writingintheocean

[writingintheocean]

thank you to every single fucking person on this god forsaken site that has ever posted your own art or writing. You really put a vulnerable, important part of yourself out in the open on the hellscape that is the internet and if that isnt an act of bravery and a labor of love I dont know what one is

[writingintheocean]

How many email accounts do you have? Not the accounts your work or school forces onto you, real accounts that you made on purpose, with intention, to be used. Most people say one--One account for professional and personal correspondence and a well-honed junkmail filter. Or maybe two, a real one for all the important things like contacting your congressman or sending Christmas pics to family and a second one for online giveaways you don't actually think you'll win, but it couldn't hurt to enter. A normal amount of emails.

I have 6.

I was raised by paranoiacs, concerned with Trojan horses and stranger danger. This feels normal to me. This IS normal to me. The idea of "cultivating an online persona" is a red flag with its own soundtrack, pealing alarms that would send a sailor into overdrive. How many horror story firings have to stem from cursing in a tweet, being 'too sexy' on Instagram, supporting the 'wrong group' in a post before setting all of your accounts to private and unsearchable and locked down?

Searching for [NAME REDACTED] will only net you fistfuls of community news articles about plays I've directed. This tells you I have a dedicated hobby. Will this be a boon of loyalty or a vice of distraction? Am I a freelance project manager or a liberal-leaning liability? Every company's HR department is a black box and I never know which wire to cut to prevent my own demise. Does anything mean anything? Is what I do real? Am I a person or an investment or a resource?

I hope my shielded life says I prefer privacy; I hope it says I would rather gamble than commit fraud. Or maybe it says I'm not willing to smile and wave and step in line, that I'm of unknown quantity and quality and not willing to play the game. 

I could finish the personal website that's been languishing for a year, the one that aggregates my theatrical accomplishments. But that means showing REAL employers that my interests don't lie at their bottom line. I could join LinkedIn, create a beautiful profile outlining scattershot jobs that I can't seem to keep for more than a year, and have them thinking I'm not worth the time to train. Or maybe I can be loud and proud about my successful union organization efforts, the ones that got me fired from my last job, and never work again.

Aren't you tired of playing pretend? I direct people on how to move, to speak, to portray false scenarios and trigger specific emotions. I know how the game works. Send a thank-you note to show that you were 'paying attention' in your interview, or to show that you're desperate. Fill your resume with enough buzzwords to trick the computer scanners into approving you, but not so many it annoys the human who eventually gets to look at it. Emphasize your volunteer hours because it means you're well-rounded and charitable, or sweep them under the rug because activities outside of work mean you're unfocused and wishy-washy and not committed to 60 hours per week, overtime exempt. Step on landmines until you get lucky.

I'm supposed to be playing the game, and it's humiliating to roll the dice. 

I don't think this says anything good about me, potential employee.

[writingintheocean]

someone: hey I noticed this thing you did in your writing!

me, kicking my feet up flirtatiously: oh??? do you want to hear my thoughts on why I did that? do you want a play-by-play of the language choices in every related sentence? do you want an exhaustive breakdown of The Themes???

[writingintheocean]

Hey, I’m not sure if I need to say this explicitly but:

PLEASE DO NOT FEED MY FIC INTO ANY KIND OF AI.

Just ask me about extending things! Or new chapters! Or questions or ideas you had! I would so much prefer to talk to a real YOU than know there’s a chat or out there parading MY writing style and ideas around as its own.

[writingintheocean]

Bonus Chapter

Remember how I said forever ago I was gonna write more Nightangel? Here’s a bonus chapter (that I definitely wrote while sick oof) for Go Slowly.

AO3 link: Between 9 and 10   [1,672 words.]

{If you can't breathe through your nose, how are you supposed to kiss you boyfriend on the mouth? You don't. You isolate and sleep and cry.}

Kurt is facedown on his bed, fingers kneading the spade-tip of his tail, when the knocking starts. 

He cracks one eye open, drags his tongue across dry and cracked lips. Still no use breathing through his nose, unfortunately. Jubilee had told him they’d take care of everything: getting Jean to psychically broadcast the quarantine notice, sending Scott on a supply run (which he insisted was more of a ‘joyride’), having Ororo come around once a day to make sure the humidity levels in his room were balanced.

The knocking turns into banging.

He gropes for a pillow and squashes it over his head, moaning as it becomes even more difficult to breathe.

“Go away! Please!” Kurt coughs.

The response, muffled through pillow and door is [“Babe!”]

