#I have written out pages upon pages of a very hurting comfort fic in the span of a week | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gryffindors-weasley · 3 years

Text

To Heal A Seeker

Draco Malfoy x Reader

Summary: When healing Draco after a quidditch accident, you find he knows more about it than you think.

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: mentions of injury, mentions of blood, mild angst, bit of jealousy, fluff, kissing

A/N: This fic is loosely inspired by one I’ve written here!

A soft huff left your lips for seemingly the millionth time in the past fifteen minutes as you pulled Draco along the darkened corridors towards the Hogwarts infirmary by the hand that night, worry on your mind and a bit of annoyance that he hadn’t done something sooner than just now. You had seen that he’d taken a hit during that evening’s quidditch match, but he hadn’t seemed all too affected by it though you should have known that he had far too much pride in him to show when he’d been hurt. He’d always been that way and probably always will be.

“If there’s anyone in here, we’re leaving, love,” he grumbles quietly behind you as he squeezes your hand to accompany his words, eliciting an eye roll from you. You pause in your stride and spin on your heel just outside the double doors, eyes narrowed at him in disapproval.

“No, we will not. Don’t be ridiculous, Draco,” you quip before turning back around, pushing open the door to the infirmary with a creak. It was far louder than you’d have liked in contrast to the silence.

Much to Draco’s relief each and every bed had been empty and neatly made in preparation for any student who may need it, the large room dimly lit now that Madame Pomfrey had turned in for the night. The glowing moonlight streamed in and stretched across the floor through the latticed windows in broken beams, adding a bit more illumination to the room.

His sigh was soon to be heard upon realization that there was no way out of your scolding, though he could help the flutter in his heart over the simple thought of being cared about so much. It wasn’t something he’d been used to, not really. So when you’d motioned for him to sit on of the beds, he’d done so without much argument save for his displeasure when your hand had slipped out of his own.

His lips pursed, however, when you’d brushed the heaps of tangled platinum away from his forehead to see if there’s been anything to heal, an action he came to regret as it tugged at the split he acquired. He should know better than to let the taunts of Cormac get under his skin by now, and he would have if he’d kept his snarky remarks simply on the topic of the match at hand. But the moment he had mentioned you he knew he had been in trouble, and Cormac knew his attempt at distraction had been plenty successful then. So much so the blonde nearly fell off his broom, instead taking a scrape to the arm by a passing player and furthermore an elbow to the mouth not ten minutes later. He had been seconds from casting a spell that was sure to take McLaggen out for the rest of the match, but for his team’s sake, for your sake, he didn’t.

“I’m fine, love,” he sighs softly, looking up at you with raised brows in hopes you’d take his word for it—he knows you won’t.

“You’re not,” you counter as the corners of your mouth tug downward, eyes narrowed as your gaze focuses on the split adorning his reddened lip. You brush the pad of your thumb over it gently as your frown remains, his expression softening at the sight of your distress. “You’re a fool, Dray.”

“But I’m your fool, aren’t I?” He says, a smile forming that’s soon cut short with a wince.

It was your turn to purse your lips as you shake your head, though a grin had been fighting valiantly to appear all the same. “You make it hard to be so sure.”

As he scoffs, you grab your wand from where it sat tucked within your boot, aiming it precisely at his bottom lip. He closed his eyes with a quiet huff then, your hand that’d since been gingerly pressed under his chin a comfort as he awaited the familiar feel of the Episkey spell he’d come to know all too well. Soon enough, with a murmur of the three-syllable word, he feels a heat on his lip followed just as quickly by a feeling nearly cold as ice, your hand falling from his chin to swipe your finger over his newly healed lip as if nothing had happened to it. When he opens his eyes to look at you he finds you’re a bit more at ease, a blush staining your cheeks as your thumb lingers.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, one no longer having stinging repercussions, his hands finding yours as he looks up at you with mischief dancing in his eyes.

“Perhaps a kiss will make it all the more better?”

Your eye roll was immediate at his words, words that were so utterly cheesy and so very Draco to say. But the smile that’d been gracing his lips had been one that was near impossible to keep from kissing and soon you find yourself dipping down to press your lips on his. His hands had squeezed your own and his sigh had puffed warmly against your skin at the action, one that proved to be all too fleeting in his opinion.

“You’re already better,” you mumble, kissing the tip of his nose as you pull away. “Well, partly.”

As his shoulders slump your distracted attention returns to the task at hand, to the arm he so insistently said had been fine. You knew very well it hadn’t been judging by the fraying green yarn that dangled from his sleeve, a tear accompanying it. Without hesitation you grab a hold of the cuff and push up his sleeve carefully, your breath catching at the scrape running across the top of his arm. It was an angry scarlet around the edges, the shade a sharp contrast to the paleness of his skin. It’d been fairly superficial from the looks of it, something that wouldn’t be cause for concern, but you were unhappy nonetheless.

“Draco,” you sigh, and he’s quick to bring your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles in an attempt to lessen your worrying. “You’ve got to stop letting him get to you. It clearly isn’t doing you any good.”

You pull your hand from his and turn to make your way to the cabinet across the infirmary.

The tall cupboard housed just about every healing potion, every herb, and every bandage you could possibly think of atop its very shelves. They were all carefully and precisely crafted from ingredients hand selected from the greenhouse, made with great attention to measurements in order to be in their most effective state. It was an assortment always well stocked, especially while the quidditch season was in play for the more competitive and dare you say clumsy members of the four teams participating, your beau very much included. Only you hadn’t known such potions had been made by the very person you’d been healing, most of them residing there have been for that matter.

You scanned the shelves in search of the perfect solution for such an injury, the lighting of the room not having been helping you very much.

“It’s Essence of Dittany, darling,” he calls out behind you, his words matter of fact yet his suggestion gentle.

You smile softly as you pluck it from the shelf before dampening a towel, turning on your heel with a raised brow. You say nothing more as you return to him, setting the towel to the side and unscrewing the cap. When held up to the moonlight it’d been a shade of green that could nearly rival that of the slytherin team jersey he’d been wearing, and that’d been a clear enough indication that you’d gotten the right one. Though you must say, the handwritten label had seemed strikingly familiar to you.

With a steady hand you hold his wrist, his fingers splaying over your arm. You look at him once more, his gaze soft and encouraging that he’d be just fine. You took a deep breath then, applying a generous amount to the wound. In a matter of moments a matching green smoke had begun to billow upwards and dissipate into the room, something that had made you flinch more than it did Draco at the simple reaction of the potion.

“You don’t need that many drops, Y/n/n,” he says softly, grabbing the dropper from your hand and capping the tiny bottle. “Just three or four is plenty for something this size.”

He knew you’d probably been done so out of worry of putting enough, out of wanting it to be healed as much as possible, and the thought alone had him resisting the urge to grin. You bit the inside of your cheek to try your hardest to hide your own smile, gazing at him as he watched the scrape along his arm heal in a matter of moments. He brushed his fingers along where it’d once been before shifting his attention towards you—you and your ever curious smile that was unable to be fought any longer than a second.

“And just how do you know all these things?” You ask, your grin heard in your words as you tilt your head in display of your curiosity. He laughs softly as you wipe away the crimson smears of blood remaining on his skin, eying the area that looked as though it’d been good as new.

“I’ve done my research,” he shrugs, the scarlet that was beginning to stain his cheeks having gone unseen in the dimness of the room.

“I can see that,” you say, and it’d been very clear he’d done more than just a little research, and you felt as though maybe he’d been more interested in the art of healing than he was letting on.

You could tell that very fact just by the way he’d fumbled and twirled the little glass bottle in his hands, eying the green potion that had worked exceptionally with the softest of smiles on his face. By the way he’d been so inclined to accompany you whenever you’d made the trip to the greenhouse every other night, needing little instruction on how to care for most any of the plants. You could tell by the very way you’d found him asleep in the library far past midnight once before, a page of notes on herbology stuck to his cheek. It wasn’t very hard to see that this was far more than just a hobby, than just something to occupy his free time.

Playing quidditch was something he hadn’t anticipated doing beyond second year. It was more so a challenge, something he’d done just to rival Harry and get under his skin. He was quite skilled at it, yes, having perfected the sport in hopes to please his father though he knew his attempts were futile. He stuck with it though, one year turning to two, two to four. Now you were in your seventh and final year and he’d still been yet to stop playing. But it’d been obvious this wasn’t something he’d want to make a life out of much to Lucius’ dismay, it was more so a distraction from everything that’s been weighing heavy on his mind. It was obvious he didn’t hold a passion for it past his desire to win each match, to hold the title over Cormac. That was it—it was merely a pass time.

“I’ve made this one myself, you know,” he says after a little while, holding the little bottle up as the emerald potion swirls inside it at the sudden action. “And I see now that it’s quite satisfactory.”

“I would assume it’s from all the studying you’ve been doing, then,” you quip, your smile beaming and all-knowing when he looks up from his hands to meet your gaze.

His brows knit together ever so slightly, lips parting as his breath catches slightly and he hopes you hadn’t heard it. “I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about, love.”

You laugh softly as you tug down the sleeve of his quidditch sweater, enveloping his hands in your own. They were calloused and warm as you held them save for the ring he’d worn, far larger in comparison to yours. “I’ve caught you studying notes on healing and herbology in the library far too many times for me to believe that, Draco.”

“I was just—”

“I’ve seen the way you care for the plants in the greenhouse when professor sprout isn’t there to do so. Not to mention, you’re at the top of the potions class. Being a healer would be good for you—you should go for it, Dray, really. You’d be brilliant!” You say, squeezing his hand softly.

A soft laugh left his lips at the mere mention of it, one that wasn’t entirely filled with humor as he looked away from you briefly. He shook his head then, his thumbs brushing over your knuckles tenderly. “Yeah, and what would my father say about that? I don’t think he’d be too happy if his son, the only Malfoy heir, went soft and decided to use his magic for good. He’s not too fond of the idea of me pursuing a career with quidditch either.”

You sigh softly, shoulders slumping at his words as you release one of his hands to rest on his cheek. His gaze returns to you upon your touch, his jaw tense under your finger tips before he relaxed. Your thumb swipes over his chin as you mull over your next words.

“Draco, we both know what I think of your father’s opinion,” you say, pulling a small smile from him. “All I’m saying is, if you truly like it, I think you should pursue it. You seem to like it far more than chasing McLaggen around on the pitch accumulating who knows how many bumps and bruises. You’re good at it Draco, you love it, and that’s what matters. Besides, I’ve got no problem fighting your father on the subject, you know.”

His smile widens and he tugs you hand from his face, pulling you down next to him in one swift motion. In a matter of moments his lips are on yours, soft and sweet as his hand settles on your flushed cheek.

“No, you absolutely will not,” he murmurs, his laughter warm against your lips as his mouth brushed over yours. Your own bout of laughter was immediately as his nose scrunches against yours, breath mingling in the close proximity. “It would be in your best interest not to.”

Your eyes flutter closed as your forehead rests on yours, strands of platinum tickling against your skin. “Oh really?”

He wastes no time in nodding softly, humming to further answer your counter as he tucks your hair behind your ear. He pulls away from you though he doesn’t stray too far, pale blue eyes sparkling in the moonlight as his tongue swipes across his lips. His gaze is soft yet intense, the corner of his mouth quirking up. It’s fleeting as he moves to kiss your cheek, trailing to the corner of your jaw and most tenderly chastely just under your ear, the feeling of his breath over your skin making it hard to stifle your laugh.

“I love you, you know,” he whispers, kissing the spot once more. You smile, mischief dancing in your eyes.

“I love you, even when you nearly fall off your broom,” you say, and he’s quick to quiet you with a kiss, one that just about has you tumbling back on the less than comfortable hospital bed as a second bout of laughter echoes in the large room. “I love you.”

Your smile is beaming and bright, one that’s mirrored as he squeezes your hand and kisses your cheek. He knows his future is uncertain, but one thing he does know is that he’s got you.

You’ll always be there to love him, to heal a seeker.

—

Tags: @anchoeritic @amourtentiaa @hahee154hq @snitches-at-dawn @dracosathenaeum @harrysweasleys @awritingtree @writeroutoftime @lunalovecroft @lilypad-55449

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy one shot #draco malfoy fluff #draco malfoy angst #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy fic #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco fanfiction #draco x you

165 notes · View notes

silenthearts · 3 years

Note

Love your recent tlou fics. How about dina accidentally stumbling across Anna's note? (The note Ellie's mom wrote before she died). To preserve the old piece of paper, she puts it in a little photo frame for ellie to keep.

Dina had been tidying for what felt like days, the house had been nothing short of a mess and with so much going on, both of them hadn't had time to actually clean or tidy anything.

Her forehead was sweaty and her hair tied up in a scraggly pony tail as she struggled up the stairs and opened the door to the last room she needed to clean and tidy, Ellie's studio.

She knew she probably should leave it to Ellie, but she also knew that Ellie would never actually bother to clean or tidy the room herself, so she had to get her hands dirty. Dina started by clearing the stray crumpled papers on the floor, followed by the ones on her desk. She also tried to sweep and mop the floor, in hopes she could get rid of some of the paint stain, but to no avail.

Just as Dina grabbed a bulk of stray papers covered by drawings and poems, one of the notebooks that she was already holding fell on the floor with a big tud and various loose pieces of paper scattered across the floor.

"Fuck's sake" she sighed. At least the floor was already dry. Dina wiped the sweat on her brow and got on her knees so she could gather the pieces of paper all over again. After grabbing quite a few of the stray pages, she came upon a very beaten up and old page. It was slightly yellow and the corners of the page had started to split. Many stains adorned the page and and It looked like it had been folded inside this notebook for quite sometime. Dina pondered if she should open it and see what it was.

"I'll just put it back" she told herself and shoved it with all the others inside the notebook again. But as she put it down, her curiousity took the better of her and she grabbed the old book again and searched for the folded beat up piece of paper.

She took it in her hands and opened it up. Inside there was a letter, the handwriting was slightly smudged and it looked like it had been written in a rush. Dina still hesitated in reading it. Maybe she shouldn't... But she was already here so what the hell. Dina sat on the window seat and got comfortable.

*Ellie,

I'm going to share a secret with you, I'm not a big fan of kids and I hate babies. And yet... I'm staring at you and I'm just awestruck....*

Dina's throat closed, and hot tears already made their way to the brims of her eyes. This was from Ellie's mom... Her birth mother not Marlene .. her mom.

Dina took a deep breath and with her heart tighter than a knot, she kept reading

*You're not even a day old and holding you is the most incredible thing I've done in my life - a life that is about to get cut a little short.

Marlene will look after you. There's no one in this world I trust more than her. When the time comes she'll tell you all about me. Don't give her too much of a hard time. Try not to be as stubborn as me."*

"Now I know where she gets it from" Dina whispered to herself just as the first tear made its way down her cheek.

*I'm not going to lie, this is a pretty messed up world. It won't be easy. The thing you always have to remember is that, *

Dina took a shaky breath and turned the page to read the rest of the note. She didn't know why she was so emotional, but perhaps it hit too close to home.

* life is worth living! Find your purpose and fight for it.

I see so much strength in you. I know you'll turn out to be the woman you're meant to be.

Forever... your loving mother

Anna

Make me proud, Ellie! *

Dina was full on crying now, like ugly crying. Fuck.

She didn't know what to do with this information, but one thing she was sure of, Anna would have been proud of the strong woman Ellie had grown up to be. Maybe they'd even be alike.

Dina couldn't just let this letter be hidden away inside a dusty old notebook, so with her heart feeling full and her cheeks hurting from the salty tears and ugly crying, she found a photo frame. The frame was made of glass entirely which allowed both sides to be visible.

She placed it on the console of their bedroom, maybe the words of encouragement could do Ellie some good once in a while.

That night she didn't mention the letter to Ellie , nor did she mention that she framed it , and after she had gone to sleep, Ellie entered their bedroom and her eyes fell on the new frame immediately.

She walked slowly towards it and with a caring smile she picked it up and read the letter for the first time in years.

*Make me proud Ellie!*

" I hope I did Mom..." She whispered and sighed. She didn't know how Dina found it but she was very glad she did.

****

I'm sorry this took me so long! This was so fun to write, thank you so much for requesting 🥺❤️

79 notes · View notes

ohkate · 3 years

Note

hi! pls ignore this if you don't do asks but if it's fine, may I know what your favorite QAF fics are? I really agree a lot to your QAF related takes and I was wondering if we have the same taste in fics too. thank you!

You know, I have almost 1600 followers and I think I've only ever had like 3 asks before so thank you and I'm going to make this a novel to commemorate the occasion!

Under the cut, my friends!

...That being said, I'm like the worst person to ask this question. I used to read massive amounts of qaf fic back in 2005-2011 but I got into other fandoms since then and haven't read any in sooo long. It's only recently that I got back into QAF and I've learned that, sadly, most of my favorite stories don't exist anymore. So many people have deactivated their tumblrs/journals and a lot of the stories I had saved... the pages or sites no longer exist. Back then it wasn't even tumblr...it was livejournal we all hung out on. Ad so many are just gone and/or deactivated now.

I've recently been trolling fanfic.net for brian/justin fics but I have to say.... they are some of the worst stories I've ever read. I mean, holy shit bad. Finding a halfway decent fic on that site is like finding some hidden diamond or something. I appreciate the efforts of anyone who writes anything but sometimes I'm just like... why would you even write this???

Here are a list of some of the ones I could still access from my favorites:

SuzVoy still has a bunch of her fics available, and they're well done. If you're depressed you may want to stay away because when she goes 'real' it cuts the jugular. But I find the characters to still be very canon.

Severina is a fantastic writer and anything she writes is the best day of my life. She just writes beautiful short fics that are quick to get through and make you love the characters. I've linked her drabble fest, where she wrote 100 stories based on prompts she was sent. Most stories are less than a few paragraphs long or even a hundred words. You could read every story here in a night or 2. But she's a great writer and was my favorite during the height of QAF. You can do a google search and find even more. She's a prolific writer and wrote hundreds upon hundreds of fics.

Xie Xie Xie was a well known writer who often wrote soul-crushing and super in-character fics. I'd start by scrolling down this page and reading the drabbles, or her gap-fillers or standalone's before getting into any longer fics. Some of her drabbles are amazing.

As for a specific fic, I really couldn't choose one anymore. My favorite fics are no longer available anywhere. I haven't quite been able to find anywhere that still posts quality fics. I have a real problem with bad characterization in fics. I love a romantic story. I love hurt/comfort fics, and I don't mind if they're a little ooc but... I still need Brian and Justin to be relatively Brian and Justin. Not some mary sues whom I don't recognize anymore. So it's hard to still find that. Here are a few I've ready recently:

Understated Gift. It's a cute fic by faile02 that ends a little ooc but is still a good read.

Five Things. 5 drabbles with Brian or Justin finding out about something that happened that they didn't know about. Brian finds out about the Sap party; Justin finds out Brian kneecapped Chris Hobbs in the garage; Brian finds out it was Justin who threatened Kip off the lawsuit; Justin finds out about the hooker Brian hired. This is at times ooc but still a fun read.

Blended is the only fic I would say I've read consistently over the years, going back to it once in a while just to get a fix. It's Mpreg but - you just have to go with it. It somehow remains one of the best written stories, for me. Barring some small issues, these are the characters I want them to still be and go on to be. It's a 'day in the life' fic, just going through the motions of their lives dealing with having children together and how they navigate it being the people they are. The story takes place shortly after 513, and starts with Brian accidentally getting pregnant by Justin one of the few times he tops- and he wasn't happy about it. They end up having multiple children, mostly by Justin. It turns out they -shockingly- actually really love having a big family and they're both fiercely protective of it. I haven't really had much time to go through more fics. Trying to find them is half the battle these days.

#qaf #fanfic #brian/justin #britin #i have like 300 fanfic links saved and probably 20 of them still work #so sad!#lessons- archive your fanfic people!#so if you drop off the face of the earth we can still read it somewhere

30 notes · View notes

inevitably-johnlocked · 3 years

Note

Do you know any good movie aus? Not as in they're actors, but fics written based on movie plots?

Hey Nonny!!

