters on the streets. Eddie stated that getting to the edge of the mall was vital to the final part of the plan.

And, finally, the crucial part: Eddie will guide them to the delivery bay and lead them straight to the supplies. In and out. It should be simple.

If they even made it there, that is.

“I still don’t get why you don’t just leave, man.” Eddie reiterates for the thousandth time since leaving the camp. Steve’s head was starting to ache with the constant pestering.

“Because we can’t.” Steve sighs, rubbing his temple. Up ahead, he caught the subtle shake of Billy’s shoulders, indicating that he was very much amused with Steve’s distress.

Asshole, Steve thinks as he rolls his shoulder. The last demodog attack forced his swing too hard, leaving a dull ache that did not help his discomfort at all. No sleep, migraines, and now a bruised shoulder. It wasn’t his day, that’s for sure.

“But you have the perfect opportunity-”

“Can we talk about something else?” Steve suddenly snaps, not in any malicious intent but it came out more stressed than he wanted. “Please.”

Eddie sounds a low whistle, widening his eyes. “Sure, man, my bad.”

“Thank you.”

To the joy of his thrumming headache, Eddie was quiet after that. Rather than speak, he quietly kicked around a small stone, sometimes humming a strange tune. Steve felt a little guilty, but maybe silence was what they needed right now.

It didn’t last as long as he hoped.

“Who else is here?” Eddie questions just as they pass the abandoned Steelworks building. Steve always found the place to be a little creepy.

“Like our group?”

“Yeah. I realised I never asked and I think it would be nice to know who I’m risking my life for.”

“Well, there’s us, obviously.” He runs a hand through his hair, spotting the old inn in the distance. They were getting closer. “Then there’s a bunch of kids. Six of ‘em. And a girl from high school. Nancy’s there, too.”

“She the one dating the Byers’ kid now?” Eddie asks innocently enough, assessing Steve’s reaction. “Is he there too?”

“Uh…”

A pained gasp hits the air like a sobering thought, stilling his aching body. It didn’t belong to him.

In his silence, Billy throws a look over his shoulder and clears his throat.

“Not anymore.” He says, and Steve swallows the thick lump in his throat. Eddie merely nods, choosing not to pester further.

“No. No, his, uh, his mom is, though. And his brother.” He nods himself back into the confidence to have this conversation, smiling to hide his hurt. “There’s a fair amount of us, I guess. Hopper takes care of them, though. Kinda his thing.”

"Hopper? As in Chief Hopper?"

"The very same."

His eyes flicker with distaste. Steve can only assume Eddie and the chief hadn’t gotten along over the past few years, especially with the whole drug-dealing career Eddie found himself in. 

"Who, uh, who else is with you guys?"

"No, that's pretty much it." Steve frowns at the way Eddie's usually animated features suddenly drop, clearing his throat. "Why? Are you also looking for someone?"

"Uh, no, nothing like that- Wait… also?" Eddie's eyes narrow when he pulls Steve to a stop, leaning in so Billy doesn't overhear them. "I'm sorry, are you telling me that you've dragged me out here because you're looking for someone? What happened to the whole 'we're dying and need help' situation?!"

"Okay, firstly," Steve yanks his arm back, a small mumble of an apology flowing from Eddie's lips in return, "I'm not technically telling you anything, but yes. I- we are looking for someone. And secondly- dos -  we do need supplies. Without them, we can't find the person we're looking for. Now you might be upset with me for that but I didn't ask you to come out here. You led us all on your own, so maybe you should be thinking about why you seem so desperate to get away from that camp instead of blaming me for it."

Steve clears his throat, taken aback by his own words.

A small exhale of breath escapes Eddie's lungs, his mouth snapping shut. He wore a look of guilt, one Steve has borrowed and made all throughout his life. For a single moment, a slither of regret binds knots around his stomach. But it merely lasts that, a moment; he doesn't have time to care for others feelings when he still hasn't found you.

“Steve!” Nancy shouts, but what else could he do? He wasn’t fast enough to stop this.

His eyes fly shut once the dagger is closer than comfort, awaiting the painful stretch of metal into his flesh. Unfortunately for someone else, he didn’t have to.

A pained gasp hits the air like a sobering thought, stilling his aching body. It didn’t belong to him. It belonged to Jonathan.

Nancy starts to scream as blood pours from his mouth, his legs losing their power and stumbling him back into a hoard of shapeshifters. Steve watches as they grab at him, pulling at his clothes. They throw a hand over his mouth and drag him away, looking satisfied in their assault.

And there it was again. Even with his shifted morals, the guilt kept returning, embracing him like a mother would their child. Or, at least, he assumes a mother would. His negligence of other people's feelings seem to be almost as identical to that of his parents, and it was far deadlier in this apocalypse.

"Whatever." Eddie grumbles, snapping him out of his haze of self-hatred. "We've got about another 20 minutes so let's speed this up, yeah?"

He charged ahead, leaving Steve behind to stand in contemplation before he begrudgingly followed. Steve sighs. Why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut?

“Hello? Can anyone hear us?”

“Is anyone there?”

“I repeat, is anyone there?”

Your knuckles were white with the grasp you had on the microphone, throat tightening with every communication you tried. It had been a couple of minutes, and there hasn’t been a single response.

Once you and Jonathan had navigated the maze of hallways, you had been quick to usher him inside the comms room and lock the door behind you, ensuring at least some kind of security in your mission. Jonathan had assured you he could send out a signal to your friends, and you had immediately began your search for an exit using the camera system Brenner had set up in here. The only problem was that you couldn’t see an exit, and no one was responding to your call.

“It’s Y/n. Y/n Hopper. I’m here with Jonathan Byers. Can anyone hear us?” You try again, sharing a look with the boy currently fixated on the radio system. “We’re stuck in a bunker, and we need help. Over.”

The device eventually rests back on the table’s surface, along with your hope of a response.

“I thought you said they were monitoring the stations?” You ask Jonathan as he fiddles with various dials.

“They are.” He says with determination, shaking his head at the machine. “Dustin basically built on some radio extension, they should be able to hear us. Maybe it’s a problem with-”

His voice falters as he peers behind the table, momentarily ducking down. “I found the problem.”

Before you can ask, he sits back up with a frayed wire in his hand and a frown on his face.

“Shit.” You breathe and he can only nod, inspecting it with disdain.

“Looks like someone tampered with it.” He sighs, leaning back in the chair. “Can we guess who?”

“Probably the same person who removed any trace of a door from the camera feeds.” You say, resting your head in your hand as you continue to click through the screens in front of you.

You had seen what felt like a million hallways and rooms, an unnecessary amount of security in a deserted bunker, but not one single way out of here. It was starting to mess with your brain, wondering if there was even an exit at all.

“Maybe he knew we were gonna escape? You know, just ruined the radio and removed the camera on the front door so we couldn’t leave.” You offer, resisting the repetitive click of the mouse by pushing away from the desk and resting your hands between your thighs.

“How would he know that?” Jonathan frowns, looking lost in thought. “He’s crafty, I’ll give him that. He’s supposed to be dead so I guess nothing can surprise me now.”

You slowly nod along to his words, not really retaining anything here or there. Jonathan explained to you who Brenner was just moments prior to accepting defeat with the technology surrounding you. It turns out he wasn’t a complete stranger after all; Hopper had been hunting him down for years. But there was only so much Jonathan could tell you about him.

You still didn’t know why he took you here in the first place. Or why Jonathan was locked up in a random room with medical equipment.

While Jonathan continues to mutter about the possibilities of escaping, your eyes catch a series of tapes lined across shelves, noticing that very few are marked with a subject.

“What do they say?” You point above him, cutting off his spiel about seeing if there was a weapons room.

“Uh…” Jonathan abandons his seat and peers at the shelf, tilting his head to read the tapes. “There are a couple that say ‘Lab’. Another says ‘Experiment 8’... this one is creepy. It just says, ‘I saw you’.”

A chill runs down your spine as his eyes meet yours with matching concern. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Play it.” You say with more confidence than you expected. 

Jonathan doesn’t object, slipping the tape into the player and watching the screen brighten with the image of a furnished room.

“What’s this?” He frowns, looking to you for some sort of answer. Your face had dropped, eyes glued to the screen.

“No.” You whisper, watching yesterday play out in front of you for the second time.

The camera feed suggested it was hidden in a vent closer to the ceiling, metal lines obstructing some view, but the subject was still clear as day. You watched as Owens talked to you on the couch, holding your breath. Even in a grainy exposure, you could still see the fear on his face.

“What’s happening?” Jonathan asks quietly just as Owens ushers you to the closet.

“He’s saving me.” You state and Brenner walks into the room. From this angle, you can see the gun he’s hiding behind his back, and it makes your stomach churn.

“What…” Jonathan’s question cuts off with the flash of a bullet, a gasp leaving his lips as Owens falls to the ground and lays in a pool of his own blood. “He killed him.”

If the screen weren’t so big, you would’ve missed the way Brenner turns his head to the vent, eyes staring directly into the camera. He doesn’t smile, or speak. He just stares. Like he knew.

Because he always knew.

“There aren’t meant to be any cameras in there.” You say, shaking your head. “He- he knew Owens was telling me everything, he knew I saw what he did.”

“So why didn’t he kill you too?” Jonathan asks the million dollar question. Why didn’t he kill you too?

“Play the other ones.” You nod. “We have to figure out what he knows.”

The tapes didn’t relax your anxiety. You and Jonathan watched three before you felt like you could throw up if you continued.

Each one was a different shot of the Hawkins lab, following the lives of your dad, the kids, everyone. There wasn’t any sound, but it was pretty clear what each person was doing; patrols, planning. He had been watching all of you this entire time.

“There’s more.” Jonathan says, pulling out notebooks from one of the drawers he had curiously opened while you were flicking through tapes. “He’s been writing about us.”

You flick through a couple of pages, frowning. The writing was messy and cursive, detailing different notes about conspiracies, almost all about Hopper and his whereabouts. “Why? Why does he care what we’re doing?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like that we’re trying to find a way to close these gates.”

“What possible reason does he have to keep them open?” You ask just as you discard another book, laying your eyes on the last in the pile.

This notebook was eerily familiar to you. It seemed worn, a couple scratches and stains. They were almost comforting, especially in a stark clean place like this.

You turn the first page and fall into realisation, observing the scrawl of handwriting that fell from your own fingertips. It was your notebook.

It contained information about monsters; their strengths and weaknesses. Like you had been observing them for a while, not that you could remember. And it contained a small diary entry every few pages. Nothing seemed of importance, mostly details about feeling ill or wanting to go home. But one word was scribbled across these pages with such care, catching your eye with every letter.

The most important piece to the puzzle.

"Steve." You manage to whisper out before turning to the screen with haste when you hear your own voice muttering through the screen. This video had audio.

“When was this?” Jonathan asks, and you look closer.

You and a boy are standing at a railing, staring out of a giant glass window with one of the gates staring back at you. Steve. You were with Steve.

“I don’t remember.” You frown, trying to listen to yourself.

“… I’m glad I got to see the real Steve Harrington, even if it was just a few days, but… but that’s not enough time to really know each other. You don’t know me.”

“Looks like the day the lab exploded.”

Everything around you was either burnt or burning, small flames dancing along the ground and chasing after screeching vines.

The lab had exploded, you realise, shoulders dropping. It was gone. And it took the gate with it, only a large crack against the surface left in its demise.

You turn to see Steve already standing beside you, taking in the scene just as you had, his hard stare softening into defeat. There was no going back.

“What now?” You whisper, afraid if you say it any louder the realisation of what you had done would come crashing down, taking away that last remaining piece of sanity with its tide.

“I…” Steve frowns, slowly meeting your eyes. He didn’t have a plan this time, no positives to share. You were both stuck in an alternate dimension, your exit blown to smithereens. “I don’t know.”

“How the hell did I forget that?” Your hands find a tighter grip on your notebook, pulling it closer. “I… I should have remembered.”

Jonathan offers a sympathetic smile. “Y/n, you’ve been missing for weeks. If Brenner’s been feeding you those pills this entire time… it’s gonna take a while for you to remember everything.”

But I should have remembered him.

The way Steve smiled, or how he fiddled with his hair when he was nervous. Each mole painting his skin, or the way he’d huff when he was upset in the most adorable way. The way he’d hold your hand, the sweetness and care behind every kiss. It should have been easy to remember, because your heart never truly forgot.

Your eyes drift up to the screen, watching as Steve leans closer to you. The strain on your heart was loosening with the memory of him, but your stomach tightened with guilt. He would never have forgotten you.

“They don’t need me, Steve.”

“I do.”

“No you don’t.” You shake your head, tears pooling in your eyes. “You’ve been doing this shit long before I was ever in the picture. If anything, I’ve just ruined it-”

“Why do you do that?” He cuts you off, flickering between your eyes with a look of concern. “Act like you aren’t someone important, when you most definitely are.”

“Y/n?” Jonathan brings his chair closer, ensuring a respectable boundary between you two.

You almost turn back to him in defeat when you find yourself staring at the red beam of light behind you and Steve. Reaching forward, you click the mouse and pause the video, leaning closer. The gate was glowing a crimson fog onto the window, eerily beautiful despite its dangerous contents. But, most importantly, you remember that glow post-amnesia. In the room you met Owens.

“Oh my god.” You breathe out, leaning back into your chair to let the dread flood your body.

“What is it?” Jonathan glances between you and the screen, peering closer at the image as if he could use it to read your mind.

“It’s not a door.” You state with a whisper, repeating it louder when you realise he can’t understand you. “It’s not a door. Our exit. It’s a gate.”

You grab the mouse and start flicking back through the live camera feeds, rapidly searching for evidence of your claims until the image presents itself, eliciting a gasp from the boy beside you.

The room you had encountered Owens in for the first time was exactly as you remembered it. Small machines lined the walls and shutters blocked out what you assume to be a large window to your exit. The camera quality wasn’t the best, but it didn’t need to be perfect to see the red light peeking out from the cracks.

“Does this mean what I think it does?” Jonathan asks, arm leaning on the desk beside you as he peers over your shoulder, holding his breath until you answer.

“Yep.” You slowly nod, meeting his eyes. “We’re not just in a bunker.”

“We’re in the Upside Down.”

Almost as soon as the terrifying truth breathed from Jonathan’s mouth, a shrill screech of sirens started to echo around you, startling you out of your seat.

Brenner knew you were escaping.

“Shit, time to go.” Jonathan gasps, spinning around and spotting an old satchel under the desk. He quickly grabs it and starts shoving in evidence; notebooks, tapes, even an old recording device Brenner had left on the shelf.

Before you leave, you ensure your notebook is a part of the collection before unlocking the door and throwing it open to reveal the flashing white and red hallway of your nightmares.

“Which way?!” Jonathan yells over the alarm and you grab his arm, tugging him left into a sprinted run, racing against the clock.

But it didn’t matter how fast you ran. You couldn't outrun time.

Darkness fell over Hawkins like an omen, plunging everything into a deep, dark, black.