Ah. Kurt smiles to himself. Of course Angel wouldn’t listen to a thing Jean said.

The banging turns into pounding.

He teleports to the door, uncharacteristically unsteady and gripping the doorknob like a lifeline. “Liebling, I cannot open the door. You know this.”

[“Bull fucking shit.”]

Kurt’s laugh strains his throat into hacking up more phlegm. He leans against the door, trying to conserve what little energy he has, and feels the knob in his hand jiggle from the other side. “I do not want to get you sick.”

It’s easier to hear his boyfriend with his face smushed against the door.

“And I don’t want you to be sick without me. Open up.”

“Not happening.”

“Kurt.” It’s soft, not a shout. Kurt imagines Warren leaning against the other side of the door, their foreheads pressed together in that lipless kiss he’s come to associate with Angel. “I’ve already got your germs. I am out here infecting people as we speak.”

“Or you are just fine and not sick at all.”

“You really want to be alone in there for a week?”

“No.” Because no, he really doesn’t. It’s the last thing he wants– to be shut away from all his friends while he goes through a year’s worth of tissues. “But if I have a chance to keep you healthy I will take it.” His throat punctuates this last sentence with another fit of coughing, his shoulder rocking against the door with every heave of his body. 

Then silence. 

Kurt clears his throat. “Warren?” 

Two light taps on the door and then– “I’ll see you later, babe.”

“What?” But he can already hear combat boots retreating down the hall and Warren shouting for people to move and it’s too late to stop him and he’s far too tired to try.

There’s the miniature burst that always accompanies Kurt’s bamfs and he’s back across the room in bed, sipping pitifully from a cup of water. His boyfriend was usually a welcome headache but this– Kurt buries his head in the sheets to groan –was an extremely unwelcome bonus headache. 

His whole body feels like a lump of unmolded clay– heavy and slightly damp from fever. At the Munich Circus, the treatment for all illnesses was the same: spicy sausages and a brisk walk. But here at school? Tea and wet washcloths and being locked in his room to ‘sweat it out’. The American method was much lonelier, much more filled with sad and boring naps to pass the time between when he needed to blow his nose. He turns over to stare at Scott’s empty bed, vacated a couple days ago so he wouldn’t catch his germs. Scott had insisted it was fine, that he would sleep with Jean with a wholly unnecessary wink and a nudge—we get it you have sex—but leaving Kurt truly isolated.

A tear slid down his nose until it was a single dark spot on his pillow. 

Maybe he should have let Warren stay.

It’s the large bird smashing into his window that jolts Kurt awake, falling out of bed with a squawk and nearly taking the tail-tangled sheets with him. He coughs once, twice, before struggling to stand. The bird (the bird?) continues to bang on his window, maybe caught on one of the metal ornaments that decorated so many of the windows in this old mansion. A pretty hazard to have, pretty stupid as Jean would say.

He fingers the window latch, dedicated through his exhaustion, until it releases and he can give the panes the saddest push in the world.

His Angel appears and crouches down to kiss his head.

“Hey Blue. Am I late?”

Kurt’s awake NOW, teleporting back near the door and then all over the room to find a spare shirt or pants or SOMETHING to cover up with. He should have expected the blatant breaking-and-entering, it was one of Warren’s favorite ways to surprise him but sleep and sickness had drained all the sense from his head.

“Warren!” Kurt hisses, defensively positioning himself as far from Angel as possible. “What are you doing here?”

Angel maneuvers himself into Kurt’s room about as gracefully as he can between his wingspan and the backpack strapped to his front like a baby. Kurt recognizes the faded Metallica shirt underneath that he’d given him for Christmas, modified with the usual back slits from wing-to-waist that made putting on and taking off (oh, Kurt knew about the taking off) as easy as buttering toast.

“I’m saving you, obviously.”

“Saving me from what?” Kurt sucks– no, snorks a single horrid breath of air through his nose. His mouth feels like the dry side of a beached ship.

Warren smirks. “From boredom” He drops the backpack on the floor and starts to empty its contents: a projector (stolen from the TV room), a VCR player (stolen from the TV room), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (stolen from the TV room). 

Kurt sighs. “You stole these from the TV room?”

“Didn’t steal shit– we live here. It’s ours to use.” Warren unplugs Scott’s alarm clock and tosses it away. 

“Warren, I asked you to not come in. You need to leave.” Kurt can see how Warren tenses up at his words, ignores the planes of his back that can be seen between the cuts in his shirt. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”

“And I’m trying to help my boyfriend. Let me be nice. I’m not a nice guy normally.” says Angel.