OHHHH! This is fantastic! Because I actually have ANOTHER ask looking for crossovers too, and the list is HUGE. So I’ve used this opportunity to split the list up into two. This one here is for my MFL list, and if anyone has any of their own to suggest, please add them to this list!

So, check out Below!

CROSSOVERS and FUSIONS (Feb 2021) Pt. 1.5 [FICS TO READ]

See Also:

Fairy Tales and Fantasy

TV, Movies, and Books AU (Fantasy Pt. 2)

Wonderful Life AU

Sherlock / Hannibal Crossovers?

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Faes / Faeries

Disney-esque Fics

Moulin Rouge AU

Crossovers and Fusions Pt 1

Two More Miracles by PatPrecieux (T, 221 w., 1 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || Angst With Happy Ending, 221B Ficlet, Temporary Character Death) – Tragedy and miracles go hand in hand.

Here, Though the World Explode, These Two Survive by TheTyger (G, 1,194 w., 2 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || Post-TRF, Ineffable Husbands, Fluff, Reunion, Rings, Hurt/Comfort) – Tomorrow, it would be three years from that day. Three years with no rude text messages, no experiments being conducted while London slept, no body parts in the fridge. And John still sometimes caught himself buying extra milk and looking for cases and making two coffees.

Just the Book by Carenejeans (G, 1,495 w., 1 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || Humour, Aziraphale’s Bookshop) – John's looking for a book. It's Aziraphale's bookshop, but Crowley provides customer service.

The Case of the Missing.... by Beth H (G, 2,601 w., 1 Ch. || Sherlock Crossover || Case Fic) – Crowley has gone missing, and Aziraphale hasn't a clue how to go about finding him. Luckily, help comes from above...or rather, from the side.

The Curious Case of the Missing Antichrist by Aedemiel (G, 2,865 w., 1 Ch. || Sherlock Crossover || Vignette, Case Fic, Desperation, Bad Ideas) – What if Aziraphale and Crowley had consulted the great consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, about finding Adam Young?

Eye of the Storm by Calais_Reno (G, 2,996 w., 1 Ch. || The Day After Tomorrow AU || Survival, Cold Weather, Boy Scout John, No Major Character Death) – Weather has become the fifth horseman of the apocalypse.

Nice and Accurate Deductions by htebazytook (T, 3,179 w., 1 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || Romance, Humour, Fluff) – Sherlock drags John to a certain bookshop in Soho.

Snake In The Flat by PatPrecieux (T, 3,293 w., 1 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || Magical Realism, Fluff, Humour, Ineffable Husbands) – There can be a snake in the grass, snakes on a plane and now there's a snake in the flat.

The Picture of Sherlock Holmes by CarmillaCarmine (M, 3,306 w., 1 Ch. || Victorian Dorian Gray AU || Angst, Paris, London, Travel, Painting, Major Character Death, Opera, Captain John, First Meetings) – Sherlock Holmes, a rich and frivolous man, after a lifetime of debauchery finally falls in love. His heart chooses Captain Watson.

The Old Town by a_different_equation (T, 3,573 w., 1 Ch. || Hans Christian Anderson Fusion || Magical Realism, Christmas, Fairy Tale Elements, Love Stories, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Museums, Sweet Sherlock) – Once upon a time there were two boys. This is the story how once upon December, they found the missing Christmas Spirit, true love and new beginnings. A Queer fairytale for all seasons.

Holmes vs. Harkness by coinin (T, 3,960 w., 1 Ch. || Torchwood / HHGTTG Fusion || Crack, Mystrade) – In which Captain Jack gets in a little over his head and is introduced to the myriad joys of bureaucracy, Mycroft is smug, the Guide offers up some helpful advice, John Watson doesn't share, and, in a strange turn of events, Jack doesn't get laid even once.

Perfect by TrufflesTheMushroom (T, 3,984 w., 1 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || The Apocalypse) – Crowley and Aziraphale have made a huge mistake. It's the end of the world and it all boils down to one fight. Crowley has picked John Watson. Aziraphale has picked Sherlock Holmes.

Limbo by Calais_Reno (T, 4,070 w., 1 Ch. || Good Omens Crossover || Waiting Rooms, Ineffable Bureaucracy, Paperwork, Explosions, Apocalypse, Second Chances, Declarations of Love, Nobody Dies) – Ordinarily Sherlock would be quite impatient by now with all this pointless waiting (for what?), but at the moment he feels as if he has all the time in the world.

The Baker Street Flat by Anonymous (PG-13, 5,000-20,000 w., 7 Parts || Lake House Crossover || Angst, Romance, LIVEJOURNAL Comments Fic) – John’s pretty sure it’s a sign of mental imbalance — of which he has been all too frequently accused of late — that he is actually entertaining the possibility that he is communicating with a total stranger two years in the future via the magic mail slot on the door of his new flat. He certainly won’t be mentioning this at next week’s session. On his way out the door to interview for a part-time position at a local surgery, another meeting where he has no intention of mentioning his most recent hobby, he drops a fairly sarcastic note: If you’re really from 2012, is the world about to end?

In the Shadows by Laur (M, 5,029 w., 1 Ch. || Loose Shutter Island Fusion || Disturbing Imagery, Psychological, Angst, Major Character Death, Grief/Trauma) – Do you believe in ghosts? When Sherlock’s eyes snap to him they are anguished.

come be my april fool by a_different_equation (M, 6,473 w., 1 Ch. || Great British Bake Off AU || Writer!Sherlock, Est. Rel., Fluff / Humour, Baking, Marriage Proposal, Military Kink, Domestics, POV John, Romance, Sherlock Wears Glasses, Sweet Sherlock, Bookstores, Queer Themes) – After leaving ‘The Great British Bake Off’, Sue Perkins has written a book about Victorian baking. Tonight, on April 1st, she is reading at ‘The Bard’, Mike Stamford’s bookstore in central London. It is the exact same spot where John Watson, battered and bruised, had learned all about his magnificent bastard – one Mr. Sherlock Holmes, famous gay crime fiction writer – for the first time. A story about found family, DRAMAtical lesbians, how to react when your boyfriend has a military kink but he doesn't want to act on it, oh, and popping the question. Sequel to 'i read your book, you magnificent bastard'. Part 2 of Magnificent Bastard!AU

The Babadook by CatieBrie (T, 6,886 w., 1 Ch. || Babadook Fusion || Post-TRF, Horror, Demonic Possession, Violence, Halloween, Grief, Angst with Happy Ending) – “A children’s book,” John mutters as he flips it open. The pages are scrawled with beautiful charcoal lines and thick black ink. The cover, bright red, edges the open pages and something tugs at the back of John’s brain. It’s a familiar feeling, black and tarrish and thick in his thoughts. He shakes it off and picks the book up off his bed, turning so that he can sit on the edge and spread the book out across his knees. If it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook. He turns the page, ignoring the pressure building beneath his chest. There’s a closet on one page; paper doors meant to be opened by the reader flutter as John reads the text on the other page.

What To Do With An Atypical Animal Within by HarveyDangerfield & swimsalot (E, 7,804 w. || Harry Potter AU || Animagus, Porn With A Little Plot, Tail Porn) – Sherlock is determined to be an animagus. But what happens when it isn't a fox or a horse or a dog he's turning into?

The Lonely by elwinglyre (E, 7,888 w., 1 Ch. || Twilight Zone AU || Major Character Death, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Firsts, Sad Ending) – Witness if you will a distant planet with a dungeon made of desert sand and mountain stone. This planet holds one inmate, a man wrongly accused, serving a life sentence. His only solace, his notebook and the thought of the day when the supply ship brings him a pardon. Instead, salvation comes to John Watson in a large box and a visitor from The Twilight Zone.

Friend by esama (G, 7,909 w., 1 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || Character Death, Kid Fic) – Sherlock finds the skull when he's five.

Spell It Out by prettysailorsoldier (M, 8,344 w., 1 Ch. || Harry Potter Fusion || Teenlock, Christmas, Love Potion/Spell, Pining Sherlock) – Remaining at Hogwarts over break has become something of a tradition for Sherlock and John, staying behind together ever since their very first year, but, when Irene throws a gift of doctored coconut ice into the mix, plans quickly change, even if John doesn't. Part 6 of 25 Days of Johnlock

The Long Goodbye by elbereth (M, 8,367 w., 1 Ch. || Time Traveller’s Wife AU || Doomed Timelines, Time Travel) – Sherlock travels in time. The ending is known even before they meet, yet they choose to live this love. One of them knows the past, one of them knows the future, yet their deepest secret is safe from each other. Limited time, but unlimited love.

Sugar & Spice by Ttime42 (T, 8,476 w., 1 Ch. || Great British Bake Off AU || First Kiss, Baking) – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson compete on The Great British Bake Off.

Pygmalion by ancientreader (T, 9,136 w., 2, Ch. || Pygmalion AU || Magical Realism) – The spell to turn a statue into an animate being has been illegal in the UK for a hundred and seventy years when the -- body? -- is found on Hampstead Heath. It changes everything.

Am I the Current (Tiger) King of England? by Dee_Laundry (T, 9,360 w., 1 Ch. || Tiger King Fusion || Post-S4, Dreams, Friendship, John’s Sexuality, Sherlock’s Sexuality, Quarantine/CoVID-19, Past Character Death, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of Dom/Sub, First Kiss) – “I had the weirdest dream last night,” John said. Seven times.

I Could Try by Arcwin (T, 9,583 w., 5 Ch. || Greek Mythology Crossover || Post-TRF, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth, POV John, Pining John, BAMF John, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Horror, Angst with Happy Ending) – John is grieving Sherlock's death post Reichenbach until one day, he sees the violin case, and something inside him tells him to pick it up. Crossover between BBC Sherlock and the Greek tragedy Orpehus and Eurydice, wherein Eurydice is killed for her beauty and taken to the Underworld. Orpheus, being the son of Apollo (the God of Music and Medicine) travels to the Underworld to convince (via playing his lyre) Hades and Persephone to let Eurydice go. Orpheus then must travel with Eurydice behind him, not looking back, until they exit to the land of the living.

Puzzlebox by standbygo (E, 9,867 w., 5 Ch. || Hellraiser Fusion || True Love, Supernatural Elements, Psychological Horror, First Kiss, Post S2, Angst with Happy Ending) – A love story with horror. A horror story with a happy ending.

you are a paradigm by 1electricpirate (M, 10,013 w. || Harry Potter AU || Wizard!John / Muggle!Sherlock, Magic) – Sometimes, only sometimes, when Sherlock is very far away and absolutely guaranteed not to return for at least three hours, John sits on the sofa and lets the tea make itself. In which John is (reluctantly) a wizard, Mycroft is (apparently) omniscient, and Sherlock is (surprisingly) oblivious. Part 1 of More Things Than Are Dreamt Of

Already Gone by johnwatso (M, 10,078 w., 8 Ch. || Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion || Non-Linear Narrative, Memory Loss, Ambiguous / Open Ending) – Dear Mr Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes has had John Watson erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again. Thank you, Lacuna Inc.

A Real Deal by toyhto (M, 10,339 w., 1 Ch. || Black Mirror-Inspired || Science Fiction, Post-TRF, Canon Divergence) – Please be real, he thought and pulled Sherlock closer.

You Don't Need Wings to Fly by Laiquilasse (T, 11,326 w., 11 Ch. || Wonderful Life AU || Bullying, Angels, Suicidal Ideation, Christmas) – John, an angel, is sent from Heaven to help a desperate Sherlock Holmes by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.

Backup Copies by etothepii (M, 13,332 w., 3 Ch. || Dollhouse Crossover || Major Character Death) – When John dies, Sherlock doesn't know what to do. But Mycroft does.

Silent Night by khorazir (M, 15,060 w., 1 Ch. || Codebreaker / WWII / Imitation Game-Inspired AU || Care Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Dev. Rel., Reunion, PTSD John, Christmas) – It’s Christmas Eve 1944, and Sherlock Holmes has received his most precious gift already: after a long, dangerous deployment, Surgeon Captain John Watson of the Royal Navy has unexpectedly returned from the front. As if this weren’t enough, there’s a case. Both events make for a night full of promise, excitement, and the difficult task of getting reacquainted with the man Sherlock hasn’t seen in three years and feared he’d lost forever. Part 2 of Enigma

In Arduis Fidelis by Raliena (T, 18,628 w., 10 Ch. || GI Joe Crossover || Captivity, Surgery, BAMF John, John “Three Continents” Watson, POV John Watson, Prisoner of War, Cobra - Freeform, soldier John, John-centric, Doctor John Watson, John is a Very Good Doctor, Violence) – Once upon a time John was a Soldier and a Doctor. And he was known John or Doc or Doctor. But things change. And he *earned* his right to the name “Three Continents Watson”. Part 1 of the Three Continents Watson series

Serendipity by Calais_Reno (T, 18,222 w., 3 Ch. || Serendipity Fusion || Christmas, Romance, Coincidences, First Meetings, Misunderstandings, New York City, Fate and Destiny) – A bit of New York Christmas fluff, based on the 2001 movie.

Magnificent by esama (T, 19,477 w., 1 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || Crossover Pairing) – The birth of the Ministry of Magic and his relationship with the British Government.

Much Ado About Nothing or Get Over Here and Kiss Me Already! by MorganeUK (NR, 19,847 w., 13 Ch. || Much Ado About Nothing AU || Mutual Pining, Angst, Lestrolly) – AU in modern time where the Holmes' are a powerful noble family, Mycroft is the chief of defences and Sherlock is working for secret service. Lestrade is a high rank officer in the army. Ms Hudson is an old Lady that took care of her niece and nephew Molly and John since their youth. Part 1 of the Sherlock / Shakespeare series

Dead Letter Office by a_different_equation (M, 20,364 w., 15 Ch. || ‘Bartleby’ Fusion / Office Setting AU || Different First Meeting, Epistolary, John's Blog, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pre-Canon, John Watson is Sherlock's Boss, PTSD John, Military Backstory, Writer John, Drug Use, Texting) – John Watson comes home from the war, gets a new job and meets Sherlock Holmes through Mike Stamford. Same tale since 1891, except this time it’s 2008, John is Sherlock’s boss, and they work together at the Dead Letter Office in London. It's not a love story, until it finally is.

When John Met Sherlock by MorganeUK (T, 21,293 w., 10 Ch. || When Harry Met Sally AU || Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Developing Relationship, Faking It, Mutual Pining, Background Lestrolly, Fluff and Smut, Rom-Com) – At first they thought that friendship was impossible. Then meet again and become friends. After dinners, texts, cases and discussions they become more, best friends. Faking orgasm before falling on the floor together to get real one... Then going back to pushing each other away again... Before falling in love!But not necessarily in this order.

You're The One by Mazarin221b (E, 21,768 + w. || WiP || Underage Dirty Dancing Fusion || Period Typical Homophobia, Sexism, Angst, Fluff) – John Watson is seventeen years old and has his life planned out: medical school, a commission, and an opportunity to change the world. He just has to get through three weeks at The Copper Beeches - a resort owned by one of his father's patients - with his annoying sister and his perfect parents before he's off to Cambridge. But John has a secret he's trying desperately to keep, and, it seems, so is just about everyone around him, including the incredibly gorgeous and amazing dance teacher, Sherlock Holmes, and his partner Irene Adler. Too bad Jim Moriarty seems to know precisely what everyone is hiding.

Into the Multiverse by AnAnYaH (M, 21,958 w., 18 Ch. || Avengers / Sherlock / Dr. Strange Crossover || Multiverses, Everstrange, Parentlock / Teenage Rosie, Sad Sherlock, Angry Sherlock, Sherlock/John Fight, Magic, Strange John, First Kiss, Whipping, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Threats of Rape / Non-Con, Mental Anguish, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending) – Nothing lasts forever. I am beginning to think it's the same for you and me. In a world where we don't co-exist how long will it take to finally break us ? Or are we already broken in need of a fix ?A multi-chapter fic where Sherlock and John had to leave their lives to save the world from universal threats and pursue as Doctor Strange and Everett Ross.Will they ever reunite? Part 1 of the Everstrange series

Addicted to a Certain Lifestyle by KatsatheGraceling (M, 22,751 w., 1 Ch. || James Bond Crossover || Bondlock, BAMF John, Assassin John, Q is a Holmes, Clueless Sherlock, Omniscient Mycroft) – The one where John is a BAMF assassin. With an affinity for cuddly warm jumpers.

Impossible Improbable Truth by KaraRenee (M, 24,308 w., 9 Ch. || Labyrinth AU) – John and Sherlock take a case investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl and her toddler half brother. What they find is an impossible adventure that leads them on a journey of discovery of their sexuality.

The Art Of Seduction: A Study In Pulling by flawedamythyst (M, 25,279 w., 1 Ch. || Queer As Folk Inspired AU || John/OMC, Additional Tags to Be Added Upon Reading) – Sherlock ran a website called The Science Of Seduction, on which he gave advice on the best ways to get laid, wrote blog entries detailing the results of his various sexual 'experiments' and generally contributed to the stereotype of 'every gay man is a sex-mad playboy'. John avoided the thing like the plague. AU in which Sherlock treats sex like he does crime in canon. Inspired by Queer As Folk UK, but it very quickly went its own way. Part 1 of The Art Of Seduction

False Advertising by ravenscar (E, 27,722 w. || Office AU / Devil Wears Prada Inspired || Victor Trevor, Flashbacks, Hurt / Comfort, Angst with Happy Ending, Younger John/Older Sherlock, Marriage Proposal) – Sherlock is John’s boss and mentor at an advertising agency. Can they find love in the cut-throat workplace?

A Wizarding Barista's Field Guide to Seducing a Muggle by paradigmfinch (T, 29,344 w., 9 Ch || Harry Potter Coffee Shop AU || Wizard John, Muggle Sherlock, Bisexual John, Flirting, First Dates, Secret Identity) – To help pay for Healing tuition, John Watson gets a job at a coffee shop in Muggle London, where he soon sets his sights on a particularly gorgeous customer. John's seen plenty of Muggle films. How different can it really be to woo a Muggle?

Time Of My Life by fiveainley_ohmy (E, 29,719 w., 8 Ch. || Dirty Dancing Fusion || Bisexual John, Dancing, Gay/Demi Sherlock) – John Watson takes his alcoholic sister to a summer camp in attempt to rehabilitate her. He didn't expect to fall in love with the dance instructor.

Through Dangers Untold by hogwartswitch (E, 32,003 w., 13 Ch. || Labyrinth AU) – The Goblin King has fallen in love with John Watson and visits him in dreams. But the evil wizard who cursed the Goblin King cannot allow that to continue. Will John survive the labyrinth? Or will he become a lost goblin like all the rest?

Unsettled by AxeMeAboutAxinomancy (E, 33,879 w., 10 Ch. || HIs Dark Materials AU || Daemons, Dark Themes, Non-Con) – Sherlock's dæmon hadn't settled. Once John realised that, so much made sense. Though so much else didn't, because it practically wasn't possible. Part 1 of the The Utmost Edge of Hazard series

The Last Companion by standbygo (E, 34,101 w., 14 Ch. || Firefly Fusion || Prostitution, Case Fic, Falling in Love, Angst with Happy Ending, Slow Burn, BAMF John, Discussions of Non Con But Doesn’t Happen) – Thirty years after the Miranda Wars, there is peace, both on the Rim and the Core planets. There are a number of old social mores still in place, such as the Order of Companions, but there is a sense that even such respected practices are coming to an end… Sherlock is a Companion - the best Companion on Persephone. With a bit of detective work on the side, of course. Then he meets a man named John Watson, encounters a series of bizarre cases, and finds his world is getting turned upside down.

The Great Bakerstreet Bake Off by Elphen (M, 38,058 w., 8 Ch. || Great British Bake Off AU || Caring Sherlock, Sweet John, Fluff, Baking, Accidental Touching, Pining, BJ’s, Banter and Bickering, Oblivious Characters) – John has decided to watch The Great British Bake Off this year and he is determined to do so. As Sherlock joins him, he is certain that that plan is ruined. He's in for a surprise when he's allowed to watch it but the real shock comes when Sherlock decides they ought to bake themselves. What's more, they should bake what they make in the Bake Off. John's not so sure it's a good idea but when his insides flutter at the thought, he finds it hard to complain.