The red hues of the clouds above would cast a bloody visage on the buildings whenever lightning should clash, but no thunder followed in its wake. This weather wasn’t normal. It was silent, and it was very, very deadly.

Hiding after dark was the only solution in a world like this now. Unfortunately, sanctuary was getting harder and harder to find. Steve, Billy, and Eddie, learnt that the hard way.

“I don’t mean to point out the obvious, but, uh…” Eddie’s finger waved to the ceiling, gulping.

The problem with the ceiling? There wasn’t one.

“Shit.” Billy runs a hand down his face. “Something ripped that roof clean off.”

“Maybe we should head next door?” Eddie offers, but he knew any suggestions were useless. It was pitch black and Steve was pretty sure the windows of the building opposite were smashed into pieces.

“We can set up a camp.” Steve nods slowly, looking around the store. A couple of shelf stands were still upright. Maybe if they set up their tents behind them, it’ll shield them from anything in the sky. He could shudder at the thought of something flying around right now, but it wouldn’t surprise him.

And it wasn’t necessarily a shock to him that the roof was gone. He’s constantly reminded of the giant shadow you had seen a while back, a fear in your eye he couldn’t ignore. The worst part was that Steve hadn’t seen it around lately, and that made it so much more terrifying. It suggested that this thing only appeared when it mattered.

So why target the Radio Shack?

Billy was the one to start on the tents, while Steve gathered some old wood from broken tables to throw in a pile. Eddie watches them with uncertainty, uncomfortable with how calm they seemed to be. He knew they’ve probably been through a lot, they all have, but they move with such confidence in a situation that would definitely have him spiralling if he was in charge.

“You sure these radios are gonna work?” He tries to keep himself busy as Steve looks over, nodding.

“Yeah. Not those ones, but I brought one with me. It’s battery powered so I just need any packs we can find around here. And it’s always been a pretty good spot for connections. You know, since it’s a radio store and all.” He assures, pulling out some flint he may or may not have snagged from Eddie’s camp. The boy either didn’t mind or took no notice of it, still fiddling with the radios. “Hey.”

Steve carefully takes the radio from his hand, checking the battery. It definitely needed replacing, and he held it while he assessed the situation. There were more radios scattered about, at least one of them had to have the power he needed. 

“We’ll need to contact them in the morning.” He finally says, responding to Eddie’s wide eyes of disapproval. “Look, we don’t know why but radios are practically useless when it’s dark. Maybe it’s something to do with the clouds, I don’t know. But we also don’t want any of those things out there hearing us. Especially since we don’t have a roof over our head.”

He gently places it back down on the counter, sighing.

“I say we make a small fire. Just enough to keep us warm. And we’ll block out the windows so nothing can look in.”

“What about…” Eddie points to the ceiling, eyebrows raised.

“We can risk it.” Billy finally joins them, looking up at the sky just as a burst of red illuminated the clouds. “Nothing’s seeing us from up there.”

“How can you be so sure?” Eddie asks.

Billy doesn’t respond. Instead, he swipes the flint from Steve’s hand and starts work on the campfire, avoiding their eyes.

Steve has never known Billy to be normal. Not even close. He was an egomaniac, emphasis on the maniac, with an array of anger issues and, frankly, terrible judgement. I mean, this guy saw Lucas Sinclair as a threat, and Steve knew there could be only one reason why Lucas of all the boys was targeted.

And yet, even with all his horrible traits, Steve hasn’t known Billy to act this… weird. He was quieter, motivated, and, above all else, somewhat selfless? He didn’t have to volunteer for this trip. He certainly didn’t have to stay when the plan went awry, and considering the military were moving people out, Billy has every opportunity to leave them behind.

Something was just off. And he couldn’t figure out why.

“So, I know you don’t want to talk about it…” Eddie says after a while, the fire set and his back resting against an old wall. Steve looks over before his breath hitches in his throat.

You sat there once. It was back in the Upside Down, but it reminded him of you all the same. Eddie had that same look of defeat on his face, a cool determination still resting behind his eyes like he was still trying to fight. Just like you did.

God, he missed you so fucking much.

“Why is this person you’re looking for so important?” Eddie finishes and Billy’s eyes briefly flicker to Steve’s, the truth weighing heavy on his tongue.

“Because she is.” Steve replies simply, rubbing his hands together as the cold air creeps between the flames. “And she’s incredibly important to all of us.”

“Why?”

“She just is.”

Eddie tightens his lips, slowly nodding. Even as Steve avoids his eyes, his gaze is hard set on the side of his head, reading him like a book. He could almost feel the thoughts radiating from Eddie’s head.

"You're searching for Y/n, aren't you?"

Everything is suddenly too silent. Even Billy tensed up a little, pausing his efforts to pry open a tin of beans they’d packed back at the camp.

Steve isn't sure how to respond. He wasn't expecting Eddie to make such an accurate guess, especially considering your reputation in high school; Steve risking his life for you wouldn't ever cross someone's mind if they had not witnessed your change in relationship.

Unless it wasn't a guess at all.

"How do you know that?"

Eddie suddenly looks sheepish, eyes darting to the ground. "I, uh... I heard... I heard something."

"Heard something?"

"Your radio." Eddie sighs, still avoiding the boy's glare. "Back at the camp. You were asleep and I was on watch that night. I thought I heard a voice- her voice. It was coming from the radio in your bag. But when I tried to respond, nothing went through so I figured I had made it up..."

"You heard her." Steve blinks, shoulders tensing. "You heard her?!"

"Woah, dude, calm down." Eddie jumps from his seat, hands surrendering. "I was gonna look into it when we got here, try and send out another signal."

"Why wouldn't you tell me?!"

"Because last I heard you guys hated each other! How was I meant to know you're friends now?! I've been stuck on the other side of town for weeks now trying to help my uncle, I don't have time to catch up on the latest King Steve gossip!"

"Stop calling me that."

"My bad, would you prefer ‘freak’?"

"Fucking hell, will the both of you just shut the fuck up?" Billy groans, discarding the tin of beans and looking at them in disbelief. "You guys keep arguing over and over and unless one of you is gonna man up and beat the shit out of the other one, I'm sick of your whining."

Steve blinks. Billy Hargrove was the one telling them that their anger issues were the problem? Considering Eddie's similar expression, he wasn't the only one who realised how insane that sounded. Which only meant Billy was right; they really were a problem.

"Ah." Billy grins sarcastically, leaning back against the shelves, "Music to my ears."

"Whatever." Eddie coughs, snagging the radio from the counter and marching away before anyone could protest, mumbling about trying to find another battery.

"What is his problem?" Steve muttered to himself, not quietly enough to avoid Billy's coarse chuckle. "What?"

"Maybe the dude is worked up because we won't tell him a single thing about anything." He offers, eyes plastered the last remaining flickers of ember in the campfire. "We haven't told him about the Upside Down, forgot to mention anything about the gates of hell that we're trying to track. And now you're neglecting to tell him about how Y/n is trapped in another dimension and needs our help. Dude is gonna be pissed."

"Why does he care?" Steve asks, barely any venom in his words. He was just tired. More tired than he usually gets. Maybe he should have taken the opportunity to sleep when the tents were set up.

"About the Upside Down?" Billy cocks a brow, sending a knowing look. "Or Y/n?"

Steve straightens at the way he said it, shifting uncomfortably at the idea he was alluding to something he wasn't aware of.

"Both..." Steve says with uncertainty.

Billy smirks, almost hidden under the growing shade of nightfall. 

"I'm pretty sure his uncle is dying and he doesn't know how to stop it."

Dread and guilt bubble into their own brew in Steve's stomach, tightening his throat. "How the hell would you know that?"

"By using these things people call eyes."

"Alright, don't-"

"And because you've both been so busy avoiding the truth around each other that I've been noticing things you've both forgotten to hide. His uncle is clearly the most resourceful of all of them back at the camp and yet he's the only one who stays behind to 'keep watch'. Eddie always keeps things private from him like he's tryna protect him. And I'm pretty sure that Heather girl is in on it, too. She was training to be a lifeguard before Hawkins went to shit and is probably the only one with first aid experience. Tommy and Chrissy however have no clue since they're clearly traumatised about what happened to them on ‘day one’."

Steve is speechless to say the least, the darkness shedding a whole new light on his perception of the boy next to him.

"You got all that from just looking?"

"You can notice shit a whole lot better when you become an afterthought." He replies, a quiet anger in his eyes. "Y/n taught me that."

Steve tried to ignore it, but he couldn't help fixating on that last little comment. An afterthought. That's how you've felt this entire time. From realising you had been lied to for two years to assuming your father had left without you, Steve never truly appreciated how alone you must have felt, predicting people's departures before they'd ever arrived. 

"And the reason Eddie should know about what's happening to Y/n is the same reason we're out here right now risking our damn lives." Billy's eyes drift to where Eddie was fiddling the radio now, whispering into the speaker with a false sense of hope. "He cares about her."

"I didn't even know they were friends." Steve sighs, sitting down in defeat. Another migraine began to form behind his eyes. Jesus, he could use some painkillers right now.

"Me neither." Billy shrugs, and Steve looks at him quizzically. "What? Just because I'm observant doesn't mean I'm a fucking psychic. I only moved here last year, remember?"

"Trying to forget." Steve comments, but there was no malice. In fact, if Steve squinted, he could just see the making of a smirk lifting the corner of Billy's lips.

They could never be friends. But that didn't mean they had to hate each other forever.

You taught him that.

The persistent sounds of a warning system were the last thing you needed in such a hasty situation. It was hard enough to recall the layout of a white-walled maze without the constant interference of a building headache, barely remembering to grab onto Jonathan’s arm anytime you made a sudden sharp turn.

Time was running against you now. One wrong turn and it could all be over.

“We’re almost there!” You say aloud, but it wasn’t to ease Jonathan’s mind. 

You recognised the increasing door numbers around you, reminiscent of the days you would wander around this place and only have to worry about your memory.

It seemed that the closer to the gate you were, the quieter the alarms became. Maybe the power was malfunctioning. After all, electricity didn’t exist in the Upside Down. Brenner must be powering it with some external source and the security system had to be using up all that energy rapidly.

“It’s just down-”

As you pull Jonathan around another corner, attempting to lead him to the gate, someone blocks the hallway, gun in his unnaturally steady hand.

The both of you stop dead in your tracks, locking eyes with your captor.

“I can’t let you leave.” Brenner says, unwavering. “My work isn’t complete.”

You shake your head, slowly raising your hands in surrender. “What work?”

He doesn’t answer, but you don’t expect him to, especially not when he looked like that.

Eyes bloodshot and white hair messy, Brenner looked like he had been fighting. There were no bruises or blood as evidence, but his demeanour was wilder than you’ve ever known it to be. He was always collected, calm, unusually so. And right now, he didn’t look like himself.

“I… I can’t let you leave.” His voice trembles this time, alongside a slight tremor in his hand.

Beside you, you can feel Jonathan move closer. He’s obviously preparing for the worst, hoping you both can run before the bullet reaches you.

“You don’t understand!” Brenner yells this time, taking two harsh steps closer to you. You flinch, but he doesn’t pull the trigger. “I can’t- I can’t let him have her.”

That caught you by surprise, your hands slowly lowering back down to your sides. “Who…”

“I could have done great things. I would have.” He begins laughing to himself now, a crazed shell of himself echoing into the hallway. “But she is more important.”

Slowly, his hand lowers, gun pointed at the floor. He starts to stare into the distance, an unsettling smile dropping to a defeated expression. You exchange a look with Jonathan, unsure how to approach him. Brenner was clearly out of his mind and was blocking the only way out.

“Brenner?” You whisper out, taking a tentative step forward much to Jonathan’s immediate distress.

“What are you-”

You shrug him off, tilting your head to hopefully catch Brenner’s eye. You always had a sixth sense about people, about if they were truly good or evil. And right now, you saw a man that needed help. He wasn’t okay, and you hoped that your instincts were right.

“Dr?” You try again, and this time, he looks up.

“I’m sorry.” He says as he meets your eyes, his own glittering with silent tears. “I truly am sorry.”

“Just let us go.” You plead with a comforting voice, holding out your hands. “We’ll forget all about this. You- you need help. We can… we can get help.”

“You can’t leave.” He frowns, face suddenly hardening to stone.

“Y/n…” Jonathan warns, stepping closer to you, but it was too late.

Brenner raises the gun, straightening his stance and pointing it directly at your chest. “I can’t let him win.”

Him? You question, eyes glued to the weapon. You notice the flicker of his index finger on the trigger, and you wish you hadn’t. It meant you were about to die.

Or, at least, someone was.

Before any bullets could leave the barrel, something big lunges out from the darkness and pounces onto Brenner, the gun firing into the wall beside your head.

Brenner yells out in pain as the monster raises its ugly claw, striking down. A scream almost leaves your lips before Jonathan is taking the opportunity to escape, grabbing your hand and pulling you away from the horrifying miracle.

You find yourself unable to decide if leaving Brenner was making you feel guilty or not. And you didn’t have time to. Jonathan leads you straight to the red hue seeping from behind one of the doors, throwing it open and tugging you inside with haste.

“How do we-” 

He begins to ask how to open the shutters, but you’ve already launched yourself towards the door on the far end of the room, following the faint hum that has haunted your dreams since day one. He joins you almost as quickly as you left him, standing beside you in the open doorway and staring in at the room that follows.

“Jesus…” He whispers, the gate smaller than the one at the lab but big enough to have him wondering. “We’ve been searching for a gate for weeks. And it’s been here the whole time? How did we miss this?”

The taunting sound of heavy footsteps call out from behind you, something big hitting the door with malicious intent.

Both of you jump inside the room, tipping over a metal unit to block the door before you make a run for it, the shelves you destroyed scraping against the floor as the monster attempts to break in.

As your footsteps echo loudly against the silver steps leading to the gate, the unsettling wave of familiarity plagues you for the last time inside this bunker.

A lab, a gate, a boy. Time was repeating itself, over and over, making you question if your actions ever meant anything at all. You always ended back here, back in a life or death deal with only one realistic option left for survival; run.

You almost slip, but Jonathan manages to catch you, a terrifying crash sounding from the door.

As Jonathan takes your hand in his, the cool skin feels unusual against yours. Your body was aching for some kind of warmth this boy didn't have, reminiscent of a safe grasp.

You didn’t realise what was wrong until you were being pulled through the gate with a gasp, senses thrown off balance as you barely escaped the claws of a close death.

Jonathan’s hand didn't bring the same comfort you’ve yearned for all this time.

He wasn't Steve.

No one really appreciates a roof over their head until they don’t have it anymore.

There was the blinding light of sun peeking through the grey clouds and a horrible sensation of something clinging to his arm when he woke, causing Steve to groan in despair. He barely got any sleep last night, and now he’ll probably be up for another 20 hours. Life sucked right now.

Steve peels his arm away from the lining of the tent, frowning. It felt wet. Why was it wet?