Kurt coughs at that. “Not nice normally, says the career superhero.”

“Fuck you!” Angel’s wings flap once, twice. “This is just community service. I’m helping you guys out.”

A blush and a smile creep across his face at the same time. “Ah, I get it. That is all I am to you– just penance.”

“If sucking your weird dick is how I repent then call me a sinner, babe.”

“Not while I’m sick,” Kurt whines. His head hurts. His throat hurts. If Warren keeps talking about his dick, that’s going to start hurting too. “Leave me alone to die here.” He slumps against the door and slides to the floor.

Angel’s expression softens, goes from indignant (and probably more hurt than he let on) to that look he gets when some of the third-graders ask him to catch them jumping off the roof. “Hank says I have fancy blood, I don’t get sick like a normal person would. So whatever bug you have won’t take me down.”

“I could take you down.” Kurts teleports to Angel’s side, ducks the wing intended for his head and takes a nip at Angel’s neck. Then his lungs catch up with his body and he’s falling back on the bed, coughing. He keeps his eyes shut. “There. You are dead.” Oh holy Mary, his head hurts. 

The bed dips as Angel leans over him. “You can kill me after you catch your breath, Blue.” 

A kiss to his cheek and Kurt’s alone again. There’s the sound of water running in the bathroom, a full cup pushed into his hand. Another kiss, and more things are falling to the floor. By the time Kurt opens his eyes, Angel’s got the projector balanced precariously on a pile of textbooks and both feet on Scott’s bed, boots abandoned on the floor, while he untacks the last of his roommate’s posters from the wall.

“I’ll put them up when the cyclops comes back. Until then,” He jumps down, the downdraft of his wings causing errant papers and underwear to stir on the floor, “Personal drive-in.” 

“You’re very sweet.” Kurt’s heart kicks as Warren’s wings, always more honest than he was, twitch. He scoots over on the bed, lining up pillows against the wall so they can face the makeshift screen. “God, my head hurts.”

“I got you water. Drink the water.” Warren slides the tape into the VCR and himself next to Kurt, wrapping him up in one of his wings. 

“You ought to be wearing a nurse outfit, if you’re going through all this trouble.” Kurt settles his head onto a blushing Warren’s lap and soft fingers make their way into his hair, keeping his bangs back. “What time is it, schatz?”

“Scott’s clock said it was like 10.”

“What is ‘like 10’ to you?”

“9:48.”

“Mm. I slept for a while.”

“You’ll sleep a little more. After we watch Indiana Jones.”

“Are you spending the night?”

Angel doesn’t answer immediately. 

“Do you want me to?”

He can feel the warmth coming off Warren’s thighs, knows how strong they are from all the training they do, watching him leap and run along rooftops, from feeling them tense in his own hands the one time in the last four months Kurt had gotten on his knees for him. If he doesn’t have to suffer through any illness without being able to reach and feel that warmth, that safety, he doesn’t want to.

“I want you here.” He takes the hand that isn’t stroking his hair and threads his three fingers through Angel’s five. “I sleep better with you.”

Angel’s wings shudder, and Kurt doesn’t say anything. He breathes through his mouth and lets himself love the comfort of being cared for.

[writingintheocean]

i think a lot of writers have like. ideas that reoccur in their work a lot. and i don't mean anticapitalism or grief or whatever i mean very specific ideas like intimacy through combing hair or mangled limbs which usually originate from a rl experience (the examples are things i use or think of using a lot)

[writingintheocean]

A Ganondorf/Link/Zelda drabble, Ganondorf POV. BOTW timeline based on the headcanon that every Zelda is the firstborn daughter of the current Hyrule royal family, every Link is a reincarnation of the same soul, and Ganondorf is the same man over 10,000 years. I definitely recommend listening to Florence+The Machine’s “King” while reading.

AO3 Link: King    [538 words.]

{The only people you can trust to kill you are the ones you love most in this world.}

His sword pierces you, cuts between your ribs like a key into a lock. You feel him shaking, heart leaking out of his eyes from the effort to conjure up this homicidal tidal act– because you won’t accept anything less when being killed by the man you love. 

You both tumble to the ground, catching him in your arms. Even as the fatal wound cools your rage that desperate Malice snakes through your veins, urging you to crush the breath from his lungs, to sink your teeth into his throat while he’s foolishly laid his exhausted and anguished body atop yours, gripping your shoulder as if his embrace alone could save you from whatever oblivion awaits, to strip his flesh in bloody arcs between the two of you—

You hold him close and reach out to the woman you love, a second wave of calm and ice spreading under her touch.