Toe to Toe by standbygo (E, 44,971 w., 26 Ch. || White Nights Crossover || Ballet/Dance, Slow Burn, Spies/Secret Agents, Angst with Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss/Time, Shower Sex) – Sherlock Holmes is an international ballet star. After a favour for his brother goes south, he finds himself trapped in a foreign country, with a man named John Watson who could be an enemy... or an ally.

Silence by halloa_what_is_this (T, 44,993 w., 13 Ch. || The Piano Fusion || Victorian Sherlock, Dub Con, Voyeurism, Permanent Mutilation, Johniarty, Mute John) – In 1850, John is a mute young man forced to marry to save his father from indebtedness. His sister as his interpreter and his piano to keep him company, he travels to London to live with his husband James Moriarty. Without John's consent, James sells the piano to his friend Sherlock Holmes, who only asks for lessons from John in return. The lessons turn into a power play between the two when Sherlock proposes a deal: John may earn his piano back one key at a time, certain conditions attached. Part 1 of the Aborted Wings series

Crime is of the Essence by K8BNimble (M, 45,569 w., 18 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || Mystery, Slash) – When a man he hasn’t seen in almost ten years appears in his home with a man he thought was dead for twenty years, Harry Potter knew his evening had just gotten complicated. Written for Snarry Swap 2011. Named Hot Rec by "The Daily Snitch"1/18/2011. Snarry, past Harry/Sherlock. Long plotty mystery with light graphic slash sex.

Always 1895 by standbygo (E, 45,901 w., 19 Ch. || Oxford Time Travel AU || Time Travel, Friends to Lovers, Case Fic, Victorian, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, First Kiss/Time, First Meetings, Slow Burn, Angst With Happy Ending) – Time travelling historian John Watson goes to Victorian era England to study, and meets detective Sherlock Holmes. He finds himself torn between the work he was sent to do, the exciting life of solving crimes, and the extraordinary Holmes himself.

Curled (A Tangled AU) by crimsonwinter (G, 46,330 w., 13 Ch. || Tangled AU || Alternating POV) – Sherlock lives a limited life, high in a tower, and all he's wanted in eighteen years of isolation is to someday break free and see the floating lights. Somehow, a string of events leads him to John Watson, a surprisingly kind thief who steals his heart. Will they escape the selfish advances of Moriarty, Sherlock's paternal guardian, and will Sherlock find the meaning behind the silver lanterns?

The Boy Who Balanced on the Train Tracks by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (E, 54,894 w., 5 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || John/Snape, Period Typical Homophobia, Character Death, Underage Sexual Attraction, Sexual Awakening, Time Turner, First Time, Poverty, Domestic Abuse, Death Eaters, Canon-Typical Violence, Angst with Happy / Bittersweet Ending) – Every year, on the 2nd of May, John Watson dreams of long black hair.

Say You’ll Stay With Me by justacookieofacumberbatch (E, 63,349 w., 21 Ch. || Pretty Woman Fusion || Prostitution) – It was just supposed to be an ordinary business trip, but when John’s car stalls out on Hollywood Boulevard, he meets someone who just might change his life.

Whispers in Corners by esama (T, 64,402 w., 10 Ch. || Harry Potter Crossover || Deathly Hallows, Crossover Pairing) – Everything started with a stumble - his new life in a new world as well as his surprisingly successful career as a medium.

Masters of Ink by Indybaggins (E, 67,382 w., 7 Ch. || Ink Master Tattoo TV Show AU || Angst, Banter, Body Modification, Cheating, Desire, Developing Relationship, Disability, Falling in Love, Feels, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Married John, Past Drug Addiction, Pining, Requited Love, Sex, Slow Burn, Smoking, Tattoo Artist John, Tattoo Artist Sherlock) – First-meeting-on-a-reality-show AU, Ink Master edition! There is expert tattooing, slightly less expert flirting, and two men falling hard. But John is married, and they can’t all win.

The Craving in Between by love_in_mind_palace (E, 69,349 w., 16 Ch. || Wedding Planner AU || Infidelity, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending, Misunderstandings, Sexting & Texting, Alternating POV, Mary is Not Nice) – Sherlock Holmes, The wedding Consultant. Picky about his projects and a nightmare to work with. Rejects ninety percent of the couples after just having a look at them and can predict how long a marriage will last. But when unassuming, plain, John Watson reluctantly limps his way in his office, with his more than enthusiastic fiancée, Mary Morstan, instead of dismissing the ill-assorted couple on the spot, he promptly decides that the project, and the groom.. are definitely worth working on.

The Loss of Flesh and Soul by deuxexmycroft (M, 69,712 w., 6/8 Ch. || WiP || Silence of the Lambs Crossover || Serial Killers, One-Sided Relationship) – Five years after John Watson puts the murderous Sherlock Holmes behind bars, a vicious copycat killer emerges. A reluctant John is pulled out of retirement to seek the expertise of the only man who can help, a man who has developed an unsettling obsession with John himself. Part 1 of The Loss of Flesh and Soul

The Vampires of London by consultingdetective (E, 72,660 w., 21 Ch. || Dracula AU || Pining Sherlock, Army Doctor John, Sharing a Bed, Porn With Feelings, Plot Twists) – Over one hundred years after the first battle, a series of murders have caught the attention of London's police force and Sherlock Holmes. While most of the city has forgotten the vampire that once walked its streets, the descendants of the Van Helsing, Harker, and Seward families have not.

Save Me or Let Me Drown by GubraithianFire (E, 72,986 w., 16 Ch. || Shameless AU || Dysfunctional Family, Alcoholism, Recreational Drug Use, Angst, Humour, Clubbing, Bipolar Disorder, Custody Battle, Mutual Pining, Family Fluff, Smut, Handcuffs, Anal Sex, Shower Sex, Rimming, Come Shot, Angst With Happy Ending) – How Sherlock escaped from his family, John sacrificed everything to his, and how, together, they built their own. Part 1 of the The Watsons series

This Is Your Song by agirlsname (E, 79,990 w., 19 Ch. || Moulin Rouge Fusion || Prostitute Sherlock, Poet John, Acting, Singing, Dancing, Writing, Poetry, Musical, Song Fic, Heavy Angst, Unreliable Narrator, Sherlock is French, Love at First Sight, UST, First Kiss/Time, Frottage, Coming in Pants, Anal Sex, Switchlock, Clothed Sex, Crossdressing, Secret Relationship, Forbidden Love, Jealousy, Terminal Illnesses, Grief/Mourning, Breakup/Makeup Sex, Past Drug Use, Attempted Rape, Canon-Typical Violence)– When John Watson is invalided home from the army in 1895, he moves to Paris to rediscover his writing and find a new meaning in life. His old friend Stamford invites him into a group of artist friends, and suddenly John finds himself auditioning to write a show for the famous brothel across the street. There, he meets the most beautiful man he’s ever seen - Sherlock, the star of the Moulin Rouge. But Sherlock is already promised to the investor of the show, the rich Duke Moriarty.

Sherlock, P.I. by Callie4180 (E, 83,264 w., 11 Ch. || Magnum P.I. Fusion || Past Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Canon-Typical Violence, Stalking, Creepy Moriarty) – For the Fall TV Sherlock fusion project. Sherlock, P.I. is an American television show that follows the exciting adventures of genius private investigator Sherlock Homes and his friends as they live their lives on the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii. Sherlock solves crimes as he wrestles with the ghosts and demons of his past.

Saudade by tunteeton (E, 96,952 w., 30 Ch. || After That Very Much AU || Case Fic, Non-Con Drug Use, Dubious Science, Canon Compliant up to THoB, John’s in Denial, Sub!Sherlock, Fake Non-Con Drug Use, Dom/Sub Relationship, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Kidnapping, Threatened Torture, Mary is Not Nice, Anal, Fluff, Non-Con Domming, Verbal Abuse, Slapping) – saudade (port.): a deep and melancholy longing for something or someone that is gone and not coming back. Homesickness, an emptiness in one’s soul, a love that remains after the loved one dies. John loses Sherlock, gains Sherlock and learns to never, ever, ever pray. Part 1 of the The Untranslatables series

Rosethorne by suitesamba (M, 98,888 w., 28 Ch. || Secret Garden AU || Injured Sherlock / John, Recovery, First Times, Minor Character Death, Disability, Past Domestic Abuse [Mary/OMC]) – John Watson, WWII army doctor, is injured in the line of duty and can no longer wield a scalpel. Sherlock Holmes, Britain’s best code-breaker, is side-lined by his own devastating injury. In a work inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “The Secret Garden,” the two men must find meaning and purpose in a world which seems to have taken away all they hold most dear. But of course, it really hasn’t.

Cake and Other Sins by Indybaggins (E, 100,670 w. || Great British Bakeoff AU || Alternate First Meeting, Angst, Baking, Desire, Disability, Incest (Holmescest/Holmescest with John), Masturbation, Falling in Love, Oral, Outdoor Sex, Past Drug Use, Poisoning, Voyeurism) – Sherlock and John meet as competing bakers on The Great British Bake Off. There’s intense baking, lush recipes and enticing food. Mycroft, guilt, past sins in chocolate and gingerbread. And love. That too.

Fallen Through Time by susandwrites (E, 102,040+ w., 39/? Ch. || Outlander Fusion / Victorian AU || WIP || Time Travel, First Meetings, Meet-Cute, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex/Fingering, Riding Crops, Rough Sex, Floor Sex, Breath Play, Light BDSM, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Switching, Romance, Sex to Love) – Inspired by my love of Outlander, but not exactly an Outlander AU. Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, finds himself in Victorian London while investigating a murder. The first person he meets is Doctor John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers and his world is irrevocably altered.

Reichenbach Falls - Déjà vu by VeeTheRee (M, 180,436+ w., 29/303 Ch. || WiP ||Gravity Falls / Multifandom AU || Alternate First Meeting, Gay Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Unilock, Summer Romance/Love, Fluff, Insecure Sherlock, Villain Mary, First Kiss, Slow Burn, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Canadian John, French Canadian Lestrade, Insecure Sherlock, Mystery, Domestic Fluff, Developing Relationship Summer Love, Light Angst, BAMF! John, Case Fic) – Two Canadians, two Brits studying in Canada, and an upkeeper walk into a Mystery Shack…. and live there. Summer holidays are here, and the step-siblings, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes, find themselves in a boring town called Reichenbach Falls, Oregon, USA. It isn’t as boring as it seems, however, once Sherlock stumbles upon a mystery journal, and the author is unknown. The journal contains ciphers, a strange colour wheel, and information about magical creatures that are said to be looming in the Northwestern forests. With mysteries to solve in hand, he and Irene set out to get to the roots of the town, and the abrupt disappearance of the author of the journal. But they’re not alone - John Watson, quite the handsome nephew of the Mystery Shack owner Greg Lestrade, is on their side to help out, plus mess with Sherlock’s feelings, in a good way. Shenanigans, romance, fun, danger, and deductions ensue. Oh, and there’s also occasional SuperWhoLock and two dorky Winchester brothers to spark up the action later on. Part 1 of the Reichenbach Falls series

To the Sticking Place by blueink3 (E, 121,973 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Musical Theatre AU || Showmance, Friends to Lovers, Bickering, UST / RST, Fluff, Virgin Sherlock, BAMF John, New York City / Broadway) – Renowned Shakespearean actor Sherlock Holmes has finally burned all of his bridges in the theatre industry save for his constant director, Greg Lestrade. John Watson has made a name for himself in the musical theatre circuit, but age and injury are working against him. Can they reinvent themselves for an all-male Macbeth without killing one another? Part 1 of the Screw Your Courage series

Bel Canto by bendingsignpost (T, 127,481 w., 16 Ch. || Phantom of the Opera AU || Secret Identity, Sherlock’s Violin, Operas, Aristocracy, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Disguise, Inheritance, Genderqueer Character, Classical Music, Singing) – After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement.

Welcome to Silent Hill by Cleo2010 (M, 130,227 w., 37 Ch. || Silent Hill Fusion || POV First Person Sherlock, Unrequited Love, Psychological Horror, Violence / Gore, Monsters, Nudity, Drug Use, Harm to Children, Cults, Distressing Imagery, Torture, Death) – John is missing. When Sherlock receives a text summoning him to Silent Hill he's intent on reclaiming his friend but the town has other ideas. Our detective must battle through a world shaped by his own troubled psyche as he uncovers the town's secrets, attempts to find John and hunt down Jim Moriarty. Part 1 of the Welcome to Silent Hill series

Drift Compatible by J_Baillier (E, 130,380 w., 26 Ch. || Pacific Rim Fusion || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Alternate First Meeting, Angst, Family Drama, Accidental Telepathic Voyeurism, Martial Arts, Sci-Fi, Internalised Homophobia, Rubbish Siblings, Army Doctor John, Medical H/C, Bullying, Neurodiversity, PTSD, Drug Use, Depression, Mourning, Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, UST/URT) – A washed out war hero struggling with his past. A prodigy who wants nothing to do with his family legacy. Both are looking for something—and someone—worth fighting for in a world where human civilisation is constantly under threat.

Out There by DiscordantWords (T, 131,695 w., 10 Ch. || X-Files Fusion || Slow Burn, UST, Case Fic, Government Conspiracy, Aliens, UFOs, Mutants, Mutual Pining, First Kiss, Coma) – FBI Special Agent John Watson, medical doctor and army veteran, is assigned to assist eccentric genius Sherlock Holmes with paranormal investigations on the X-Files project.

Omens On Baker Street Series by WorseOmens (NR, 155,294+ w. across 3 works || Series WiP || Sherlock / Good Omens Crossover || Post S4 Sherlock, BAMF Aziraphale, Soft Crowley, Jealous Crowley, Fluff, Angst, General Idiocy, Misunderstandings, Crimes, Humour, Pining, Crimes, Magical Shenanigans, Unlikely Friendships, ?Slow Burn, True Forms, Ineffable Dads, South Downs) – Sherlock and John are no longer the only crime-solving disaster duo in London. After Sherlock unknowingly wrongs a demon, he finds himself with two mysterious rivals in the detective scene. For Crowley and Aziraphale, it's just a bit of fun, but they end up learning more about human nature than they bargained for.

Skeletons by flawedamythyst (T, 174,262 w. across 3 works || Nightmare Before Christmas Fusion || Implied Character Death) – Sherlock's refusal to talk about his past hides far more skeletons than John could ever have guessed at. Halloween-esque AU.

In the Deep, Where Dark Things Sleep by HardlyFair (M, 184,979 w., 26 Ch. || Scorpio Races AU || Graphic Violence, 1960′s, Slow Burn, Past Drug Use, Bed Sharing, Water Horses, Folklore, First Kiss/Time, Horror Elements, Vet!John, Protective John, Magical Realism, Horse Racing, Mutual Pining, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort) – The closer time crawls to November, the more water horses the Scorpio Sea spits out. The colder Thisby becomes. Sherlock Holmes is an islander - completely surrounded by the water. John Watson, he knows, comes from the mainland and lives for the Races. On the first of November, Sherlock will race. The man holding steady by his side is someone he never expects. A Scorpio Races AU (Maggie Stiefvater), but no knowledge of the book needed.

Rom-com adaptations... Series by MorganeUK (T, 211,229+ w across 8 works || Series WiP || Assorted Crossovers || Rom-Coms, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Friendship, Additional Tags Per Story) – Mostly Johnlock with Mystrade or Lestrolly. If you want a movie to be johnlocked, let me know :-) Each story is completely different from the other!

Enigma by khorazir (M, 289,667 w., 23 Ch. || Codebreaker / WWII / Imitation Game-Inspired AU || Case Fic, Espionage, Period-Typical Homophobia / Sexism, Pining Sherlock, Inexperienced / VirginSherlock, Implied / Referenced Drug Use, Non-Graphic Violence) – It’s the autumn of 1941, war is raging in Europe, German U-boats are raiding Allied convoys in the Atlantic, the Luftwaffe is bombing English cities, and the cryptographers at Bletchley Park are working feverishly to decode their enemies' encrypted communications. One should consider this challenge and distraction enough for capricious codebreaker Sherlock Holmes. But the true enigmas are yet waiting to be deciphered: an unbreakable code, a strange murder, and the arrival of Surgeon Captain John H. Watson of the Royal Navy.

Over/Under Series by khorazir (M, 319,561 w. across 5 works || Cabin Pressure Crossover || Post-S2 / Reichenbach, ReunionFriendship, Angst, Humour, Pining, Cycling, Mountains, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Dev. Rel., Case Fic, First Kiss, Pining, Family Issues, Inexperienced Sherlock) – After his Fall, Sherlock travels the world to destroy what remains of James Moriarty's criminal empire. When things don't go according to plan and he finds himself in desperate need of a discreet means of travel, cue MJN Air ...

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #crossovers and fusions #to read #Anonymous #long post #e-rated fics

102 notes · View notes

luxshine · 3 years

Text

Supernatural and the Dark Tower... Or how some writers are better gods than others.

The Dark Tower, by Stephen King, has a very interesting take on endings at the end of the seven book long journey Roland the Gunslinger took to reach the title Dark Tower. I was going to write it all but it’s about two pages long, and if you haven’t read the books it may not make much sense. However, the main take is that there is no such thing as happy endings, but there are endings that are happy enough. That the ending he gave us, with Roland reaching the tower, and Susannah meeting Eddie and Jake in Central Park is one of those, and that if we, his Constant Readers, go on reading the last pages of the Coda, we will be “disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken”. That “Endings are heartless. Ending is just another word for goodbye.”

I keep thinking about those lines when I think of Supernatural’s 15x19 and 15x20.

15x19 is not a perfect ending. I mean, we’re still missing people, Jack saying he’ll be hands off is not really nice, and Cas is still in the Empty. BUT we have hope. The Brothers are free. And just as we can imagine (And King tells us it might happen) how Susannah and Eddy and Jake may meet a dog version of Oy (If you’ve read the books, it makes sense. If not, well, just trust me that it is a happy situation), we can picture Dean hitting the books, and he and Sam finding a way to get Castiel back, human or angelic depending on your preferred tea, and Sam reuniting with Eileen. And afterwards? Well, you decide. Whatever happens, we still have hope.

It’s not Happily Ever After, but as King says, it’s good enough. We could’ve stopped there and pick our own ending. But of course, there’s still 15x20. And when we saw it, we were certainly disappointed, even if we weren’t heartbroken (I was, but I digress)

Just as King warned us not to keep going in the Dark Tower Coda, someone should’ve warned us not to keep going to the end of Supernatural. And here, doing a full circle on the meta, I warn you that if you keep reading, I will go on spoilers for The Dark Tower AND Supernatural (Of course, if you got to Supernatural 15x20 and are heartbroken over it… you probably remember what happened in seasons 4, 5 and 9 so … those wouldn’t be spoilers)

If you’re still with me, I am sorry, I am about to go on a long, long diatribe about how the Dark Tower is an amazing meta tale, even if the end made me cry in public for the first time in years while reading a book. And how Supernatural, by accident or by intent, tried to do the same and kind of went the wrong way in Albuquerque when it could’ve been a lot better.

Yes, Supernatural could’ve been better than a Stephen King book, and that coming from me is high, HIGH praise.

See, The Dark Tower is a tale about well, a lot of things, but in the axis, in the tower, so to speak, is a tale about tales. About stories and how we relate to fiction and about how we, the readers, relate to fiction. Of course, this is REALLY subtextual, since the actual story is about a sort of medieval cowboy traveling across dimensions to save the axis of existence.

It’s a complicated series of books.

In any case, around book 6, Roland, our cowboy, ends up in the real world. Our real world. And he meets Stephen King, OUR Stephen King (Well, a douchier version of King, to be fair), who upon being confronted by his own characters has a big ego boost and declares himself a god.

Pretty much like Chuck did back in the Monster at the End of the Book, except that there, he changed his mind pretty quickly and went back to his “meek prophet” disguise. King didn’t, by the way, and Roland left that world even LESS impressed than the Winchesters with their own author.