Crawling out of his pop-up quarters, ignoring how uncool he must look right now, Steve’s heart drops as his hand slips into a puddle. It rained. It rained.

“Shit.” He spits, scrambling to his feet and letting his eyes fall across the store.

Any and all electronic equipment was now soaked and useless.

“Shit!” He says, louder this time. His hands were pressed against the top of his head as he paced.

“What’s going on?” Eddie yawns, stepping out of the second tent with much more grace than Steve had earlier. But he couldn’t dwell on that, right now. “Damn. When did it rain?”

“The batteries.” Steve gasped, rushing over to the counter. 

Any radios left were drowned, leaving no promise of what he desperately needed. His hands fumble with the battery compartments, a little piece of his soul chipping away as each battery led in their own pools of rain.

“Steve?”

Eddie’s voice wasn’t a priority. His hands were shaking. He was stuck here, just like in the Upside Down. Just like you. And now he-

“Steve!”

His eyes finally snap up to see his saving grace.

Eddie stood with a radio in one hand, pointing to it with the other. “It’s fine. I found a battery and shoved it into my tent when we turned in last night. And it works, too.”

“Oh, thank god.” Steve sighs, releasing all his anxious energy back into the air.

“You sleep okay, man? You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, I- I’m okay.” He rubs his eyes, sucking in the fresh air. Well, as fresh as it could be in an apocalypse. “Where’s Billy?”

“Uh…” Eddie takes a quick look around before deciding on a shrug.

“Great.” Steve sighs, rolling his shoulder. There was still a dull ache resting there, flaming whenever he moved his left arm. “I’ll start getting us packed up, you try and contact your camp.”

Eddie didn’t seem all too convinced by his false display of wellness. “You sure you’re-”

“I’m fine.” Steve offers a tight-lipped smile, already taking down the tents with haste that suggested he really wasn’t in the mood to talk about how miserable he was right now. “See if anything else survived. We’ll need some spare batteries for when we’re out of the mall. Just in case.”

“Cool. Back-ups. I like it.” Eddie nods, mostly to himself since Steve had already left his side.

Steve’s hands immediately find solace in disassembling the tents, grateful to be busy. He wasn’t sure what was making him so cranky. Usually it would be from another nightmare he couldn’t control, images of your virus-stricken form weaving into his deepest fears. He didn’t dream last night, but he wasn’t even sure he slept at all.

It was like there was a small nagging pinch of a dagger resting at the back of his mind, occasionally piercing him but mostly leaving a dull ache in his brain. It was almost torture, and he wasn’t sure what was causing it. No sleep, no water or food, could remove it no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe it was all the pressure finally taking its toll on him. The apocalypse wasn’t resting easy on anyone’s mind, but after losing you and leading Jonathan straight to his demise, it was certainly heavy.

Maybe it was something else entirely. Something he missed. He’d been feeling it since that day in the motel basement, where you sacrificed all you had left to make sure he was saved. But he had nothing more than a blackout and a painful memory to evidence his growing fatigue.

One thing was for sure; his only cure right now would be you.

“Steve?” Eddie’s voice calls out from the other side of the shelves, making Steve pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah?”

“There’s something staring at me.”

Steve pauses all movement, eyes widening. His heartbeat raises quicker than usual, a trail of goosebumps straightening the hairs on his arms.

“Is this the demogorgon you were talking about?” He asks, and Steve slowly makes his way back through the store, attempting to catch a glimpse of the window.

“Tall, grey, faceless?” Steve recalls, taking slow steps. He can just see his bat resting near one of the deflated tents, calling to him. The sun above made everything impossible to see, pu

re light reflecting on the window.

“No. It’s, uh…”

When Eddie’s words falter, Steve makes a quick and crucial decision. He steps to his bat and swipes it off the ground, turning to see the boy fully now. Eddie’s face had fallen, fists clenched.

“What?” Steve frowns, afraid to look behind him at the glass pane.

“It’s grinning at me.”

Heart sinking into his stomach, Steve can’t seem to find the words to warn Eddie before glass shatters the earth behind him, a sharp ringing in his ear. It cuts his voice with a sliced gasp through the air as something pulls him backwards until he hits the ground hard.

He didn’t get a moment to recover. A large clawed hand found its way around his throat, pinning him to the ground.

As he chokes for breath, Steve finds himself staring up at the eerie image of a jagged smile, dead eyes glaring down at him with enough malice to turn his body cold. But Steve wasn’t the target. After all, that thing didn’t smile at him.

Pressure relieves his neck and he’s no longer the prey.

“Eddie-” He gasps, trying to sit up when the grinning monster leaves his side. “Run.”

“Shit!” Eddie has no objections as he snatches the radio from the counter and takes off in the opposite direction. And, just as Steve assumed, the monster followed.

A burst of pain seeped from his shoulder and along his spine, a hiss leaving Steve’s lips as he forced himself to stand. Various cuts from shards of glass littered his hands but that would have to wait.

“Billy!” He yells out, eyes struggling to focus around him. 

He doesn’t understand why it didn’t just kill him when it had the chance, but there wasn’t much time to debate it. Billy had the only weapon sure enough to take this thing out with a single blow to the head, and he was nowhere to be seen.

A cry echoes from inside the Radio Shack and Steve’s hand instinctively finds his bat. I guess I’ll have to do this the hard way, he thinks as he rushes to the noise, his only plan resting on the pure adrenaline of fear.

He appeared just in time to watch Eddie’s feet dangle above the ground, his hands scrambling to tear at the thick skin of the monster’s grip around his neck. Steve ignores the pain in his shoulder to lift the bat above his head and swipe it down onto the back of its head with as much force as he could muster.

It screeches, dropping Eddie to snap its head around to where Steve stood, panting. The bat was laced with droplets of blood, but his attack didn’t cause the damage he had hoped for.

Claws swiped at his face, causing him to jump back and stumble directly into old wooden shelves. They collapse into a heap behind him and he loses his footing.

His bat rolls from his grip and his eyes widen just as the smirk of his worst fears approaches him. It only seems to get bigger, the disproportionate body towering over him. It grinned the same way it had at Eddie. He was next.

“Hey!”

The sickening smile still rested on its face as it turned to the intrusion, keen on finding something to rip apart. Steve felt despair for a moment, closed in with a pile of wooden rubble at his feet.

He shouldn’t have doubted Eddie’s fighting spirit.

An ear-splitting scream left the creature’s jagged mouth when Eddie’s spear slotted perfectly into one of its eyes, black blood pouring out from the back of its head as it wobbled from left to right.

Steve manages to scurry out of the way just in time for the monster to collapse into the heap, a stomach-churning squelch of the spear being pushed further into the head with the impact.

“Smile about that, asshole.” Eddie quips, still shaking with fear.

Steve’s wide eyes turn into lights of approval, a trembling laugh erupting from his mouth. “Holy shit.”

Eddie only nods, adjusting his bandana. “Holy shit.”

“You just killed that thing with a spear.” Steve says in bewilderment, still chuckling, but none of it was funny. It was just easier this way, to find the humour in a situation that was very much deadly a few seconds ago.

“I played a lot of DnD.” He replies earnestly, balling his hands into fists. Steve could tell he was trying to pretend it was nothing, to brush it off. “That was… that was the first thing I’ve ever killed.”

“Really?” Steve frowns, brushing the dust from his hands. He was pretty much sitting in a puddle right now, but he wasn’t sure he could stand. Adrenaline wore off pretty quickly. “Well, uh… congrats, I guess.”

“Thanks.”

Steve had a lot of experience battling monsters from the Upside Down. Although, he wasn’t necessarily an expert per say. The normal baseline for experience with these things would be absolutely zero considering they aren’t meant to exist. But he knew the first time facing the reality of a life and death situation was scarring. He also knew Eddie should count himself lucky; not everyone could stand their ground.

Sometimes people run away before they learn that courage.

“Are we sure it's dead?” Eddie asks, peering down at it. Before Steve can reply, the answer presents itself instead.

The thing twitched, clawed hand shooting out to grab onto Eddie’s leg. Bat resting further than Steve would have hoped, he scrambles for a new weapon, hands rooting around the dirty ground for a rock heavy enough to cause some damage.

Luckily for him, he didn’t need to search long.

A heavy shot pierces the air and the next thing he knows, Eddie is splattered with the monster’s blood, the tight grip on his ankle faltering until the thing goes limp and it falls with a single bullet between the eyes.

“Holy shit.” Eddie exhales, looking up with an anxious smile, “That was close.”

Steve can only nod in exasperation, pushing himself from the ground for the fourth time today and dusting his hands free of gravel.

He turns to look for Billy’s smug face, expecting the drawl of condescending remarks to fall upon his ear. He was sorely mistaken.

One glance at the dead monster and he sees it; one tiny, clean, bullet hole. Not from a shotgun.

“Can’t you go anywhere without me?”

“... Nancy?”

Nancy Wheeler stands with her trusted gun pointed at the ground, a relieved smile painting her lips. She was wearing different clothes than the last time he saw her, a new jacket he recognised straight from Jonathan’s wardrobe. She had a satchel resting across her body, but that wasn’t her only accessory.

Behind her, Robin Buckley stood with arms folded, a radio strapped to her hip and paired with a taser on the other side. She didn’t smile, but Steve wasn’t at all surprised. She’d made it pretty clear she wasn’t a fan of his since your disappearance.

The only surprise was the fact they were both here.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He finally asks, posture depleting with exasperation.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing.” Nancy says, retiring her gun back to her belt. “Where have you guys been? We’ve been trying to radio-”

Her voice cuts out when she notices Eddie stood there awkwardly.

“Uh, hi.” He offers a wave, and she merely nods back. “I’m Eddie.”

“Munson?” She frowns, looking between him and Steve before focusing on the latter. “When did-”

“It’s a long story.” He sighs.

“Not really.”

Billy finally rejoins the group, the shotgun they had desperately needed a minute ago looped onto his shoulder. His shoes were muddy, hair a little damp from what Steve assumes to be the early rain.

“We got stranded at the library and ran into some other survivors. We camped out with them and then Munson offered to take us to the last place with supplies and, well, here we are.” Billy recalls, folding his arms. “Not a long story.”

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Everyone turns to Steve in surprise. His voice was bitter, a bite in his eye that suggested he wasn’t in the mood to be messed with.

“Took a walk.” Billy says, stoic expression faltering slightly when he finally clocks the dead monster on the ground. “Ah.”

“Ah?” Steve repeats, walking over to him. “Ah? We almost died because you took our only solid weapon on a walk, and all you can say is ‘ah’?!”

“Chill out, it’s dead, isn’t it?” Billy straightens, undefeated by Steve’s dangerous gaze. “Obviously you didn’t need me.”

“I can’t believe you-”

“Woah, okay.” Nancy steps forward, hand guiding Steve away from Billy with an ounce of pressure on his shoulder and he winces. “Sorry. Let’s just… calm down. We can fight about this later, but right now we have bigger things to worry about.”

“She’s right.” Robin speaks up for the first time, tilting her head. “We have a lead.”

“A lead on what?” Steve frowns, stalking away from Billy and cradling his shoulder. It definitely got worse after the attack.

“Y/n.”

If his heart could jump from his chest and strangle him, he’s sure it would have done it just then, throat tightening with a thick set of emotion. “What… what about her?”

“We heard her.” Nancy smiles, nodding feverously. “We picked up a signal yesterday. It was definitely Y/n. She’s- she’s alive. And she’s not alone.”

“Who…”

“Jonathan.” She laughs this time. Complete and utter joy slipping from her lips, a light he definitely hadn’t seen in some time.

Steve can only shake his head. “Wait, but that’s- how could he-”

“I don’t know.” Nancy steps closer, ensuring that he was only focused on what she had to say and not the disbelief running through his thoughts. “But we definitely heard her right. She and Jonathan were saying they were stuck somewhere. We- we lost the signal before we heard anything else, but it’s them. They’re alive, Steve. I know it.”

Confliction rolled around Steve’s stomach until it made him sick. He had so many concerns about this supposed signal, but mostly he was afraid that steering off course for a hopeful miracle would ruin everything. If the signal was wrong, if you and Jonathan weren’t there… then what?

“We’re heading to the new mall. Eddie says there’s enough supplies there to last us another month at least. I can’t- we can’t leave without it.”

“You’re not gonna believe it,” Nancy shakes her head in bewilderment, struck with relief of their luck, “But Hopper managed to track the signal.”

Billy unfolds his arms and Eddie stops slumping. Nancy doesn’t have to finish her words, but she does anyway, letting that hope solidify with a heavy promise.

“They’re in Starcourt already.”

[A/N: the next chapter is coming whenever I'm not rethinking my entire life after three years of university just to end up in a retail job, i hate it here. but ily guys for still reading]

@sheisjoeschateau . @kthomps914 . @curled-hair-red-lips . @nix-rose .

@palmtreesx3 . @kryztalglear . @sattlersquarry . @hey-barnes-stole-a-jeep . @sadslasher13 .

@iliveonteaandbooks . @innercreationflower . @newyorkangelbaby . @totally-bogus-timelady . @pansexualhoor .

@kitdjarin1 . @chiliwhore . @carolineesnell .

[emersonfreepress]

help i'm alive

So! Long time, no see. 2023 was a whole goddamn lot lol

I don't have a demo update to share yet, but that's because I had to scrap nearly everything I managed to write during a very, very, very bad stint of writer's block last year. I hadn't even realized it had been a block like that until I went over my work so far last month and realized it was bad -- like, trust me; a slog to read that didn't even sound like me. It's been extremely frustrating but I've finally broken free of that and it's been easy and actually fun to write again for the first time in actual years. I just hate giving updates that have no actual news in them. And I really had nothing to share other than: I deleted thousands of words and feel so much better now 😅

Anyway, little about my demo plans have changed: I'm still putting out the Chapter 3 demos in Choicescript/on Dashingdon and then will be going dark to move things over to Twine. Where I am in the process right now is... feeling like 35% done with the overhauled version of this chapter and 50% done for the next demo update.

As far as asks, I'm... not really sure what to do?? I believe I've read them all (I love you guys), but so much time has passed since getting most of them that I'm not sure if it's, like... still pertinent??? To go back and answer them?? I suppose some of them like character asks could be, but all the nice messages of support -- that feels weird since I've practically ghosted this blog since August! Idk. Y'all tell me what to do with 'em and I'll do it. Maybe I should make a poll.

Uh... that's really all there is to say regarding the game! I've added some personal stuff after the cut, but if you're done here: Thanks for reading and sticking around. It means the world, for real.

So what has occupied my time all this time? Doctor, therapy, money, and friends. And improv! But especially the first two. There was a lot of non-writing related stuff fucking up my ability to focus and write, so hopefully with my mind and body both feeling a lot better, I can get back to being present and active with the game. I didn't realize how physically unwell I was until last year and it's been like... life-long issues I've been treating. It turns out it's not normal to feel exhausted enough to sleep at any given time, at all times, for your whole life! wow!!