“You held back long enough, Ganondorf.” Zelda kneels down next to you, legs shaking despite the hollow pride in her eyes. “The sword of legend has done its duty.”

Link screams between you both, a sound ripped from a throat barely used. His sword sinks in another inch and begins to glow. The pool between the three of you is half blood, half tears.

“Get stronger and come back for me.” Whispered in his ear, said to her face, an order and a plea. Pieces of you tear off like burnt paper in a breeze and spiral down into the depths beneath Hyrule Castle. “I’ll be waiting for the both of you.”

The three of you pile hands, a trinity of golden triangles shining back at you like a promise. You can’t feel if their hands are warm with life or quivering with fury. You can’t feel the sobs wracking his body, her forehead leaning against your own.

“No matter how long it takes.”

You are torn away and feel nothing.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

They left you behind.

He would choose her over you.

Why were you the one who had to die?

They always knew you were a dangerous freak, they had to kill you.

She’s always had her favorite, and it was never even a question.

How much did it hurt to bleed out like that?

If you weren’t weak, this wouldn’t have happened.

They only pitied you.

Your love was for diplomacy.

He’s wanted to do that for ages.

You could have won.

You could have taken them both.

She hates you.

They never loved you.

If you were stronger, this wouldn’t have happened.

You were nothing to them.

He hates you.

They forgot about you.

She wanted him to herself.

They killed you without hesitation.

He wanted her to himself.

If you were better, this wouldn’t have happened.

How long were they afraid of you?

How long were they lying to you?

They can’t hurt you if they’re dead.

He can’t hurt you when he’s dead.

She can’t hurt you if she’s dead.

When we’re more powerful, this won’t happen again.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The man you love has been erased and reborn.

The woman you love has only passed down her name. 

And if there is nothing left to take from you, you might as well be king.

[writingintheocean]

Gonna write a Nightangel oneshot anybody want anything?

[writingintheocean]

New Ask game. Send me one of my fic titles and I’ll tell which was THAT SCENE for that fic.

[writingintheocean]

Hi!! I came across your account when I was in a bit of an x-men craze, ha ha. I love your fics, but I was just wondering if you were still active and if you were going to continue 'The Good, The Bad, and The Dirty'? It hasn't been updated for a long time, but I love your writing (and the amount of research you put in a fic, appreciate that, truly) and it couldn't hurt to ask! :) Sorry for bothering you!

Hi! I’m glad you enjoyed what I wrote— my time in the X-men/Nightangel fandom was really important to me! I haven’t written fanfiction in a while and I’m sorry to say TGTBTD is for all intents and purposes shelved. I co-wrote the story and writing it alone would feel disingenuous at this point.

On another note this is the first ask I’ve ever gotten on this blog I think and that’s.....really really cool!

[writingintheocean]

support fic writers! 

[writingintheocean]

fanfic writer moods

the thrill of posting something

you’ve got comments emails

existential crisis’s over getting views but no feedback

24 hour high of getting a long ass comment

the inclination to Stop

the addiction to keep going overtaking that

‘when’s the next update?’ lol, wish I knew friend

[writingintheocean]

Hey this is more word vomit-- basically my reaction to a fic I read. Too much empathy; I can’t handle fics with straight up abuse in them, including r/a//pe and I should know by now not to risk it even for a good story. 

Heavy HEAVY trigger warnings if you decide to open this but I honestly wouldn’t recommend it because it’s literally a description of tor///ture and mur///der.

There’s a blistering feeling in her shoulders as she stalks him. Something like rage, something like pain, coiled tightly around her bones and it’s all she can do not to chase and chase him until he’s the one groaning and gasping for breath and—

Everyone with their fancy quirks thought guns were so uncivilized.

It’s too easy, too noticeable to kill someone that way however.

“Did you think this would happen?” The side of the gun hits his skull with a crack!, sickening and satisfying at the same time. Like the drumroll to her performance.

He’s on the ground, bleeding asking why, what did he do, and she yanks him up by the hair to look down the barrel of the gun.

“Did you think about the consequences of your actions?”

Maybe she knows why the villains do it. The thrill, the hum in her blood, the electric current running through her and forcing her hands to shake with the effort and her face stuck in a smile not from happiness, but something between fear and anger.

You can smile when you’re uncomfortable too.

His eyes try to drift past the gun to her face. “Hwa-ah—”

She slams his face back into the pavement. “Have you ever considered a consequence in your fucking life?” Her boot is on the back of his head and she’s stomping once and twice and again and again and again and—

“DID. YOU. CARE?”