Now, we all know that at the End of season 5, it so happened that Chuck WAS God, and we got confirmation back in season 9 when he still liked fan fiction and his characters, apparently, until he went all megalomaniac “I am a God and I can destroy you if you don’t follow my plot”… thing is? King did the opposite.

See, The characters had to go back to the real world to save King from a drunk truck driver that ran over him in real life. In the book, one of the characters even sacrifices himself for it. But now, King is no longer so full of himself that he thinks he’s a god and he deserves said sacrifice. He admits he, as a writer, is only telling the story that the real god, in this case Gan, lets him see. He only has keys to peek through doors of reality, and what he writes, is what he sees. Not what he wants, not what he thinks is better, but what the CHARACTERS want.

So yeah, the opposite of Chuck.

But then, The Dark Tower goes a bit further. Once again, comparing ends, the End of Supernatural left us empty because it WAS a Goodbye. A bad one too as it left us with absolute no hope (except for those fix it fics where Dean goes and finds out why his angel is ghosting him in Heaven, for fucks sake, and Sam’s blurry face wife is Eileen, but those are FICS. Not the story). The story ends with Sam and Dean dead, in a Heaven that may be as well Earth-lite as far as we know, but we have no real way of knowing if it’s not just a bigger version of the original “repeat your happy memories ad nauseaum”

No change, no free will. No to be Continued, no hope of a better life. Just… End. Bye. Nothing more to see.

The end to the Dark Tower is equally heartbreaking ,but at the same time, a bit more hopeful.

Because in that universe, characters whose stories end? If they keep going, they go back to the beginning. Not to the beginning of time, or of their lives but to the Beginning of THEIR Story. For one brief moment they know this is happening, that they’re back in that first opening sentence, that they will have to suffer through all of it again UNCHANGING and all the joy will happen, but also all the sadness. All the tragedy. And then they forget. And the story starts again, because the story is a book, and a book can only have one plot, one ending, and re-reading it won’t change what happened.

Roland cries and begs for mercy, but the Tower is unmoving and he goes back. We, the Readers, go Back.

EXCEPT

There’s a tiny, small change from the “beginning” we read now, to the beginning we read in the first book. We’re told that the time we read was not the first time, that Roland has done this a thousand times before. But this time, we went with him, so he gets a small change, a tiny thing, but big because, in Roland subconscious, may mean that this time, the story will be different. So we’re left with a tiny bit of hope, despite how badly we were crushed seconds before.

And Supernatural could’ve given us that. Not the same of course, not with Dean or Sam (Let’s be honest, it would’ve been probably Sam, given how much the writer’s room loved him) waking up in the pilot, Remembering all that happened, and knowing that they can’t really change it because it was already written, but then noticing they already have the Colt, or Ruby’s knife. Or perhaps they have the key to the bunker and a map already. That would’ve been too close to comfort for plagiarism so nope.

BUT

We could’ve ended with Billie closing one of her books and telling Dean, the Dean from season 12, that that COULD be how his story ends, and that he now has the choice to make his own ending, that he can either go against Chuck or convince Chuck his ending was crap.

We could’ve ended with Sam convincing Chuck that there’s another road to the ending he wants, as long as he lets them go on. He may be bored of the characters now, but he can always wait for a bit.

With Chuck giving the reins of his world to Becky and the fangirls, really closing on the whole “death of the author” and not ruining a character that, prior to season 15, the fandom loved.

With a thousand of ways that left both the meta world intact, and our hearts hurt, but not broken. Not angry.

(And that is not touching on the usual misogyny, racism, and heteronormative that the ending insisted on reinforcing)

Supernatural could’ve ended with a bang, and become an absolute legend. Instead, it ended with a whimper, and as a cautionary tale.

There’s no such thing as a happy ending, said King. But we could have had a Hopeful one.

#anti supernatural finale #dean deserved better #sam deserved better #castiel deserved better #eileen deserved better #they all deserved better #stephen king #meta #what could've been #what should have been #and no #it has nothing to do with shipping

117 notes · View notes

gentlemancrow · 3 years

Text

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

OK so I saw @hey-there-hunter ‘s JMart Wedding Challenge and I pretty much fan ficced immediately?? Like it was an instantaneous plot bunny that stabbed me in the brain and would not let me free until I made it exist. SO HERE YOU GO! Read it here or head on over to AO3 below! And enjoy some unapologetically aggressive fluff with weddings! Also subtitled someday Crow will stop abusing excessive astral imagery and symbolism for extended metaphors, but today is not that day.

Read on AO3 instead!

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

Jonathan Sims always thought of himself as a man with a deep appreciation for the great literature of the world. A passionate turn of phrase, crystalline motes of clear imagery like snowflakes reflecting light in his mental scape, a devastating contemplation on the nature of good and evil in the hearts of all mankind, everything that could express the beauty and tragedy of the world in ways he never could. Prose was a bright paintbrush on a ragged canvas of the universe he had known from an early age was swathed in shadow and pain and evil, and those words on those pages, for at least a moment, were another world he could hold in his hands, could cradle and protect, could mourn. He liked the power of them as well, of the tinkling brightness of alliteration, the oaky sophistication of a well-aged metaphor, the evocativeness of the idiosyncrasy in a simple simile, laying bare truths in ways he never could have articulated for himself.

There was one thing he could not abide by in language, however, one cardinal sin liable to besmirch any piece of lush and sparkling verse or prose and taint it forever. And that was idioms.

Jon loathed idioms and their dismally quirky cliches dressed in familiarity’s tacky clothing almost as much as he hated spiders. Perhaps it was something about their reliance on common knowledge and repetition. He couldn’t bear reading the same book twice, or even a book that felt too familiar, it only made sense that hearing a hackneyed phrase repeated in that awful singsong sardonic tone of someone who knows full well they’re saying something asinine that has been repeated ad nauseum for millennia would scrape at the back of his skull and down his spine. They were too whimsical and blasé, crutch words for when one’s limited lexicon came up empty, or worse, for ill comedic effect. They reinforced that staunchly English notion of skirting about the true depth and breadth of emotion for clipped niceties and unfeeling banalities. Idioms to him were mere verbal window boxes, colorful and meaningless, dressings for untold disasters behind the shining windows they peacocked before.

He hated them all with vaguely equal rancor, but there was one he could definitely single out as the one he hated the most, and that was the one about hanging the moon. Such and such thinks you hung the moon, to me you hung the moon, and so on. This particular rhetorical felony attracted his wrath only marginally because any moon symbolism never failed to feel outlandish and infantile, a mawkish image of love and care rampant in nursery rhymes and cheap commercialized slogans for t-shirts and wall art. That was the least of it. He hated the idea of hanging the moon mostly because once, another lifetime ago now it seemed, Tim Stoker had lobbed it in his face in a fit of smoldering rage and he had been completely, complacently, ignorant of its magnitude.

Funny thing was, he couldn’t even remember what the actual fight had been about any longer. Though he could remember exactly where he was standing, cornered next to the file cabinet for the year 1985, January through February, and the label had been peeling up on the upper left-hand corner. He remembered he’d discovered a hole in the elbow of his jumper that morning and he had been obsessing over it all day, fussing with the dangling green thread and tugging at the knit as if it might magically close the wound. He’d put his finger clean through it with his arms crossed haughtily over his chest without even realizing he’d been fiddling with it when something flippant about Martin came out of his mouth. It hadn’t even been cruel, he couldn’t even remember how Martin had come up in the argument in the first place, he could only remember Tim’s mouth moving like he wanted to say something else, then him forcibly stopping himself before he snarled.

“Yeah well, god knows why, but he thinks you hung the moon, so you might try treating him at the very least like a human being once in a while.”

It was such a small thing. Small words for a small feeling cloaked in a chintzy veneer of idiomatic dismissal. A trembling little bird cupped in his scarred and battered hands and smothered. Or so he thought. Sometimes trembling little birds turn out to be phoenixes, and those who looked to someone else to hang the comfort of a wise, silvery moon in the sky already have the hammer and the picture wire at the ready.

As far as Jon was concerned, the moon only rose on their Somewhere Else because Martin deigned to pull the strings every night, not him.

It was Martin who brought him tea every morning, set it down on the breakfast table with that little flip of the tag and the deft, one-fingered turn of the handle toward him. It was Martin who scolded him because whites are a separate load, Jon, were you raised in a barn? Martin who talked him through every episode of the Doctor Who reruns that were the only thing their ancient aerial could pick up. Martin who planted flowers in the garden and brought muffins from the sweet old lady at the grocers because they traded baking recipes. Martin who still looked at him with diaphanous pools of ethereal moonlight in his eyes and his smile like he alone hung it in the sky over his head to wash him in its radiance.

Even after everything.

Even after it had been Martin who had to hold the knife buried in his chest as he lay gasping wetly for breath in an alleyway in Another Chelsea to keep the hemorrhaging at bay. Martin who had cupped his face in his bloody hands with tears streaming down his and forced him to focus, furious love blazing in his sea mist eyes as they locked with his, screaming at him and him only, heedless of anything else.

“Look at me. LOOK at me, Jon! Stay with me! Stay with me, DAMN YOU!”

Stay with me had not been a plea, it had been a command. He had never once said please because it was never an option. Shivering, breathing blood through his teeth, the streetlights a fading, star studded halo in Martin’s strawberry blond curls be damned, he was right. Against every tangled thread of fate twisted deep into his flesh, or perhaps because they had been the only thing that held his torn innards together, he made it to the part where he awoke a few fractured times to nothingness, and then to fingers he knew every inch of inextricably bound up in his and a fierce whisper in his ear.

“I’m here, Jon. I’m still here. I’ve got you. I’m going to fix this. I’m going to get us out of here. We’re going to be okay.”

It had been Martin who orchestrated their clandestine escape from the hospital the moment they both agreed he was well enough to survive under his rudimentary medical care and before the authorities got too invested in an urban ghost story of two men who didn’t exist. Not to mention one of which should, by all medical and logical law, be dead. It had been Martin who had stolen the necessary antibiotics, drugs, and wound care supplies, Martin who had picked enough pockets to buy passage on a midnight train to the only place they could think to go, and expressly told Jon not to ask where he learned how, even though he knew full well he would later. Martin who had fought for everything and kept him hidden and safe while he lay in a dingy hotel room somewhere in Scotland, drifting in and out of consciousness between kisses, cold compresses, spoonfuls of whatever he could get him to swallow and keep down, and desperate ‘I love you’s.

Martin had been the one who hung the moon even on the nights Jon couldn’t see it, just so he knew it was there, that the light might finally guide him home. Not him. He could have never done something so selfless and simple and beautiful. No not him. Not The Archivist. How could he have ever known that? Stupid, myopic, pedantic, all-seeing and blind. A blustering, sanctimonious Tiresias in a sweater vest and half-moon glasses. And how important was the moon, anyway that he was expected to hang it too? Would not night still come and the stars still shine? The stupid, vapid saying should have been about the sun anyway. Something that nourished and guided and warmed. Not the moon. Not the thing of night and hungry wolves and quiet loneliness. Not a thing of the darkness they fought and still not won, not exactly, not in a way that mattered. How could he have known the weight of such a thoughtless, frivolous, meaningless phrase and how far and how long Martin had borne it for him to protect he who hung his moon?

He could see the weight of it so clearly now. He could see it especially on the darkest days, which came, in grotesque mockery, the moment they found something like their safehouse and rest at last. Jon had conned his way into a job at the village library with an ancient head librarian who didn’t care much for too many questions, or background or credit checks, and was more than happy to pay in cash. With Martin’s help of course. Martin himself had taken up stocking at the village grocers, and their life had teetered onto something so close to quaint and normal it suddenly laid bare the gravity of the depths of darkness they had escaped.

No longer did they have to run, no longer did they have to fight, they could finally lay down the chase and curl in upon each other to lick their wounds in quiet. But without the driving, primal instinct to live, to survive, that ushered in the days where all the hurt came back to roost and brood and fester. The days where he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed, or the days Martin couldn’t bear the sound of his voice, or the days they shouted themselves hoarse, stormed apart for hours then came back, silent and broken, red-eyed and exhausted to hold each other and weep into the spaces between neck and shoulder where it still smelled like love and home.

He could see so painfully clearly the toll following him to the ends of the cosmos and back had etched its marks into his goodness, his body and soul, see how often he would walk down the road from their cabin, just a little ways, to stand on the heather spotted hills and gaze out into the frigid infinity of the gray sea. Cold terror would grip him then, incite a desperate want to run after him, to throw his arms around him and bring him home, but also the fear it would only be to have him turn to mist and slip through his fingers forever. He always had a cup of steaming tea waiting for him when he came back, just in case.

But again, and always. It was Martin who would pick up Jon’s hands, kiss every slender, scarred finger through his tears and be the first one to utter ‘I’m sorry.’ Martin who told him with just a single scathing flash of stern blue eyes and not a single word uttered that he was certainly coming to bed and not banishing himself to the couch like an idiot. Martin who wrapped him in his arms and warmth and boundless love and reminded him, “One way or another. Together. That was the deal, right? You don’t get to back out now. No returns, refunds, or exchanges, I’m afraid.”

And even through the deepest sobs he would find the laugh Jon didn’t think was in him. Martin sifted through the mire and the muck and held fast to the tiny, shining things so easy to lose in the darkness. Things Jon was certain were lost forever, only to be reignited and hung in the brightening sky of their story. Even if they weren’t quite the moon yet.

It had also been Martin who, on a perfectly ordinary day, on a simple walk through the local farmers market, stopped to peruse one of the usual unremarkable stalls filled with crystals and oils and trinkets. Jon had wandered off to procure the parsnips and the strawberries, unrelated recipes Martin swore, he had been tasked with finding. When he returned he found him, a radiant monument tall among the faceless locals, rusty curls caressing his face in the salty breeze, carved of marble and rose quartz and gazing down at a pair of hematite rings on a velvet display box. His eyes were distant, but not in the enthralled, disembodied way they were when he looked at the sea, or the broken way when they weren’t speaking, but in the contemplative, regarding of puzzle pieces way when he would look into the fire during their talks and turn his words in his mind over and over again like a rock tumbler until they were polished just right.

“Getting into crystals now, are we?” Jon had joked, “Surely I’m not so dull to be around that that’s becoming an attractive hobby.”

Martin snorted and shook his head.

“Supposed to mean healing, or grounding, or something. Aligning your meridians, I think the lady said? Whatever that means,” he elaborated, reaching out to touch.

They clinked weightily together, thick and glossy and the dark astral gray of a moonless night. Martin turned over the card that went with them and read.

“’A grounding stone that belongs to the planet Mars. It strengthens our connections to the earth and aids the warrior on their journey. It is a stone of invincibility, but also fragility. It balances yin and yang energies with its magnetic properties for the perfect reflection upon one’s own soul, astral, physical, and spiritual.’”

“Hematite, is it?” Jon asked, “Also more commonly called bloodstone. You know if you scratch it, it leaves a red mark. Like it’s bleeding. Watch.”

He picked up one of the rings and firmly ran it down the corner of the card Martin had been reading from. Sure enough, the black stone had left a faint, but starkly crimson mark on the yellowed paper.

“It BLEEDS?” Martin exclaimed in horror.

“It’s just a kind of iron oxide, so, rust, basically,” Jon explained with a chuckle, “Kind of weirdly romantic if you think about it? This intimidating shiny black stone like armor, made of iron to boot, but with a bleeding heart at its core.”

“I just thought it was pretty, I didn’t know it bleeds,” Martin had laughed in that incredulous way he always did when Jon was telling him something he didn’t actually want to know, but appreciated anyway.

“I find that the strongest, prettiest things often do,” Jon had said in reply. He remembered saying that particularly clearly, waxing poetic, feeling a swell of affection for the hugely beautiful man he leaned against and was adorably aghast at bleeding rocks.

“Yeah, I reckon they do,” Martin murmured back.

And then his cheeks had flushed bright red under his freckles and the stone steps of his shoulders crumbled a bit under the crushing ancientness and vastness of what he had originally been pondering.

“So, I mean, before you spoiled it with the blood thing. I was thinking… Well, I was just having a browse and I saw these and I thought they were quite fetching, and then the lady told me they meant grounding and healing and a journey, like on the card. A-And there were two of them, all by themselves, and everything else was so colorful and flashy these were just so… Um. Maybe the blood and rusty iron thing makes it more poetic now, actually? I don’t know. Sorry I- This sounded so much better in my head.”

It wasn’t his fault, Jon remembered thinking. Martin couldn’t find the words because there weren’t any. Not in this universe or any other. Not for what they’d gone through, and especially not for what they meant to each other.

“I guess I was just thinking. If… I bought one. And wore it. Sort of like. Um. You know. Would… Would you-?” he had asked, his voice trembling.

Jon had never said yes, yes of course he would, faster or with more conviction in his life. And there was that look again, rising from the ashes, that flooding of golden, unbound love and light, of eyes turned sky blue, of looking at the man who hung his moon in the sky come back to him. He could still hang Martin’s moon all over again after so many nights of black clouds and darkness, even if it was only paper. They’d paid for the rings in rumpled bills, exchanged them right then and there, and kissed each other as the crowd of oblivious people in a world they did not belong in flowed like a river around them. Jon forgot the bag with the parsnips and strawberries.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter that Martin’s fit nicely on his ring finger, but Jon had to wear his on his thumb, and even then sometimes on a chain around his neck for fear of losing it. It didn’t matter that it was the closest thing they were ever going to get to a proposal and a wedding, consigned now forever to the shadows in a borrowed reality with only each other. Because it was theirs, and they could begin to figure out how their broken pieces fit back together again.

But like most things that don’t matter, it didn’t until it did.

It began as simple things. Seeing a wedding on some program they weren’t actually paying much attention to and Martin making a flippant, innocuous comment as he combed his fingers lovingly through Jon’s long and silvered chestnut hair in his lap about how he would have loved to have a cake that had a different flavor on every tier at their wedding. Just so everyone could have something they liked. And Jon woke up from his half catlike stupor and looked up at him with such aching regret as those words settled into the pit of his heart alongside ‘he thinks you hung the moon.’

And soon they began to gather a collection of completely innocent remarks that ran the gamut from ‘would they have worn black or white? Or one of each? I don’t know… does it really matter? And were these engagement rings or wedding rings? I don’t know. Neither? both? And do we say husband instead of boyfriend now? Fiancé? Whatever you want, Martin…’ To the heavier, cancerous weights that sank to the bottom of his gut, even below hanging the moon, like ‘I know Tim would have thrown the most amazing bachelor party for both of us, and his mum had always talked about him getting married someday like it was a farfetched pipe dream, but she would be happy for them, he thinks.’

He could never answer those questions. There was too much at stake, too much finality and familiarity in them, a strange weightlessness in a world that weighed far too much. The sun and moon continued their eternal dance of time, ignorant, unbothered, but Jon kept collecting those silent debts of normal life, secreting them away in a hidden singularity in his heart that only grew heavier and metastasized farther the more times Martin walked out at night, not him, beaming starlight from his eyes and his fingertips, to hang the moon again. So soft, so full of wooly cows and pink heather and the smell of tea and sea salt and Martin’s shampoo on the pillow next to him did it become, that it was almost inevitable that one morning Jon awoke absolutely convinced none of it could be real.

The moment he decided that, everything made so much more sense. He could breathe again. There was a reason he could never sit still, never just feel at ease or talk about the future like it was a real thing that could still happen. He knew why the silence made his brain itch and why he still glanced around corners and glowered at anyone who dared let their gaze linger on his Martin too long. Why Martin’s ring fit and his didn’t. There was too much debt to the universe to be paid, too many broken promises, too many corpses in his wake, he had done nothing to deserve this idyllic life of love and peace and smallness and Martin. It had to be Her doing, It’s doing, some carefully woven torture chamber that would lure them to the apex of their joy, the center of the web, where they would just be devoured over and over to empty husks and set up like chess pieces to fill with love and light just to knock down again. He wasn’t free after all.