I also uninstalled Tumblr from my phone back in February, so you could say I'm sort of generally focused on offline life. (And what an interesting coincidence that my writer's block dissipated shortly after that...) I also just moved!! The last two weekends have been so expensive and stressful -_- But I can't even compare the old place to the new. We're basically paying the same price for idek how much more space. The cats are so happy; which means the house humans get to be happy.

My schedule is finally freed up from constant medical shit (there was a 3-month stretch this winter with multiple doctor appointments literally every fucking week 🙃🙃🙃). My mental health is doing a lot better -- literally incomparably better compared to where I was this time last year. There's live comedy now (which I dabble in, to be clear lol), but I've finally found myself able to like... balance it all. The physical and creative energy that goes into it all, anyway. The lovely thing about improv is that you kinda just show up and do your thing -- it doesn't cut into my writing time so much as it costs energy. Unless I end up in this comedy debate show thing next month, which I am very excited to give up writing time for

So like... Life is life-ing and I'm just vibing. Or something? I'll be around.

Thank you all again so much for your interest, support, patience, and readership <3

[izels-writing]

j. potter — tutoring

Pairing: james potter x fem!loner!reader

Summary: james potter is failing potions and you seem to be his only saving grace

Warnings: nothing tbh, i may have based reader off of me a little too much so i apologize for that in advance 😭, also this is kinda all over the place but i hit a writers block and thought this was cute

james potter sat boredly in professor slughorn's office, counting the brinks on the ceiling of the dungeon. he had been waiting for at least fifteen minutes and if he waited one more second in silence, his head would explode.

slughorn, within the next minute, finally entered the office—clearing his throat and sitting in front of james with an air of seriousness. james sat up straighter, waiting for the professor to begin speaking.

"mister potter, we need to seriously talk about your grades in this class," slughorn began. he opened his desk and pulled out many of james' half-assed essays, most of them marked with d's and p's. james groaned quietly, throwing his head back.

"if i didn't know any better, i'd think you were doing it on purpose. but i know you, mister potter," slughorn continued, "i know you've always had a rocky relationship with this subject. what's been going on lately?"

james frowned. "i can't focus, okay? it's like trying to sit through a lesson in the middle of a quidditch match, i'm too...i dunno, distracted?"

slughorn nodded. "i see... have you talk to your parents about this?"

"no, and you can't tell them," james rushed out. "i don't want to worry them, they worry easily,"

slughorn sighed, covering his mouth as he reviewed all of james' essays. he thought for a moment, which only piqued james' curiosity. slughorn glanced between him and the essays, before leaning back in his chair.

"i can arrange you a tutor, one that can help you with this problem..." slughorn finally said. james lit up, hoping and praying it was who he thought it was.

"lily evans?" he asked hopefully.

"no," slughorn replied. james lost slight interest, but nodded anyway. "and if i arrange this for you, i want you to take this seriously..do you understand, mister potter? or else i'll be forced to tell your parents,"

james nodded in agreement. "of course, sir, thank you,"

if james potter was anything, he was respectful. his mother had taught him that much.

"if i may ask, sir, if it's not lily evans—who is it?" he asked curiously.

slughorn smiled warmly. "i'll let you know soon,"

——

you tapped your foot anxiously, glancing at your watch with a frown. you didn't necessarily have anywhere to be, but it sure irked you when someone was late. not to mention, you definitely felt you should've said no when slughorn approached you.

but you were ever the people pleaser.

as you turned to throw your stuff in your bag, you suddenly saw a tall, lean boy throw himself into the seat in front of you. you stopped your actions, looking at the boy in front of you with slightly furrowed eyebrows as he breathed heavily and looked disheveled.

"you're five minutes late," you commented, scanning him over as he tried to adjust himself comfortably.

"i know, i know," james sighed. "i apologize, really, i had no idea how long that other thing would take,"

you tried to be a hard ass, but the boy seemed tired as it was so you softened up a bit. you softened your expression, but not too much that he'd notice, and nodded. "i understand,"

he looked at you shocked, but you ignored his gaze as you pulled out your textbook. additionally, you pulled out a spare parchment and your secret weapon. he did the same, except he pulled out a quill instead of a spare piece of parchment.

"slughorn told me your problems. i understand," you continued. he scoffed.

"you're the smartest in our year, how could you possibly understand?" james asked.

you blinked at him. "because, i happen to have the same problem. now, i'm not sure if you have trouble focusing in general or if you just suck at potions, what i do know is that i can help—unless you don't want me to and slughorn will be forced to tell your parents..."

james looked at you in disbelief. "he told you?!"

madam pince shushed him from the other side of the library and he sunk slightly in his chair. you nodded, keeping your gaze on him.

"he did, to let me know how high the stakes were for you," you replied. suddenly you placed two metal marbles on the table in front of james, to which he raised his eyebrows at. he glanced between you and the marbles confused.

you nodded toward the marbles, "well? pick them up..."

he reluctantly picked them up, watching you as you pulled out your own set. you opened your textbook and his to the same pages, before looking at him again.

"this won't fix the problem," you explained, "but it may help. your problem is lack of concentration right? you feel like you have to be moving while sitting in that chair, like you cannot keep your mind on one thing?"

james stared at you and nodded. he had never heard someone describe it well for him, and he wasn't much a man of words so to speak. "yeah, sorta like that, i suppose,"

you nodded. "good, we may be dealing with the same problem then," you picked up your set of the metal marbles and began moving them in that hand. they clinked together and made a satisfying sound as you kept going with the motion in your hand. "do what i'm doing and hold that same hand under the table—but do not stop moving your hand and the marbles,"

he obliged, following your exact instructions. thankfully, the noise wasn't so loud that it distracted anyone else in the library—it wasn't so much as noticeable to others either.

"now, we'll read the textbook, do some notes, i'll help you write your essay and we'll see if it's easier for you, sound good?" you asked.

"yeah, yeah, sounds great," james replied quickly, a small smile blooming on his face. you didn't seem so amused, but to be fair, james wasn't sure he'd ever seen you amused.

"great! any questions?" you asked, before you started.

he nodded. "yeah, sorta. why did you agree to help me?"

it wasn't necessarily an out of the blue question. for as long as you and james had known each other (and that was used lightly), he'd never really seen you around anybody. you avoided people it seemed. you seemed to find comfort in solitude, always studying alone, eating alone, walking alone—not that you ever seemed upset about it. sure, you had friends here and there, but no one permanent. you never seemed to care much for it, you came here for academics, that's all it seemed.

moreover, he'd never really seen you display big bouts of emotion. maybe a smile or chuckle here or there, but rarely. he'd never seen you cry or laugh aloud, he'd never seen you do a lot of things. maybe you did, maybe he just didn't pay attention enough. nonetheless, he was a bit curious. you seemed to avoid everyone, him especially.

you knew the question was coming. you knew why too. it was because you weren't very social and you were often irritated. you never hung around anyone and you certainly never joined parties or quidditch games. it was difficult for you, you struggled with showing emotions and socializing with others. you couldn't control it and you certainly couldn't help it, and no one really seemed to stick around to figure you out. but that was fine, you supposed anyway.

it certainly was not fine, despite trying to convince yourself. it was a lonely way to live and your family was worried, despite them not admitting it. you just buried the lonely feelings, hoping that maybe it'd change one day.

"how do you mean?" you asked. what if you were just a nice person? would he even accept that answer?

"i mean, what's in it for you? surely you have better things to do than tutor me," james quickly said, likely thinking carefully about what he was saying because truthfully, you both knew that no, in fact, you didn't.

"nothings in it for me," you replied, shaking your head. "i just decided to help, i guess. is there something wrong with that?"

you weren't trying to be hostile. you were genuinely curious.

"no," he replied. "there isn't,"

"good, now let's start," you said, offering a small smile.

——

weeks had passed, tutoring session after tutoring session passed by quickly. you and james met on tuesday afternoons and thursday afternoons. you began to enjoy his company, even if you knew he was being forced to attend. unbeknownst to you, he quite enjoyed the sessions as well, even looking forward to them each week.

you had both figured out how to best figure out james' lack of attention span in potions and he begun to get better grades, but nonetheless you both agreed to keep the tutoring sessions going—to 'keep his grades up'.

james sighed, closing his textbook and placing the metal marbles you had gifted him on the table. "can we take a break? if i read one more word, i'll throw up on the table," he whined.

"dramatic," you replied, "but okay, ten minutes,"

"you and i should get a snack, recharge our brains," james suggested cheekily, hoping you'd say yes.

"yeah, no thanks, i don't trust that stupid smile on your face," you replied.

"you'd think after all our time together that you’d trust me by now,” james sighed, shaking his head in feign disappointment. “so untrusting, n/n,”

“n/n?” you questioned.

“my nickname for you, you like it?” he grinned.

you chuckled, smiling as you rolled you eyes at him. “okay, whatever…”

james grinned, “oh! do i get points for making wednesday addams laugh?”

you dropped your smile and glared at him, rolling your eyes playfully again. he huffed, “geez…sorry…”

“go get your snack and then come back, we’ll pick out some other potion books for review, sound good?” you asked, raising an eyebrow at him. he grinned again, nodding like an excited little kid. you snorted and waved him off, fighting and failing to hide your smile as he rushed out of the library.

within twenty minutes he was back, following you as you put books back and grabbed new ones. you and him were chatting quietly, as you walked down the aisles, mainly focusing your attention on the books you were looking for. however, you paid close attention to the subject, given it was a topic he brought up often: why you were so uptight about your studies.

“well, potter—“ you began sternly.

“hey, i gave you a nickname! where’s mine?” he asked with a dramatized frown. you rolled your eyes playfully, hiding your slight amusement.

“as i was saying, potter, i’m uptight because i like to be prepared. frankly, i hope you pass your o.w.l’s because given how unprepared you are, i am praying for the best,” you replied sarcastically, noticing as he smiled at your joke.

he always seemed to understand your jokes.

“our o.w.l’s aren’t for another eight months,” he replied, getting a book from a high shelf as you tried to reach it to no avail. he handed it to you.

“exactly! you need to study for them now! you need to prepare!” you replied, putting a book back as you spoke.

“you are so uptight,” he chuckled. “some things you just need to…go with the flow. expecting the unexpected is no fun,”

you turned suddenly, smacking a book to his chest, thinking he’d grab it before it hit him. you laughed aloud, covering your mouth to muffle it, and he smiled back mockingly.

“how’s that for expecting the unexpected?” you grinned.

“shove off, n/n,” he scoffed. “you’re so corny,”

“and prepared,” you added, swiftly turning around to keep walking.

unbeknownst to you, james smiled at you genuinely while you were turned, your genuine laugh echoing in his head. he’d certainly make more jokes just to hear it again.

——

“well, this is our last session before break,” you smiled. “think you’ll be able to handle life without me for two weeks?” you joked.

“i think i can manage,” he teased back. you rolled your eyes, allowing a smile to grow on your face.

he smiled, pulling some out of his school bag swiftly. “actually, i wanted to give you something before we left, to thank you and for christmas,” he said kindly.

you furrowed your eyebrows. “you didn’t have to get me anything, potter,”

he rolled his eyes. “i wanted to, alright? and now you have to accept it,” he smiled. he slid over the small box toward you. it was wrapped in cute christmas wrapping paper, tied with a sting into a small box.

you took it gingerly in your hands, opening it carefully. you carefully tore the wrapping off and opened the small navy blue box. as you opened it, you held back your gasp as you took in the sight.

it was a beautiful silver bracelet, with butterflies placed in between the chains. the stones that filled in the butterflies were a beautiful pink color and it shined beautifully.

“james…” you gaped. “i don’t know what to say, thank you..” you smiled, pulling it out of the box and handing it to him. “will you clip it on me?”

he nodded and obliged, taking notice to how your eyes never left the beautiful bracelet. you looked up at him, tension filling the air as you watched him slowly clipping the bracelet onto your wrist. he smiled as your eyes connected, and for a second, you felt your stomach get all jittery.

“i’ll mail you a gift, seriously, this is beautiful,” you smiled. “thank you..so so much,”

somehow, it was very easy to smile around james potter.

“you don’t have to mail me anything,” james replied.

“oh please let me,” you pleaded, “i’ll feel so bad if i don’t,”

he smiled, “fine, alright, if it’ll help you sleep better at night,”

you grinned excitedly and pulled out a piece of parchment so he could write his address for you. he did it quickly, handing it back to you promptly.

——

you hadn’t been quite sure what to gift a boy who had everything he’d ever wanted. sure, you could get him something quidditch related, but it didn’t seem personal enough. you had wanted to give him something meaningful and sentimental.

you racked your brain for hours, trying to find the perfect gift. eventually, you settled with new quidditch gloves but even then, that still felt impersonal. so, you had begun to think back to every interaction the two of you had shared and landed on the perfect addition to his quidditch gloves.

you wasn’t quite sure how you had landed on the subject but you two had, so you scoffed and leaned back in your chair.

“fine then, what’d be your wish come true?” you asked james.

“to see you make a different facial expression?” james suggested. you swatted his arm quickly, making him retract it. “ow! i’m serious! sorry, but talking to the same facial expression every tuesday and thursday is scary! it wouldn’t exactly wound me to see you smile every once in a while…”

a different facial expression.

you quickly grabbed the family polaroid and enlisted your sibling to help you take the perfect picture of you smiling. once you were satisfied, you packaged it with his other gift and wrote a little note, explaining both gifts to him.

and that left you where you were now, back in the library with james, studying out of your potions textbooks. you noticed him pull it out and open the page quickly, as he had stuck something in between the pages.

you looked at intensely, trying to figure out what it was. then you quickly recognized it.

“is that me?” you blurred before you could stop yourself.

james looked down at whatever you were looking at and blushed, though he hid it well. “yeah, one of my gifts remember? you remind me of potions class, so, i use it as a bookmark,” he replied casually.

unbeknownst to you, he just really loved staring at the photo. you had a beautiful smile and it was a shame you didn’t show it more often.

you smiled warmly. “oh okay…”

“lovely bookmark, isn’t it?” james smiled, admiring the photo. he hadn’t meant to flirt, but he wasn’t exactly regretting it.

you chuckled. “i suppose so…”

bonus;

“daddy, how’d you know you liked mommy?” you seven year-old daughter, alison, asked as you set dinner table. it was james’ turn to cook tonight, so he held your toddler on the counter by him as he pulled dinner out of the oven.

you and james glanced at each other, smiling at her innocent yet curious questions. you stood there, watching as james turned to your daughter with a smile.

“well… i remember when i saw your mommy laugh for the first time,” james said honestly. “i instantly fell in love, i knew i’d marry her some day… i wanted to hear her laugh for the rest of my life,”

alison smiled. “mommy, what about you? how did you know you liked daddy?”