How was she going to kill him how was she going to kill him how was she going—

There’s a rasp and a cough and something like crying. His arms come up on either side, trying to lift himself and get away.

Her foot connects from the side, knocking him against the alley wall.

He’s in no condition to fight, blood dripping from his nose or from everywhere. His face is a mess.

She puts the handcuffs on then. Extra tight.

“I’m going to walk us somewhere.” Her whisper is unnecessarily quiet, something meant for his ears only but that she’s heard in her head a thousand times, rehearsed. Perfect. “I’m going to walk us somewhere more private and then I’m going to do every sick thing you did to him back. Worse. I’m going to use whatever I find there to make you beg for death. And I mean anything.”

She hauls him to his feet. He’s about her height, but with his head hanging like this and gasping around his probably broken nose he seemed much smaller.

“Do you remember him?” The gun digs into his ribs as she escorts them, pressed tight. It’s a nervous tick as she cocks the hammer back and forth. “You better hope this doesn’t go off accidentally because I’ll make it hurt the whole time you’re dying,” she mutters, almost a croon. A promise.

“Please,” he starts, sounding more like pleeths. “Please.”

The handcuffs were real enough, but the gag she stuffed in his mouth was a wad of moldy food in newspaper, fresh from a garbage bin. “I’ll let you know when I want to hear you fucking beg.”

The night looked brighter, safer. Louder in picture only.

She pulls him left, down the next side street. There’s houses on either sides but this is the backside of both. There’s a swingset in one of the yards and then everything is white-hot again, cacophonous screaming everywhere but her ears and some noise is ripped out of her throat as the pistol connects with the back of his head again.

He goes down with a cry, snot and blood mixing in the dirt. She hauls him to him feet and watches the tears drip out of his eyes. It makes her sick. It makes her giddy.

“I hope you bit down on that lump of yuck, you fucking shit.” She stirs up the ground, turning over the parts with his blood under more dirt. “Not much farther now.”

It’s a warehouse from long ago. Abandoned like most of the others in this district, and with plenty of leftover utensils. It looked like they used to store ironworks. That was the key here.

“What’s your quirk anyway?” She knocks him onto the ground and shuts the door behind her, padlock for extra protection. “He never told me.” A short bark of laughter escapes. “You know, he never really told me anything. Nothing after the first night. Nothing really then either.”

She sucks at soccer. The kick to his gut is more satisfying than that game ever was. He cries out around the gag, something leaking out that isn’t blood but could be vomit.

“You gonna choke on me?” She lifts his head out of the dirt to stick the gun under his chin, watching as his eyes widen in fear, squeeze shut for the same reason. The half-smile hasn’t left. “Like you choked him out?”

He’s murmuring, something, pleas and begging that she couldn’t care less to understand. Another stomp shuts him up but she wants to feel something, his organs breaking beneath her ministrations. His fingers snapping, one by one.

“You’re probably thinking I’m a villain, right?” She sets up the portable camp stove a bit away, flicking on the tiny burner and leaving one of the metal fixtures right in the flame. “That maybe we should be on the same side.”

It’s a horrifying thought. The same feeling shoots through her again, leaving its sting to do something in her blood and it’s not something to fight, so when she grabs the wooden plank she does what feels natural and brings it down over his back.

It splits in two. He screams.

She sinks the broken edge into his back and puts her weight into it, leaning down to get in his disgusting face again. To terrify him. “I don’t want to hear your confession. I look like a fucking priest to you?” The wood sinks into his shirt. Draws blood. “I’m not going to ask you a single thing.” He’s still crying, hands scrabbling behind his back as if the pathetic show will make her stop. “I’m going to make you listen. And suffer. And maybe?”

She yanks the piece from his skin with a groan, the hole bleeding fresh onto the ground.

“Maybe I’ll let you live. Sound good?”

He’s facedown on the ground, body only moving in short jerks as he breathes. The laugh at the sight is real because this is horrible, it’s awful and evil and she doesn’t care.

She drags him upright against the wall and grabs one of the rustier looking nails on the floor. The first one goes into his hand with a scream. Except that she sucks at this at it hasn’t even gone into the wall yet.

“Whoopsie. Gonna have to do that one again.”

She hammers it in until it’s set, tugging on his hand a few times just to make certain it’s really stuck in there.

“One more, come on big guy.” She really is crooning now, the voice she uses for babies who can’t understand a word she’s saying. “You can do it.”