Jon had been halfway into his coat and halfway out the door to do, he didn’t know, something, anything, to go to the library to use their computer and research something he didn’t know he was looking for when Martin had seized his hand and whirled him around.

“Jon. STOP. It’s over.”

And he’d stopped. He’d looked into those baleful blue eyes, fallen into their depths, landed on the precipice of madness, and broken. It wasn’t over. Not for him. He finally understood. It was still there. The Eye. It always had been. Though not really, he understood slowly as he wept on his knees in their doorway into Martin’s chest, it had indeed closed forever on him, but it lingered as distant static, like a phantom limb, a metaphysical itch that could never be scratched. Martin had cradled him close and listened, listened so patiently as he ripped the jagged black fear from the deepest, ugliest part of his heart, hauled it up bloody and messy from his throat and finally laid it bare for both of them to see. And when it was done and he couldn’t cry anymore Martin had locked eyes with him in a way that made him forget any others could have ever existed outside of crystalline blue and filled with moonlight.

“Listen to me. I know you think you have some cosmic burden to bear. That you’re still wearing some… some fucked up crown and sitting on a throne of skulls and death and eyeballs or whatever image you want to put there, and that you have to sit and hurt and watch over everything so it doesn’t happen again, but... Sorry, Jon, but that’s bullshit. It’s just a scar now. That’s all. Just like the rest of them. Ugly and beautiful and proof that you —Jonathan Sims— are still alive. And you are not The Archivist anymore. You’re just mine. My Jon.”

He’d held his Jon’s stunned face in his hands and peppered kisses over the pock marks in his skin, over the slash on his throat, the burnt fingers that still couldn’t bend quite right, even the one on his chest, the one almost always hidden by fabric but the one he didn’t need to see to find. His heart and fingers would always remember exactly where it was. And he’d kept his lips there a moment, then turned his ear to his chest and wrapped his arms around his waist to listen to his heartbeat like a trembling little bird.

“If I can hear it and feel it. So can you,” he whispered.

Unsteady fingers curled desperately into Martin’s silky locks, hematite loop cool against his scalp, “Thank you…”

Martin stayed for the kiss on top of his head he knew was coming and smiled.

“Okay, so it’s simple to fix if you think about it,” he murmured into Jon’s chest, “We just need that thing, you know? The thing that makes you feel like you’re still doing the thing, but you’re not. What was the word for it again? A placeholder? Like when you quit smoking and you hold a pencil or a straw or something that’s not actually a cigarette so you can wean yourself off the ritual?”

Jon blinked owlishly down at him as he dried his eyes.

“A… placebo? Are you talking about a placebo?”

“Yeah! That’s it! We just need to find you a placebo for Knowing things! That’s all. Like… reality shows, or-or zoo cams or something! We’ll figure it out together. Alright, love? I promise you. It’ll be okay.”

Jon was skeptical, so very skeptical, but if Martin was determined to find a balm to soothe his jagged, ontological scars he would happily play the part of lab rat for him. They’d tried a myriad things to replicate the feeling of Knowing and looking something deep within him still craved. The zoo and animal livestreams were a bust, cute and entertaining as they were, but animals weren’t ever the purview of The Eye and the camera itself was barely a scrap. Reality shows came closer, the more salacious the better, but even that temporary fix wore off when Jon’s disgust with the overall content and participants outweighed any benefit. Martin was just happy to have finally converted him to Bake Off, at least. They tried people watching in the square in the village, but it made Jon far too self-conscious and guilty. He used the binoculars exactly once, and that was to look at the cows in the fields, and the choose-your-own-adventure books Martin had been certain would strike a sagacious chord wound up in the donation bin at the library. But that was when he was struck with a bolt of genius.

Unbeknownst to Jon, which brought him no small measure of glee, Martin ordered, received, and then set up with a literal bow in their back garden the finest telescope he could afford on his meager savings. He’d researched for days, asked on every amateur astronomer forum he could find, and had it delivered to the grocers so he could make it a proper surprise. He’d even gone so far as to attack and blindfold a hapless Jon the moment he made it home from work on the day it was ready, and stood behind him giddily bouncing as he tore the tea towel away from his eyes.

“A… Telescope?” he’d blurted dumbly.

“Yes! It’s perfect, right? I asked around to find the one that had all the best features, and this one has the best overall magnification and the most lenses, but it doesn’t have the little satellite positioning thing? I figured you wouldn’t want that anyway, you always like figuring things out and finding things on your own better.”

Martin had been positively radiant. Jon had just stared at the gawping black tube and chewed the inside of his cheek as he processed what to say.

“I mean… thank you, Martin, really. It was a sweet thought, but if the binoculars didn’t-“

“Screw the binoculars! This is different!” Martin happily insisted, “You can look at so much more! Stars and planets and galaxies and what have you, and it can maybe be sort of like you’re looking for other worlds? Wormholes or whatever? Or signs of The Fears and where they’ve gone? Or even if the stars are the same here as they were back before? Space literally has so many things to LOOK at we can’t even count them! This has got to be it!”

Jon tried to smile and laugh and agree to try it out, at the very least, if only because Martin was beaming so sweetly with pride and hope. Though that first night he didn’t, ushering them back in with promises of tomorrow, Martin, I promise tomorrow. Tomorrow had been a lie. As had been the next night. In fact, it took Jon a full week to even remember they even had a telescope, and that was only after getting the smuggest, Cheshire grin out of Martin after casually mentioning there would be a visible, if partial, lunar eclipse that night. He’d relented, only because he’d entrapped himself, and they’d both bundled up, looked in the manual for the best size lens to view the moon with, poured a few glasses of wine, and turned their eyes to the stars.

Martin had gone first, gripping the eyepiece and adjusting the focus all the while gasping in awe. It was so beautiful he’d burst into poetry with a crooked grin.

“Art thou pale for weariness? Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth, and ever changing, like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy? Sounds a little familiar, eh?” he joked, casting a wry look over his shoulder.

Jon rolled his eyes fondly.

“Gross. Keats again?”

“Nope, Shelley this time, and even he thinks you ought to have a look at the moon. I think you’ll find you have a lot in common.”

Jon had sighed obligingly and shuffled to the telescope, fully expecting to look at something bright and round with a bit of a shadow on it that was distinctly unremarkable, have another glass of wine, and then go back inside to snuggle by the fire. What he saw in that tiny pinhole of light pierced straight through the hazel brown of his eye and plunged him into another world entirely.

The sands of the moon glowed the purest white in the refracted light of the distant sun with which it waltzed. He could see in crisp, shadowy relief the innumerable scars she bore, the depth and breadth of Ptolemaeus, the boundless lonely flatness of the maria, named for the oceans they were once thought to be, an insult to the rock plains forged a millennia ago in birth by cataclysmic fire. Every crater remained wrought in perfect, frozen detail with no erosion or foliage to slowly heal them over, and she beamed them proudly, ostentatiously in her heavenly light. A hulking, ancient protectorate, hung by the hands of creation at the dawn of time for a fledgling planet, hundreds of thousands of miles away, and yet so crystal clear and unafraid as he perused her millions of years of cosmic sentinel through a lens. It was dwarfing, humbling, viscerally awe inspiring in a way he dared not voice for fear of snuffing out the fragile glow of wonder and excitement welling in his chest he had been so certain was gone forever.

Astronomy had never been something that had particularly interested Jon, back when his entire reality from the moment his childish hands had touched a single book was spent peering into shadows and watching his own back. There was no point in wondering what lay among the stars when danger and death lurked so close behind with slavering jaws ever poised at his throat on terra firma, but now. Now, he had been living in an alternate world, dimension, reality, somewhere, he couldn’t even say for sure. He’d been hurled potentially through the very stars that twinkled coquettishly above, flashed through their nebulous veils and curtains under their indifferent gaseous gazes, but seen nothing. Here was a vast expanse of complete chaotic indefiniteness inviting him in to see what few had ever seen, to guess and hypothesize and gesture wildly at secrets only the stars could keep. To Know.

Jon had jerked back so suddenly from the telescope to survey the entirety of the astral dome above them that Martin had choked on his wine.

“Jon? Are you quite alright?”

“Yes, I…” he’d murmured, only even half hearing that Martin had said anything at all, stars reflected in his wondering dark eyes, “I’m fine, I just… How… How much more can this see? How deep does it go?”

Jon hadn’t seen the victorious smirk on Martin’s face as he set down his wine glass and picked up the instruction manual and lens guide. They’d watched the rest of the eclipse, of course, marveling through the lens at the inky trickle of shadow over craggy white, but then they’d changed the lens to the strongest one, according to the guide, and spent the rest of the evening triangulating their position beneath their slice of the universe and plotting out the various stars, planets, and constellations above. Jon had even dashed inside to grab a mostly blank notebook and had filled several pages with notes and observations and things to research later, all while Martin held back tears watching him come so alive over a project he didn’t even know he needed. Eventually though, sleepiness and cold claimed him, and he kissed his beloved goodnight and left him, more than gladly, to ride out the intellectual flare up until it burnt both him and itself out.

Martin had no clue what time it was when he finally returned, and it didn’t even matter. All that mattered was at some point, a practically frozen Jon had climbed into bed, snuggled up close behind and wrapped his arms around him to kiss the back of his neck so softly like the wings of a butterfly and whisper.

“Thank you.”

Another victorious smirk and a loving murmur.

“Told you so.”

Where there had been nothing but an Eye shaped hole in him, scarred around the edges and aching in its vacuum, Jon had filled it with the names of nebulas and quasars, of the myth of Andromeda, and Orion, and Castor and Pollux, or Hercules, and why they had all been hung in the stars for eternity. The stories were much the same as he remembered, but he’d found slight eccentricities, tiny irregularities in the sky which fascinated him even more so. Night after night he would look at a different astral body, chart it down in his notebook, then come bounding in with starlight beaming from his eyes and his fingertips with some cry of eureka.

“Martin! Did you know here Polaris is in the south and Sirius is in the north?”

“Martin! Did you know the Andromeda Galaxy is actually a little closer to the Milky Way here?”

“Martin, you have to come see this! Oh, no it’s not weird this time, it’s just I finally got Saturn in the telescope and you can actually see the rings!”

His nightly herald would always be different, but Martin would always rise from the comfort of the couch, put his slippers on, and let Jon talk as long as he needed to about his latest discovery, watching him smile again while he, too, watched the matching smile it never failed to ignite illuminate Martin’s face and they lit each other up in the fused brilliance of a binary star.

Martin no longer hung the moon for Jon, he’d finally just up and quite literally given it to him, and there was no mortal way to repay him for that. Or so he’d thought. It came to him, as most flashes of brilliance do, on a night he hadn’t even been thinking about it at all. All he had been doing was sitting in a lawn chair with his telescope long after Martin had gone to bed, chewing his pencil idly, vaguely missing a cigarette and pondering notes on Vega and Lyra between watching it through his lens. He’d been stuck for days on Vega and its potentiality for another solar system and what that could imply for their new Earth and their new sun, as well as Lyra and the tragic tale of Orpheus and his doomed love. Even in their new reality he still turned back at the end of the story, still could not contain the roiling, effusive adoration to his own downfall.

Bitterness had risen like bile in the back of Jon’s throat as he replayed the myth again in his head, unsure why it was vexing him and rewinding in his brain so torturously. “Stupid, stupid man, if he’d only just…” he’d thought again and again, each time giving the star-crossed musician a different decision, a different choice, urging him down another path somewhere, anywhere along his journey, but in the end, he’d always looped back around to the original. It was the point of the story, after all. Not so much the love itself or even the loss of it, but the power of it over one man and the creation born from his mourning and eventual destruction. Patently Greek. But the chorus would always begin again in Jon’s head. If he’d kept his Eurydice, if his songs had been happy, if he hadn’t spent the rest of his life mourning so intensely he was eventually destroyed for it, would he have become the paragon of healing he was, the oracle, the lynchpin of the fate of the world he had eventually become? Which of them was the stupider man?

Jon was only mortal now, he was no longer all-seeing oracle and dark savior, he had no authority to say, but it was a trifle easier to ponder the hubris of Orpheus instead of his own. He couldn’t help but think, achingly, sometimes the heroes just deserved to pull their beloved from the pit of Tartarus, promise to love them for eternity, and then simply get married, ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after. A story wasn’t a story if it didn’t write itself upon the very bones and sinews of its heroes, that was the law of the universe, but when the story was done and the cracks and fissures in their tissues had faded to myth and legend, what became of the heroes who did not die a tragic or heroic death and were not hung in the stars? What happened to heroes left behind? Twisting his bloodstone ring on his thumb idly as it caught the shivering fire of those stars in its dark mirrored surface, the musical arrow of the muses pierced his heart, wide-eyed in wonder. He’d asked the universe, but he already knew the answer. He’d always known. He knew, and he knew it with such clarion joy as he had never known anything before.

He could no longer be the man who hung Martin’s moon, he hadn’t been for a long time. That much was clear to him, but he could certainly do something else. Perhaps they had grown past the need for moon hangings in the first place. He knew how their story ended.

It took months of saving, secreting, preparation, and then finally just simply waiting for the perfect, clear night. The moment it came, the moment he knew it was the night, Jon struck without hesitation. Poor Martin wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the couch, into Jon, when he returned from a late shift at the grocers, but found himself instead stuffed right back into his coat with a picnic basket in hand and hauled out into the frigid night in a flurry of Jon with little time to protest. He bounded up the hill behind their little cottage beneath a perfect blanket of stars flaming coldly overhead, trailing Martin’s hand in his behind with his breath coming in silvery puffs of clouds, and paying no heed to the whining.

“Jon, whatever it is, does it have to be NOW?” Martin panted, “I am absolutely knackered and it’s beyond freezing and wouldn’t it be nicer just to curl up with a cuppa and fall asleep in front of Star Wars or something? Doesn’t that have enough stars and space in it?”

Dauntless, Jon only tugged harder.

“There’s tea in the basket, and I’ve seen Star Wars. And yes, it has to be tonight, it’s really important, I promise.”

“Look. I love you. So much. You know this, and please know it is with the utmost love and deepest affection in my heart that I point out that you say that every time, and you’ve still shown me Pluto like, a hundred separate times. While I quite like it, and I still feel sorry for it being bumped out of the solar system and all, it’s just a dot? How many times can you look at a dot?” Martin sighed.

His words finally threw a caltrop into Jon’s warpath, and he paused, turning over his shoulder woundedly.

“What? No, it’s not Pluto, I swear just- Please, Martin? I’ll never ask again if you don’t want to, but just for tonight, please?” he pleaded.

Martin winced, and immediately folded under the onslaught of doleful honeyed brown eyes under a nimbus of stars.

“Oh, lord there you go with the puppy dog eyes. Okay, okay fine, but there better be a nip of whiskey in this,” he chided lovingly with a gesture at the thermos in the basket.

The smile flared back to life brightly on Jon’s face as he turned back up the craggy little footpath to the top of the hill.

“Of course, hot toddy with tea.”

“Ooh, lovely, you do know me.”

The rest of the way was trivially short to the small, flat hilltop surrounded by heather where Jon had already set up a blanket and the telescope over a pristine vista of the dark line where the stars sank into the sea. He ushered Martin to sit down first, then perched on his hip beside him and poured him a generous helping of tea and whiskey from the thermos before pouring his own.

“Thanks, much. Right then, what exactly are we up here to look at that we couldn’t see from our garden?” Martin asked, accepting his cup of potent hot toddy and sipping it gratefully around the lemony steam that billowed up.

Taken aback by the sudden logic lobbed into the center of his romantic posturing, Jon looked momentarily stunned, as if someone had slapped him upside the head.

“Oh! Oh, um, well-! Ahah, that is to say- Uh. There is a reason for all this. It’s not that we couldn’t see it from our garden, we very much could have. B-But it’s so beautiful up here, and you can kind of hear the sea? And it’s nice and peaceful, and the heather is still blooming a bit and um…” he trailed off, cheeks burning.

“Okay…?” Martin probed, frowning a little.

“Er, actually... It’s less about the stars than it is- W-Well it is about the stars. Let’s get that clear. But to be completely honest I mostly just… I-I well. There’s something I need to tell you?”

Jon was ill-prepared for the look of abject horror on Martin’s face as he went paler than the moon overhead.

“Shit, what is it? Did you find something? You saw something? There’s been a sign of The Fears? Oh god it’s not HER is it?” he asked frantically, nearly slopping hot toddy all over his lap.

“What? No! No, none of that!” Jon spluttered, aghast.

Martin regained a modicum of color in his face and breathed in measuredly.

“Okay, so then what is it? Oh god, you’re not… Jon you’re not ill, or something, are you? Please, you can just tell me if-“

“No, I am not ill either, damn it, Martin! If you would just listen to me! I-!” Jon moaned exasperatedly, “I just wanted to do something… nice. Something nice for you. And nicer than I normally would because I am apparently much worse at crafting romantic moments than I thought and-“

“Wait…” Martin cut in, eyes gleaming with realization, “Jonathan Sims… Are you grand gesturing?”

“Well I am certainly trying but you are making it exceedingly difficult!” he retorted, red in the face and breathless.

“Oh my god, you are! I’m so sorry!” Martin laughed brightly, “Oh god Jon you poor thing I’m so sorry, I’m awful, I’m the absolute worst! No please! Don’t let me spoil it. Please go on.”

Grinding the heel of his palm into his forehead, Jon tried to summon the words again, only for Martin’s strong, warm hands to take it from him and tip his chin up to gaze into his eyes.

“Hey. Hey, Jon. Look at me,” he breathed, looking into his eyes idolatrously, “I’m sorry. I love you. You can tell me.”

Taking the steadiness from those clear blue depths he needed, Jon focused on them, on the strawberry blond curls tossing in the icy breeze, of the kiss of chilled pink under his freckles, and that eternal, sunshine smile.

“Okay,” he finally answered, smiling softly.

With a deep, shuddering breath, and a long swig of whiskey laced tea for good measure, Jon drew himself up and fished deep in his soul for the words he had waited a millennium to say.

“Okay… So here it is. Um… I’ve um, I’ve had a lot of time alone lately with my new hobby, as it were. So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of it is overly complicated and ridiculous and doesn’t deserve to live outside of my head but… a lot of it has been about you, about us. And I know we don’t need to-to put a label on us or put us into a… a box or anything like that. But every time I look at this ring on my finger, I can’t help but remember we never actually talked about what they meant,” he began, holding out his left hand and fidgeting with the loose band around his thumb.

“Oh Jon, don’t worry about that. It was just me being a big sappy, sentimental dork. And if I recall correctly, we’d had a pretty awful row a night or two before, and I just wanted to feel close to you again, I guess? We both know what they mean to us. It doesn’t matter,” Martin assured him sweetly.

“Except that it does!” Jon insisted passionately, “That’s the point! You are a big sappy, sentimental dork, Martin. I bet you were the kid that had a dream wedding all planned in a notebook with pictures cut out of magazines and everything. I adore that about you, but big sappy sentimental dorks should have big sappy, sentimental moments like huge, expensive seaside weddings with three-flavor cakes and all your friends and family and rose petals and dove releases and whatever else your heart could dream up.”

Martin snickered and shook his head, charmed at least by the mental image of kissing Jon on a seaside cliff at sunset while doves flew in glorious formation around them and everyone they had ever known and loved cheered.

“Pfft, I don’t need a grand wedding and all that, I just need-”

“Me. I know,” Jon finished for him with a smirk, “I knew you’d say that. Maybe not. But you deserve one. And I know I don’t use that word lightly, but it’s necessary in this case. You deserve it. All of it. Me on one knee with a ring in a box, you deserve us picking out flowers and tuxedos and arguing over the font on the invitations. You deserve Tim’s awful bachelor party and laughing at me at the altar because I had to read my vows off a card and they’re still so stiff and awkward and they pale in comparison to the beautiful poem you wrote about me. You deserve smiling so hard your cheeks hurt and crying as we exchange rings. All of it.”

Martin weighed his words carefully on his tongue with a sip of his boozy tea to chase away ghosts of things that never even were.

“I mean, sure, not going to say I never wanted that. And I did have that stupid wedding notebook, by the way. But all that became a pipe dream the minute we wound up here, right? No use being upset about something that can never be.”