“well,” you recounted, “i remember every time i spoke to him, i smiled all the time. i was so happy around him and i knew i’d always be happy around him,”

alison nodded, smiling. “that’s cute! i hope i will know when i like someone!”

you looked at james, smiling as he ruffled your daughters hair, and like always, you felt your heart flutter at the sight of him. you felt like everything in the world was okay.

you looked back at your daughter with a smile. “trust me, sweetness, you’ll know.”

[hargreevesenterprises]

WELCOME (☂︎︎) | ABOUT US | RULES

Welcome to the (un)official Hargreeves Enterprises account! This is your personal gateway to learning everything there is to know about Sir Reginald Hargreeves and his extraordinary legacy!

Here, you’ll hopefully be able to gain some insight into the legendary inventor, decorated entrepreneur, Nobel Prize Winner, Olympic Gold Medalist, and (most importantly) the brilliant mind behind The Umbrella Academy. From crime-fighting triumphs to intense training regimens, this is your special and exclusive look at the lives of the six remarkable Hargreeves siblings!

Have questions for the Umbrella Academy? We’ll do our best to get them answered. At Hargreeves Enterprises, we believe in both heroism and curiosity - so don’t hesitate to reach out! Remember, we're here to help you.

General Introduction - Hello! You can call me Vee and welcome to my non-official blog for TUA.

As made clear by the introduction above, this is an “in-character” ask blog for the Hargreeves’ Siblings - specifically from when they were still operating as the Umbrella Academy. I got inspired by the blog @asktheumbrellas who runs a similar type of project based on the adult versions of the characters from the TUA show (it’s super cool and the writing is incredible - please go check it out) as well as the multitude of other ask blogs that I’ve seen on Tumblr over the years (though since I have no artistic ability whatsoever this project will stay complete text-based).

I mainly made this as a fun side project that I could work whenever I started to get writer's block or lost connection with my "muses" but I hope that some other people could get enjoyment out of it as well.

Context/Setting - As I mentioned before, this blog is primarily set when the Academy was still active - though it exists in an alternate universe/timeline in which Five never ran away and Ben never died. Here, the siblings are around 19 years old and have (similar to the show) been operating as a “superhero” group since they were thirteen. You can read more about the general world-building behind this blog here - but really the ages and timeframe are all you need to know.

The End (?) - Even if you don’t send in an ask, I hope you at least can enjoy having a “hub” of sorts for a bunch of the extra content from the series! Feel free to also ask questions about that and any source material you may be interested in seeing posts from.

[runningincircl3s]

Nothing Ever After

Noah Sebastian x Reader x Vinny Mauro

Chapter Sixteen

chapter warnings: nsfw! (smut)

hi i want to make an announcement quickly!! i'm suffering from writers block at the moment lmao and so i'm still only half way through writing chapter 21... so until i've got myself together and written some more i'm afraid i'll only be posting once a week, so instead of friday and monday posts, for a while it's just going to be mondays :) and of course.. happy monday bffs <3

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“Thank you so much for coming!” Vinny’s parents stood as the two of you got ready to leave, a warm smile on both of their faces, “And I am so so happy we finally got to meet you after all this time, y/n.” 

“She’s a good one, Vinny,” his father whispers to him, a small smile on his face as he pats his son on the back, “They don’t come along very often. Don’t ever let her go, son.” 

“Trust me,” he nodded, “I won’t.”

“It was so lovely to meet you, Vinny's always talking about you two and I'm so glad we finally got the chance to meet.” You say, leaning your head on Vin's shoulder.

“Thank you, darling, we can’t wait to see you again, hopefully near Vin's birthday!" She smiled, "You two take care!” 

You walked out of the venue in shame. You have never felt so terrible over lying about something. Over the night you had gotten to know Vin’s family and you knew it would break their hearts if they were to know the truth about tonight. 

The cold of the outside air hit you as Vinny opened the door for you. You thanked him, which he returned with a smile as he told you the uber was on it's way.

"Are you cold?" He asked, a look of concern on his face as the two of you waited by a streetlight, sitting down on the conveniently placed bench. You shook your head, but he could see the goosebumps raising on your arms.

He sighed, taking off his jacket and resting it over your shoulders. Your stubborn act dropped and you smiled, resting your head on his shoulder. He was always warm.

"Thanks." You whispered.

The uber pulled up, and as you and Vinny got in, you held onto him for balance. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have worn heels.” You groaned as you got in the car, watching Vin chuckle form the corner of your eye. “Don’t laugh, my feet fucking hurt!” 

After getting back to the hotel, you took off your shoes as soon as you stepped out onto your floor, groaning in relief at the feeling of flat ground on your feet. Vin gave you a questionable look, and you stuck your middle finger up at him as you walked down to your room.

You still couldn’t believe how different he looked tonight. There’s nothing like a man in a suit, it was definitely one of your weaknesses. He looked like such a gentleman, and he certainly acted like one tonight.

As he opened the hotel door, you were already pulling at the ribbon at the back of your dress, needing to be set free from it, but it just wasn't coming undone.

“Need some help?” He chuckled, taking his tie off as he shut the door. You thought for a moment before sighing and nodding your head.  

He came up behind you, his left hand resting on your waist as he slowly tugged on the ribbon with his right, untying it. 

“Y/n?” He broke the silence between the two of you, his voice deep as his fingers lingered on your waist.

“Yeah?”

He didn’t say anything as you turned around to face him. Something had shifted between you two, there was a kind of tension in the air that hasn’t been there in a while, but it had kept coming and going all night. You could tell he felt it too. 

“Just... to be clear, there’s still nothing going on between you and Noah, right?”

“After the way spoke to me the other day, no way.” You shook your head. To which he nodded, one of his hands coming up to cup your cheek.

“Good.” He barely breathed out before his lips were on yours, pulling you closer by the waist as you the sudden shock melted away into the kiss. The suddenness of it almost knocked the breath out of you, but before you both went to the point of no return, you pulled away. 

“Vinny, are you sure…?” You whisper breathlessly, searching his eyes for any look of uncertainty. "Last time we did this was a mistake, I don't want you to regret this too..."

“All I’ve been able to think about all night is taking that dress off of you, as much as I love how you look in it.” He confessed, and you can tell by the hunger in his eyes that he was serious, he wanted the same as you. "I need you so fucking bad."

“But you said-”

“I don’t care,” he says, “Just for tonight… Please.” 

You smirk, noticing how needy he was, and pulling him back in for a kiss. 

The two of you end up getting undressed, clothes being tossed all around the room as you make your way towards your bed. Vin’s hands leave your body momentarily as he works on undoing the buttons of his shirt, and your hands work on his trousers. It wasn't long before you were both tangled under the sheets, gasping and holding each other tight, whispering each others names and praises.

Both of you had drunk that night, but neither of you were drunk, the scare when the picture of you and Vin was posted was enough to sober you up. You knew how badly this moment was needed, how you had both been craving each other all night, it was inevitable that you would both give into the need. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You woke up the next morning to the sound of your ringtone, although there was no sign of your phone. As you looked to the side, you were surprised to see Vinny in your bed, fast asleep under the sheets with you, but as you looked around the room and saw the clothes scattered everywhere you remembered exactly how you got here.

“You don’t know what you do to me.” Vinny says as his hips rock into yours, his lips scattering wet kisses across your chest as all you can do is moan his name. “I’ve been trying my hardest to control myself around you.” 

“Don’t…” You whisper, “Me too, Vin… I've never felt like this before.” 

“Fuck, I… I...” 

The two of you were so close to saying a certain three words last night, three words that would’ve made everything extra awkward this morning as you walked around naked, thankful that Vinny was still asleep as you quickly threw on some clean underwear and an oversized shirt. 

Once you finally found your phone, you checked to see who the culprit was that woke you up. 

Matt?

You checked to see if there were any messages he had left beforehand, but there weren't. You assumed it was an accident and put your phone on silent, climbing back under the sheets with Vin, smiling at the warmth as you comfortable again. 

As much as you wanted to cuddle up to him, to put an arm around him or even face him as he slept, you knew it would be better not to. But he looked so peaceful, you wanted to reach out and fix a piece of hair that had fell over his eyes, or rest your head against him, but you held yourself back.

As you rode him through your high, biting down on your lip, your head thrown back as you felt his warm release coat your walls as his cock twitched inside you, your thighs trembling either side of his hips as you collapsed on to his chest. You two stayed like this for a moment as his fingers brushed through your hair, your felt his heartbeat slowly going back to normal, and he broke the silence. 

“This doesn’t change anything between us, right? We’re still just friends?”

“Of course.” You said, finding it difficult to keep your eyes open, “We just needed this... To clear the air...”

He agreed. 

As your head hit the pillow again, you couldn’t help but turn to look at him. He looked so peaceful as he slept, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the way his hair fell over his face. He was beautiful, you wondered if he really knew it. 

“Vinny.” You whispered, and when he didn’t move you slightly shook him and raised your voice, “Vin!” 

“Huh?” He groaned, struggling to open his eyes, “Wha- What’s the time?”

“It’s just gone 10.”

“Then why the hell are you waking me up?” He grunted, rolling over. "Go back to sleep, y/n."

“I can't and I’m bored.” You complained, “I thought maybe we could go somewhere and get breakfast? Or brunch?”

“You’re not the one who has to drive for five hours later, please let me get my beauty sleep.” 

“Okay, fine. I guess I’ll go by myself.” You say, getting out of bed again. You find some clothes in your suitcase, deciding they’d be good enough, and go into the bathroom to get dressed, wash last nights makeup off and brush your teeth. 

When you come back out, Vin’s already fully dressed, his usual cargos and band shirt, and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed putting his shoes on. 

“I thought you wanted your beauty sleep?” You chuckled. 

“Brunch sounded better.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“I’m so tired.” Vin groaned as he shifted gears in his car, “I knew we shouldn’t have done brunch.”

“But it was good,” you smile, “Hey, can I put a song on?”

“Really?” He gave you a look from the corner of his eye as he watched the road in front of him. He had already driven back to his home to drop his car off and collect the one he hired from the city the guys were in for their week's break from tour. 

“Please?” You begged, and he eventually gave in, telling you the password to his phone which he had bluetoothed to the car. 

“Just don’t play anything too slow or I will fall asleep.”

“Yes sir!” You grinned, searching a band up on his spotify. 

When we were made… It was no accident…

“Oh hell yeah!” Vinny bobbed his head along to the song as you held onto his phone. 

“Sleep Token are playing a show on my birthday this year,” you sigh, “But it sold out before I managed to get any tickets.”

“That sucks,” Vinny frowned, “Have you ever seen them before?”

“No, the last time there was a show near where I live I had to sell my ticket because I couldn’t get the time off work and I didn’t want to risk losing my job.”

“What was the job?”

“I worked at a bookstore at the end of my road. It was perfect, I could walk there and I could walk home on my breaks.”

“What happened? Did you quit?”

“They shut down,” you explained, “Which really sucked because- wait, sorry Noah’s calling me…”

“Hello?” 

“What’s up?” You asked as you answered the phone, surprised he called after all these days of no contact.

“I was just wondering how long you guys are gonna be?”

“Why? Are you missing me?” You chuckle, pretending not to notice the side eye you got from Vinny. 

“You could say so…” He admitted, “I just wanted to know when you’re back, I... I owe you an apology.”

“I know you do,” you smirk, “I think we’re about 20 minutes away from the hotel, I’ll text you when we’re like 5 minutes away.”

“Okay, thank you.” He said, and there was silence all around.

“Was that all you were calling for?” 

“Yeah, I think so. Let me know when you’re nearby, we’re in the hotel for one more night then we’re back on the bus.” 

“Okay, cool.” You said, “See you later.”

“Bye.” 

As you put your phone back in your lap, you could tell Vinny wanted to say something. 

“So…” He took a deep breath, “Are we going to talk about last night?”

Vin's arms were wrapped around your thighs, keeping them spread for him as his face was buried in your heat. His nose bumping your clit as his tongue teased your entrance, all you could do was breathe erratically as you held him in place.

"You're... So..." Your brain had turned to mush as he ate you out, his tongue licking a stripe back up to your clit where he grinned smugly, kissing your clit delicately as he looked up, making eye contact with you as he spoke.

"Too much, baby?"

“What is there to talk about?”

“Don’t play dumb, y/n.” 

“I’m being serious.”

“I don’t know, it just didn’t feel like we were just ‘releasing tension’ to me. It felt like there was more to it, like… Just forget it.” He shook his head. 

“No, Vinny, what were you going to say?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He huffed, “Let’s just forget it ever happened, okay? It was a mistake, we were drunk.”

“Okay.” You muttered, looking out the passenger window. You both knew that was far from the truth. Neither of you were drunk in the moment, and you certainly didn't regret it.

The rest of the trip back was silent, but not a comfortable silence this time. As the rest of Take Me Back To Eden played on shuffle, you sat and reflected on their lyrics, until you realised you were pretty close to the hotel. You sent a text to Noah letting him know you were almost there, and as you pulled into the car park you noticed how Vin kept the car running. 

“Do you mind taking my suitcase in? I’m going to return the car, it’s only a few minutes away. I just don’t want to have to walk back with it.”

“Okay.” You said before you both got out of the car. 

He got both suitcases out, wheeling them over to you as you still waited for a reply from Noah. 

“My room is number 402, Rick should be in there if you knock.” He said, and you nodded your head in acknowledgement. 

“402, got it.” 

“Thanks.” He smiled weakly before getting back into the car, driving off as you walked up to the main entrance. 

402. 402.

You took the elevator up to the 4th floor, only to find out you were on the 5th and got lost twice before you eventually found Vin’s room. 

You knocked on the door, and it slowly opened, revealing Ricky dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans and a miw hoodie, he must have just took a shower as his hair was still damp.

“Is everything okay?” He asked, noticing the two suitcases you were dragging behind you. 

“Yeah, Vinny’s gone to return the car and asked if I can give you his suitcase.” 

“Oh, okay.” He smiled, taking it off of you. “How was it? Last night?” 

“It was nice,” you said, “I got loads of pictures to send to Vin for his parents, they’re such lovely people.” 

“Uh huh…” Ricky smirked. 

“What?” 

“You can tell me, y/n, I’m Vinny’s closest friend. It's impossible for him to keep a secret from me.”

“Tell you what?” You scoffed. 

“I know you two are dating, you don’t even try to hide it! The other guys might have bought your ‘I’m going as a photographer’ act but I know Vin too well, I know his parents too well. They wouldn’t invite you as their photographer when they have one in the family.” He laughs, crossing his arms and you pause. 

“They weren’t available-“

“Vin’s own sister wasn’t at his parents' anniversary party?” 

He got you there. 

“Fine." You huffed, "Can I come in? I’ll tell you the truth.”

Rick stood to the side, letting you in. As you walked in, you sat down on one of the beds, crossing your legs as you began to explain. 

“I don’t think Vin wanted to tell you because he was embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?” Ricky furrowed his eyebrows, “He’s embarrassed to be dating you?”