The sob from the second passes through the duct tape and it physically hurts but she can’t stop now. She wouldn’t want to stop now.

When his hands are secured to the wall, she picks up the five other nails and goes to town on his legs.

“I don’t have a very good quirk either.” The first one slices a little too easily into his flesh. She probably got all muscle. “It’s not what you’d call heroic, I guess.” The second one she angles specifically to hit bone, driving into his shin. “But you don’t need a good quirk to be hero.” The third goes straight into his knee, but it takes her a couple hits. “You just have to be determined, I think.” She switches legs, registering the minimum response from him. “Tired already?”

She drives both of them next to each other, into his hip. He jerks, messing up her strikes and screaming with all his might. His hands yank uselessly at the wall with whimpers of pain. The rivulets of blood seep down his arm, into his shirt. Can he still breathe?

She doesn’t care.

“I don’t care if you have hope.” Her voice doesn’t sound like her own, flat and distant as it is. “I’m going to kill you. But first,” She stands, crosses to the stove. Picks up the shaft of metal, the sharp tip of it glowing yellow. “I’m gonna maim you.”

He flails, erratic as she inches closer. The holes in his hands inch larger as the flesh tears away at itself. She steadies the rod in between his legs. It doesn’t matter what she hits down here. She’s going to destroy all of it.

“Worse than you did to him.”

The frantic energy is back curling around her like a protective blanket as she thrusts her arm forward to rip into him.

“WORSE THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT YOU COULD DO.”

She doesn’t look at his face. She can only feel her own: smile intact and lopsided and damp with tears.

“WORSE THAN ANY PAIN YOU’VE EVER IMAGINED.”

He’s a bloody mess, still twitching every time it burns him, tears him. Still crying and sobbing and choking on the rotting mess she trapped in his mouth.

“AND ALMOST AS BAD AS I WISH YOU COULD FEEL.”

There’s pieces of him on the floor, probably testicles. Or better: shredded and scorched remains of his dick. The glow at the end of the rod had faded, probably longer ago than she thought. He’s bleeding out onto the floor, practically pissing into a puddle of his own blood and shit. His head rocks to the side and she can see the light dimming in his eyes.

She scrambles for the gun. As heavy as it was before, it feels like a weight lifted to drop the pike on the ground and level the chamber at his head. He doesn’t resist, too far gone. This was probably a blessing but she had to do it like this.

Like she wanted.

Like she’d imagined.

Her voice quivers as her sobbing threatens to overwhelm her. “You haven’t suffered enough.”

His skull makes a boom! as the bullet cuts through it, splattering his brain on the wall. She pulls the trigger again, to be sure, and one more time to get it out of her system. Where his head used to be was now a cavity, an empty crater with the face scooped out.

It barely looked like a body anymore.

She drops to her knees and wails.

[writingintheocean]

other people writing ao3 comments: love this! can’t wait to see more ❤

me writing ao3 comments: gyjfsdghjkldsfhj fukc dude i………..id eat this if i could….

[writingintheocean]

Whipped this up after surprise inspiration this morning. I’m debating taking down the AO3 version because it doesn’t seem long enough to qualify for that platform but I’ll probably forget and be too lazy to take it down.

Fave to Least Fave: Boone, Veronica/Raul, ED-E, Arcade, Rex, Cass

AO3: Scared

Six is gung-ho from the moment she spots REPCONN Headquarters, almost dropping her hunting rifle with its new scope in her scramble to test it out. (There’s a sheepish smile on her face, as if he’ll care how she treats her guns.) She picks a hill not too far from the entrance and copies his position, crouching and balancing her elbow on her knee, her rifle on her palm.

The order to shoot never comes.

She sighs and stands, motioning him up too. “They’re not hostile. Just…robots.”

Boone nods, knowing senseless “murder” isn’t Six’s wheelhouse. ‘It saves ammo!’, she would say, not wanting to admit to the Big Tough Army Sniper that she’s still soft.

It’s not too hot for noon in the Mojave but they’ll both be glad to get out of the sun. A few of the Mister Handys accost them on their way to the entrance but Six plays along, doing all the talking and nodding as they welcome them again and again. The door handle is made of metal and he gets out a “Hey wa—" before she grabs it, yelps, and lets go, comically wringing her hand in a dramatic show of pain.

“You could have said something, you know.” Six side-eyes him as she fishes a bandana out of her pocket. “How am I supposed to shoot with this horrible burn?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got your back.”

It’s cliché, and trite, and she knows it from how she recklessly swings the door open. It bangs against the side of the building, loud and metallic, and she freezes for a split second as the dark corridor stretches in front of her.