“That may be so, but the crux of it is… you also contented yourself with the idea of it never coming true not because we’re here, but because you didn’t think I wanted it,” Jon answered, his unspoken truth hanging heavy in the chill night air between them, “Every time you tried to tell me you wanted to be with me forever, I brushed it off and painted it gray and tucked it away and carried on the way we always were like nothing happened and it didn’t matter. Because it was alright, really, you were just so happy to have what we have, that I didn’t die in your arms that night, that we were still together after everything. That I at least kept that promise after I’d broken so many. You were so grateful just for what you were gifted after we thought we would end with nothing you didn’t dare think to ask the universe for more and I am so, so sorry it took me so long to see that, Martin. I’m so sorry.”

His voice broke. The breath caught in Martin’s chest as he reached out to touch his wrist comfortingly.

“Jon, I-“

“No, please. Please let me finish I… I can’t give you any of those things. I can’t give you our friends back, I can’t give you cake and doves and the sunset and crying through vows in front of the vicar. I can’t even give you an elopement at the register office because we still don’t legally exist. And I guess for a long time I resented myself for that. For all of it. For stealing that from you, for dragging you through literal hell only to give you a shadow of a life stuck here with me because I betrayed you. But- no stop, don’t say anything yet I’m not done. B-But now I finally realize. You’re right, Martin. You were always right. It doesn’t matter. Those things are all just… things. I said to you once, a long time ago, and I’m still not even sure if you really heard me, that I didn’t want to just survive. It was true then, and maybe it wasn’t true for a while, but it’s certainly true again. We did not fight tooth and nail to just survive. We fought to live, and live together. So what I’m saying is… I know now I don’t have to give you tuxedos and white roses as long as I give you something… Something to prove to you that you are my everything, my entire world, something to show you that I love you more than I have loved anything in my entire life. That I want forever with you. S-So I…” he trailed off, sucking in his breath to give his gesture of undying love the ardor and grandeur it deserved, “I bought us a star.”

The proclamation rang out like the toll of a bell, its gravity sonorous and quaking. Martin blinked.

“You… I’m sorry?” he squeaked.

Jon set his empty thermos cup aside, flailed his hands in the air and shook his head frantically

“I-I know, I know it sounds mental just hear me out!” he protested, “Technically I didn’t buy the star, if we want to get picky about it. I mean obviously no one can own a star. Just the rights to name it? It’s a thing you can do online. I was a bit gobsmacked it was real to be honest. I just had this silly idea when I was out looking at the stars. I was looking at Lyra and thinking about you and Orpheus, and I… W-Well I just typed it in, ‘can you name a star?’ and it came right up. Right then and there. It um… comes with… hold on.”

Remembrance placed a gentle bookmark down on Jon’s fluttering thoughts, and he rummaged in the picnic basket for a moment before pulling out a navy-blue manila folder covered in stars and full of the paperwork and certificates that had come with registering theirs. He handed it to Martin, who took it in place of his own empty cup, numb, muscles quivering under his jaw, and opened it to the glittering gold typeface that proclaimed ‘Congratulations!’.

“It comes with paperwork, too! See? So, it’s official, at least? The Jon-Martin star. Not a marriage license I know, but at least our names are together on something legal? Our real names? I figured even if we manage the fake identity thing we’d have to get married as not us. Not really. So… I-It could be like our marriage certificate?” Jon explained, chewing his lower lip.

Martin said nothing as his hand turned the pages of the documentation, his eyes distant in a way Jon had never seen before. Not disembodied and enthralled, not broken, not even regarding puzzle pieces.

“Oh! Um, also I-I got us a binary star. I forgot to mention that bit,” he went on, filling the sudden void, “It’s, ah- What a binary star is- It’s technically two? But they’re caught up in each other’s gravity and they orbit each other so tightly they look like one star together, one that just shines a little brighter. They’re bound together forever by the most powerful cosmic force in the universe. Just like us.”

Only silence answered, punctuated by one last crisp whisper of paper, and then the folder closing with Martin’s spread fingers atop it, bloodstone gleaming in the vivid pale light of the night. Jon’s heart pitched frantically in his chest, and desperate, stranded tears pricked at his eyes.

“I uh… I would have rather gotten us a whole constellation. Heh, you know? But they don’t do that, obviously,” he tried softly, his fingers barely brushing Martin’s knuckles, “They record heroes in constellations, after all. Great deeds, doomed romances, lovers who can be together no other way… That would have been a better way to honor us, I think. Our story. A-And who knows? Maybe back on our world there are a few new stars to remember what we did, to mark the place we left it, so that everyone we left behind can look up and remember us. They don’t know how the story really ended, and they probably never will, but we do. We do, and I want to end it right here, right now. With our star shining above us ‘and they lived happily ever after.’”

Martin still said nothing, but his head bowed, casting a slice of shadow over his eyes, and his shoulders quivered as a thin, bright line of wet silver trickled down his cheek. Jon felt the very sky shatter above and begin to crumble around him.

“Please… M-Make no mistake, Martin. P-Perhaps the gesture is silly and meaningless, but it was all I could think to do to go with everything I’ve said tonight. Martin… Martin, don’t you see? These are my wedding vows to you. This is me saying ‘I do’ and also ‘Martin K. Blackwood would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the universe?’ All at once. This is me saying I swear to you I will be yours, through everything, until the end of time. M-Maybe I wasn’t before. Maybe I was still punishing myself, but I’m telling you, I’m ready now to have my happily ever after. With you, Martin. If you’ll have me. If I haven’t-“

He would never finish. In a dizzying blur of blue folder, flashing hematite, and a wreath of golden curls, Martin kissed the words off his lips. He kissed him so hard and so fierce, through wracking sobs with his hands woven so raptly into his long, wavy locks he thought his lips would bruise and his fragile soul would finally shatter to pieces in Martin’s arms. Undone, all Jon could do was surrender and kiss him back with equal passion, thumbing away the hot tears as they spilled freely down his cheeks and anointed them both with their cleansing, hoary heat. Their lips parted and they panted softly against each other in the space between, each afraid to break the sacred, pulsing silence.

“You’re crying,” Jon whispered at length, “I’ve said something wrong. Martin, darling I’m so sorry. I never meant to-”

Martin laughed, raspy with tears, but ethereal, sparkling, like stardust floating on the breeze.

“People are allowed to cry when they’re happy you stupid, silly man,” he murmured in between kissing him again, and again.

“Oh. Oh.”

He kissed him one last time, that idiot man who always burnt the toast and always knew the facts but never knew what to say, who finally figured it out and bought him a star, and threw his arms around him, enveloping his slight, fragile form protectively in his embrace.

“I love you. I love you so much.”

Jon sank into that warm, familiar comfort and buried his face in his shoulder.

“I love you, too, Martin. I want to be yours for the rest of my life. I want to be me, I want to be us.”

“I know. I’ve always known. Oh god, you do know that right? I know that you love me, it’s written in everything you do and say. I have never, ever once doubted you love me with everything you are. Even in the moments I was afraid that… that maybe we just weren’t meant to be together, I still knew it wouldn’t be because you didn’t love me. Never because you didn’t love me. Just maybe that we didn’t fit together anymore,” Martin replied in a small voice through his tears as they spilled down his cheeks.

As much as he wanted to vehemently deny there was ever a chance they might have not fit back together again after they had both been so shattered, to kiss him and tell him not in a million years would there ever have been a future where they weren’t Jon and Martin against the world, Jon knew it to be inescapably true.

“I’m so sorry you ever had to be afraid of that,” he swore, digging his fingers into Martin’s back pointedly, “After everything. After we fought so hard to escape fear itself. That I almost let it truly win in the end. That I couldn’t just let go… Because… Because this was never about The Eye, was it?”

A heave of breath and its shuddering exhale shook Martin’s body free of lifetimes of grief, and fear, of ugliness carried far beyond the borders of their souls. His fingers curled tighter in unspoken reply.

“No Jon, no it wasn’t, but I’m so very glad you finally figured that out.”

“Me, too…” he whispered.

They held each other in the quiet wake of being a moment and let the astral plane wheel calmly overhead. An impatient star twinkled.

“Wait… you never answered me,” Jon finally said as he pulled back, sliding his elegant fingers down Martin’s strong arms.

“Huh?” Martin blurted, scrubbing under his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

“About marrying me tonight. You never actually said yes, so…”

A twinkle in his eye and a slight mischief to his grin, Jon dove back into the picnic basket and emerged with a velvet ring box. Martin’s hands flew to his mouth.

“You didn’t.”

“Of course I did! Nothing fancy, but I thought it was high time to retire the blood rings,” he explained rising from his former perch on his hip to kneel properly.

The box cracked neatly open, and inside lay a simple, white gold band with a tiny circle of milky moonstone embedded in it on a midnight-blue satin cushion, blindingly bright against the dark. Martin sobbed joyfully all over again.

“So, uh… I suppose if it had just been us, if we’d just been together, without everything, and we’d arrived at this moment. I would have done much the same. I would have brought you somewhere beautiful, somewhere I could teach you some inane fact you didn’t actually care about, but liked because it came from me. Emulsifiers in ice cream and rum raisin…” they both snickered, “And I would have tried my best to make it into some sort of romantic metaphor but completely bunged it up and you would be laughing as I got down on one knee, just like this. And it would have just been simple. To the point. Just… Will you marry me? So…”

Jon assumed the traditional position, on one knee, arms outstretched, his every slender point a star in a perfect constellation of love.

“Will you marry me?”

Their eyes met, across a thousand different realities, across a thousand different worlds, carried on celestial winds to fall hopelessly, inexorably, into each other’s orbit.

“Yes, yes I do believe I will.”

With one last farewell kiss upon it for what it had meant for them both, Jon slipped the bloodstone ring from Martin’s finger and replaced it with the delicate band made of starlight. It took its place radiantly, and shone as Martin drew his hand back to admire it with an equally radiant grin before it dimmed with concern.

“But what about you?” he asked worriedly as he watched the old ring entombed lovingly in the box.

Jon only smirked and produced a second box from the basket, which he offered on his open palm out to Martin.

“Naturally, I got one for myself. Couldn’t pass up a chance to get a wedding ring that actually fits, could I? It’s just… Don’t you think you deserve to give it to me the way you would want?” he urged.

Martin took the box eagerly, biting his lower lip in thought.

“Not sure you want to give me that freedom. I had about five different ways of asking you in my head and all of them you would have hated so, so much. But I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t kind of the point,” he answered wryly.

Jon chortled.

“Sorry I, the unromantic one, sprung this on you, the romantic one. But I did want to surprise you. I-I mean you can still write me a vows poem later? If you want to, of course. I’d love to have it, even if I don’t actually get to hear it at our wedding.”

Martin’s face flushed immediate crimson and his eyes darted coyly away as he toyed with the wedding band box in his lap.

“Oh that? A-Actually I… I have it memorized, i-if you really wanted to hear it.”

“You- WHAT?” gasped Jon, his cheeks flushing in tandem.

“Oh yeah, I wrote my vows poem for you ages ago and I’ve gone over it so many times I know it by heart. It was comforting, okay? I-I’d read it again when times were good and I thought maybe you’d actually- um… a-and when times were not so good, when you were gone, in your own head, when I was afraid we were broken for good, whenever I needed it. I’ve read it over a thousand times and never changed a thing from the first time I penned it. Never needed to. I’m surprised I haven’t recited it in my sleep at this point,” Martin admitted sheepishly.

Jon’s entire body flushed with a solar heat that melted his joints and his heart into a swirling flare of adulation.

“I can think of no better way, then, to receive my ring,” he breathed, reaching out to cup Martin’s cheek in his hand, “I’ve had my turn, now it’s yours.”

In mirror ballets of love exchanges, Martin cradled Jon’s hand against his cheek as he spoke the first lines of the vows etched ever on his being softly into his palm.

“Let he who, shadow dwelling, must In paper, pen, and book be bound Shake off the chains of dark and rust And chart his own bright fate unfound.

Let he with lifelong burdens borne Cut paper wings with thread of gold And hand in hand, the sky forsworn Flit clouds and sun in laughter bold.

Let he whose blood and soldier’s ken The world did shield from dark and fear Heal fast those wounds, be whole again And sleep at last, held close and dear.

Bring him to me with spirit free With stars in eyes and music sung From lips a joyful promise be One soul conjoined, one fate’s thread strung.

Two hearts rejoice in love renowned. We lift our heads, alive, uncrowned.”

He waited until the last couplet to pull the ring from the box and slide it onto Jon’s finger where it too, fit perfectly, like it had always been there, and shone defiantly bright in the moonlight. Jon wept. He had been weeping since the first words of verse left his beloved’s lips, but seeing that ring like a piece of his missing soul returned to him undammed the tears effusively.

“God that was… Martin, I don’t have words. I-It was… so beautiful. You’re so beautiful. Thank you,” he cried fervently, “I wish I could tell you properly how much that meant, but I just-“

“Hey… That’s alright. I’m the words guy. You’re the emulsifiers guy. Making you cry is all I need to see to know how you feel,” Martin assured him warmly, reaching out to brush his tears away as he chuckled.

“Yeah… add this one to the running tally.”

“Oh, I have,” Martin snickered, “Speaking of! Now we’ve done the crying through vows bit. Shouldn’t we say the ‘I do’ bit, as well?”

Jon pursed his lips with a shrug as he reached out with his left hand to take Martin’s left as well, twining their fingers together

“Yes, I suppose we should. I don’t see why not. Well then, Martin, do you?”

“I do. And Jon, do you?”

“I do.”

“You may now soundly snog the groom.”

“Martin…”

The emphatic drawl of his name the way Jon only called it when he was frustratingly enamored of him perished gently against Martin’s velvet lips as they caressed his. They kissed slowly and reverently, sealing a pact ordained by the heavens long before either of them had seen the stars in the other’s eyes, lighting with white flame the torch to guide them for the first time, forward. They broke it only to punctuate it with two more featherlight kisses and a breathless laugh, bowing their foreheads together in deference to the forces of fate and the universe.

“I know this isn’t the wedding either of us ever dreamed of, but as far as I’m concerned, it was perfect,” Jon murmured, nuzzling closer into his husband, swaddling the new, fledgling and beautiful word in his heart.

“Well, hey, what is a wedding really other than just a formal declaration that this is it? This is us, we’re forever, no matter what. We did it. And you did it for me, in the STARS, Jon… Can we just remember that again? You put us in the actual stars. I am so writing a ballad for our constellation later, you do know this.”

“Oh lord. Of course you are. But really, it was the least I could do, after you’ve done so much for me, sacrificed everything for me. Waited for me for so long.”

“And you came back to me,” Martin reminded him passionately, “And I don’t just mean back to life, here, in this world. I mean you came back, Jon, MY Jon, the Jon I was in love with the moment I laid eyes on him. The fidgety and obstinate Jon who can’t make a decent cup of tea to save his life, who puts on two different socks in the morning because his nose is already in the paper or a book, who teaches me about bleeding rocks and binary stars and still reacts to the simplest acts of kindness like a warm cranberry orange scone without asking for one like they’re divine miracles he is undeserving of, who looks at me like I hung the moon or something every time. Even when I thought I was a complete and total waste of a human being, you, Jonathan Sims, the most beautiful, amazing, brilliant man to ever walk the Earth, looked at me like I hung the moon. And that was… Still is… everything to me.”

The heavens shifted, the stars wheeled, the last piece clicked smartly, smugly into place.

“W-What did you say…?” Jon asked with such urgency, grabbing his hands so fiercely, Martin startled.

“Wh-I-I don’t-? Which part? The moon hanging part?” he stuttered, rolling his eyes fondly as he realized mid-sentence, “Oh, right. Ugh, Jon are you seriously going to get after me about your weird vendetta against idioms at our wedding? Because if you are that would be annoyingly adorable and so intensely you and kind of perfect, but also can you not on THIS particular occasion?”

The laugh that tore from Jon’s throat was half mad, half euphoric as the weight of the moon lifted from his shoulders and became naught but an indifferent sentinel disc in the sky once more.

“No no no, it’s just… It’s funny, I had more than a few things very, very wrong for a very, very long time. That’s all. Don’t worry about it,” he explained, leaning in and pressing a delicate kiss to Martin’s forehead, “If you’re the one who hung the moon after all, then I suppose ‘written in the stars’ will have to do for me.”

Martin lit up with literary glee.

“Oh ho! Two space related idioms in one go? What a rare treat! Maybe this is your gateway drug into puns…” he teased impishly.

“Absolutely no chance in hell.”

They both laughed, laughed with the billowing icy breath that reached with victorious fingers up to the heavens. They laughed, messily sniffing back the pesky drip of tears and cold. They laughed with lightness of the encumbrance of hematite armor shed, its bloody protections no longer needed to cage wounded hearts and keep them safe and close. They laughed in breath and also in the dancing points of light in their eyes as they fell into one another free from gravity.

“So uh… Do I get to see my star tonight, or don’t I?” Martin finally remembered, relishing the utterly horrified yelp from Jon.

“Oh god I completely-! Y-Yes! Yes of course, it’s already set up at the proper coordinates!” he had already sprung to his feet, “Oh, though, hang on, it took longer to get to the star viewing part than I anticipated, so I might need to adjust it a bit. Oh! And I have a little strawberries and champagne, if you like?”

“I do like, please and thank you!”

Jon set to readjusting the telescope to the proper ascension and declination while Martin poured them two glasses of crisply bubbling champagne. They twined their arms to drink a toast from each other’s glass, ‘to us’ or ‘to happily ever afters’, or to several other messily rambled toast worthy sentiments. They couldn’t decide and toasted to all of it. They ate plump red strawberries and licked the juice from each other’s fingers as they looked at their star, which was, after everything, just a dot, just like Pluto, but Martin had to admit that he rather liked looking at dots after all. And that one was their dot. The warm intoxication of love and champagne begged for music, and someone fumbled in the cold for a wedding playlist on some app, somewhere, it didn’t matter, just as long as they could join hands, gaze into each other’s eyes and dance inelegantly, stepping on each other’s toes, under the umbrella of stars in a gentle rain of moonlight.

“I don’t see your problem with cliches, idioms and all that, really…” Martin mused at length, laying his head on Jon’s shoulder as they slowly spun to the rhythm of a longing ballad and the song of the sea, “Like this stupid, great song. They’re familiar and cozy and everyone knows them. They’re like… like old friends. Always there to rely on when we can’t come up with the words ourselves, because sometimes we can’t. And if something trite and silly sums up the way you feel, why not just let it be? Sometimes things are said over and over again because some truths are universal, you know? They’re just… human.”

Jon pressed a kiss into the mop of curls that tickled his nose and smelled faintly of toasted sugar and lavender and mused on all of the romantic cliches that had just passed through his mind unbidden. Who was he to deny he was but one star in the sky, a single gear in the grand mortal mechanism of the universe. If he had handed himself over to the humanity of it all instead of rusting, stopping, looking outside where there was never anything to see, perhaps he could have had this dance much sooner. It didn’t matter though, until it did, because that night Martin took his breath away, made his world go round, he was head over heels for his match made in heaven, and better than heaven, they were written in the stars.

“You know what, Martin?” Jon laughed in reply, “Tonight, being what it is, I am willing to concede. You are absolutely right.”

“I’m glad…” came the tender acceptance, followed by a distinctly puckish beat of silence, “Then does this mean I can I start saying love you to the moon and back?”

“Don’t push your luck...”

#The Magnus Archives #TMA #Magnuspod #JonMartin #JMart #jmartweddingchallenge #hey-there-hunter #Jonathan Sims #Martin Blackwood #Fan fiction

27 notes · View notes

destinyandcoins · 2 years

Note

Fanfic ask! F, H, K

((Ok so I HAD an answer like 75% finished and then tumblr glitched and now all I’ve just got is a blank blue page so....here’s attempt #2))

First of all thank you friend, this is like 15 minutes worth of me ignoring my homework and I very much appreciate it.

for this ask game

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Hmmmmmmmmm ok. well in the interest of time, I’m just gonna pull two random moments I really love from two different fics of mine instead of trying to hunt for any actual favorites because that would...take a while.