“No! We aren’t together, Rick!” You laugh, “His parents believe he has a girlfriend, he's never told them that he does, but he also never told them the truth- that he hasn't. It’s a bit of a sticky situation, but to save an argument on a special night he asked me if I could pretend to be his girlfriend for the night and he’ll tell them in a week or so that we’ve broken up.” 

“Right…” Ricky nodded his head, “So why didn't he just tell me this himself?” 

“Because it’s none of your business.” Vinny spat, and you heard the door slam, “Why did you tell him?”

“He made me!” You shook your head, “I tried to stick to the story but he knew too much!” 

“Get out.” He said, not even looking at you, “Now.”

“Vinny?”

“You’ve done enough for me, okay. And that’s it.” 

“Don’t do this, Vin. We’ve been here before, I don’t want to lose our friendship again over something stupid like this!” 

“Please, we’ll talk about this tomorrow. I just need some time... I just need to think.” 

You frowned, getting up from the bed, noticing the confusion on Ricky’s face. 

“See you, Rick.” 

“Bye, y/n.”

You took your suitcase, rolling it through the hallway as you walked to your room. Something was clearly bothering Vinny, and it wasn’t fair that he was taking it out on you. You wondered if he really did regret everything that happened last night, leaving you unsure about what to do, how to move forward.

As you unlocked the door, you switched the lights on and kicked your shoes off, shutting the door behind you before collapsing down onto your bed. 

You let out a breath you didn't realise you were holding as you just lied there for a while, staring at the ceiling. You felt awful for what you were doing to Vinny, but you had both agreed last night that it meant nothing, so why was he changing his mind now? You loved him, there was no doubt, but you were sure that it was just platonic, almost sure. 

Your phone began to ring, bringing you back from your thoughts, and as you reached into you pocket for it. Noah's name lit up the screen, so you quickly answered, holding your phone up to your ear.

“Hey, I’m here.” He said, and you sat up on your bed. 

“Where?” 

“Outside your room.” He laughed, “Wanna let me in? Or should I come back with a boombox and get the guys to start a flash mob?”

“What are you talking about?” You laughed as you got up to open the door. 

“I want to apologise.” He said as you opened the door, he then hung up the phone. You rolled your eyes, getting up and opening the door.

“It would’ve been better with the flash mob.” You smile, letting him in. 

“Look, I’ve been so caught up in work lately, which is inevitable, you know. But I never meant to upset you, y/n, I didn't know that's how I was making you feel. I'm sorry.” He says, sitting down on the bed with you. “We’re working on our new album, the record company keeps asking us for updates and to send them snippets of what we’ve been working on and I know you wouldn’t leak anything but I can’t risk anything.”

“It’s okay.” You said, crossing your legs, “I understand.”

“But you don’t,” he said, “I can tell I’ve upset you, and that isn’t fair-“

“Noah, I knew what I was getting into when we started… this, whatever this is. You don’t have to apologise.”

“Let me make it up to you- properly.” He offered. 

“And how would you do that?” 

Noah thought for a moment, clearly he hadn’t thought this far ahead. 

“I have an idea, but you’ll have to wait and see.”

“But I don’t like waiting.” You frowned, and he shook his head. 

“I know,” he smirked, “I promise, I will make it up to you big time. I just need to contact a few people first. But until then… Do you maybe want to do something tonight?”

“What are you suggesting?” You smiled. 

“I don’t know, maybe go out somewhere? There’s a karaoke night tonight at this place down the road, Jolly and I suggested it to the guys as a joke but Folio seemed pretty down-“

“Karaoke?” Your eyes lit up, “Get your shoes back on, call the guys, we’re going!”

------------------------------

AS I'M EDITING THIS TO POST RIGHT NOW I JUST BOUGHT THE BAD OMENS X POPPY ROCK SOUND MAGAZINE WITH A WHOLE ASS MASSIVE POSTER OF NOAHS FACE????? IDK WHERE THE HELL HE'S GOING BUT I NEEDED IT!!!!

@rumoured-whispers @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @lma1986 @thisbicc @dominuslunae @miss570 @miamore0570 @jilliemiw86 @itsyaboinoah

[concerningwolves]

Hey! Do you have any tips for breaking writers block when you're adhd and/or autistic? Be it your own tips or a link to another post? My friend and I need help haha

Ahh sorry you got buried under spam and old ask game asks. (I... really need to sort my ask box >.<' ). But here we go, a month late, and hopefully better late than never:

Quick ideas for beating writer's block when autistic and/or ADHD

I've got this old post I wrote on writer's block and focus troubles. Ironically, this was before my autism diagnosis but the tips still happen to be things I, an autistic person, did to manage writing when faced with executive dysfunction (except I didn't know what executive dysfunction was at that point lol). I'm linking this with one important caveat, though: if you have ADHD, "stepping away" might do more harm than good; struggling to start tasks is a Big Thing with ADHD, so not starting the task at all is entirely counterproductive. (Unless you're in burnout! Here's a post about the differences between block and burnout with some ideas on what to do for each, in case that's at all helpful to you).

And here's something yoinked from another old ask-answer:

sometimes a break from more “serious” writing is what you need. Maybe try and take the characters from your main project and drop them somewhere else for the hell of it. I like to throw my characters into the MCU without warning like “lmao have fun in a strange modern world where there are gods and a guy in an iron flying suit bye.” Or, if fandom cross-overs aren’t your thing, find a writing prompt or take an idea you like and use it to form a short story with your characters instead.

Some other ideas I've seen around for writer's block with ADHD/Autism are:

Try voice recording or text to speech (i.e., absolute stream-of-consciousness unfiltered brain-to-mouth, giving yourself permission to 100% bullshit if you like, and see what rattles loose in the brain box)

Stream of consciousness writing in general, not even necessarily about a particular prompt or particular project. This one can be done in combination with:

Writing sprints! One minute timers, two minute timers, five minutes – set it for as long as you want, but when you're fighting executive dysfunction and/or difficulty focusing, the burst of urgency that comes from a shorter timer is very helpful.

And speaking of the sense of urgency: gamify your writing! There are different ways to do this, with varying elements of risk. I'll link some ways to do this at the end under "resources".

Exercise. I don't necessarily mean hitting the gym, but a quick burst of exercise prior to writing to get the heart rate up can help wake your brain up a bit. (Or, if you find repetitive exercise mind-numbingly boring like I do, the writing sure does start to look appealing lol).

Meditation. Okay, this one is sort of 🤔 for me, because I do often hear from fellow autistics and our ADHD cousins that meditation is literally impossible for us. It is for me. But! Like with exercise above, if meditation bores you instead of helping relax and ""clear your mind"", you can probably use that boredom to your advantage. Or, it might work as intended.

Change your workspace/situation/routine. Sometimes the problem is that you need new sensory input, or that your brain has gotten thoroughly bored and decided not to tell you. Use a different chair. Move to the kitchen table. Write at a different time of day. Have a different snack (or try having a snack while writing...). Basically, look at what you're currently trying, and see how you can do it differently.

It's also really good practise to get comfortable with Being Bad At Writing. Perfectionism and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria are the biggest, meanest brain weasels with the sharpest teeth. Don't let them bully you. It sucks. It takes a lot of time and effort and internal work, which is why I was loathe to include this on a post of quick solutions, but. It is important.

And getting comfortable with this doesn't necessarily mean learning how to accept critique, or accepting that sometimes you'll write things that suck. It means accepting that sometimes you won't handle critique or feedback well, and also accepting that you won't always manage to beat the writer's block or be productive. Sometimes you have to make peace with the fact that you're going to feel horrible, feel your feelings, and try to remind yourself on the other side that none of it means you're a talentless hack.

Resources

Anything with a 🪙 next to it is paid only (I've tried to limit these and find alternatives).

The resources are split into things that "gameify" writing (i.e., hack your dopamine/serotonin in ways that reaaaaallly help autistic and ADHD folks), writing programs that are designed to help you focus, writing programs that track your habits and appeal to the "ohhhh numbers going up" brain, focus-aiding apps, and some miscellaneous stuff. Under the cut to save your dashes.

"Gamifying" your writing:

The Most Dangerous Writing App – You can't stop typing before your set timer runs out, or you risk losing your work. Excellent for warming up, stream-of-consciousness, or if you're feeling reckless, working on your actual project. I did a lot of the second draft of When Dealing with Wolves on this thing (it was terrifying yet highly effective).

Written? Kitten! – Get rewarded for meeting your set writing wordcount with kitten pictures. Haven't used this one personally, but heard wonderful things about it.

4TheWords 🪙 – This one gamifies writing in the most literal sense. As in, it's an online game where you defeat monsters, explore and level up by writing words. I did the free trial a couple years back, and I've heard there are a lot of different ways you can lower the subscription cost. The only reason I haven't gone back to it is because I feel like I can't justify spending money on it when I'm doing fine with Scrivener and free resources, but maybe one day I will purely for the fun factor...

StimuWrite – similar idea to Written Kitten; the app provides visual/audio stimulation while you write, which is great for many ADHD-ers and autistics. There's a progress bar, soundscape options, typing effects and emoji reactions as rewards, among other features.

Write or Die – This is The Most Dangerous Writing App meets Written Kitten. As far as I can figure out, the basic web version is free to use; you can set the parameters like how how long you want to write for, how many words to reach, and whether you want rewards for meeting goals or punishments for failing to meet them. There's also a stimulus mode, where the nice auditory stimulus goes away if you stop writing.

Minimalist/Focus writing programs:

Focus Writer [Windows] – thoroughly stripped-down minimalist word processor. As far as I know, it has basic functions like find-replace, but mostly it's designed only for writing. Not for formatting, spellchecking or editing.

iA Writer 🪙 [iOS] – Similar to Focus Writer, it's designed to fill your screen with a simple workspace. Allows you to use markdown formatting, and has a feature called Focus Mode that blurs out everything except the sentence you're typing. (If I could find a Windows-friendly alternative to this with that same feature I would be so happy). A cheaper alternative is 1Writer, but that doesn't have the focus mode.

Typewrite Something – Absolutely bare minimum web-based typewriter simulator. Basically just a blank screen that you start typing on, and the words appear in a typewriter font. Great for stream-of-consciousness without the risk level of TMDWA because you can't backspace. If you don't like the clacky sound, turn off your volume.

Focus Apps

Cold Turkey – Block applications and websites on your laptop/computer for a specified period of time. You can even block the entire internet.

Forest – Similar to Cold Turkey in that it stops you from seeking distractions or getting distracted. Set a timer and the app starts growing a tree. If you leave the app, the tree dies. Once you have a tree, you add it to your forest.

Habit-building writing programs:

Novlr – Simple, minimal layout, and tracks your writing goals per month and day, and your daily streak. There are more features in the plus and pro versions, and you can only have five projects in the free version, but otherwise it looks like a good free alternative to the next two programs:

750 Words 🪙 – Made for free writing, but also very useful for drafting. I had it for a month or so a while back on the free trial. It tracks writing streaks and gives you fun graphs and statistics at the end of each session, including number of distractions, actual typing time vs total time and average words per minute. Also, it analyses the mood of what you wrote, which I always found delightful.

Writing Analytics 🪙 – If writing streaks, badges and analytical graphs get your dopamine going, then I really recommend this one. The writing screen itself is very minimalistic, but it still shows your writing speed (I loved watching that go up) and your goal progress. In terms of analytics, it tracks a LOT of different things, including time spent writing vs revising, average wordcounts per day/month/year, and words written vs words deleted. I used this for about a year before I switched to Scrivener, and the switch was purely because I needed something that wasn't subscription-based. (Apparently since I stopped using it there's also a new feature that lets you create private writing rooms and see other writer's progress).

Misc.

WriteTrack – Not a word processor, but it has very good tools for tracking and planning your writing. Again, if graphs going up helps your brain, this is excellent, but you can't see it in real time.

10 ADHD-friendly brain tricks for writers – what it says on the tin: ten tips for writers with ADHD; I'm particularly fond of "Put away one knife", which breaks the nebulous task of "start writing" into something really simple like just... pull out your desk chair.

[callsignthirsty]

"I bet you think you're real cute letting them put their hands all over you. We'll see how cute you look later when I get you home." with Hangman! Happy celebration!

Hey Gigi —

I know it looks like I forgot about this, but I promise I didn’t (writer’s block’s a bitch, amiright?). I hope that it doesn’t disappoint. This is the first time I’ve written anything Hangman on my own, so hopefully, he’s recognizable.

Pairing: Jake “Hangman” Seresin x F!Reader Word Count: 677 Warnings: N/A (who is she?)

Smut Prompt #11

It’s an ordinary night at the Hard Deck. Nothing for the books. Just drinks and good company. Even the fact that Hangman’s eyes have been on you all night isn’t something to write home about. The intensity with which he’s watching you, however, is.

Glance. Glare. Glower.

Phoenix’s fingers feather over your exposed collarbone as she tucks loose hairs over your shoulder. Rooster’s broad hand light against your lower back as he squeezes behind you to line up for his next shot—it isn’t even a good one. Payback’s fingers linger as he passes you a fresh bottle. Bob’s arm winds around your hip to pull you out of Coyote’s way and subsequently into himself when Coyote circles the table after Rooster scratches.

None of this stops you from laughing along with your friends as the night sails on. Despite what it may look like to outsiders, you know these are innocent touches. Well, not innocent. You know what they’re up to, and you’d put money on it that Jake does, too. Practically everyone is in on the joke. But that doesn’t mean he likes it. But, you think as Rooster wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you in close to ask for your advice on his next shot—not that it matters, Coyote’s going to win on his next turn—, their touches are nothing compared to the electricity that crackles through you when Jakes looks your way.

You haven’t reacted to a single touch that night, but that hardly matters. Not to green eyes. Not when the entire team has spent the night repositioning you at the pool table, brushing against you. Touching you. Small, inconsequential, intentional touches that are designed to crawl under Hangman’s skin. A taste of his own medicine.

“There you are, darlin’,” Hangman drawls, catching you around the waist as you try to skirt his game of darts. He reels you in until your back is pressed firmly against his chest, away from the sticky, lingering touches of his squadmates. “Sorry, Bobby, but I’m going to have to wrap this up.” He lines up his first shot. Bullseye. “It’s past baby’s bedtime.”

You guffaw, Jake’s arm tightening around you before he throws another bullseye. “Okay, Caveman.” The quip earns you a snicker from the peanut gallery.

“I bet you think you’re real cute,” he grumbles under his breath so only you can hear, “letting them put their hands all over you.” He hooks his index finger through the belt loop on your pants, his thumb sneaking beneath your shirt to rub teasingly at the sensitive skin around your hipbones. A touch that has the little hairs on your lower back standing at attention, the smooth skin beneath his thumb breaking out in goosebumps. He stands up to his full height to line up his last shot as he says: “We’ll see how cute you look later when I get you home.”

Before you can drag him out of the bar, Bob snorts.

“You got somethin’ to say, baby on board?”

Bob’s eyes widen a bit at being called out. He reaches up with the same hand that’s holding his Coke to adjust the glasses on his nose. “No– ah– well,” he clears his throat, eyes flicking to Phoenix, “just that she’d probably still look cute, you know–”

“Bob,” Payback tries to help out by cutting him off.