“You okay Six?”

“Yeah.” She waits a beat. The hand that reaches for her 9mm is slow, meticulous. “I’m fine.”

What does he really know about the courier? Death warrant from the Legion. Friend of escaped convicts. Collects teddy bears. Hates heavy armor. Can’t remember anything after getting shot in the head and buried—

….…..it’s none of his business.

Six flexes her fingers around the trigger and crouches down. “Let’s just get through this.” A deep breath in, and out, and she starts forward.

Boone pulls out his rifle and follows her in and tries to tune out the sound of her heavy breathing.

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

He hears the clicking before he sees her move, scuttling backwards down the path they’ve been taking up the mountain. The Geiger counter’s ticking disappears after a few feet but she leads him and Rex back to a large rock off the side of the road anyway, telling him to wait on the other side as she runs purposefully behind it to change.

Boone knows exactly what she’ll come out wearing because it’s the same thing every fucking time. And yet he still tries to ignore the silhouette that toddles out from behind the rock, oxygen tanks strapped to her back and covered from head to toe in red leather. At least she had the decency to skip the space helmet.

She can read his face even behind the sunglasses. “Radiation is not a joke, Boone.”

“You look ridiculous,” he deadpans.

Six rolls her eyes. “Take the Rad-X at least.” She tosses the pill at him and bends down the feed Rex one against Arcade’s advice. “You want to lose your mind and start glowing?”

“That’s not how it works.” He washes it down with purified water because it’ll make her happy and that’s better than her complaining the entire time they’re fighting up Black Mountain.

“That’s exactly how it works and I’m not going to go crazy just because “my outfit is stupid” or “Rad-X only helps up to a certain point”, which is ACTUALLY stupid.”

One more pat to the head for Rex and they’re walking again, guns out. She’s not copying his stance anymore, not watching him out of the corner of her eye to adjust posture as he does. There’s a small sting as he realizes she won’t actually need him for much longer.

“Besides,” Six drops into a crouch as the pip-boy starts clicking again. Boone catches the glance in his direction but pretends to focus through his scope. “Can’t let my boys lose it either.”

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

Raul had been with her when the Boomers spoke about the plane but Boone was the one traipsing behind her and making sure Six didn’t get stung by cazadors when she had her face buried in her Pip-Boy.

They’d crossed the same piece of coastline four times before she found the broken stretch of concrete stretching into the water close to the plane’s signal.

“Looks like this is as close as we’ll get,” he says. Hopefully this would be quick swim and then back to the Lucky 38 for ‘Murdering Caesar’ planning.

And it…isn’t. Six walks to the water, and walks back. She takes off the beret he’d given her, and puts it back on. She starts to slip out of her leather armor, and just as quickly pulls it back on.

“You don’t think it’s….in the water, right? It could just be on the other side?” She’s sitting down now, raising her arm towards him so he can see the Pip-Boy map.

“No. It’s in the water.” Boone takes a seat on the side, letting Rex rest his head on his knee. “Is that a problem?”

Six doesn’t answer, just repeats the rounds. Step forward, step back. Hat off, hat on. Zippers down, and back up again.

It’s been ten minutes. He doesn’t know what the issue is. “Do you know how to swim?”

“You’re the one who dragged my plastered ass out of the Ultra-Luxe fountain on Thursday, you tell me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes,” she draws the word out. “I can swim.”

Rex lets out a whine and they’re silent again.

Back and forward, off and on, down and up.

It’s quite nice by the lake. There’s a breeze, it smells clean unlike Freeside or any of the NCR camps, and there’s something calming about looking out across the water.

Vault 34. Something Cass had told him after they’d had gotten back. About the flooded parts. How jumpy and paranoid Six had been inside the irradiated tunnels, something like her worst nightmare. How they’d explored the whole vault twice looking for a way to get to the reactor. How they skipped over two flooded hallways that Six refused to go into until they ran out of options. And then she took so long to go down that Cass had pushed her in.

Six didn’t travel much with Cass anymore.

Boone keeps his face immobile as he asks. “Are you afraid of the water?”

There’s an almost imperceptible jerk of her head.

He sighs and stands, taking steps until he’s right next to her before sitting again as Rex takes up vigil on her other side. Both of their legs are stretched out towards the dam, barely an inch apart.

“Okay.” He digs the rebreather out of her bag and sets it in front of Rex. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He’s always liked being quiet and alone. It was something you got used to when sniping, even while spending half a day inside an old-world dinosaur and coming home to a wife already asleep after a hard day of wishing to be anywhere but there. Or after, when he would just come home to his own guilt and temptations.