Five made a thoughtful sound. “Actually that would make sense; the Commission had a file on Dad because he snatched up so many of us miracle babies, and his origin was listed as ‘extraterrestrial’.”

A beat, and then chaos erupted.

“You’re not serious, there’s no way--” Allison started.

“Okay Five, ha ha, has this whole thing been a joke--?”

“AN ALIEN?” Diego demanded, his voice cracking through two different octaves.

“Wait that’s not--okay maybe aliens are real but Dad?”

“The truth is out there--”

“I KNEW IT,” Klaus was hollering over top of everyone else’s voices. “I TOLD YOU, I F--”

“SHUT UP there is NO WAY--”

“--would have known, we definitely would have been able to--”

“...Well if you think about it--”

Five let out a sudden and piercing whistle that managed to silence all of them.

This is from my TUA Shocktober fic Extra Ordinary, where the siblings have a calm and reasonable discussion about the possibility that their father is an alien. I adore trying to capture the Mass Chaos that is the Hargreeves siblings, and having grown up in a home with six kids I remember fondly those moments where you’re literally screaming to be heard over the rest of them as you all react to one thing or another, and it’s just wonderful pandemonium.

“Vanya!” he cried, catching sight of her slumped over the staircase railing. “Vanya, what day is it today?”

“Um, Thursday? The 16th, I think?” she offered weakly, but Klaus just shook his head.

“Stupid question, I didn’t know what day it was the first time,” Klaus muttered, already heading for the stairs. He waved dismissively at something to his left that could have been Ben, or could have been actual empty air, and called back over his shoulder, “Vanya, honey, go back to bed-- trust me when I say I’ve seen healthier ghosts.”

This is from my Gen June TUA fic If At First You Don’t Succeed. Time loops!! They’re so much fun!!! They’re even more fun when the person who’s in the loop is the least-suited person to be in a time loop! Poor Klaus takes a little while to actually confirm he’s in a loop because. well. he’s disaster. he’s trying his damnedest to stick to ye old How To Time Loop manual (step one: confirm you’re in a time loop), but he’s not really cut out for this kind of thing. Also, I like when Klaus makes jokes about his powers.

H: How would you describe your style?

Style is....hard to describe about yourself, I think. I would say I’m driven more to introspective and emotional hurt/comfort subject material, and as part of that I think my writing tends to be heavy on the stylistic flourishes that will emphasize whatever mood I’m going for and very focused on character’s feelings/reactions/senses. I love to consider perspective/perceptions and playing with an unreliable narrator to great effect....

however. upon actually looking at my published Ao3 works, I see that most of my writing tends towards humorous and makes use of dry or ironic lines to set a specific tone, so. maybe I’m just not a good judge of my own style?

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Welll...........my top two angstiest ideas are not written quite yet but I’m working on them, and in the interest of not spoiling too much I’ll just say there’s one that’s closer to being published (I just don’t want to start publishing until I have more of a buffer), and the opening scene covers a Klaus and Ben who are strangely the only people to have noticed their long-lost brother has just dropped in in time for their dad’s funeral :)

Thanks again for sending this!! <3

#ask games #answered #sharkneto

3 notes · View notes

lnterjection · 3 years

Text

Sleepy Bois Inc and DSMP Fanfic Recs

Uhhh I realized I have a ton of stuff in my bookmarks list and might as well compile a list of favorites because I’m always looking for good fanfics, and this might help some people. Most of these are SBI, though a few focus on things other than their dynamic with each other. Nothing explicit here. Feel free to suggest more recs.

Fics set in DSMP universe/about DSMP (One-shots first, then longer fics):

One-shots and series of one-shots-

therein lies the madness by sapphicist - 2095 words. Currently says it’s one chapter out of three complete, but can be read as a standalone one-shot. Nice introspective fic on Tommy’s exile and his parallels with Theseus. In 2nd person, but it’s actually done nicely. Mostly angsty, can have hopeful interpretation depending on how you look at it.

crazy how life goes on without me (2090 words, one-shot) by itisjosh - What if Ghostbur did remember everything, and just pretended to be clueless and vapid? Made me cry. It’s so good. Tortured my heart.

the inner mechanism of a black box (13521 words, one-shot) by Bee_4 - only work of a series called “system theory”. “Technoblade lets himself get imprisoned for Philza’s sake. He doesn’t plan on being there long. Unfortunately, he’s underestimated Pandora’s Vault. There are things that will make even the Blade fall apart in due time, as it turns out.” Yeah so Techno’s mental health goes out the window in this one and its written brilliantly. There’s comfort at the end, if it helps?

A State For One Man Is No State At All (5247 words, two-shot) by angstfortheangstgod - “A different version of the festival, in which Dream shows up unarmed, the Community House is left intact, a traitor is executed, and Tommy doesn't betray Technoblade.” Ranboo centric. Angst and comfort.

All the Kings Men series by MollyPollyKinz - “After Ghostbur's suggestion to do Lads on Tour, Tommy finds himself reunited with his family. However, escaping from Dream is going to be harder than anyone previously thought.” A connected series of one-shots and short fics about Tommy, his exile, his family, and escaping Dream. Well written, good characterization, great studies into the characters themselves.

ad astra per aspera series by cacowhistle - Collection of one-shots that start with Tommy’s exile and expand to be about SBI and their dynamic with each other, including a resurrected Wilbur. Really, really well written and probably my favorite of the “Tommy exile fic groups”.

the fall of a hero series by cracklesnaple - “After being threatened with being exiled yet again, Tommy takes the decision into his own hands. If those around him can't see that he's given up everything to make this nation what it is, then he's not sure he can stay in L'Manburg any longer.” Series about SBI and mainly Tommy, eventually crossing over into Mianite territory in a way some might enjoy and some might now. Writing’s good, though, which is what I care about.

Longer fics-

Rewind (101002 words, 25 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 17 2021) by Anonymous - Best time travel fix-it fic I’ve ever read period. Tubbo and Tommy travel 10 years back from a very messed up future to the first L’Manberg election. Concept may seen a bit weird at first but trust me, holy fuck this is amazing.

second chances (hurt the most) (8841 words, 4 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 17 2021) by Anonymous - “Wilbur wakes up alone in a bloody room, and has to come to terms with living again. (How can he go on, knowing who's blood is on his hands?)”. Amazing fic where resurrection requires someone else’s life as sacrifice. Phil is dead. Wilbur struggles to come to terms with his father’s decision, and his second chance.

all scotch, no soda (47466 words, 43 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 14 2021) by fishstixx - “Vulnerability meant trust, though, and trust was a thing not so easily given. Post-exile and canon divergent, follows the consequences of Tommy’s isolation. Expect chases, heists, bloodshed, and the mending of a family.” Features raccon hybrid Tommy being badass, and I live for it. I really, really love this one.

DON’T FORGET THAT ICARUS FLEW. (16426 words, 6/10 chapters, last updated Jan 1. 2021) by orpheusaki - “The day before and the days that follow Tommy's exile; told through the eyes of The Blood God.” Techno (and Dream) is a god, and gods often forget how the intricacies of the minds of mortals. He’s trying to get better, however.

what do you fall for? (16374 words, complete) by tablrcloth - Ranboo centric fic with Techno, Phil and Tommy. Ranboo realizes that playing L’Manberg’s politics is less than ideal for him. What can I say, it’s just really good.

Breathing’s Just a Rhythm (12631 words, 6 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 17 2021) by MollyPollyKinz - “Tommy, Tubbo, Jschlatt, and Dream all end up in the past. (Oh, and the Chat comes too).” Great time travel fic.

What World Have We Inherited? (73635 words, 12 chapters, unfinished and last updated on Dec 22 2020) by Anonymous (this one has a series with all their works, and they’re all AMAZING). Holy fuck this one is probably one of my favorite fics in the fandom so far. “Wilbur blows everything to hell on the day of the Manburg festival, just like he wanted. When the ashes settle, it's just Tommy and Technoblade. It's not good, but it's better than nothing. It's just them, healing up in a world that never wanted them.” Amazing characterization, worldbuilding, everyone’s internal thoughts are portrayed and written so well. Even if it never updates again I would keep coming back to it. I rec this Anon’s works so much.

In June, I Changed My Tune (29489 words, 6 chapters, unfinished and last updated on Jan 6 2021) by KryOnBlock - Eret runs away and eventually becomes friends with Techno. Nice cottagecore aesthetic. I have mixed feelings about this one - the writing’s good, descriptions and characterizations are really good. Just that there’s consistent punctuation mistakes and it takes me out of the world a bit. Everything else is good enough for me to continue reading, however.

stay with him (24353 words, 12 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 9 2021) by junipersand - I especially rec the first chapter, which can be read (and originally was) a standalone fic with the summary “Every ghost had a purpose to fulfill. So what was Tommy’s?” Utterly heartwrenching, probably the most emotionally gut-punching bit of writing I’ve ever read in this fandom. It continues with other lore stuff afterwards that eventually branch off from just SBI and Tommy, but man. I don’t think I can ever forget that first chapter.

I’m not angry at you, well, sometimes I am (52801 words, 16 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 14 2021) by sircantus - After Tommy is exiled, he runs away to Techno’s house instead of going off with Dream. SBI decide some revenge and “world domination” is in order.

Fics set in AUs outside DSMP happenings:

One-shots and series of one-shots-

Empty Crowns AU by UnderUrsa - the SBI + Tubbo are gods, and a family. Series of one-shots. Nicely written, what can I say? Some angst, some fluff.

Secure, Contain, Protect AU by blue000jay - Amazingly written SCP AU. Knowledge of the SCP universe would help with understanding some more meta things, but is not needed to understand most of it. Some angst, disturbing themes around memories but nothing terribly gory.

CLASSIFIEDS. (13804 words, finished). SCP pages on SBI, short stories and audio transcriptions as well as files, lots of good lorebuilding here. Features an escape, + Tubbo!

CONFIDENTIALS. (13232 words, finished). Centers on Dream Team.

ARCHIVES. (1270 words, one-shot). What happened after SBI and Tubbo’s escape from the SCP foundation.

old gods (new gods) AU by WriterWinged - the relatively well known SBI gods AU. Amazingly written, great character interpretations.

the gods are cruel (none crueler then you) (1394 words, one-shot) - As much the grammatical mistake in the title hurts me it’s no doubt one of the best pieces of work in the fandom.

and yet they find kindness (and so do you) (2/4 chapters posted) - continuation of “the gods are cruel”.

there’s a risk to the world (but the kindest are strongest) (2/3 chapters posted) - continuation of “the gods are cruel”.

SBI Antarctic Princes AU by ScripWriter - One of several Antarctic Empire AUs, this one just has these two preliminary one-shots but they’re nice bits of fun and neatly written. All fluff and mild hurt with lots of comfort so far.

Younger Holding On Another (1781 words, one-shot). Techno is a good brother and reassures and newly adopted Tommy.

But Oh, Don’t You Know How It Goes (2511 words. one-shot). Tommy, Techno, and Wilbur have some “fun” at a boring gala. Phil is very exasperated.

Antarctic Princes ‘verse AU by BirchWrites - AU where Techno, Tommy, and Wilbur are princes of the Antarctic Empire (well, Techno’s technically the emperor now), but this time the events of DSMP still happen (at least up to the 1st season).

Homeward bound for the arctic ground (10562 words, one-shot). Wilbur and Tommy travel to the Antarctic Empire in person to ask Techno for help in fighting Schlatt. Good worldbuilding and acknowledges Wilbur’s beginnings of insanity while still being rather light.

Surprise Hugs (2542 words, one-shot). Dream doesn’t realize Tommy is Techno’s brother and thinks he’s going to get killed for tackling the infamous Blood God.

Family Reunions (1396 words, one-shot). Fundy never realized he’s loyalty and Techno informs him unexpectedly.

Longer fics-

leave me your starlight (14620 words, 4 chapters, unfinished and last updated Jan 11 2021) by findingkairos - “Once upon a time, Philza Minecraft is the only person who does not shy away from the bloody teen that regularly turns the tide of war. This cements a friendship that will last wars, empires, worlds, and lifetimes.“ Amazing backstory fic on Phil and Techno’s relationships, one of my absolute personal favorites. Very well written and really digs into the intricacies of Techno’s character (or an interpretation of it, but hey, that’s what all fanfiction is).

I was a kid in a village, doing alright, then I became a prince overnight (21736 words, 5 chapters, last updated Jan 13 2021) by sircantus - another Antarctic princes AU, this time centering on 16 year old Tommy catching the attention of Phil, Techno, and Wilbur after thwarting an assassination attempt. Really well written. Actually, I rec all of sircantus’ SBI stuff because they do amazing work.

antarctic adage (26591 words, 4/7 chapters posted, last updated Jan 13 2021) by blue000jay - Another very well written Antarctic princes AU with Emperor/ruler Phil. Are we seeing a pattern yet? blue000jay is another writer I’d rec, with really great SBI stuff.

a renewal of faith, and of family (56684 words, 31 chapters, unfinished, last updated Jan 13 2021) by SolivangantStories - One of the only fics here that doesn’t feature SBI, this one is Tubbo and Dream centered. Basically, the DSMP!Tubbo is executed by Schlatt and wakes up in a world where Manhunt!Dream is trying not to die and is also actually a nice person, to Tubbo’s surprise and confusion. Not SBI and technically not even DSMP, but it’s really good so I’ve decided to rec it anyway.

#dream smp #sleepy bois inc #sbi #fanfiction #fanfic recs #dsmp #technoblade #wilbur soot #philza #tommyinnit #tubbo #dream #ranboo #feel free to suggest more recs #sbi fanfic recs #sbi fanfic

100 notes · View notes

nostalgiaruinedme · 3 years

Note

Hey I love your fics and writing style and well since I've been meaning to start writing fics I wanted to ask you if you have some advice you'd give.

Ohhh advice? Sure, I can do that! I shall bestow all of my knowledge upon you now, but you gotta look below the cut. Shhhh, it's a secret~

Okay really I just knew this was going to be a really long post and didn't want to clog up everyone's dash lol. ONTO WRITING ADVICE

I kind of live by these rules in writing:

1. Know the rules before you break them 2. ANYTHING can be inspiration 3. Remember the doll 4. Use your resources 5. Don’t hold yourself back 6. Practice 7. Enjoy yourself!!

1. Know the rules before you break them

Pay attention in English class (or whichever class for the language you're writing in) and learn the grammar!! I don't always have perfect grammar in my fics and sometimes I consciously choose to ignore grammar rules to make it more impactful, but you HAVE to know the rules before you break them. Study those grammar lessons! Learn how to use the fun punctuation, like semi colons and em dashes and en dashes and all that good stuff. I know they're scary, but they're a lot of fun too.

ALSO PLEASE USE PARAGRAPH BREAKS IM BEGGING that's like, a HUGE problem I see with a lot of new writers. Paragraph breaks are not optional!! Change 'em when the main topic of the paragraph switches or when a new character is speaking. Overdoing it with paragraph breaks is better than underdoing it, I promise.

2. ANYTHING can be inspiration

Have you ever played Story Cubes?

If you haven’t, it’s essentially this game where you roll the cubes, they each land on a different image, and you gotta tell a story that uses all of those pictures. Some are literally just a question mark or a speech bubble and that’s what you have to use. Me and my siblings used to play the game a lot. And you know what? Some of those stories are the most creative ones we’ve ever come up with. When I say anything can be inspiration for a story or a character, I mean ANYTHING!

I based my Donnie design off of the vintage globes and journals I have in my bedroom.

My little sister threw a pillow at me and it inspired a funny scene I wanted to write in another fic

I designed two OCs off of Mars and Pluto and an ENTIRE 40,000 word fanfiction based off of a space documentary I watched

My NaNoWriMo story last year was based off of the concept of shadows and how cool I thought it’d be if they could talk

Me and my friend made an entire dystopian original story commenting on our world today. It was first inspired by a crack self insert Death Note RP we had at 13 years old. Not kidding.

Literally anything can be inspiration. Challenge your mind!! The best ideas come out of completely ordinary and unexpected opportunities, in my experience. You don’t need one of those super detailed and crazy expensive prompt books (though they are fun) to write a great story. Use music, use a color, use the sky, use your favorite food, use anything! Just find inspiration!

3. Remember the Doll

Remember Mulan?

We never got to see the Huns destroy the village and we didn’t get to see them kill anyone there either. But by showing that doll there, the animators took an entire battle full of death and destruction and summed it all up in one, heartbreaking moment. You don’t need to spend ten pages writing about how horrifying the bad guy was and listing everything he did from start to finish, nor do you need to write an analysis on why she’s bad. All you need to do is show one or two very meaningful ways they impacted the world... and you can do that with something as simple as a doll lying on the ground in a burning village.

Because the doll is there; the little girl is not.

There’s a quote that sums this up really well, and I have it written on the dry erase board by my desk.

“You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.” - Richard Price

And adding onto that, try to write more about what’s there, not what isn’t. Mulan didn’t say ANYTHING about the girl in that scene, but by showing what was there, it told us a story about what wasn’t. Focus on what is in the scene and it will tell your reader about what isn’t.

I do think writing a balance is good though, so I try and keep it around a 3/1 ratio of what is there vs what isn’t. Remember this is art though, not math; you can change the formula as you please just to make it feel right. It all depends on the scene and what you want.

4. Use Your Resources

You know how, in the artist community, there’s this sort of stigma around using references? And some artists have to make posts reminding others that there’s nothing wrong with using references and you even should use them?

It’s the same concept in writing!

There is NOTHING wrong with looking to other writers’ work or keep a thesaurus constantly open or bookmarking a reference page of other words to use than “said”. Nothing wrong with it at all! When I write, I always have two tabs open: my writing document and thesaurus.com. I have a folder on my computer bookmarks of ways to describe a smile and a body language dictionary. Before I write fanfic, I watch a “best moments of *character*” compilation video on Youtube to remind myself of how they speak. I watch fight scenes from The 100 or Avatar or Marvel while I write my own battles!

There are SO MANY resources out there for you to reference. Use them! And if you need some to start with, shoot me an ask. I have a ton.

5. Don’t Hold Yourself Back

One of the scariest parts of writing is the thought of “what will people think?” Creative writing is EXTREMELY personal, and you’re going to find a lot of you inside your work, including the thoughts you didn’t want anyone to know about.

People will discover how often you think about love. People will discover how dark your mind can get. People will discover the morals you hold that even you didn’t know about. They’ll discover that the person you swore you’ve moved on from is still on your mind. They’ll discover that the pain you swore you got over still hurts you.

“you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction” - Isabel Allende

This thought scared me a lot, and still does. I’ve let go of and forgotten about so many story ideas because they were just a little too personal. I could write it and not publish it, but what if someone still sees? Writing, like all art, comes right from the heart and reveals a lot about a person. That paranoia of being known kept me from writing so much.

But I promise you, your most powerful stories are going to be the most personal ones.

I wrote Hated Resemblance based on my thoughts about myself, and I wrote Dagger From the Mirror based on thoughts about myself too. A lot of it is dark, most is painful, and all of it is scary to show the world. But I wrote it anyways and it’s created something pretty amazing.

Hell, even now I’m wondering if I should post that lil anecdote, but I think it’s the best way to make this part of my point stronger. See? Writing about things that affect you is the best way to make them impactful, even for something as simple as advice.

And even if you want to write about light and happy stories- you’re still going to have to get personal.

This all got pretty deep but my point is this: Don’t hold yourself back. Write what you feel you need to and it don’t worry about what anyone will think. Don’t hide that one sentence because you’re scared who will read it because you’re scared to be known so deeply. Add it in even when it’s scary.

That’s something I’m still learning how to do, and it’s a slow process that has taken years... but it’s worth it, I promise.

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” - Natalie Goldberg

6. Practice

I started writing in 1st grade. I’ve written regularly since then, and this is my word count every month this year:

Most of that is fanfiction. Some are just random thoughts, some are really thought out posts or answers to your questions, and some are made up of original stories. That total words written number is since November.