“–when you, uh, get her home. She’d– I mean, she’s always cute, right?” Closer to the pool table, Omaha is shaking his head while Fanboy groans an ‘oh my god.’ “So I don’t know why that’d stop.”

A smarmy, shit-eating grin slowly twists Hangman’s lips up until Phoenix is rolling her eyes. “That’s a mighty fine theory, Bobby,” he says, linking his fingers. He turns you in his arms, leaning in close enough that his breath tickles your ear. “How about we get out of here and test it out?”

Phoenix and Coyote boo you out of the bar.

A couple of hours later, Bob receives a photo that has him sputtering, his cheeks flaming.

[lazysublimeengineer]

Blue Lock is going on a 2 week break and I've seen from this fandom on HOW OFTEN THEY GET BREAKS WHICH MAKES THE STORY DRAGGING. YET WHEN A CHAPTER IS BEING GIVEN EVERY WEEK AND IT'S NOT SATISFACTORY TO THEM, THEY YAP ON HOW TERRIBLE THE PACING AND PLOT IS.

Well, then guess what? I'm happy that the manga is going to have a 2 week break and from a writer's perspective this is quite short considering on the author's deadline every week to deliver both the art and the written dialogues in the manga.

I need to air out my opinion on this because it irks me everytime someone is yapping on the pacing yada, yada then complain when the publication of the manga gets a short break.

As a writer myself, let me tell you that artists such as including the manga writers get burned out too and prone to a mental block especially if your job is required to deliver a quality chapter every week. You have to wring out every thought, inspiration and idea inside your head to produce results which sometimes affects the quality of their works.

A 2 week break given to the author of the franchise is good because it gives him some ample time to plan out the next actions of the characters in the match and how the next 2 goals will be scored in the story. This would also help him think of the plotholes that he needed to cover or explain in the future chapters and where exactly is his story is going.

From a writer's perspective, NEL arc is one of the most challenging arcs in this story because an author needs to cover a lot of ground especially in the sequences of the matches. Sometimes some of the characters are being neglected to give shine to the most important characters in the story. Hopefully, we'd this 2 week break the author will be able to provide a clear ground and clarity on this glaring flaw of this arc. I don't really mind waiting for a bit long if the reward for it is that the author will be able to rest his mind and produce satisfying chapters in the future.

[b00mrang]

Hey all! Been a minute, huh? So let’s get down to brass tacks: Episode 7 is slowly rolling along -slower than I’d like but unfortunately it can’t be helped. We’re committed to keeping this show crunch-free and that comes with the territory, but it’s worth it to make sure the show turns out how we want it to and no one gets burned out doing it. Nevertheless for the sake of clarity I’m gonna go ahead and give you the rundown so everyone is in the loop. To make a long story short: we are about 20 percent done overall. The scripting phase took a LOT longer than normal due to an unfortunately timed bout of writer’s block, which has since cleared up and the script has been sent out to the VAs. This episode has a lot more moving parts than previous ones in terms of working with people’s schedules. It's impossible to say how long it’ll take to get all the recorded lines in with so many wonderful VAs working on it -and we aren’t gonna rush it. But once all the voice lines are in I will set out to assemble the audio cut of the episode, then assuming no changes are made in that stage we will move on to filming the machinima portions of the show (my FAVORITE* part) and then comes editing and then it’s done and ready to release! Well sort of -avert your eyes if you want to go in blind- but we are working on some more animation like we had at the end of episode 6, we’re working with Chris Dike (@ChrisoftheDead on Twitter) who some of you will know from his work on RvBs animation in Season 12! We are super lucky to have him and he has some awesome stuff in store for you all. But animation takes time and that adds to the overall time it takes to get the episode out. I will continue with updates like this one to keep everyone in the loop. I’ve decided not to work on personal videos like I had planned to focus solely on getting 7 done and setting up the future episodes. Also I need to mention that, as some of you know, my PC is on Death’s door. I will be working to save up for a nice beefy production PC that will hopefully expedite work on the show going forward (if you want to help I’m accepting donations with Ko-Fi to help save up for this new PC faster) On top of that, we are also heading to HCS in Seattle October 4-6 -which does cut into production time a bit but I’ll be hard at work on it the hour I step off the plane back home. In the meantime thanks for being patient and kind and so, so, so generous. I’d also like to thank everyone who takes the time to share the show with people they know, a few people even shared the show with other creators they like and because of that we’ve been able to make some fun connections and you might see a few familiar voices in the near future! So thank you for sharing- and please do keep sharing because word of mouth has proven to be an incredibly powerful way of growing the channel since Youtube doesn’t seem to want to recommend the show to many new people (and I’d much prefer to not play the system and do clickbait or whatever to play the Algorithm.) Thank you all for watching and hope to have more to share soon! I love reading all the emails and comments you all leave -its such a blessing. See you soon! - B00mrang *the most annoying and soul crushing part.

[multi-fandomedfreak]

Fic idea: How might the Sides help with writer's block?

Authors note: I wrote Janus and Remus for this one!! Which is why this took a tad longer than usual lol

⚠️ Warnings ⚠️: Remus making dirty comments

👑 Roman 👑

-Oooh writers block with Roman is ALMOST non existent

-He’s creativity after all so he would come up with the most extravagant things

-Would definitely use this as an opportunity to spend time alone with you in the Mindscape place and create whatever came to mind to help inspire you

-DAYDREAM MODE ACTIVATED

-He’ll do EVERYTHING to help you beat writers block, which also gives him an excuse to be as dramatic as possible

-Aww I also feel like the moment he has an idea he doesn’t even say anything he just rushes to the nearest writing utensil and writes it down before he forgets

-Just know asking for Romans help with writers block will have you both exhausted but happy

-exhausted mainly because of all the running around and happy that you both got to do all that together

-You definitely got an idea about what to write

💙 Logan 💙

-ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT WHEN YOU ASK HIM FOR HELP WITH WRITERS BLOCK

-Obviously calm and collected on the outside but on the inside he is so darn happy

-It just makes him feel very important and will take it very seriously

-He’ll research various topics with you, look at art/pictures, take notes of things, etc.

-Expect so. much. info dumping.

-But hey it really does help with drumming up some good ideas

-By the end of it, you’ll have like more than 5 pages worth of notes to help you with your writers block

-He’ll somehow even throw out MORE ideas as he helps you write whatever it is that you’re writing

-Literally a human grammarly so he’s always pointing out where you can improve your grammar

-Likes to compliment certain parts of your work in order to keep you motivated tho

-If you drink coffee, your both probably buzzing off of the amount of caffeine you guys drank during the reasearch

🍪 Patton 🍪

-At first he’ll ask, “what’s writers block?”

-Once you explain it tho, he’ll try drumming up any ideas on how to help

-I feel like his idea of getting you inspired will be stuff like, talking a walk to maybe help clear your head or baking/ cooking something for you

-Probably takes you to his room hoping that all the nostalgic stuff he has in it will help

-He’s trying his best lol

-He’ll probably get distracted with the things in his room and has to be constantly reminded of the task at hand

-Somehow that helps?? Like seeing him organically do stuff and not trying to help you get inspired, helps with the writers block

-With Patton it just really depends if he does or says something that somehow triggers inspiration

-Gives you cookies and milk as you work once you get past writers block

💜 Virgil 💜

-Once you ask him, you both probably sit on his bed trying to think of something

-Till Virgil suggests you listen to some music that will help you

-He puts on ALL his favorite albums

-Puts on Paramore, MCR, Evanescence, and probably the soundtrack of his favorite musicals/movies

-Probably suggests watching some movies to hopefully get inspired

-Tries not to panic when it doesn’t seem to work

-But it does work since you both end up talking in depth about the movies and songs

-It ends up being a veryyyyy long conversation since he’s very passionate about his interests

-And you love listening to him

-Once you sit down and get to work on the thing you wanna write, he’s there sitting with you to help bounce ideas off one another

-Kinda like Logan, will be vibrating from the amount of coffee he’s drank

-Once you asked him to help with writers block, he helped you through the whole day

-And I mean, the whole day

-You’re just both very relieved you finally got through writers block

🐍 Janus 🐍

-“You must be truly desperate to come to me for help.”

-Ok Loki nobody asked for ur opinion

-Will reluctantly help (he would love to help he’s just being janus. he’s actually jumping with joy on the inside that you asked him for help)

-He’ll probably try telling you stories that are completely made up to hopefully get ur creative juices flowing

-Yes he goes through the effort to make up stories to tell you

-Probably will take you to the library to help research various topics

-Why not just look it up? Bc he likes the quiet atmosphere

-Not at all bc he wants to put actual effort into helping you

-He’s gonna be a diva about it tho

-Surprisingly is very keen on helping you get motivated and when you think about giving up, he simply won’t allow it

-He gets you up and running

-Probably promises to get you something as a reward for getting through writers block

-One of the few times he’s not actually lying

-Once you do come up with an idea, he’ll probably make little sassy remarks about your work

-Know he doesn’t actually mean it, he just says it on instinct

-Oh and your reward? He can’t bring himself to give it to you in person so he just leaves it somewhere he knows you’ll find it

💚 Remus 💚

-Oh gosh, you almost regret asking him for help with writers block

-Bc he will go into gremlin mode and just do the most out of pocket things ever

-“To help your creative - and other- juices flow!!” he says

-Immediately gets hit upside the head for that little comment

-But, anyways, if you need help writing some messed up stuff or something; he’s the best guy for the job

-Just imagine him being as extra as Roman but much more…disturbing

-He won’t stop making dirty jokes/comments through the whole thing

-But he surprisingly does a good job at helping you out with writers block

-Of course you both will most likely get sidetracked bc Remus is being Remus

-Just know you you’ll be both disturbed but entertained when it comes to asking Remus for help

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, same anon that asked about the chapter outline thing.

Yes, it was the chapter that's incomplete.

Your answer was appreciated, but problem is, I have a pretty clear vision of how the story goes (it's also pretty short as it's only 3 chapters long) and for the chapter in question, I'm only a quarter in but I just can't get the words down for some reason. I don't think the answer was really helpful (apologies for that) as a result, so I figured that giving you more context would hopefully lead to a more helpful one.

Chapter Outlined But Still Can't Write It (Redux)

I'm sorry my original answer wasn't helpful, but I covered every base I can think of for what could be going on. I suggested difficulty finding your way into the chapter, but you've added that you are a quarter way into the chapter so that's not it. I suggested not having a clear idea of what exactly needs to happen in the chapter or story, but you're saying that's not the case. I suggested the possibility of having put so much pressure on yourself to write the chapter that you're having stress-induced writer's block. And I suggested there's something subconscious blocking you from writing the chapter (it can happen), but you say neither of those suggestions were helpful.

There are only so many reasons why we're not able to write when we want to. Lack of vision/direction, lack of planning, lack of motivation, lack of energy, mental blocks, something not working earlier or later in the story... the only other option, really, is that your writing skills are just not yet where they need to be in order to write, or to write this, in which case you can spend more time honing them. Outside of those things, I'm not sure what to tell you. There aren't any magic spells or potions you can do to fix this. I'll include some links to previous posts to see if anything happens to click, but if not, I don't know what to tell you except to set this project aside for a while and work on something else. Then come back to it later to see if whatever was blocking you has lifted. ♥

5 Reasons You Lost Interest in Your WIP, Plus Fixes! Feeling Unmotivated with WIP Guide: How to Rekindle Your Motivation to Write Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists Have Plot, Can’t Write Concentrate on Quantity at First, Not Quality Delaying Writing Out of Fear Guide: Filling Your Creative Well

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

LEARN MORE about WQA

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[dynamic-k]

sighhsss... yet ANOTHER ask from me XD

This surprisingly is just one question. unless I come up with more as I write.

But when Blue and Red were looking through the public telescope, the description said something like 'thousands of IP addresses littered the sky', as well as 'wifi tunnels' etc. (I would get the quote but my internet is going to cut in like a few minutes)

Soooo... Is 'the human world' real in Super Sticks?

If so, why is Alan and Kaori still in the 'stick world'?

WAIT IS DJ HERE???

...i just thought of something.

In 'The Spark', chapter 4 is named 'Otherworldly', and there are hints of there being other worlds throughout the first 4 chapters. not sure about the 5th one, I haven't looked through it carefully

Therefore, IF there are other worlds, BOTH in Super Sticks and The Spark, CROSSOVER?!?

YOOOO- ok i need to go to sleep now. I'll think about it tomorrow and report ramble back in another ask!

Good night! :D

-R

Oh no, my plans are being predicted- /j

Okay, no, I'm kidding. XD I didn't have a crossover planned, the universes are separate. AUs!! :D Ehehehe

...But I am really glad you picked up on some Spark AU lore~~ :3 I have so SO SO MUCH to unpack there!!! ...f you ask me about it, I might go full-on essay mode with my answer- :I

[Chapter 5 of The Spark is mostly fluff, with some conversational lore that hints at future angst, but none of that alluded further to the "Otherworldly" branch of lore. :3 (I do hope you enjoy💕)]

The human world is real in Super Sticks!! I have alluded to this a few times, like how Dark was totally much better than "that Iron Man guy" he'd seen in a human movie once.

The sticks are aware there are humans, but every stick lives in the Outernet, unable to communicate with humans, unable to interact with humans, unable to prove their own existence to humans. (not like anyone wants to, though)

In Super Sticks, Alan and Kaori are just sticks and not all-powerful creators, giant humans behind a screen and whatnot. Part of the AU is also the fact that hollowheads are caused by a rare genetic in stick figures, of which the Becker family is prominent in since Alan [a hollowhead] married Kaori [another hollowhead], hence the kids are all more hollowheads and quite the unusual bunch. But, there are probably a few other random hollowheads somewhere in Stick City or in other nearby towns.

[Though, I do not personally have any plans to make up hollowhead OCs or any interactions. All I do is make the fact known that others exist, and move on with my day-]

Is DJ here? I don't think so? Maybe, but he's far off in another town? I have no clue how to write DJ!! ...Actually, wait, no I think I could pull that off, I watch enough AvG- BUT STILL! I don't have practice-

= w = Maybe some day? I'll give it a shot or something, I like exploring new things. On a good day. Maybe give me a coffee first- I haven't had one yet today, but I've been awake long enough I'm somewhat coherent for ask answering. ..Hopefully.

:3 Have good sleeperings! I shall work on the other one currently still in my inbox, and hopefully get all cleared up so I can await more asks-

Honestly, with Super Sticks somewhat being on a mini-hiatus at the moment --both due to mild writer's block on one little scene of chapter 8, and also due to a draft situation in which I can only access a certain document on my phone and still have to earn said phone back from Mom so I can continue where I left off-- ...with all that happening, these asks are really helping my brain to continue simmering the AU on a central burner in my mind stove!