Six’s hand is trembling when it grabs onto his, squeezing too tight. “There could be anything down there,” she whispers.

He likes being alone with Six now, too.

She blinks once, twice, shuts her eyes tight and opens them again all the while flexing her fingers around his hand. Drops her beret in his lap and straps on the rebreather. Rex barks after her as she wades in fully clothed, following the ramp down into the lake.

She points a finger at him. “Don’t move.” The mask muffles her speech.

He waves the beret at her, almost a smile. “I’ll hang tight.”

She disappears beneath the water and he’s truly alone again.

Rex tackles him to make sure he knows he’s wrong.

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

He didn’t know why she’d told him to go back to Novac. Maybe she was finally sick of holding one-sided conversations. Maybe she didn’t want him to know she’d started using Legion armor, even though Cass told him anyway. Maybe it was telling her taking on a nest of deathclaws with Raul, who only used close fucking ranged weapons was the stupidest idea he’d ever heard of. Maybe she just thought he was bitch.

Manny hadn’t said anything when he’d showed up, just grunted and vacated the spot in the dinosaur. Fine by him.

When he hears gunshots in the distance, it’s a welcome distraction. He levels his gun towards the patch of desert just outside of town and watches in mild disbelief as Veronica sucker punches a giant radscorpion. Six is firing her go-to revolver in its face, her mouth moving frantically in what he knows from experience is a stream of curses.

And then another scorpion crests over the hill. And another. And another. He doesn’t know why she’s not pulling out her LAER, the recent favorite after she’d claimed to have mastered his ‘sniper style’. Her face goes white and he watches her jerk towards her companion as Veronica gets sideswiped, knocking the scribe onto her back as one radscorpion raises its stinger over her.

He knows what’s going to happen even before she does it, and squeezes the trigger as Six tries to jump in front of the blow.

Its tail explodes in a shower of yellow guts over the girls, Six’s mouth working as she tries to spit out the bits that flew into her mouth. He takes two more shots just to be safe and Six finishes off the rest. She hauls Veronica to her feet and they laugh, still pale in the desert sun. It’s uncomfortable to continue watching but he tells himself it’s to make sure they’re okay as long as they’re in his sights.

And it’s worth it when Six plants her feet towards the dinosaur, flipping him off with a smile.

Relief is one hell of a drug.

[writingintheocean]

This is much more.....violent than I usually write. A practice in being graphic. It’s not supposed to be anything in particular so there’s no names, no fandoms, but please don’t read it if mild descriptions of torture will squick you. 

The next scream comes with blood, spat out dark and red between her teeth.

“Again.”

There’s a crawling sound underneath her ragged breathing as the flesh knits back together, smooth as if no wound had ever been. It’s hard to breathe with how humid the room is, how yellow the walls are from the lone lightbulb hanging near her head.

Her knee cracks with a hollow sound, more yells ripped from her throat as her wrists strain against the cuffs. The links clink against each other and it’s all she has: sound to blot out the explosions of pain.

“Again.”

Something brushes her knee and she spits reflexively, iron coating her tongue as someone hisses in surprise. The bones mend, shifting back into place with nauseating clicks. The blindfold is yanked backwards along with her head and there’s hot breath against her ear.

“Again.”

The fight went out of her a long time ago but it rears its head as their hand settles on her waist, soft and possessive. She kicks and hears her arms grind in their sockets, long numb from bearing her wait and the knife twists and she can’t help opening her mouth to cry, hot tears mixing with sweat as his fingers find their way into her mouth.

“Again.”

Her tongue slides along his fingers by accident and she tastes dirt. She groans as they pull the blade out and her insides start to leak, feeling the bones in his hand against her teeth.

Her teeth.

She bites down so fast it catches part of her own tongue and there’s a closed mouth scream in her head and an open mouthed one in her ears and it’s the knife again, in her ribs and in her breast and in her side and she’s dying there, blood draining out of her and welling up in her mouth. She can barely feel it spilling out of her mouth.

A hand on her jaw as her body pulses beneath her and wrenches her mouth open. Two fingers fall out, small thumps as they hit the floor. The voids in her body are filling in again, slowing the flow and numbing the fractures.

She can hear the fist before it cracks across her face, jarring her lips apart as a mouthful of blood splatters onto a wall.

The hand that caresses her face only has three digits.

“Again.”

[writingintheocean]

..........olympics orgy au fic..................................