You don’t have to write this much every month, I promise, I just don’t really have any other hobbies lol. My point is that practice is really really really important. Write a paragraph or even just a sentence every day. You’re gonna improve so quickly, I promise.

“Write every day. Writing is a muscle that gets stronger with use.” - Abbi Glines

But take breaks too!!! Don’t overwork yourself. Burn out is a real thing and you shouldn’t force yourself to write just because you’re scared you don’t write enough! Write at a pace that’s comfortable for you. There will always be writers out there who write more than you and even more writers who write less than you. That’s okay. Everyone has a pace they’re comfortable with, and you just gotta find yours. As long as you’re writing consistently, the numbers don’t matter too much. 50 words a day or 5000 are both good!

7. Enjoy Yourself!!

You’re here to have fun!

No matter what you’re writing (angst, romance, fix-it, AUs, hurt/comfort, fluff, ANYTHING), remember that fic writing is supposed to be fun!! You’re not getting paid to do this. On one hand, that sucks, but on the other hand it gives you the amazing opportunity to write literally whatever you want! Find projects you’re enthusiastic about, meet other writers, do collabs, make playlists for your story, create over powered OCs for the hell of it, ignore plot holes and write without regard to canon, or write the most realistic and in-depth canon-compliant book ever. Create the most self indulgent story you can think of!

Have fun. This is your story and you get to write the rules. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. Be proud of yourself. You can get all of the comments and feedback in the world, but if you’re not proud of what you wrote, it’s gonna be hard to look back on it with joy. Be proud no matter how many reads it gets—you made it!

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.” - Steve Martin

#can you tell I like writing quotes #I have a whole pinterest board full of them #asks #writing advice #writblr #fanfiction #meg rambles

16 notes · View notes

dramaticsnakes · 3 years

Text

The Revived: Chapter 21: Observations

This is chapter 21 of the Dream SMP multichapter fic @rainbowbutterfrosting and I wrote together! I hope you’ll enjoy!

AO3

Read in order (on Tumblr)

Characters in this chapter: Wilbur, Ghostbur, Ranboo

Word count: 3551

Cw: intrusive thoughts about hurting others, overworking, isolation, food, mentions of burning, tension between characters, arguments

Fic summary: Wilbur was alive, and it was such a magnificent feeling, that made his mind spark with anticipation. It didn’t take long, however, for Wilbur to realize that this new breath of life, was not just his own. An echo-y voice hides in the back of his mind, and before he knows it, the transparent version of him he saw at the endless train station, is a lot more ingrained than he’d expected him to be.

And Wilbur really shouldn’t care. Because he’d be damned, if he spent the life he’d awaited for so long, babysitting a lost cause of a ghost, stuck in the very same limbo Wilbur spent so long in. It was an even exchange, and one Wilbur wasn’t going to mess with. Why exactly he ends up setting out to get the ghost out of his mind, in order to save the both of them, however, is beyond him. And perhaps Wilbur’s past isn’t as easy to leave behind, as he’d hoped it would be.

The ticking of the clock became a constant to Wilbur, in the days that followed. It filled the silence when there was no dialogue between the two. The stacks of books next to him grew, as he tried to sort through them. The information wasn’t very useful for the most part, but there were always more books. More incomplete notes and recounts to look through.

Occasionally he would venture downstairs, to harvest some crops and settle his growling stomach. Once he took some of the remaining blaze rods and made some strength potions that joined their place next to the remaining instant health ones. He placed a finger on the glass bottles of potions, just to make sure they were still there, and then he would return to his seat.

He read whatever he found out loud, perhaps to remind Ghostbur of his presence. To fill the train station with something other than emptiness. He let out a quick breath, whenever the silence was broken by the ticking of the clock, that reminded him to get back to work, instead of letting his mind drift off into prime knows where. Into the void, and to the walls, that he could claw at all he wanted to no avail.

The ghost spoke less and less as he read, and Wilbur’s hands shook, as he tried to pay attention to the way the arms of the clock moved. The words seemed to flow off the page as he read each one, incomprehensible to him aside from their sound. Information. Work. He needed to do something. Anything.

“Ghostbur, you said you liked writing books?” Wilbur had asked, once his mind had nearly succumbed to the silence.

“Oh, yeah?” Ghostbur had said quietly, a bit of curiosity creeping in. “It helped me remember and understand things better.”

Wilbur had smiled to the best of his ability. “How about we write one! We should keep track of what we know about everything somehow.” he said, finding that the words made more sense than he had originally anticipated, “We could write down what we know about our connection, and eventually figure out how to… Separate us.”

The ghost had gasped, “That’s a great idea!” he said, sounding a little more excited, even if he still seemed tired.

And so, that was exactly what they’d done. In a chest downstairs, Wilbur had managed to find a dusty old empty book and quill, and had set it down on the nearest table. It dawned upon him that it had been quite a while since he’d written anything at all. Memories of declarations, and lighthearted words of victory, flooded his mind momentarily, until he managed to make sense of the quill’s movements.

Ghostbur can communicate verbally with me, and I with him. The words seem to be clearer once they are directed at Ghostbur, though it is possible that the connection has simply become clearer over time. In addition to this, Ghostbur can hear the words and sounds of anyone and anything nearby, including muffled versions of them while I am unconscious.

As they wrote down more observations, the ghost seemed a lot more excited by his inclusion in something. By having a project to work on.

Wilbur thought, the self-centered bastard that he was, that perhaps this partially came from himself. That perhaps the ghost’s interest in keeping track of information in a library, or having a plan or something to complete, were some of the remains of Wilbur’s presence. Whichever part of Wilbur’s soul, however faint, that had stayed behind, upon his exit from this world.

“You should mention that I see you sometimes too!” Ghostbur had chimed in.

Wilbur’s grip tightened around the pen, as he tried his best to remember some of his past interactions with Ghostbur regarding that. “Right…” he said quietly, “When have you seen me, again?”

“First time was right before Phil gave you that gapple, when you were really cold,” Ghostbur began, “Then after Phil left the mansion and you were on the ground shaking a little bit, then that one time with Niki,” Wilbur found his limbs turning heavier at each instance the ghost listed, and Ghostbur’s voice seemed to gain a tint of uncomfortable realization as he spoke as well, “During that conversation with Tommy where he… Got upset, shortly after you were shot, and uh… Under the table in the bunker a few month- days ago.”

Wilbur swallowed something in his throat, pressing the quill harder against the paper than he intended. “Got it.”

Ghostbur is apparently able to see me when I am experiencing intense emotions or experiences. We are uncertain if this works both ways.

Wasn’t that pathetic? That all those times, Wilbur hadn’t even looked up, or paid attention to his surroundings enough, to catch a certain glimpse of the one he had been speaking to ever since he returned? Did it work when Ghostbur was feeling intense feelings as well? Had he been so dense, as to not even pay attention to that?

Wilbur shook the thoughts off, and added a side note at Ghostbur’s request, detailing how it felt to pet Friend. It made Wilbur smile, ever so slightly, that that was something that was considered of utmost importance.

Ghostbur feels what I feel physically to a certain degree. It seems to be related to the feeling’s intensity, however the longer I’ve stayed alive, the connection to touch seems to have grown stronger. Once again, we are uncertain if this works two ways.

With shaking hands, he added:

If it does work two ways, water appears to be an exception, as it burns Ghostbur regardless of which world it touches us in, without burning me.

He hardly punctuated the last sentence, before he shut the book, memories of pleas and apologies filling his mind. The addictive feeling of control, that was so incredibly unearned, yet appealing nonetheless. Submerging himself in water, until silence was all he would ever hear, and he would be alone. Alone in his mind, alone with his thoughts, and the ghost would never stop feeling the pain.

He kept his hand on the cover of the book, and his other tightly wrapped around the quill, until it felt too much as if both were burning him.

Instead, Wilbur sought out the bookcases, and the information that wouldn’t make Wilbur’s mind overflow with thoughts of the control he had. Because if Wilbur was always mere moments away from grasping at said control, the least he could do was postpone it, until such would only affect himself. Not that he cared particularly, but he could weave a few fragile threads of something that resembled it. Just for the time being.

And when even that became too much, he would lie down on a mattress, or lay his head down at the table, tossing and turning as he tried to drift into oblivion. The comforting darkness, that seemed more and more inaccessible to him each moment, and all the more tempting each day. He would eventually succeed, and would wake up to read a new time on the clock. Sometimes minutes later, sometimes hours, but always enough for him to hesitantly get up and keep going.

Totems weren’t any good for revivals. Apparently they’d tried using them to get Wilbur back. Nearly finding it in himself to ignore the strange improbable fact that there had been attempts to bring him back at all. Was his revival Dream’s own doing? Or the doing of wishes from others? If it was the latter, why had the reaction he’d gotten been so tense?

It was funny that, despite the attempts to revive him, everyone looked to him as if he brought himself back into the world. As if they didn’t spend hours if not days trying to bring him back. How their plans had changed and shifted constantly, and how the universe didn’t care.

There was also a bit of irony placed in Dream and how he hadn’t given a direct account on any historical events, since before L’Manberg. He found a few from George, but none of them were about Dream himself.

So that was what it had taken to take that perspective away from history, Wilbur had thought, ignoring that anything he might’ve said on the matters himself, had likely been blown up along with the nation in question.

Absent-mindedly, Wilbur had reread the parts of the book on Pandora’s box, about how he could gain access.

Not that anyone would let him. Not that the gist of memories didn’t fill him with dread that wasn’t his own. Not that it wasn’t a last resort. Though he latched onto the information nonetheless.

He was about to flip the page when the familiar echoing whisper filled his mind, “Wilbur?”

His voice was hoarse when he first tried to speak. He cleared his throat before responding once again, “Yeah?”

A hesitance lingered in the back of his mind. It oddly didn’t feel like his though. It was a soft blue contrary to his warm browns and occasional reds.

“So…” Ghostbur took a deep breath, “Y’know how we aren’t going outside and stuff like that?”

Wilbur nodded, though confusion was portrayed on his face, “Mhm, why do you bring it up?”

“Oh! I- well, I was thinking about us going outside again?” Although it was a suggestion, the tilt at the end made it sound like a confirmation of thought.

“Why would we do that? There’s enough food in here to last a while.” His eyes flickered across the page, “I would read to you again, but this book is about Dream.”

Ghostbur’s breath hitched as he stayed silent for a moment. “That’s fine. I was just wondering about seeing someone again.” Ghostbur quietly added near the end, “It’s been a while.”

“Don’t you want to get out of limbo?” Wilbur felt his words come off as disinterested with a hint of annoyance, but he frankly didn’t mind.

“I mean- yeah, but that doesn’t have to be our main priority right now. You can still enjoy your life.”

The life that no one wanted to be in. The life without a purpose. Well- he wouldn’t necessarily say that. His goal was to get the ghost out of his mind. Preferably, out of limbo as well.

“My life can be put on hold temporarily.”

Ghostbur hummed in a slight agreement, but it oddly lingered in distaste, “What if I want you to live your life?”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “Living my life won’t give me information.”

“Interacting with people gives you information.”

“I can’t interact with people when there’s a ghost in my head constantly asking what I’m doing.”

The moment he said the words, he was about to apologize when Ghostbur sharply spoke, “Maybe you could interact with people if you stopped running away and talked it out.”

A scowl melted onto Wilbur’s face with ease, “You haven’t even spent a day in my shoes so don’t act like you know everything.”

“Well- maybe I would know things if you talked to me more!”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Wow, Ghostbur, feeling upset right now. Wow, Ghostbur, feeling pain again.” He mocked Ghostbur’s voice as if he was imitating a small child, “Oh no, what’s that feeling? I have to react to absolutely everything because I’ve got nothing better to do!”

“I-” Ghostbur sharply cut himself off before taking a sharp inhale, “Maybe I don’t have anything better to do! Especially when you keep on throwing yourself directly into danger without even trying to give me a warning.”

Images flashed through Wilbur’s mind to dunk his hand in the cauldron that was only a few long strides away. Screams that echoed through his mind. The pain would be longer for Ghostbur as well since time passes differently in limbo. Just a few quick moments. Just a few seconds of his time and Ghostbur would finally shut up.

His legs stood up automatically before he forced himself to sit down again. “Maybe it’s hard to give you a warning. Surprise, surprise, I don’t know when someone is going to shoot me!”

“It’s not about knowing when the moment comes! It’s about you putting yourself in dangerous situations that hurts us.”

“Oh. My. Fucking. Prime. Have you ever thought of why I stay in this bunker? I’ve found a place that’s safe and you just keep on complaining about it. We’ve only been here- what a few days?” Wilbur exhaled out of his nose in astonishment, “I’m trying to do something to help the both of us and you’re just whining like a toddler would.” All he had to do was walk to the cauldron. Just a few seconds of his time. It would be so easy.

Ghostbur’s astonished voice cut through his thoughts, “Whining?” Ghostbur bitterly laughed once, “I’m just offering a suggestion to you, and you’re not even bothering to listen. If anything you’re- you’re the one acting childish!”

“I’m not!” His eyes focused on the cauldron, no longer looking at the air as he usually would when talking to Ghostbur.

“If you really aren’t childish, then go to someone and genuinely apologize!” Wilbur couldn’t even get a word in as Ghostbur continued, “You’ve constantly been running place to place without even thinking how others feel. That includes me! It includes the fact that you don’t tell me what you’re doing and you keep on hurting me with your recklessness!”

Silence.

But the silence was oddly different this time. It lingered on Wilbur’s end more than it did Ghostbur’s. He blinked a few times, attempting to pull his thoughts together before they wrapped around the cauldron. It would be so easy to pull a few screams out of Ghostbur. His breath hitched when he imagined pretending to injure himself, just to wash it off with water. The ghost would believe him too. He would believe Wilbur was hurt and willingly let the water be put on him.

Yet, it gave a much different feeling to not warn him. He wanted to hold an ice cube in his hand, explaining it to Ghostbur as he did it. The naive ghost wouldn’t even know what would happen. There would only be the faint burning as the ice cube melted. Even more so if he squeezed it. Sure, Wilbur would feel a bit of pain from the action, but he could always switch hands. He’d hear some new pleas if he did that. More crying if he continued doing it. The ghost would become so incoherent near the end, just begging for it to-

“Wilbur?” A voice made him jump as he looked over to see the source of it. The one and only Ranboo was staring near him, his hands were wrapped around a book he held to his chest. It looked similar to the other books Wilbur had been flipping through, but the cover seemed newer than the other ones. Slightly thinner as well.

“Ah- yes, I suppose that is me,” Wilbur stated.

“I… thought Tubbo didn’t really want anyone down here?”

Wilbur slowly nodded, “Oh. Yeah, I guess he did say that.”

Ranboo awkwardly bounced on the balls of his feet, “Do you need help leaving?”

Wilbur glanced at the books remaining on the bookshelf, “I’m good.”

Ranboo laughed for a few moments. The sound filling the air rather than joining a joke, “Are you though? This place is a bit funny.” Ranboo quickly added, “I mean, not funny as in a joke kind of funny. But I guess I mean funky in a way, like it’s just sort of weird if you get what I’m saying. When I said funny, I just meant that it was funny the way it messes with your head, not that it’s actually-” Ranboo cut his own rambles off as he appeared uncomfortable, hunching slightly over his book.

“Don’t worry, I’ve gotcha.”

“Yeah, cool.” Ranboo met Wilbur’s eyes for a quick moment, the green one almost mesmerizing Wilbur. “So, is Tubbo asking you to help out?”

Wilbur raised an eyebrow before his eyes flickered to the book Ranboo was holding. A look of realization came across Wilbur’s face as he pieced together that Ranboo was probably helping Tubbo with the library. The boy seemed rather reserved, so he supposed that made sense. “Not exactly.” Wilbur continued after a few seconds of the clock next to him ticking, “I just figured I’d stay here a few days.”

Ranboo tilted his head slightly, “You don’t have a house? I thought you ran a nation and all of that stuff.”

Wilbur shrugged, “I don’t know, man. Houses aren’t really my thing.”

Ranboo exhaled sharply in a way that could have been interpreted as a laugh, “So you’ve been sleeping here for how long?”

“I’d say a few days now? Not sure, I haven’t really been keeping track.”

Ranboo nodded, “What do you do for food though? I don’t really see a pantry anywhere around here.” Ranboo inspected his surroundings once more as if a magical kitchen was going to appear right behind him.

“There’s some carrots and melons downstairs. I did see some wheat seeds in one of the chests though. I might start making bread.”

A confused expression came across Ranboo’s face, “Do you know how many rooms our mansion has? You can just go into one of the hundreds and we wouldn't know for weeks.”

Wilbur’s astonishment bounced off of Ranboo’s, “I didn't know I was supposed to break into your home and sleep in a random room?”

Ranboo was speechless for a moment as he starting talking and then cutting himself off before he simply stated, “Or you could have asked?”

Wilbur’s mind went back to Tubbo. The failed comfort as he went downstairs. He shaky arms around Ranboo’s torso as he left. The uncomfortableness that radiated whenever Ranboo was alone with Wilbur.

Yeah, he’d rather pass on their fake smiles.

“I’m alright.”

Ranboo stayed in silence with him for a moment. It took a few seconds before Ranboo changed the topic, “So you know Michael right?” Wilbur nodded. “Well, we were just inviting some people to our house since we’re throwing a little party for him. Would you like to come?”

Wilbur seemed surprised that he would even get an invitation as Ghostbur quickly chimed in, “Okay, I don’t want to stay quiet anymore. Can we please go? Please, please, please, we’ll get to see everyone again!” Ghostbur’s pleas hit differently this time as they were colored with bright yellow excitement that he hadn’t heard from the ghost in awhile.

Almost automatically he responded, “Sounds fun, we’ll go.”

“We?”

Embarrassment shot through Wilbur. “I meant I’ll go, my apologies.” He could hardly hear his own words as the back of his neck felt warm and Ghostbur cheered in excitement.

Ranboo seemed slightly lost in his mind as well, as he quietly mumbled, “Right, yeah…” His face perked up when he added on, “It’s at our house- y’know the whole mansion thingy that you’ve been to a few times- at about noon.”

Wilbur looked to the clock subconsciously as if it was about to turn noon at that moment. He strangely found it was four o’clock in the morning. “Wait, what are you doing here so early in the morning?”

Panic glazed Ranboo’s eyes before he quickly mentioned, “I could ask you the same thing.”

Confusion filled Wilbur’s mind. He felt like the living embodiment of a question mark as he asked, “I already told you I don’t have a house. You have one though. That’s why I’m asking why you’re here since we established I’m technically homeless.”

Ranboo nodded, the movements seeming jerky. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Wilbur was about to press more about the topic until he saw Ranboo’s shifting movements along with the raw fear evident on his face. Perhaps that was a side-effect of being a centrist- never explaining yourself or your views properly. Wilbur awkwardly supplemented, “It’s whatever. Thanks for inviting me to the party.”

Ranboo seemed to immediately relax, “No problem.”

“Is it noon as in six hours from now, or noon as in tomorrow?”

Ranboo looked at the clock. “I didn’t even realize it was four in the morning- wow- but yeah, six hours from now. Wait- four plus six is ten and that’s not noon.”

Wilbur felt like an idiot, but in the kind that made him laugh gently at his mistake, “Oh, fuck, you’re right.”

Ranboo let out a short laugh, “Mood.”

Wilbur nodded, “But, yeah that time works for me.” After a short sigh, he realized how exhausted both of them were. The eye bags were present on Ranboo’s face after he looked for a moment. The boy seemed to constantly shift as Wilbur looked away with a yawn.

Ranboo yawned as well, but an enderman vwoop came out instead of the typical human noise. Wilbur wanted to ask why the strange sounds came out of him, but he felt his eyes droop slightly.

Ranboo noted the energy in the room as he started walking towards downstairs, “Alright, I’m gonna head out.”

“Good night- or rather good morning.”

Ranboo chuckled, “Good morning to you as well, Wilbur.” Ghostbur chuckled along in the back of his mind, seeming much happier than before.

#dream smp #dsmp #c!wilbur #revivedbur #ghostbur #c!ranboo #fic #The Revived

8 notes · View notes