Oh, Spark AU, my pride and joy, my beloved world born from a dream. That also is on a central burner. I don't often ask for asks- But uh-

WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE I LOVE RAMBLING ABOUT SPARK AU-

okaybyenow, sorryformyweirdness-

[warmaidensrevenge]

Moving on

Pairings: Joseph Quinn x plus size reader x Evan Peters

If you want to read my other work you can find it HERE

A/N: Hey everyone. I am back. Still working on some fics and it's taking me longer to come up with endings. Seems like I'm at a writers block for two of my fics. If anyone has any ideas to help I would really appreciate it. Update: life sucks but I'm doing better. I have a trip coming up to see the love of our lives and I'm so nervous. I think I might be too in my head to comprehend that I'm going to meet Joseph Quinn. Hopefully things will get clear when I do. Anyways, this is a request I had sitting in my inbox forever. Thanks @generouspuppypuppy. It is different from your exact suggestion. But I still hope you like it. Thanks for reading. As always feedback is greatly appreciated and ask/comments are always welcomed. Kay love ya bye.

Word count: 3,250

I do not give permission for my work to be used or published anywhere else. Please be respectful to all creators.

Warnings: 18+ hurt/comfort, cheating, heartache with a happy ending.

Summary: One mistake, time apart, new love and a baby.

🖤

You sat there in disbelief in what you just heard. You were just so happy this morning. Your boyfriend of 3 years just got home from filming. He had gotten a part playing a new character on Stranger Things named Eddie Munson. After 6 long months Joe was home. And he was sitting across from you on the couch, telling you he cheated on you with his co-star Grace. The moment you heard it, all the air was sucked from your lungs and your heart sank. Not knowing what to say so you just sat there. 

" Love. I'm so sorry. I never meant for it to happen." Joe grabbed your hand.

That's when you finally looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. With tears rolling down his thin cheeks. It's been a while since you've seen him in person, and all you could think of was how skinny he was. 

You felt tears fall and you looked away from him to wipe them away. 

" Love…please say something." 

You didn't look back at him. You pulled your hand away and went to the room. Joe followed. 

He watched you grab your duffle bag and started shoving things in.

" No." He said, grabbing your hands. " Please. I can fix this."

You jerked your hands away and continued packing. Joe sat on the bed and cried harder. His eyes follow you back and forth throughout the room. He tried to talk but you weren't listening. Once you had everything you went to the door and stopped. With your back towards him you sniffled.

" I'm gonna stay in a hotel…I need time."

He stood up and started for you but you practically ran away. Joe caught your eye as you closed the door. 

"Love?"

" Goodbye Joseph."

His heart sank. You never called him by his name. The only time you had was when you first met. That was almost 6 years ago. He noticed you immediately while he was on the set for Howard's End. He honestly thought you were so beautiful. He remembered seeing you in a lot of small stuff. Mostly just plays. But he thought you were talented. And he was in love. Though at the time he thought being from 2 different countries that your paths would never cross. But boy was he happy to be wrong. Your part in the show was small. Which surprised him but the few lines you had were well done. His part was small as well so you guys spent a lot of time together. Before he knew it he lived part time in the US. He started off as your roommate. Then that turned into dating. 3 years later and he was never happier. He was ready to get married and start having kids. But he fucked all that up. A drunken mistake caused you to leave him standing in your guy's home all alone. He knew you all too well. When you were hurt or when you guys argued, you shut down and walked away. Later coming back to figure things out. And though he was breaking down, he hoped that tomorrow he would get to talk to you. But that's not what happened. One week went by and then another. He hadn't received word from you. On the third week he came home after a meeting with his agent and found that all your things were gone. Your side of the closet was empty. All your drawers were emptied and your side of the bathroom sink was bare. Joe leaned on the wall and sank down to the floor. Burying his face in his hands.

He cried harder than ever. " What have I done?" 

A good 20 minutes passed when he finally calmed down enough to call you. He went to the living room and saw an envelope on the coffee table. Inside was your 1 month move out notice. Joe's heart shattered. 6 years of friendship, 3 years of a life together and it was over just like that. That wasn't going to happen. You were his everything. So he called you. You had agreed to meet him later on and he had hope.

When he arrived at the coffee shop you were already there. The moment he saw you he could feel your heartache. You had a frown fixed on your lips and dark circles around your eyes. 

What have I done to you my love?

He approached you and you quickly glanced at him. Then looked at your cup of tea. He sat down and took off his jacket.

" I took the liberty of ordering you tea." Your voice was lifeless and distant.

" Th-thank you."

You didn't look at him but gave a thin lip smile. He took a sip of his drink. When he put his mug down, that's when you pulled out a magazine from your bag and set it in front of him. Turning to the page you wanted him to see.

" I got this that night I left…it says there that you and Grace admitted to having a crush on one another."

Joe felt the blood drain from his face and his heart started to race. You finally looked him in the eye and all he saw was sadness.

" I thought we had an open door relationship." 

" We-we do." He stuttered.

" If that's true then why did I hear about this in there and not from you?" 

" I-I…"

You sighed and brought your hand up to wipe tears away.

" Joseph, I love you. And I came here for that reason and that reason only."

Joe winced hearing his name. All he wanted right now was to hear you call him Joey.

" What can I do to fix this? There has to be a way."

You shook your head. " There isn't."

" No! Love please."

He reached for your hand and to his surprise you didn't jerk away. Instead you just stared at your hands for a minute.

" The only way you can fix this is if you could go back and have one less drink. Or if you left early and came home to me." 

" I…" his voice trembled. " So this is it? You're going to let one mistake throw everything we worked for away?"

You pulled your hand away and met his tear filled eyes with yours.

" It wasn't me who decided that for us. That was you. Not being honest with me from the start is what broke us. How can we be together now? I can't trust you…I love you. I really do. But I can't be with you anymore."

He watched you get up and grab your things.

" Take care of yourself Joseph."

He hung his head. " I love you Y/n. And I always will."

" I will too."

…

A year went by and you got the role of a lifetime. Starring in a new show called American horror story. Acting side by side with Evan Peters. He was amazing. His range inspired you. You guys had worked so well together that in seasons to come you and Evan were offered roles as each other's love interests. After the break up you and Joe kept in touch. When Stranger Things season 4 came out, Joe didn't expect the amount of fame that he would get. Suddenly his life was turned upside down. It was incredible, but overwhelming. He did so much and traveled everywhere. He was happy, but very lonely. Since you there had been a few flings. But none that he wanted to pursue. That was because he had already found the nice girl he was looking for. He knew that you had moved on, however he couldn't. Seeing you with Evan was awful. You looked at Evan the way you used to look at him. Which hurt him more than words could describe.

Evan was ring shopping. TMZ had caught up with him outside a jewelry store. Not wanting you to find out that he was in fact buying you an engagement ring, Evan went to the store next door. Evan knew from the first kiss you and he shared that he was going to marry you. At that time you were still hurting over Joe. Rightfully so. So he chose to be your friend and help you through the pain. And once you were better he asked you out on a date. First it was weird for both of you. But at the end of the night you kissed him. After that you guys became inseparable. 

Now it was a year and a half  later and Evan was ready to make you his wife. 

Joe and Jamie were both good friends with you and Evan. So when Joe and Jamie received an invite to watch season 3 of American Horror Story. They were excited. Joe hadn't seen you in months and knowing that you and Evan were together, he was going to try and talk to you. Maybe he could get another chance.

When he and Jamie went to your loft, he was extremely nervous. Then you opened the door. You looked more beautiful than he remembered. You greeted them with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. That's when Joe saw the worst thing ever. He saw a beautiful diamond on your ring finger. He was in such a state of shock he froze there in the doorway. 

" Common Joey. " You said with a smile. 

You grabbed his hand and pulled him along to join the party. Turned out not only was it a watch party, but an engagement party. You had said that you didn't want any presents or anything like that. That's why you disguised the party. You wanted not only to share the success of the show but to celebrate the happy news with everyone you loved. 

Joe was wrecked. He tried his best to fake a smile. But as the night went on his heart broke over and over again. He saw how truly happy you were and part of him was happy for you. But he couldn't help but remember when he made you that happy. He sat there watching you with Evan. Seeing that twinkle in your eyes again. He wanted to drink. But since the break-up he stopped. Jamie was talking to your brother Bill when he saw Joe in his head. 

" Hey Bill. Are you on good terms with Joe?"

Bill looked at Joe and nodded.

" Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

Bill looked at you and you were cuddled up with Evan on the couch. Laughing away.

" Yeah. Let's go out to the terrace." He said.

Jamie got Joe and went to join Bill outside. They all lit up cigars and started talking. Bill had a heart to heart with Joe. And he admitted that he always thought he would be going to yours and Joe's engagement party. Joe was grateful for the conversation. He and Bill were on the outs after the situation. However, Bill forgave him once you did. Joe always thought of Bill as a brother he never had. Well the whole Skarsgard family was on a whole nother level when it came to famous family's. But all of them were close. And Joe loved that. He loved how family oriented you were. And the fact that Joe's mom absolutely loved you. She had never liked any of his previous girlfriends. But the second she met you she immediately approved of you. Maybe it was because you weren't selfish, or full of yourself. Sure you looked nothing like the women he had dated before. But you were still very beautiful. You were kind and very humble. Everything about you screamed wife material.

As he stood there burning out his cigar, he regretted the 3 years he waited to ask you to be his wife. He regretted his mistake and losing you. So he decided to put the plan to win you back aside and apologize to you. Jamie had to leave early due to an early flight. So he left Joe to grab an Uber. The party started to simmer down and Joe was going to leave. But he asked if you would walk him out. Which you happily agreed to.

You guys silently walked down the hallway to the elevator.  Joe pressed the down button and smiled half heartedly at you. The doors opened and he held out his arm for you to go in first.

You smiled sweetly up at him. " Thank you Joey."

Joe felt his heart flutter hearing you call him that. A nickname you gave him a long time ago. Once you were both in you reached over and pressed the ground floor button. It was quite a ways down but the silence you shared was nothing but comforting. It always was. 

Joe cleared his throat. " Did umm did you have a good time?"

You looked away from the red numbers that said the floor you were on to him.

" I did. I'm so happy you and Jamie came."

" Me too…just wished I could have brought you a present."

You scrunched your nose a little and let out a nose laugh. 

" Joey, you being here was better than any present you could have given us. Besides, we don't need anything."

Joe nodded and looked at the numbers counting down. That's when he noticed the music. The song was an elevator version of Dreaming of You. He looked at you and saw your head slightly nodding to it. It's been so long since the last time you and he randomly dance somewhere. Those times were usually abrupt but so special to him. Every time he swore he fell deeper in love with you. Now not being any different. He grabbed your hand gently and twirled you. You laughed softly and beamed at him as he pulled you into his arms, swaying you back and forth. For a minute you guys danced until the doors dinged and opened. Joe reached for the close button and continued to dance with you. 

In a whole year, this was the first time you and he were alone. And he wasn't ready for it to be over. 

" Love, I'm really happy for you."

Your smile got bigger and your eyes were just slits. Joe's heart melted all over again. 

" Thank you Joey."

He twirled you once more, pulling you closer than before. 

" Love, I know that I've apologized countless times for my mistake. But what I failed to do was apologize for not saying that I would never do that again…I did not apologize for breaking your trust and for ruining our future. I never apologized for the tears you shed because of it or the hurt and betrayal you felt…for all of that, I am truly sorry. "

You were quiet for a moment and both of you stopped dancing. You then lifted to your toes and placed one soft kiss upon his cheek. After, you planted your feet back to the ground. 

" I've forgiven you a long time ago Joey. There's no need sorries again."

Joe hung his head. "I-I know. I just…I just need you to know if there was anything I could do to take it back, I would have done it in a heartbeat." 

You cupped his face causing him to look at you.

" I know you would have Joey. And I love you. I promised I would always love you. No matter what happens from this day forward. I want you to be happy. I want you to move on and forgive yourself."

He nodded and felt tears coming. " I love you y/n."

You kissed his cheek again and gave him a hug. When you tried to create some distance between you two he squeezed you gently once more before taking a step back. 

" I better let you go. Your fiance might worry that I've stolen you away."

" Can't have him thinking that."

Joe gave you a half smile and pressed the button to open the doors. He took one last look at you and waved.

" Travel safe Joey.

He gave you a nod and took his leave. 

I will love you forever. He thought

…

That night when everything was cleaned up you and Evan changed into your jammies. Evan was getting the bed ready when you left for a minute. When you came back you were holding a single vanilla cupcake. 

" What's this?" Evan grinned sitting down on the bed. Holding his hands out for you.

You blushed and went to him. Sitting on his lap. 

" It's for you….there's a surprise inside." 

You lifted up the sweet treat and peeled back the lining. 

" Take a big bite Eban."

Evan chuckled. He absolutely loved when you called him Eban. When he first met you, you thought his name was Eban. And he just thought it was so adorable that for 3 months he let you call him that until someone finally corrected you. But after that he insisted you keep calling him that.

He kissed you briefly and then took a very big bite. When he looked at you, your eyes were wide and started to fill with tears. He quickly cupped your face.

" What's wrong pumpkin?"

You laughed a little and sniffled. 

" Eban, I'm pregnant…and according to this blue filling." You lifted the cupcake showing him. " We're having a boy."

He stopped mid chew and mumbled a 'w-what?'

" I…you know how I don't have normal menstruation?"

He nodded.

You looked down and brought your hands down to rest on your thick thighs. 

" Well turns out I'm four months pregnant. We couldn't tell because I'm…well big… and umm remember the one month where we thought I had a bad case of the flu?"

Evan started to chew. " Mmhmm."

You met his gaze. " Morning sickness."

Finally getting the cupcake down he licked his lips. " Pumpkin, you're not joking are you?"

You gave him sad eyes and frowned, shaking your head.

" Oh My God!"

Your eyes widened again and he pulled you into a kiss. After, he kissed all over your face and your neck.

" Baby, baby, baby! You're having my baby?"

You giggled and squirmed when he kept kissing your ticklish spot on your neck.

" Y-yes…. Eban…y-yes."

" Oh pumpkin. I can't! I'm so…fuck! Kiss me baby."

You laughed again before you did. 

" Mmmm….yes… you're making me a daddy baby?"

You smiled against his lips. " Yes I am Eban."

He kissed you over and over again until he abruptly stopped.

" Shit pumpkin. Do you want to get married before or after the baby comes?"

You gave him a tender kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. 

" Hmmm. Do you think if we have an officiate come this weekend, it would be too soon?"

Evan kissed you once more and slid you off his lap and went searching for his phone.

" What are you doing, Eban?"

" I gotta call our moms. They are gonna be so happy."

Your eyes followed him and he paced calling everyone you and he knew, to tell them to come over on Sunday for a wedding. After every call he would come to you and smother you with kisses. About an hour later he finally came to lay down. He put his hand on your belly and started running his thumb back and forth. 

" Can…can I make love to you?" He asked in his sweetest voice.

You leaned in and before you pressed your lips against his you whispered.

" Always."

…

@salenorona23